Monday, May 4, 2020

Bai ji shēng wù has got tensho.

Recently I've had some contact with a company called BeiGene, whose logo is in tensho:


gather the Chinese is /bai ji sheng wu/ and that the /sheng wu/ or /shen zhou/ is biology (生物, seibutsu—or, without 学/學, shēng wù xué, then just living things)—easy enough to see the 生物 through the tensho! The source says /bai ji/ has no particular meaning, beyond perhaps a phonetic similarity to Beijing, the "northern capital" (北京; cf. in Japan 東京 Tou-kyou, the eastern capital, which in the Edo period replaced 京都, Kyou-to, the capital or capital city).

Some help from the China Trademark Office. The same company seems to have registered these:

The first two (righthand column) would be /bai ji/, then. 百済神州. 百済 seems to refer to an ancient Korean kingdom, "land of the gods" (神州)—Baekje?

面白いですよね。I'll have to work it into conversation with them, somehow.




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