Chinese Society Today Observed through Abbreviations with Numerals (I)

In this study, I will clarifY the phases of Chinese society today through abbreviations with numerals which have been created recently. Many abbreviations with numerals have been used as political slogans by the Chinese Communist Party. The abbreviation, "yi-guo liang-zhi", for example, was created in the middle of 1980's, and it has been used very widely not only in China but also in the other part of the world. It is an abbreviation of "yi-ge guojia liang-zhong zhidu" which means "one country, two systems". Beijing has been using it to express its policy towards Taiwan and Hong Kong. The wide acceptance and acknowledgement ofthe abbreviation by the Chinese people has brought about several parodies such as "yi-jia liangzhi" (one family, two systems), "yi-jia liang--qi" (one family, two wives) and "yi-ehang liang-zhi" (one factory, two systems). These parodies reflect some phases ofthe Chinese society very vividly. I picked up nearly 400 abbreviations with numerals from a bimonthly magazine BANYUETAN in the latter half of 1996 and in 1997. I have selected those which reflect the social phanomena in 1990's, and which are not reported in Nasu [1991). I tried to classify the selected ones in terms of the themes such as the Party's basic policy, state enterprises, agriculture, etc.

論説 (Article)