{"id":31284,"date":"2024-12-17T11:59:12","date_gmt":"2024-12-17T16:59:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.oxebridge.com\/emma\/?p=31284"},"modified":"2024-12-17T12:08:03","modified_gmt":"2024-12-17T17:08:03","slug":"the-co-opted-chinese-word-that-broke-risk-management","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.oxebridge.com\/emma\/the-co-opted-chinese-word-that-broke-risk-management\/","title":{"rendered":"The Co-Opted Chinese Word That Broke Risk Management"},"content":{"rendered":"

Management consultants love to engage in overt cultural appropriation and, worse,\u00a0mis<\/em><\/span>appropriation<\/span>. The racist trope of the “inscrutable celestial<\/a><\/em>” continues apace, as exhibited by the endless number of consultants who boast about being “Six Sigma Black Belt<\/em>s,” endlessly quote “The Art of War<\/em>” by Sun Tzu, drop words like “muda<\/em>” in casual conversation, or treat the “Toyota Production System<\/em>” as some sort of mysterious — that’s what “inscrutable<\/em>” means — form of holy wisdom.<\/p>\n

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Sampling of business management book co-opting Chinese and Japanese culture.<\/p><\/div>\n

Risk management consultants are not to be left out here, of course. The New Era risk managers began pushing the idea of “positive risk”<\/em> in the mid-1990s, largely out of both hubris (they felt they knew better than dictionaries) and commerce (softening “risk<\/em>” sells more books). But the dictionaries remain a problem. Going back to the 1700s, English-language (as well as French and German) dictionaries clearly defined “risk<\/em>” as being solely negative. “Opportunity<\/em>” was treated as a separate — and opposite — concept.<\/p>\n

Here is the definition from a contemporary version of the Merriam-Webster dictionary:<\/p>\n

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And here it is from the 1775 A Dictionary of the English Language<\/em><\/a> by Samuel Johnson:\"\"<\/p>\n

The New Era boys were not having that, though, and wanted to subsume opportunity into<\/strong> <\/em>risk. Under the “positive risk<\/em>” rebranding, risk is a container that holds both risk and opportunity within it. So not only is one of the contents “risk<\/em>,” but the container itself is “risk<\/em>,” too.\u00a0It’s like saying a coin has two sides — heads and tails — but the coin itself is also “heads<\/em>.” It doesn’t make a lot of sense when you look at it from the outside.<\/p>\n

(An aside: I am not arguing the literal definition of “risk<\/em>” in ISO standards, but instead, the surrounding text and notes that accompany the definition. These usually insist that risk is both positive and negative.)<\/p>\n

To get around centuries of pesky dictionaries, they had to reach back further in time and misappropriate some Chinese culture. They found a single Chinese word, “w\u0113ij\u012b<\/em>\u00a0 (\u5371\u673a), and latched onto it like grim death. They broke the word into its two characters —\u00a0 wei (\u5371) and ji (\u673a) — and found something to bite into.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Here<\/span> is one example<\/a>:<\/span><\/p>\n

The Chinese word for risk, \u2018wei ji<\/em>\u2019, combines the two characters meaning \u2018danger\u2019 and \u2018opportunity\u2019. Another interpretation is \u2018precarious moment\u2019. Both translations show that risk is not a purely negative concept and that uncertainty involves a balance between profit and loss. A degree of risk is associated with almost every aspect of life.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And another<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The Chinese character for crisis, wei ji<\/em>, is made up of two component characters. One is the character for danger, but the other is the character for opportunity. This spirit should exemplify our attitude toward risk management. Where many see only dangers they would prefer to avoid, we should strive to see opportunities to express our regard for our colleagues and the patients for whom we care.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That’s Not How Language Works<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

There are two main problems here.\u00a0The word “w\u0113ij\u012b<\/em>\u00a0” is not<\/strong> <\/em>translated as “risk<\/em>” but instead as “crisis<\/em>.” Mandarin and other Chinese dialects have an entirely different<\/strong> <\/em>word for “risk<\/em>,” and w\u0113ij\u012b is not one of them. <\/span>\u00a0The New Era boys just stole a word that sounded similar, and appropriated it for their misguided use.<\/p>\n

The second problem is that Chinese words are not meant to be split apart by their characters and then interpreted as a combination of the meanings of the syllables, any more than “watermelon<\/em>” should be understood as a “melon made of water<\/em>” or “overlook<\/em>” should mean “looking over<\/em>.”<\/p>\n

The definitive debunking of the w\u0113ij\u012b trope comes from Dr. Victor H. Mair<\/a>, professor of Chinese Language and Literature at the University of Pennsylvania. His full takedown can be read here<\/a> (and should be). Here’s a snippet, though (heavily trimmed by me, so please read the original<\/a>; emphasis added here by me):<\/p>\n

The explication of the Chinese word for crisis as made up of two components signifying danger and opportunity is due partly to wishful thinking, but mainly to a fundamental misunderstanding about how terms are formed in Mandarin and other Sinitic languages. For example, one of the most popular websites centered on this mistaken notion about the Chinese word for crisis explains: \u201cThe top part of the Chinese Ideogram for ‘Crisis’ is the symbol for ‘Danger’: The bottom symbol represents ‘Opportunity’.\u201d Among the most egregious of the radical errors in this statement is the use of the exotic term \u201cIdeogram\u201d to refer to Chinese characters. Linguists and writing theorists avoid \u201cideogram\u201d as a descriptive referent for hanzi<\/acronym><\/i>\u00a0(Mandarin) \/\u00a0kanji<\/i>\u00a0(Japanese) \/\u00a0hanja<\/i>\u00a0(Korean) because only an exceedingly small proportion of them actually convey ideas directly through their shapes.<\/p>\n

… While it is true that w\u0113ij\u012b<\/span>\u00a0does indeed mean \u201ccrisis\u201d and that the\u00a0w\u0113i<\/span>\u00a0syllable of\u00a0w\u0113ij\u012b<\/span>\u00a0does convey the notion of \u201cdanger,\u201d the\u00a0j\u012b<\/span>\u00a0syllable of\u00a0w\u0113ij\u012b<\/span>\u00a0most definitely does not signify \u201copportunity.\u201d\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/i><\/p>\n

While that may be what our Pollyanaish advocates of \u201ccrisis\u201d as \u201cdanger\u201d plus \u201copportunity\u201d desire\u00a0j\u012b<\/span>\u00a0to signify, it means something altogether different.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0j\u012b<\/span>\u00a0of\u00a0w\u0113ij\u012b<\/span>, in fact, means something like \u201cincipient moment; crucial point (when something begins or changes).\u201d Thus, a\u00a0w\u0113ij\u012b<\/span>\u00a0is indeed a genuine crisis, a dangerous moment, a time when things start to go awry. A\u00a0w\u0113ij\u012b<\/span>\u00a0indicates a perilous situation when one should be especially wary.<\/strong><\/em> It is\u00a0not<\/i> a juncture when one goes looking for advantages and benefits.<\/p>\n

For those who have staked their hopes and careers on the CRISIS = DANGER + OPPORTUNITY formula and are loath to abandon their fervent belief in\u00a0j\u012b<\/span>\u00a0as signifying \u201copportunity,\u201d it is essential to list some of the primary meanings of the graph in question. Aside from the notion of \u201cincipient moment\u201d or \u201ccrucial point\u201d discussed above, the graph for\u00a0j\u012b<\/span>\u00a0by itself indicates \u201cquick-witted(ness); resourceful(ness)\u201d and \u201cmachine; device.\u201d In combination with other graphs, however,\u00a0j\u012b<\/span>\u00a0can acquire hundreds of secondary meanings. It is absolutely crucial to observe that\u00a0j\u012b<\/span>\u00a0possesses these secondary meanings only in the multisyllabic terms into which it enters. To be specific in the matter under investigation,\u00a0j\u012b<\/span>\u00a0added to\u00a0hu\u00ec<\/span>\u00a0(\u201coccasion\u201d) creates the Mandarin word for \u201copportunity\u201d (j\u012bhu\u00ec<\/span>), but by itself\u00a0j\u012b<\/span>\u00a0does not mean \u201copportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n

A\u00a0w\u0113ij\u012b<\/span>\u00a0in Chinese is every bit as fearsome as a crisis in English. A\u00a0j\u012bhu\u00ec<\/span>\u00a0in Chinese is just as welcome as an opportunity to most folks in America. To confuse a\u00a0w\u0113ij\u012b<\/span>\u00a0with a\u00a0j\u012bhu\u00ec<\/span>\u00a0is as foolish as to insist that a crisis is the best time to go looking for benefit<\/strong><\/em>s.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I then took this a bit further and checked the actual <\/strong><\/em>Chinese definition of the word “risk<\/em>.” Here, I am using the word \u98ce\u9669 (f\u0113ng xi\u01cen<\/em>), which is the term used in the official Chinese translation of ISO 31000 on risk management guidelines. (Keep in mind, the Chinese<\/strong> <\/em>translated that document, so we can assume they know what they are doing.)<\/p>\n

Using contemporary Chinese dictionaries, we find f\u0113ng xi\u01cen is defined<\/a> as “risk, hazard, danger<\/em>” and only in a negative sense. In Chinese, it is defined as “\u53ef\u80fd\u53d1\u751f\u7684\u5371\u9669,” which translates to “possible dangers<\/em>.”<\/p>\n

Here is the definition from Hanzii.net<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

But I’ve been told the definition w\u0113ij\u012b dates back 3,000 years, so are any contemporary dictionaries sufficient? Let’s go back in time, then.<\/span><\/p>\n

I thought I would check the Amoy Chinese Dictionary<\/em> published in 1883. (We don’t have copies of Chinese dictionaries from 3,000 years ago, so anybody quoting them is making it up. 1883 will have to do.) Amoy<\/a> is a spoken dialect of\u00a0<\/span>Hokkien Chinese, and here we see every definition of the term “risk<\/em>” is clearly negative:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In digging further, we find “f\u0113ngxi\u01cen<\/em>” is translated as “hong-hi\u00e1m<\/em>” in Hokkien, which the 1883 Amoy Dictionary defines as “jeopardize<\/em>” … again, entirely negative.<\/p>\n

What’s the Chinese Word for Shameless?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Let’s take a look at just how widespread this has become. Here are just a few examples, and — yes — some of these are actual thesis<\/strong> <\/em>papers.<\/p>\n