賽

Once upon a time， it meant a sacrifice for the gods， but now， 賽 （s3i） is all about challenging ourselves to be the best we can be. This character appears whenever there’s a contest： a football match （足球賽z%qi%s3i）， a cycling contest （自行車賽 z#x！ngch8s3i）， or even a debate （辯論賽 bi3nlns3i）.

賽 is a pictophonetic character（形聲字 x！ngsh8ngz#）. The top part borrows from 塞 （s3i， fill in） for pronunciation. The lower part，貝 （b-i）， represents a seashell. You might be asking yourself what a seashell has to do with anything， but judging from scripts dating back over 2，000 years， the lower part is actually two hands holding a piece of seashell—an object of great value to the inland ancients. In order to show respect to the gods， they would offer seashells as sacrifices to the gods. The original meaning is one of religious piety； however， this usage has largely died off in modern day， only preserved in words that refer to rituals and offerings， such as 祭賽 （j#s3i）， 賽神（s3ish9n）， and 賽社 （s3ish-）.

Roughly 1，500 years ago， in the Book of Wei （《魏書》W-ish$， a historical writing recording the Northern Wei and Eastern Wei Dynasty from 386 to 550）， the first case of 賽 used to mean contest was spotted. Some suspect this comes from the fact that—when families put up sacrifices， such as geese or pigs—they tended to compare sizes for bragging rights and social status. Other traditional contests also include poetry contests， or 賽詩 （s3ish～）， during the Dragon Boat Festival and lantern contests， or 賽花燈 （s3ihu`d8ng）， during the Lantern Festival.

The words 競賽 （j#ngs3i） or 比賽 （b@s3i） mean competition. The two characters 競 and 比 have interestingly similar origins that complete the meaning of 賽. Both of those characters appeared over 3，000 years ago on the oracle bones in the form of two people standing side by side （the traditional form for競 being 铏 ）. The difference is in the identities of the people involved. In 比， the two are a couple， which originally meant “close and intimate”. For 競， it’s a fight to the death. The pictograph indicates that the people depicted in 競 wear shackles， and much like the times of ancient Rome， fights between prisoners were a favorite pastime of the Chinese ancients.

Today， 賽 is mainly associated with sports. A race is 賽跑 （s3ip2o）， a car race is 賽車 （s3ich8）， and a horse race is， by parity of reason， 賽馬 （s3im2）. For competition related terms and phrases， you’re never wrong throwing in more 賽. Preliminary competition is 初賽 （ch$s3i）， quarter-final is 復賽 （fs3i）， and final is 決賽 （ju9s3i）. A championship or tournament is 錦標賽 （j@nbi`os3i）， literally “a competition for a brocade flag”， because grabbing the flag used to be the sign of winning dragon boat races. The same prefix is true for venue， area， and time： playing field is 賽場 （s3ich2ng）， division is 賽區（s3iq$）， and season is 賽季 （s3ij#）.

Besides being the building blocks for sports words， 賽 alone can be used as a comparative or quantitative word. For instance， 這里的風光賽江南 （Zh- l@ de f8nggu`ng s3i ji`ngn1n）， means “the view here is better than south of the Yangtze River”； or 這些姑娘干活兒賽過小伙子 （Zh-xi8 g$niang g3n hu5r s3igu7 xi2ohu6zi.）， which means “these ladies got the job done better than the men”. If you are having an extremely good time， you can describe it as 賽神仙 （s3i sh9nxi`n）， or “merrier than the immortals”.

There’s also a particularly famous case of clever translation worth mentioning. Subway， the American sandwich shop， picked 賽 as a part of their Chinese brand name 賽百味 （S3ib2iw-i）， which not only resembles its English pronunciation but means “better than many other flavors”. - LAO HUANG （黃偉嘉）， TRANSLATED BY LIU JUE （劉玨）