Posted on 01/18/2006 12:22:09 PM PST by Dr. Marten
All Things Considered, January 11, 2006 · Robert Siegel talks with Tian Tang, author of a Web site dedicated to the misuse of Chinese characters in Western culture. Tang posts photos of Chinese character tattoos that either contain errors or carry no meaning.
Tang says as a Chinese American, he felt it was his "duty and honor to educate the public about the misusage of Chinese characters."
A reader e-mailed Tang this photo of a friend's tattoo. It's supposed to read "bad boy" in Chinese, except the order of last two characters has been reversed. Courtesy Tian Tang
What is a "Sanskrit" tattoo?
LOL! :)
I was busy reading Gordon's response that I missed tallhappy's "to get" or "to receive" for Germany :)
I don't know of any Chinese name for other countries that aren't phonetic, other than Japan because they use Chinese characters. I think they also don't realize that Chinese often shorten the name because it's a pain to write 4 characters when one would do. Deutschland is shorten to "De", America is shortened using the "me in A'me'rica" or Mei in the closest Chinese pronounciation.
Some countries are harder to pronounce, like Portugal, which is "Pu Tao Ya" and never shortened. Personally I have never learned Pinyin in terms of using Roman characters (Taiwan teaches a different method), but Tallhappy would read Portgual as "Grape seed" or "Grape sprout" i bet :) LOL!!!!
What's confusing, i'll bet, for all these non-native Chinese speakers is that not ALL country ends with "guo". :) Usually the country with "SHORTENED" names, ends with "guo".
Zhong "guo". Shortened
Mei "guo". shortend.
Fa "guo". France - shortened
De "guo". Germany/Deutchland, shortened.
Au-da-li-ya (Australia) non shortened.
Au Zhou (Australia, or rather, Australia CONTINENT as the literal translation), shortened.
Eee-Da-Li (Italy) - NOT shortened (no guo in there
Pu-Tao-Ya (Portugal) - NOT shortened (Tallhappy would say say Grape Sprout country!)
In-Du (India, Hindu) - Not shortened. Again, no "guo" either.
Some countries such as USA, France, and Germany had their name shortened for such a long period that no one ever uses their true phonetic names any longer, even in maps, but the real name is there if anyone wants to get an older map and it'll show up.
Some countries, such as Australia, can be called with either the long version or the short version.
Some countries like Italy, Portugal or Spain, only long version is used.
In other words, nearly any country ends with "guo" has its name shortened. Not all, but most.
(I apologize for not using Pinyin in the right way, but my pinyin education in Taiwan was with different characters, non-Roman/non-Western characters).
It's a dead language that was used thousands of years ago in India from what I can gather.
Lots of places in Germany have food items named after them, depending on where the dish originated. For instance, a Hamburger is both a resident of Hamburg AND something that White Castle serves.
The correct usage is:
Ich bin Berliner.
If you add an "ein", it means a jelly donut.
When a child asks the teacher 'Can I go to the bathroom?', I think it's a pretty safe bet that the teacher knows they are capable of going and that the correct usage would be 'May I go...'
My point was that either de could be used -- as you state and I stated earlier, they are pronounced exactly the same -- the question is why did they use the character meaning virtue?
Why not? Why did they use the characters for grapes for Portugal? Why not?
Literal translation of Chinese characters for countries is STUPID, pure and simple. You like to go down this path as if they chose France as a Lawful country or Germans because they have morals? LOL!!! You obviously have no idea that they're all SHORTENED names as what I have mentioned earlier.
Frankly, I find the use of 'China' to describe Zhongguo a bit irritating -- China is a kitchen item made from, well, dirt. I wonder why they don't call Italians as Pizzas?
Kennedy should have said: "Ich bin Berliner" not "ein Berliner".
Knock it off, all of you, I am not a moderator, nor do I play one on TV, but I do know how to ping them to a thread. This is supposed to be a family forum, the name calling and !@#$%$$% swearing will get me to pull this from my children’s allow list if this stuff keeps up.
Pganini: I spent two years in Taiwan as a missionary, (Mostly around Gao Shong) I know what Bo Po Mo Fo is. There is no reason a native speaker would be well versed in Romanization.
Tallhappy: There are specific characters that are used to translate things, this is violated all the time, but that’s the way it was originally set up, it’s phonetic (Look up the original translation of Coke when it went to the mainland for some laughs)
Dr. Marten: I have lived as a foreigner in Japan, Taiwan, Visited Israel when my sister lived there, and Germany when my other sister lived there. I know what you mean about being a stranger in a strange land. That still does not excuse the tone of this thread.
Please try to have an enlightened conversation, which this forum is renowned for.
I leave you with some advice my father gave me: “You cannot change the mind with logic that was made up without the use thereof.” So if you ever feel you are answering illogical arguments, don’t, just smile and move on to other topics. (Or at least go into a private area where my children won't read it.)
I certainly didn't expect the thread I clicked on to take the turn it did. Who knew Chinese tattoos were this controversial? ;)
Agreed.
FYI, I was hardly complaing about being a stranger in a foreign land.
I've spent time in Japan as well as a few other countries and China is a completely different environment. Unless you've been there, you wouldn't understand.
Japan is not a 3rd world country, China is. Comparing China with Japan or US is ridiculous. China is a poor country, in case you didn't notice.
All i see from you is that you show people picking their buggers, about how "rude" they treat you because you're a foreigner (try being a foreigner or someone from another ethnicity in the US and find out just how well the locals treat you), blah blah blah. You have this superior notion that you're better than the locals, similar to other expats in China. Like I said, if you think are better, then leave. Obviously something has kept you there that you're staying there despite all the inferior local people have treated you, but you never mention those on your blog. It's probably one of the most negative and racist blog out there on China. If you can't handle that, tough.
What I have found when I was in Shanghai for example, is that the foreigners, the caucasians, Europeans, etc. treats local LIKE CRAP. I am not kidding. I went to starbucks and an American white boy came in and ordered a pastry and wanted it to be warmed. Well, the local girl took it and put it in the microwave. When she gave it to him, he YELLED LOUDLY at her in English and said "THIS IS NOT WARM!" and then yell something else that i can't say on this forum. I don't think he'll DARE to do that in the United States, but he does it in China. I have seen it in other shops as well. Note -- this is not in some backwater Chinese village, this is in SHANGHAI, in the wealthiest part of it where it's all mostly expat + well off Chinese. They're all educated and yet they treat the locals like crap. If you are that girl @ starbucks, what would be your impression of Americans?
And more to your issue of foreigners being beat up -- The fact is, the local cops treat foreigners differently. If a foreigner commit a petty crime, they're let go because they dont' want to deal with an international incident where the US state department would get involved, and some foreigners take advantage of it. The locals are pissed off for the reason above and it's no wonder some violence (which i do not condone) occurs against foreigners.
Then you have the situation above where the foreigners, the expats treat the locals like crap, probably the same condescending attitudes that you have.
Gao shiung huh? (or Kaoshiung for the official translation). That's where I was born, actually.
And no, we were never taught Romanization of Buh Puh Muh Fuh. I believe China uses Romanization for Buh Puh Muh Fuh, but Taiwan under KMT uses its own system and a separate "language" to describe the Pinyin. The fact is, with Western characters, you can't ever get to the right pronounciation just by speaking it as if it's a Western language. In the computer age, I think it's important to use alphabets + some special characters to describe the language simply for efficiency reasons, but as far as pronounciation is concerned, it doesn't really help. In fact, I think Romanization of Chinese characters hurt people who are trying to learn Chinese, because they would use their native (whether English or what not) way to pronounce the Roman characters, which are NOT suppose to pronounce like English/Latin/Italian/whatever.
Sad but true. Too many travelers forget to pack their manners.
two, your comments in no way contradicts anything I stated and in fact your comment is difficult to understand concerning any point you are making.
I have stated that of course the terms are phonetic. I have also stated that the choice of character from among the same phoneme is not purely random.
Everything I am saying is 100% accurate and obvious and universally understood.
It's not a msytery or secret.
The issue becomes CCP netagandists seek to attack and villify for the simple sake of spreading anger, dissension and confusion.
They are classical disruptors.
PS is Kaohsiung or gaoxiong (although of course what you mean is understtod and the difference are trivial). This later comment is an example of what the CCP disruptors do -- they try to turn routine non-controversial discussions on something as simple as translation or tranilliteration in to a vicious fight with some sort of broader implication.
And, the attacks are based on nothing at all.
So delphiuser, your purpose is hard to understand and you come across simply as boorish and a bit slow.
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