From Chinese classics to ancient myths: The Huawei romance in trademark designs

The US crackdown on China's Huawei Technologies raised wide concerns recently. As most of us were admiring Huawei foresight in preparing for the rainy days, Google was forced to make a decision to stop cooperation with Huawei.

Alternatives to chips are prepared, but how about the operating system? Huawei’s OS team has developed an OS with proprietary property rights--Hongmeng.

So, what exactly is “Hongmeng”?

Hongmeng (simplified Chinese:鸿蒙) is a character in the Daoist text Zhuangzi and a metaphor for the "primordial world, primeval chaos" in Chinese creation myths. 

The period of Hongmeng came before the age of chaos. At the end of Hongmeng, the world shattered and generated the breaths of chaos which aggregated into an age of chaos. Later generations often compare Hongmeng to the antiquity.

Hongmeng stands for the origin of everything to start from scratch as well as a determination to break apart the chaos. It indicates the ambition of Huawei to blaze a new trail as well as the difficulty they have to overcome in the process. Perhaps only Chinese people can really understand its implications.

Indeed a good name cannot solve all problems, but the name truly makes us feel confident in the future. In fact, this was not the first time that Huawei has named its products based on Chinese classics.

Huawei’s mobile phone chip is developed independently by Hisilicon Technologies, a subsidiary of Huawei. They named the chip as “Kylin”. Kylin is one of the four spirit animals of China, how about the others?

Huawei seems to have registered all mythical creatures of The Classic of Mountains and Seas. Rosefinch, winged snake, black ox, Qingxuan, Dangkang, Xuanji, White Tiger, Lingzhi and Taotie...

You may have thought that Huawei is just having fun to register these trademarks, but it has really used these names on its products.

The mobile phone chip of Huawei is called “Kylin”;

Its baseband chip is called “Balong”;

Its server chip is called “Kunpeng”;

Its server platform is called “Taishan”;

Its router chip is called “Lingxiao”;

Its AI chip is called “Shengteng”;

Its OS is called “Hongmeng”...

Some years later, perhaps the new Huawei smartphone will be introduced like this:

The smartphone is equipped with the latest chip developed by Huawei, “Hisilicon Rosefinch”, the version number “Bing Yin”, equipped with the latest version of “Hongmeng” OS...

Mythical technology, and integration of classics and cyberpunk, isn’t it?

By turning the ancient legends of China into a real world miracle, combining the mythical creatures and most advanced technology, it has enabled Chinese people to witness the miracles of ancient legends...

Perhaps this is the ultimate romance of Chinese geeks.

(Executive Editor: Yongliu He)