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Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head:
I don't think it ever comes out and explicitly says "Han Tzu is of Chinese descent and is from China", there is every indication that both are true.

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Originally posted by rivka:

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Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head:
I don't think it ever comes out and explicitly says "Han Tzu is of Chinese descent and is from China", there is every indication that both are true.

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It comes exceedingly close in the opening of Shadow of the Giant.

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Yes, on the first page it says, "not since [Han Tzu] came home to China from Battle School" (emphasis mine). But other than that, I can't recall/find any other references to his background.
 

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Posted by DDDaysh (Member # 9499) on :
 
He certainly doesn't seem to have any family ties in Shadow of the Giant, or at least not close ones. He doesn't talk of needing to protect family or anything like that.
 

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Posted by cheiros do ender (Member # 8849) on :
 
He has a girls name!? I wonder if OSC will write that into the short story about him.
 

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Posted by valantin (Member # 9185) on :
 
I just said we usually used that name for girls.Because "楚" means beautiful.
But,Mr Card Uses that as boys' name.
It's all right.
 

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Posted by ErezL (Member # 9653) on :
 
I studied Chinese for two years now and 楚 is spelled Chu1 in the Pin-Yin system of romanization. I'm not sure how you write it in the old Wade-Giles system, but defenitly not tzu.

Tzu is the old way to write Zi 子, which mean he's name in Han Zi (you don't hear the i), which actually doesn't sounds at all like Hot Soup, I remember that bothering me at the time.

Any Time you hear of K'ong Fu Tzu (Confucious) 孔夫子, Sun Tzu 孫子, and others, you should know it's now Kong Fu Zi, Sun Zi at cetera. The new system is much better and accurate.
 

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Posted by valantin (Member # 9185) on :
 

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I studied Chinese for two years now and 楚 is spelled Chu1 in the Pin-Yin system of romanization. I'm not sure how you write it in the old Wade-Giles system, but defenitly not tzu.

Tzu is the old way to write Zi 子, which mean he's name in Han Zi (you don't hear the i), which actually doesn't sounds at all like Hot Soup, I remember that bothering me at the time.

Any Time you hear of K'ong Fu Tzu (Confucious) 孔夫子, Sun Tzu 孫子, and others, you should know it's now Kong Fu Zi, Sun Zi at cetera. The new system is much better and accurate.

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Really?That's cool .I'm Chinese and I don't really know how you spell Chinese characters.
But I don't like the old system,too.I remember that when I was 4 or 5,I asked my mom why foreigners spell "北京" as "Peking".Ohh,if Mr Card spell "Tzu" as ＂子＂，it may be very very strange here,because "子" ,in old Chinese,means you respect someone,and then,you call him XX"子＂.
"韩子＂，heard strange.If you change the characters,it's "汉字＂（Chinese characters.)
 

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Posted by ErezL (Member # 9653) on :
 
Actually, in the old system what we now write Bei1 Jing1 was Pei1 Ching1. The name Peking is an old postal name the westners gave the city, it's mostly random. That's why we call 香港 xiang1 gang3 - Hong Kong. It sounds chinese but is really just a made up name.

About Han Tzu, since he's name in Chinese DOESN'T sounds like hot soup, the only way around it is to have someone know the Wade-Giles system (which is still sometimes used in Taiwan and abroad chinese communities but it not very comftrable) and give him the name as a joke. A chinese character won't think about it because there really isn't any similiarity...

Another thing I remember bothering me is how exactly communist China turned into nation with an emperor (the one han tzu replaces). Is it have something to do with the Bug invastion? That's an intresting story to tell.
 

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Posted by valantin (Member # 9185) on :
 
Which story is also Complicated.
 

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Posted by DDDaysh (Member # 9499) on :
 
Is there really an emporer that Han Tzu replaces? I didn't pick up on that. It seemed to me that China was still a communist country, or something similar, but that the people still believed in their secret hearts of being "God Destined" or whatever, so Han Tzu would have been the first emporer in milenia.
 

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Posted by Orson Scott Card (Member # 209) on :
 
When I wrote Ender's Game, I had never heard Chinese spoken from the old system of spelling (and that was before pinyin changed things from, say, Peking to Beijing). So I took it phonetically and that's why the mistake of Han Tzu = Hot Soup. However, kids twist names much farther than that to come up with silly nicknames, so I haven't bothered to change it.

Since Han Fei-Tzu was a great confucian, I'm reasonably confident that boys can have those names. (Again, using the spellings I found in older written sources.)

I appreciate the assurance you have all given me that I said NOTHING about Han Tzu's upbringing. Thus I am free to invent it for the short story tentatively titled "Cheater," for the next issue of OSCigms.
 

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Posted by Orson Scott Card (Member # 209) on :
 
Mao was emperor. So was Deng. They just changed the names and rituals.
 

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Posted by ErezL (Member # 9653) on :
 
Han Fei Zi wasn't a great confucian, he was a legalist thinker (although a student of xun zi who was a confucian) which is pretty different from Confucianism. The legalist believed that human nature is bad from birth and should be restrained harshly.
The Qin dynasty (which was the first dynasty after the legendary three - xia, shang, zhou) took the legalism as it's offical doctrine, slaughtered many scholars and burned confucian books. Only after it's fall did the Han dynasty rose and made the confucianism it's official state ideology.
To me the fact that in Xenocide, one of the characters was named Han Fei Zi, and another one named after Mao's wife Jiang Qing, was very strange, since both of them had no effection for Daoism or Neo-confucianism (in the case of mao's wife), which is what the world Path was suppose to be.

Perhaps Mao and Deng were emperors in some sense, but they were the giants who drove out the japanese, who made the long journey and united china. The head of states since then - Zhang Ze Min and Ho Jin Tou, are very different. They do not have the same power as Mao or Deng ever had and comparing them to monarchs is wrong. The Power in China today, altough not shared with the people, is not held by any singal individual.
Perhaps the Bug invasion changed things and a strong person was needed to help save China, but if it's just a continue of what is happening today, there's just no way. Zhang had some kind of aura around him since he was chosen by Deng, Ho doesn't have that anymore, the leaders will become weaker, farther and farther from the emperor image.

And once again, Peking is not the old way to write Beijing (that is Pei-ching), just like Hong-Kong is meaningless. It's a name made up by western folks who couldn't pronounce the right name.

[ August 31, 2006, 06:40 AM: Message edited by: ErezL ]
 

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Posted by valantin (Member # 9185) on :
 
Although as a military student of Isreal,Erezl really knows a lot about china,past and now,i just wonder how can you know so much?And also hope can see your words more.
 

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Posted by ErezL (Member # 9653) on :
 
Thanke you for the kind words valantin.
In the last few weeks I am working on my final papers in my undergraduate (BA) degree in psychology and east asian studies in Tel-Aviv univeristy, hoping to finish it all this month, as we speak I am writing an extensive seminar work on the catholic missionary efforts in China and the Jesuit interpretation of Confucius.
I am a soldier in the IDF, doing reserach as a psychologist.
I love China, it's language and culture and hope to begin my MA studies in east asian studies as soon as I can (and ofcourse visit china for a few monthes in order to polish my mandarin). I understand that you are chinese, where are you from exactly?
 

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Posted by valantin (Member # 9185) on :
 
So pleased to know so much things about you and your affection to china.
I live in Xian,which is a long-history city located in almost the center of china.Terra cotta worriors and horses appeal thousands of visitors coming here every year.
Hope to meet you during your visiting china and offer you the information you need.
Click here,and see some pics about this.
www.bava-service.de/presse/Bilder/high_res/China/Xian-Terrakotta-Armee12.jpg

www.bartellonline.com/summer/2/xian-bell_tower.jpg
 

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Posted by ThePersonMan (Member # 9440) on :
 

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Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head:
That must have been the part written in invisible ink in the margins. My ebooks did't include that part.

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