Following up on yesterday's post about China's crackdown on "Chingrish," or bad Chinese/English translations, BoingBoing reader Bin Sun points out the likely cause of the laff-worthy "X fucks Y" examples we've found:
In one of the links referenced in your post, i found a sign that reads
THE SHRIMP FUCKS THE CABBAGE
In chinese, this actually translates to "Stir-fried Dried Shrimp with Pak Choy [Ed. Note: aka 'bok choy,' a leafy vegetable]". Link to image.
And here is another: Image link.
The problem arises because in certain area of China (actually mainly across the strait in Taiwan first), "dry/dried" has the same pronounciation as "fuck" and shared the same character in the simplified Chinese — they probably used babelfish to do a mechanical translation.
But it looks like Babelfish is not to blame — though another automated service may be. An anonymous BoingBoing reader says,
Language log investigated the "fuck" translation issue a few months ago: Link, Link 2.
In the second of those two links, a possible source for all these misplaced F-words on Chinese menus is identified: a bug in a popular translation software app, perhaps intentionally placed by a mischievous person.
As for "INDIVIDUAL TRAVEL DEPARTMENT OF TITS," the sign I found in Lhasa, Bin Sun explains:
TITS = Telecom International Travel Service, I think. (a subsidiary of Tibet Telecom, branching into travel business. you can see what is profitable in Tibet these day. it is not the lucrative telecom service in such a sparsely populated area) See this name card.
In Chinese 西藏电信国旅 could be short form for 西藏电信国际旅行社 or 西藏电信中国旅行社, meaning: Tibet Telecom International Travel Service, or Tibet Telecom National Travel Service. I know how capitalism has transformed China's state business and was no surprise that a telecom company is running travel service. At first I thought of the latter and the abbrv didn't fit. So I googled the chinese and the namecard turned up.
The address on that "TITS" business card are the same coordinates of the place where I shot the photo — Bin Sun is undoubtedly correct. Thanks!
Many readers wrote in to remind us of the excellent Engrish.com, where you can find similar examples of linguistic laffery.
Reader comment: sebFlyte says,
You reminded me of a fantastic piece of Chinglish I snapped in Guilin last summer: Link.
It was on the inside of the door of the changing rooms in a clothes store, and is certainly advice worth heeding.
tian says,
Here are some more Engrish related material: 1, 2, 3.
I also run a small site called Hanzi Smatter dedicated to the misuse of Chinese characters in the West.
Henry H. Tan-Tenn says,
"The problem arises because in certain area of China (actually mainly
across the strait in Taiwan first), "dry/dried" has the same
pronounciation as "fuck" and shared the same character in the simplified
Chinese — they probably used babelfish to do a mechanical translation."The clause "across the strait in Taiwan" is a bit ambiguous — I am
assuming it means Taiwan. It's safe to say Taiwan uses Traditional
Chinese, which has different characters for "dry/dried" and "fuck". But
if it means the area to the west of Taiwan (i.e. across the Taiwan
Strait, in China), that would be the Fujian and Guangdong provinces,
which do use Simplified Chinese. I still doubt the characters sound the
same there, but I have no evidence. I do know in Fujian the local
Chinese language is Southern Min (Min Nan), which does not pronounce
them the same (in fact, a different word "ta" is used to mean dry).
Ben Bowser says,
On the Boing Boing "Shrimp fucks the cabbage article" there was debate on the words. The focus isn't on words like in English, Mandarin (as is Taiwanese) is tonal, of course. "Fuck" in Taiwan doesn't share the same pronouciation with "dry". It's similar but no Taiwanese will be confused by these two. "Fuck" is the forth tone, "dry" is the first tone.
Bun Sun adds,
While I read comments from Henry and Ben, I would suggest you highlight or quote from the your second link in the 'language blog". Things have been explained fairly clearly there.
1) Gan4 is mostly used in SE China (Fujian, Zhejiang and Taiwan, mostly Taiwan). That foul word is "Cao" for most mandarin speakers. As a matter of fact, most other parts in China would be as confused as you about how the hell Gan1/4 was turned in 'fuck'.
2) "mechanical" translation does not take into account the intonation. the same 3-stroke character has both intonation. the translation (or the machine) only looks at the wirtten form and is unable to distinguish the characters.
3) I would tend to agree with Language Blog's semi-conclusion that this is started by someone mischievous in many cases, by either a translator or a software programmer.
Because, e.g., "The shrimp fucks the cabbage" is grammatically correct and sounds like from someone who has decent knowledge of English (by adding an "s" to the 4-letter word). Also the Chinese write "shrimp dried fried white vegetable", if one blindly translate, then where has the character "fried (with)" gone?
