Wishful Thinking
Yumen City, China
2016
Traveling across a very flat and desolate section of the Gobi Desert, I had to chuckle when I saw this billboard. It may actually be a sign for an existing resort elsewhere, but I got the feeling (perhaps erroneously) that it was promoting a future development, much like you might have seen back in the early days of the development of Las Vegas.
Well I tried to get a translation from the Chinese teacher, but I’m not sure I exactly got it: “You share the silk road, (the past), but at the same time you develop a new thought” (which I assume means future). So I don’t know your idea may not be too far off.
Randy, I’ve found that even when I ask a native Chinese speaker the meaning of some Chinese text, their response is often tentative, something along the lines of “well, it sort of means….” I think that is because translating between these two languages is inherently a difficult task, for anything that’s not strictly concrete like directions etc.