Incorrect Chinese Religion Logo

[KelvinWong]

Hi all, I don't know if it is correct to post it in this forum....

I find that the Taoism logo (taoism_original.jpg) in Civ IV is incorrect. It should be rotated clockwise for 90 degrees (taoism_correct.jpg). (It is related to the Yin-Yang theory and the properties of Yin-Yang. The white half stands for Yang, black half means Yin. Yang is going upward, Yin is going downward.)

Another stupid thing is the Confucianism logo (confucianism.jpg). The character on it means auspice ("auspicious" from Yahoo Taiwan dictionary). I don't think that "auspice" is the central teaching of Confucisnsim.

I don't know how to correct them (especially for the Taoism logo). But these make me fell very uncomfortable.

 

[Mrdie]

Good point. Maybe Firaxis will change it in the next patch/future patch.

 

[solowoo]

Another stupid thing is the Confucianism logo (confucianism.jpg). The character on it means auspice ("auspicious" from Yahoo Taiwan dictionary). I don't think that "auspice" is the central teaching of Confucisnsim.

I also find it strange to have "吉" in the logo for Confucianism. What is auspice to do with Confucius? It should be "禮" really. As the character in Simplified Chinese can fit into the box nicely, I see no reason to adopt an "alternative".

 

[salty]

The symbol is not necessarily a word and if you consider the square as part of the character it's not 'ji' anymore. If you ask me, shi-4 scholar on top of kou-3 (metonymy for population) inside borders makes a good Confucian symbol.

As for the yin-yang being sideways, that reminds me of a guy in college who had proudly posted some Chinese translation of a Christian text on his dorm door. We all got a laugh when we finally told him he had it posted upside down for over a week.

As for fixing it, I wouldn't hold my breath, I don't think they ever fixed where they had the icon for Copernicus' Observatory and Newton's College swapped in Civ2, even through Civ2MPG.

 

[threephi]

I wouldn't be so cynical about Firaxis wanting to fix this kind of error. They're already solidly on record as actively courting the playerbase for input on this version. And further, this is a question of cultural sensitivity, which is a completely different sort of error than just mixing up two icons. If I were in their shoes, I'd want it correct.

You should send firaxis and 2kgames and everyone else you can think of some e-mails detailing the error.

 

[Uiler]

The 8 Confucian virtues are:

Filial Devotion
Brotherly Love/Sympathy (for other men)
Loyalty
Trust
Propiety
Justice
Integrity
Humility

The most important ones are Filial Devotion and Sympathy.

 

[calyth]

Choosing "吉" instead of the other may have to do with the ease of recognizing the symbol. The religion icons in each city are pretty small, and even with my 20/20 vision, I doubt I'd make out "manners" (the other chinese word suggested to replace &#21513 in such a small amount of space.
I think it's along the same lines of making uranium green despite the metal, by itself, isn't green.

 

[QiZhe]

I'm not all that familiar with specifics of Confucianism, but they could always go with 孔.

 

[Eigenvector]

No I don't agree with that. The justification for making uranium a glowing green crystal is that it represents radioactivity - widely shown to be a glowing green subtance in the movies. If they wanted to be accurate, the uranium graphic wouldn't look much different than a pile of light brown crap and most of the players wouldn't recognize it as such without some research.
By representing it as a glowing green object it makes it simple to identify with a quick scan of the terrain.
In the case of the Chinese symbols, it couldn't have been that tough to put the correct symbols on the graphic rather than just throwing some arbitrary character up there. A more proper symbol wouldn't look much different to *most* players so using a more proper symbol is correct.

 

[Point13]

I'm not Chinese and can't read the language so I never really noticed the problem.

Would not this problem be realitively easy to fix though?

 

[Uiler]

I also find it strange to have "吉" in the logo for Confucianism. What is auspice to do with Confucius? It should be "禮" really. As the character in Simplified Chinese can fit into the box nicely, I see no reason to adopt an "alternative".

My Chinese-English dictionary says that this is "laih" (Cantonese)/"li" - courtesy, politeness, rites, ceremony.

Or as my Mum used to scold me as a kid, "You have no laih mauuh!"

Still wouldn't "haau"/"xiao" (filial devotion) be a better symbol for Confucianism as I was always under the impression that the number one precept in Confucianism was filial devotion? It's also a pretty uncomplicated symbol as well so you should be able to see it easily on a small Civ flag. You can see it here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confucianism#Filial_piety

Still I guess laih is OK too. It was a very important part of Confucianism.

 

[solowoo]

I proposed "禮" (or "礼" in Simplified Chinese) because Confucianism is often referred as "禮教". "孔" is okay as it is sometimes known as "孔教" as well, though Google search suggests that it is not as popular. "儒" may also be considered because of "儒家", however hard it may be to have the character squeezed into the tiny space. Whatever it is, it should not be "吉", or "士口", or "大口".

It is indeed the first time that I notice that, unlike other religions, there is no easily recognizable icon for Confucianism. Perhaps it is yet another evidence that Confucianism is not a religion in the traditional sense.

 

[huang di]

I think 孔 may be the best, as the importance of 礼 was introduced only with the Neo-Confucians, long after Confucius' death. 礼 only appears once or twice in the Confucian texts. It is interesting that there is no real symbol, although a tiny head with a scholar's cap on it might be the most realistic sign of a confucian belief system in a city.

I also wonder why they chose to write the character for water (水）in the movie for founding Daoism (Taoism). I know that water plays a crucial role in Daoist philosophy, but wouldn't writing Dao itself (&#36947 make more sense?

 

[Abdomination]

its a game, not a history book

 

[Ying Zheng]

agreed.
I think it is better if "仁" (i can not find a english word for it, maybe benevolence or humanity? ) is used as the logo for confucianism.
it is almost as simple as "吉" in structure, but much better is expressing the major ideology of confucianism.

 

[EdCase]

its a game, not a history book

But one that attracts those with OCD with regards to history

 

[Jimbo30]

We should just ban religion and then this wouldn't be a problem.

 

[TripleGemini]

I also wonder why they chose to write the character for water (水）in the movie for founding Daoism (Taoism). I know that water plays a crucial role in Daoist philosophy, but wouldn't writing Dao itself (&#36947 make more sense?

I happen to like the character used when Daoism is founded. I did not know that it was the symbol for water until reading this thread. While the character for Dao is quite appropriate (and I did know that one, just coming out of a class on Daoism), I find that in using 水 there is an elegant simplicity to the image and a character that is true to the Dao.

Then again, that's just my take on it.

 

[Xineoph]

I also think they should replace the Buddhist Statue to the Dharma Wheel for Buddhism.

also i think for Confucianism we should use the water symbol

or the Total harmony symbol

 

[KelvinWong]

its a game, not a history book

I'm totally agree Civ IV not want to set a particular religion better than other. But... while designing the game and movies, they choice the "correct" symbols to represent those religions familiar to Western people, but can't select a proper symbol for others. In this point, they already treated religions un-equal!

Yes, it is a game. But it is a history game.

I'm not intent to start an argue with religion, that is not agree with the original idea to make all equal. I just wnat to know how to fix it by myself, or anyone can help to fix it.