Earth Under Iron Road

[muckefuck]

I came home on Tuesday to find two copies of the Economist stuffed into my mailbox. Each had one of these clever new two-page HSBC ads which merge street scenes in NYC and HK. I noticed on one of them that the sign for the Underground included the small seal form of the character for "wood".

Almost instantly I had formed a hypothesis that, since wood is one of the "Five Phases" of Chinese tradition, there were also lines designated "fire", "water", "earth", and "metal". Instead, the "wood" character appears to be the corporate logo for the MTR Corporation, which runs some of the transit lines. (Its Chinese name means simply "Subway Company".) The lines are colour-coded and named for stations, like ours. (Unlike ours, the eponymous stations are not endpoints.)

So what's the connexion? I would've rather expected "earth" (either 土 or 地).

Comments

[welcomerain.livejournal.com]

The connection is that you went to the University of Chicago, where everyone gets a subscription of The Economist upon graduation.


But seriously, I bet the wood is from the wood-ties between the steel rails.

[lhn.livejournal.com]

The connection is that you went to the University of Chicago, where everyone gets a subscription of The Economist upon graduation.

I wish. Or that we at least got a discount. :-)

But seriously, I bet the wood is from the wood-ties between the steel rails.`

Depending on the age of the subway, the original cars may also have been made of wood.