Friday, May 25, 2007

Chinglish still alive and well in Beijing

Despite the recent efforts to clean up English signs in Beijing, it seems that fans of Chinglish can relax: there's still plenty of it around. For example, this sign was photographed by Paul French in a hotel room near Jianguomen.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is really interesting. It's reflective of the sense of humor and bigotry of trailblazers. That gaggle of uncouth English-gutter-speakers, who have had, and are having a field day,injecting "the west" into China.

"Cunt" for example is not a short way of saying "groin" or a short way of saying "vagina". None of these words are synonyms of each other.

"Cunt" is a way of referring to a "vagina" as filthy, negative, ugly, foul, debased and horrible thing. However "cunt" does not equal "vagina".

"vagina" is neutral. It is the name of an organ, no strings attached.

"cunt" is not neutral. And in fact is use in a derrogatory sense, an insulting sense.

I have no doubt that the manufuaturere was aware of this.

To say that "cunt" is a bad word is not particularly helpful. How can a word be "bad"? And "bad" means "good" in America, right? It's cool, it's hip, right?

Yeah, if you know of any opportunities to edit copy or to write for publication/distribution in English, in China let me know.

I could use the work and looks like maybe the work is needed...somewhere.

Alvin Foo said...

Its the classic case of china. It wasnt meant to be in any way vulgar or derogatory. The Chinese government is definitely trying to clean it up but it will still take a while afterall China isnt a small country but they are making good progress. Thanks for the comment nia. cheers.

Anonymous said...

Hey Alvin,

Hail Cesar.

Classic China? Humm..."classic"?

Interesting choice of words.

Alvin, the point is that the copy writer/editor of the text to be printed on the packaging had been misinformed/mis-educated through means controlled by enemies, not friends.

Why play ball with a bully who keeps trying to make a fool out of you on every level?

China doesn't need the US.

American would think it entertaining to teach someone how to say "f*ck yourself" as a way to greet someone upon meeting.

You know instead of, "Good morning" they'd be teaching "f*ck yourself" and think it was cute to have the monkey performing for them...

You know what I mean. Why stoop to cater to people who have no respect for you as human beings.

Everything on the packaging was meant to be explanatory,helpful, useful Alvin. That's pretty obvious, right? Who, in China, would want to insult a paying guest?

Trying to clean what up? They're getting rid of GoldmanSachs? Okay, that's a start. I see they are converting a tiny bit of that USPaper to some hard assets, that's a start, too. They are closing their doors to non-Chinese speakers?

Or do you mean they are on a seek and destroy mission--wasting perfectly good products because some foreign alphabet makes the Chinese look foolish?

They should keep it as a reminder of how the paradigm,and the mind set of the US, per se, as hearalded and promoted by celebrity/news/entertainment mass market media, is more interested in more tribute and plunder than in friendship and humility.

Humm...wasted effort. No need to recall the product just use it as a reminder of Pandora and what she lets loose in China 24/7..

Can you imagine? Hard goods pouring into the US for years, for decades...in exchange for bits of paper(dollars, bonds, receipts, derivatives, blah blah trickery?

Yeah, I guess we don't have to imagine it.

Which reminds me...check out this video
History of Oil the link is near the bottom of this post.

I'm sure it would be useful and fun for me to read and write Chinese...too bad I'm so busy!

Alvin Foo said...

you are nia, its really just information and China dont need the US. China has amassed a great fortune over the years from the US and more and more US companies are dependent on the Chinese economy.

AS the saying goes, "what goes around comes around." You certainly had hit some valid points. Thanks for the comments.