The sun rises in the east to shine the west.

kohyoongliat said:

The sun rises in the east to shine the west.

Does the sentence sound natural? If not, how should I rephrase it?

Thanks.

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No, it doesn't sound natural. What do you mean by "...to shine in the west"?

bhaisahab said:

No, it doesn't sound natural. What do you mean by "...to shine in the west"?

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Kohyoongliat wrote, "...to shine the west." I'd say ".. to illuminate the west."

stanislaw.masny said:

Kohyoongliat wrote, "...to shine the west." I'd say ".. to illuminate the west."

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But the sun doesn't "rise in the east to illuminate the west".

I think the sentence doesn't make sense too. It was written by someone else, and I am at a loss how to amend it.

kohyoongliat said:

I think the sentence doesn't make sense too. It was written by someone else, and I am at a loss how to amend it.

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It is difficult to amend a sentence when its intended meaning is unknown.

bhaisahab said:

But the sun doesn't "rise in the east to illuminate the west".

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It could be a metaphorical illumination.

Tdol said:

It could be a metaphorical illumination.

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Thanks, Tdol.

It is a metaphorical illumination, as you said. Does it mean that my original sentence is OK?

Yes, I found this concept very common in East Asia: Uchimura Kanzo, a Japanese missionary, famously opined that civilization's height was moving westward, from Europe, in the Enlightenment, to America, in the nineteenth and twentieth century, to Japan and the Far East, in the near future; and people often quote his idea without realizing where it comes from (the idea that Christianity is the light that brings prosperity, rather than industrialization and market capitalization). Moreover, they often use the sun rising in the east and moving westward analogy to illustrate the notion, which East Asians find gives them optimism.