During the Chinese Revolution, the Eighth Route Army liked to say "comrade". Today, "comrade" is still very common, but the meaning of "comrade" is different in some situations. For example, "comrade" is a term in a bar, such as among colleagues. Gay and lesbian are normal, but they have different meanings when used in certain situations.
"Comrade" originally referred to like-minded people
In ancient my country, "comrade" had the same meaning as Mr., Elder, Jun and other words, and they were all terms of address between friends. During the Spring and Autumn Period, Zuo Qiuming explained the word "comrade" in "Guoyu·Jinyu IV": "Those with the same virtues are of the same mind, and those with the same heart are comrades." "Book of the Later Han Dynasty·Liu Tao Biography" said: "The friends we make , "Comrade must be"
In China, "comrade" is also widely used as a term of greeting between strangers, similar to "master". For example, "Hello, comrade, how can I get to the front door?" But young people nowadays rarely use it.
The origin of the word "comrade"
Together is to be able to talk about the same opinions. Ambition is composed of scholars and hearts. Scholars means to die for a bosom friend, and the heart is the curtain. Beauty is born!
In ancient my country, the meaning of the word "comrade" was very different from today. It was used as two words: Tong, which means the same, consistent; Zhi, which means ambition. . Zuo Qiuming, a historian of the Spring and Autumn Period, has a very famous saying: "With the same virtue, we have the same heart, and if we have the same heart, we have the same heart." This means: if the moral character is the same, the heart is the same, and if the heart is the same, the ambition is the same. It can be seen that here, "comrade" means "same ambition", which is very different from how it is used as a noun now.
In modern times, "comrade" has become a term used among members of political parties. During the period of China's bourgeois democratic revolution, revolutionaries called each other comrades. In 1920, Mao Zedong, Luo Xuezan and others also began to quote the word "comrade" in their correspondence.
In 1921, the Communist Party of China was founded, and the "First" party program stipulated: Anyone who recognizes the party's program and policies and is willing to become a loyal party member will be accepted as a party member and become our comrade. "This is the earliest use of the word "comrade" by our party in official documents. It also gives a new meaning to the word "comrade", indicating a new type of relationship among party members under the great goal of fighting for communism. Relationship.
In 1989, Hong Konger Lin Yihua named the first gay film festival he planned as the "Hong Kong Gay and Lesbian Film Festival". This may be the beginning of this meaning (at the latest). In Chinese-speaking areas outside mainland China, such as Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, etc., the word "gay" has gradually evolved into another term for homosexuals. When used, it is not used as a title like "comrade so-and-so". Instead, "so-and-so is a gay" or "so-and-so joins a gay group". This usage was first used among the gay community, and later its influence gradually expanded. All walks of life in the above-mentioned areas have adopted this usage, such as Taipei City. The Government's Civil Affairs Bureau wrote in the "2001 Edition of the Handbook on Understanding Gays": "The mayor loves gays."
Lin Yihua himself once said that the word "gay" that he hoped to use to replace homosexuality was derived from Sun Yat-sen's famous saying. "The revolution has not yet succeeded, gays still have to work hard." On the one hand, Lin hopes to point out that efforts still need to be made, and on the other hand, he hopes to shift the focus of discussion from sexual orientation to gender issues. Everyone hopes to use the word gay to connect, include, and represent more people. Currently, the word gay is not limited to homosexuals, but has expanded to include the four major groups known internationally as LGBT, namely gays and lesbians. Lesbian), Bisexual and Transgender. For example, the novel Rainbow Butterfly published in Taiwan in 2004 has a subtitle of "The Mental Journey of a Transgender Gay" and after this meaning, "straight" appears. After entering the mainland in recent years, since the vast majority of young people no longer use the word "gay", this meaning has come to dominate. Although this new meaning has become more popular in mainland China It is also known and used by more and more people, but the official media and documents of the People's Republic of China basically do not accept this extended meaning.