Another Chinese friend (Peranakan form Penang) told me, as I seem to remember you have, that butterflies are the souls of the dearly departed. 🙂
How do you say butterfly in Mandarin? Or Cantonese?
Butterflies and particularly moths are said to carry the souls of the death ones for visiting this world again. Many moths, insects and butterflies came to me after my mom’s death, that ceased after about 20 months. They don’t come to me now.
In Cantonese, it is wu-dip.
Yes, I remember your telling me that. Maybe your mother is at peace now. 🙂 I’m sure she would want you to be.
Wu-dip? xie xie. Dulu noted. (I don’t know when I will be able to slip wu-dip in a conversation but who knows?)
Butterflies – have you heard of another Chinese philosopher Chuang Tse? In our lives, we don’t actually know whether we dream of being a butterfly or in fact we are butterflies dreaming that we are human . . . .
A challenging thought… Will look up Chuang Tse. I may know him by another spelling. Chinese names in French tend to be spelled very different. e.g. Confucius in “French” I believe is Kong Quiu in Mandarin. 🙂
In Cantonese Confiscus is Hung Tze 🙂
Hung Tze? Okayyyy. Sounds very different. 😉
🙂
Just looked him up. “We” call him “Tchouang Tseu”. There is mention of “Le rêve du papillon”. I will read about him in more detail. xie xie for the tip.
He preaches carefree, material free etc. His teachings seem applicable to today’s world.
Looks interesting. I’m always fascinated how China has developed such early philosophy, with a “straight” line to the present. For the West, our equivalent are the Greeks, in another culture, another language…
The emperors are worried about internal uprising so they have people like Confiscus (this pronunciation relates nothing to his Chinese names) and other philosophers, teaching all people should behave, you can only enter / rise up in the government ranks through scholarly achievement. That was what prevented the Chinese from making technological advancements, despite the fact they have invented paper, compass, gun powder, silk etc.
Too much rigidity and bureaucracy you mean? Makes sense.
Question, are Tse, tze, Dzu, Dzeu variants of the word “master”?
retireediary 
Another Chinese friend (Peranakan form Penang) told me, as I seem to remember you have, that butterflies are the souls of the dearly departed. 🙂
How do you say butterfly in Mandarin? Or Cantonese?
Butterflies and particularly moths are said to carry the souls of the death ones for visiting this world again. Many moths, insects and butterflies came to me after my mom’s death, that ceased after about 20 months. They don’t come to me now.
In Cantonese, it is wu-dip.
Yes, I remember your telling me that. Maybe your mother is at peace now. 🙂 I’m sure she would want you to be.
Wu-dip? xie xie. Dulu noted. (I don’t know when I will be able to slip wu-dip in a conversation but who knows?)
Butterflies – have you heard of another Chinese philosopher Chuang Tse? In our lives, we don’t actually know whether we dream of being a butterfly or in fact we are butterflies dreaming that we are human . . . .
A challenging thought… Will look up Chuang Tse. I may know him by another spelling. Chinese names in French tend to be spelled very different. e.g. Confucius in “French” I believe is Kong Quiu in Mandarin. 🙂
In Cantonese Confiscus is Hung Tze 🙂
Hung Tze? Okayyyy. Sounds very different. 😉
🙂
Just looked him up. “We” call him “Tchouang Tseu”. There is mention of “Le rêve du papillon”. I will read about him in more detail. xie xie for the tip.
He preaches carefree, material free etc. His teachings seem applicable to today’s world.
Looks interesting. I’m always fascinated how China has developed such early philosophy, with a “straight” line to the present. For the West, our equivalent are the Greeks, in another culture, another language…
The emperors are worried about internal uprising so they have people like Confiscus (this pronunciation relates nothing to his Chinese names) and other philosophers, teaching all people should behave, you can only enter / rise up in the government ranks through scholarly achievement. That was what prevented the Chinese from making technological advancements, despite the fact they have invented paper, compass, gun powder, silk etc.
Too much rigidity and bureaucracy you mean? Makes sense.
Question, are Tse, tze, Dzu, Dzeu variants of the word “master”?
I think so; respected master.
Learned a new word in Mandarin. 🙂
Good 🙂