The 21th Floor

Here is an interesting bit of Chinglish / Engrish taken at a Beijing hotel in Zhongguancun (the Silicon Valley of Beijing as it were).





The twenty-firTH floor?

Ouch! Fist salute to the head.

I understand that the fist salute has a long Socialist and Communist history? Sorry though, reminds me of the People's Front of Judea's fist-to-the-head salute (painful!) in Monty Python's Life of Brian film.


Red Chinese Fist Salute Propaganda Video - Click here for the most popular videos

Wacky pirated DVD subtitles

As is well known, one can find DVDs at extremely low prices in China. It is often unclear if the DVDs of recent movies are pirated or not. Often though, the subtitles in English are quite funny. Not sure why technically, but it seems the pirates must re-enter subtitles and the English is very different from the actual speech or text. Here is an example from American Gangster:

* In the opening scene, Denzel and partners are dousing someone in gasoline. The victim screams "Damn!" or something. The subtitles say: "what damn". Then "damn of mix Zhang".

* The movie's title scrolls across the screen: "AMERICAN GANGSTER". The subtitles say: "name of movie: the United States be".

* "Based on a true story". The subtitles say "reorganize from the true story".

* When the mentor gangster is distributing Thanksgiving turkeys from a truck, the subtitles say: "Thanks-giving Day happiness".

* 1968 - Harlem. The subtitles say: "1968 year black living quarters".

* As the mentor gangster distributes turkeys from the truck, the subtitles say: "give you".

There is more. But that's all for now.

Location-based SMS text ads in China

Location-based SMS text ads have become quite pervasive in China. Verging on spam. Well, no they are spam. However, sometimes quasi-useful. For example, during a recent trip to the Great Wall of China, I was pleasantly surprised to receive a text ad offering me a discount at a nearby hotel.

One also receives updates from China Mobile in terms of welcoming you to a new city (say Shanghai) with weather reports, etc.

2 penises brought to you by the letter "I"

You can see the strangest things on TV in China (and other parts of Asia). I have blogged (or at least uploaded videos) in the past with rough translations of faux medical product infomericals. So, my mind wandered into the gutter when I turned on the TV and saw a father and son set of blue penises eating ice cream. Well, of course, they were not penises, but the capital letter "I" and his son, lower-case "i".