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Cryptic, allusive messages from Hong Kong's wealthiest tycoon

languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu

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Re: Cryptic, allusive messages from Hong Kong's wealthiest tycoon

#21

Post by meddlepal »

pessimizer wrote: post #17
b_tterc_p wrote: post #11

> “everyone knows what 4 / 6 /89 signifies” This annoyed me quite a bit. No I don’t. Most people probably don’t. It’s the date of Tiananmen Square.

That's like getting annoyed when people refer to 9/11.

Eh no. Let me also be clear I say this and cannot remember the date of Pearl Harbor, Cherynobl, or a number of other major events.

9/11 is a bit of a weird case in that the name of the event is also the event itself... that usually does not happen.

Please label your dates folks (except 9/11 I guess...)

Re: Cryptic, allusive messages from Hong Kong's wealthiest tycoon

#22

Post by JoeAltmaier »

meddlepal wrote: post #21
pessimizer wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's like getting annoyed when people refer to 9/11.

Eh no. Let me also be clear I say this and cannot remember the date of Pearl Harbor, Cherynobl, or a number of other major events. 9/11 is a bit of a weird case in that the name of the event is also the event itself... that usually does not happen. Please label your dates folks (except 9/11 I guess...)

I remember the Fourth of July! And New Year's Day, and Cinco de Mayo. Not so weird?

Re: Cryptic, allusive messages from Hong Kong's wealthiest tycoon

#23

Post by trepanne »

I dunno, my classical Chinese ain't all that, but I think these guys are straining with the hidden message. It is funny though.

I myself am reading quite a bit of meaning into the conspicuous avoidance of the characters "tian", "an", and "men" throughout both ads.

The melon ad is fairly defiant, though, in a classy kind of way. If I were a betting man, I'd take the other side. Preserving absolute rule of law in Hong Kong is as doomed as the Taiwan independence movement. The Chinese anschluss seems unstoppable.

Re: Cryptic, allusive messages from Hong Kong's wealthiest tycoon

#24

Post by kdmccormick »

b_tterc_p wrote: post #11

> “everyone knows what 4 / 6 /89 signifies” This annoyed me quite a bit. No I don’t. Most people probably don’t. It’s the date of Tiananmen Square.

> This annoyed me quite a bit.

Cool. You're on a computer. Look it up. Now you know (probably better than if they had just said it outright).

Why do so many people here choose to fill the comment sections with gripes about minor imperfections in articles, when those imperfections don't take away from the article as a whole? Especially when there's so much else worth discussing here.

Re: Cryptic, allusive messages from Hong Kong's wealthiest tycoon

#25

Post by d33 »

dspillett wrote: post #16
namelosw wrote: post #10

If you speak Chinese, you'll find it's very easy to squeeze sentences in exact same characters. Almost all poems in China (except very modern ones) do this. It's so easy that people in forums do this a along - being sarcastic or just funny. You could have positive meaning literally, but hide dirty words in structures. Also because it's so easy that this was defined as serious crime in many dynasties. There were even…

> committed it by coincidence were sentenced to death So they sentenced themselves to death with an unfortunate sentence structure.

...the sentenced sentenced themselves to a death sentence with an unfortunate sentence structure?

Re: Cryptic, allusive messages from Hong Kong's wealthiest tycoon

#26

Post by yoz-y »

JansjoFromIkea wrote: post #14
b_tterc_p wrote: post #11

> “everyone knows what 4 / 6 /89 signifies” This annoyed me quite a bit. No I don’t. Most people probably don’t. It’s the date of Tiananmen Square.

Would Tiananmen Square not be your first guess for any date remotely close to 1989 though, given the context?

But a guess can be wrong. As somebody from Eastern Europe many other events come to my mind first in relation with 1989.

Re: Cryptic, allusive messages from Hong Kong's wealthiest tycoon

#27

Post by thecopy »

AmericanChopper wrote: post #19
thecopy wrote: post #4

The impasse Hong Kong finds itself must be solved by the Chief Executive. Her leadership in this matter is severely lacking and one wonders if the has any autonomous power at all, or if its all controlled by Beijing. Especially seeing how she evaded that question quite gracelessly a few days ago when asked by a reporter.

I don’t think anybody seriously thinks Hong Kong has any meaningful level of autonomy. The impasse is that Hong Kongers want freedom and democracy, and China wants Hong Kong to be China. I can’t see what the Chief Executive could possibly do. Either the protestors will give up, or stage a revolution, which seems unlikely for a population armed with umbrellas.

> I can’t see what the Chief Executive could possibly do

Your assumption that HK doesn't have any autonomy might have something to do with that ;)

As to what she could do: she can do a lot; the protestors have a list of 5 demands, one of them is the withdrawal of the extradition-bill. She could comply with that, for example.

Re: Cryptic, allusive messages from Hong Kong's wealthiest tycoon

#28

Post by heraclius »

b_tterc_p wrote: post #11

> “everyone knows what 4 / 6 /89 signifies” This annoyed me quite a bit. No I don’t. Most people probably don’t. It’s the date of Tiananmen Square.

The point isn’t that you know; it's that the vast majority of Hong Kong people know.

Re: Cryptic, allusive messages from Hong Kong's wealthiest tycoon

#29

Post by owl57 »

meddlepal wrote: post #21
pessimizer wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's like getting annoyed when people refer to 9/11.

Eh no. Let me also be clear I say this and cannot remember the date of Pearl Harbor, Cherynobl, or a number of other major events. 9/11 is a bit of a weird case in that the name of the event is also the event itself... that usually does not happen. Please label your dates folks (except 9/11 I guess...)

That's just US-centric. For example, you probably don't know off the bat what happened on 22.06.41 either, but if someone buys an ad in a Russian newspaper encoding these figures, it would be perfectly reasonable to say "everyone knows".
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