An agent for change

Moving tale of a search for better things 不论是远古还是现代，背井离乡的移民们追寻的都是改变

Thousands of years ago in the Middle Kingdom, northerners fled from their war torn states to the peaceful yet largely unexplored south. A few hundred years ago, the pilgrims on the Mayflower crossed the Atlantic to reach the New World. Today, Chinese rural workers seek their fortune in the urban jungle while the nouveaux riches try to secure a foreign passport for their children. All migrants or 移民 (yímín) want to leave their hometown in search of a better life. It's an instinctual hope, the hope for change; as such the character 移 (yí) is a perfect expression for such a spirit, meaning both to move and to change.

Alterations have appeared in the evolution of the character itself. As with more than 80 percent of Chinese characters, 移 is a phono-semantic compound. 多 (duō) on the left indicates the pronunciation, yet, as phonetics developed over time, the two diverged. This is also the case with the original meaning of the character: “The way seedlings softly swing in the wind” with 禾 (hé, seedlings) on its left. As poetic as it may have sounded, such expressions gave way to the more practical meaning, to move. For instance, 我把桌子移到外面。(Wǒ bǎ zhuōzi yídào wàimiàn. I moved the table outside.)

Alone, 移 is a verb. Combined with other characters, it is able to constitute a series of words and idioms related to moving.

A well-known fable coined the commonly used term (Yú Gong yí shan), literally, “the foolish old man moves mountains”. The story goes that two gigantic mountains blocked the path of a village to the outside world. A 90-year-old villager named Yu Gong decided to remove them, digging and carrying the earth and rocks through pure man power. He was laughed at for holding such an unrealistic goal, but he argued that his sons, grandsons and many later descendants would all continue with the task until they succeeded. The gods were impressed by his perseverance and ordered the mountains removed. Accordingly, the idiom is used to describe determination and courage in the face of extreme difficulty.

One can move physically, as in 迁移 (qiānyí), to migrate from one place to another; or emotionally, as in移情别恋 (yí qíng bié liàn), meaning to divert one's affections to another － think of Jason abandoning Medea. Naturally, the word has a strong tone of moral judgment. To 转移 (zhuǎnyí) is to move a subject from place to place, such as in 转移财产 (zhuǎnyí cáichǎn, to transfer assets). 漂移 (piāoyí) means to drift.

Also, 移 indicates change. 坚定不移 (jiāndìng bùyí) literally means to be steady without change, as in 坚定不移的信念 (jiāndìng bùyí de xìnniàn, unswerving faith).

Courtesy of the World of Chinese, www.theworldofchinese.com

The World of Chinese

(China Daily European Weekly 08/08/2014 page27)