So, two connected thoughts before my weird, re-invigorated Trek madness evaporates and I incriminate myself and this nascent blog further.
1. "My Friend is Obviously Chinese"
Episode: The City on the Edge of Forever (Aired April 6, 1967)
Kirk: "My friend is obviously...Chinese. I see you've noticed the ears. They're actually easy to explain...."
Spock: "Perhaps the unfortunate accident I had as a child...."
Kirk: "The unfortunate accident he had as a child....He caught his head in a mechanical...rice-picker. But fortunately there was an American...missionary living close by who was actually a ...skilled plastic surgeon in civilian life...."
2. Was Spock Obviously Chinese?
After an embarrassing run through my Baidu skills, I was finally able to run searches on Spock [史巴克] and Vulcans [瓦肯] "Live Long and Prosper"? "Only Nixon could go to China"? That Confucian combination of altruistic ethics and repression? Striking of the gong before Pon Farr? Plausibly impossible at the height of the Cold War, yet see The Journal of Cold Warstudies, even, for their treatment.
3. Final exhibit of evidence, the Chinese National Space Administration Logo, as pointed out by this blogger:
My mind is burnt from work - updates on thoughts on Ai Wei Wei and Mei Lan Fang ASAP.
Here's an explanation of a similar logo (in Chinese)
ReplyDeletehttp://www.spacechina.com/qywh_qysbxt_sjsbxt.shtml
The arrow in middle looks like the Chinese character 人 which means 'human' or 'people'. The three concentric circles (actually ellipses in CNSA's logo) stand for three Escape Velocities (minimum speed needed to move around earth, to escape earth system and to escape the solar system, which are three milestones for human's space exploration). The 'human surrounded by three circles' logo may exist in 1950s when the administration was founded, before Star Trek was filmed. They changed the logo in the past three decades by :
1. making the 人 stand above the three rings to emphasize on human's capability to 'escape' and explore
2. drawing the second ring with a bold line, to state that China has passed the first stage (earth system) and undergoing second stage exploration (withing the solar system).
3. adding olive branches to make a statement to the world that China's space exploration is peaceful.
This is indeed a very good logo with strong symbolism and I believe Vulcans knows the Chinese character 人 too :)
Awesome entry! I got the same response as above when I put up a link to a story about the logo
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