Daring Renewal: The Haven’s Word of The Year

Peter Joyes is back and we have our 2019 Word of The Year card in English and Chinese!

You may already have read in the eNews about The Haven’s Word of The Year for 2019 – Daring Renewal. Our friend and artist Peter Joyes was away at the beginning of 2019 and unable at the time to do his usual magic creating a card for the Word of The Year. Thankfully, he is back now, along with his wonderful menu boards and welcoming smile. Adding to this, Liz Chin was recently here for the spring break Kids In The Spotlight, and together they cooked up our bilingual 2019 Word of The Year card.

So now, with much fanfare, we would like to show you Haven’s 2019 Word of The Year, in English and Chinese! 

Peter has been the Word Man, doing his beautiful calligraphy on frame-able card stock for people’s personal Word of The Year, ever since the first Reflections program in the 1980s. We began doing The Haven’s Word of The Year in 2012.

Leading up to the new year, we solicited your input for the 2019 WOTY.  People suggested lots of words and we made a short list based on the number of times a word was put forward. And then people voted on the shortlist. It was so close between a couple of words that we decided to take some creative license and combine two of the most popular choices … Daring Renewal.

We believe these words in combination clearly resonate with our business theme of renewal for 2019 as well as support our intentions for a venturesome year of possibility and growth. 

Daring … to be boldly courageous/brave, willing to take risks, adventurous

Renewal … giving fresh life to, rejuvenating, the act or process of making changes in order to improve something so that it becomes more successful.  

We look forward to an engaging year of daring renewal!

In 2016, we had a large group of Chinese participants attend Reflections and they contributed to a joint English-Chinese word – Happening.  This year, friends in China and Vancouver discussed Daring Renewal and came up with:

Da Dan Fu Xing  大膽復興。

Daring: 大膽 (Da-Dan) conveys being as bold as possible, and doing something unprecedentedly, with all our might and energy, having the guts to do it.

大(Da): the image of 大(Da) portrays an adult stands high and tall, stretching both arms and legs. It refers to something much bigger than us.

膽(Dan): the organ of gallbladder.

Renewal:  復(Fu)興(Xing):  When the character 復(Fu) was created in ancient time, it drew the picture of one person leaving the city gate and then returning. The definition of 復(Fu) means back and forth, return, or cycle. The ancient drawing of 興(Xing) depicts a situation in which a group of people work together by raising heavy tools and meanwhile sing a work song to coordinate their effort. The original definition of 興(Xing) is to launch, to work together with same goal. Over time, 興(Xing) also conveys to prosper, thrive, or grow vigorously. Hence, this phrase 復興(Fu-Xing) can mean to return to the state of being prosperous, thriving, flourishing, rejuvenating.

We love how the Chinese characters paint a picture of Daring Renewal and how they work together with the English words to grow vigorously toward the same goal!