Gee, thanks, Pythagoras! What a feat of arithmetic wonder. Gosh, if you hadn’t spelled that out, I’d have had to go back and fetch my abacus. Also worth noting, and I’ll elaborate at some point - notice the number 168. That is a very lucky number to the Chinese, because “one six eight” is a homophone for “be rich from here on out.” Also lucky are 8, 18, 1818, 38, etc. I would bet that most numbered domains (eg 168.com, 163.net, 1818.com) are registered to Chinese companies or people for this reason. Sometimes people insist on paying MORE just so the number equals something lucky. This is the most fascinating battle between the two most visible Chinese traits: Pragmatism vs the Quest for Luck.
Vegetarian Goose? ALL geese are vegetarians, right? Bring me a Carnivorous Goose and you’ll have my business. And I think I’ll skip ANYTHING at a Chinese restaurant with the word “BARK” in it. Do they also put cow in “MOO” shu pork? Now I wonder. And I think I’ll have some PAWNS with my salad sauce. No, better make that a ROOK. I’m watching my figure.
This is what happens when you have one thing to say, but a lot of space to fill. Repetition is the mother of redundancy’s son.
I was ready to make fun of this but as part of my “due-diligence” I figured I’d check to make sure. “haslet, n.: The heart, liver, and other edible viscera of an animal, especially hog viscera.” Will someone please make the Chinese translating dictionaries LESS specific? At least for us ignant yanks.
VERY VERY different from the last time I ran into a “Leather Nurse.”
What is that person massaging? and is that their BRAIN? This “sign” belongs on the fridge at a school for special kids, not as part of a sidewalk marketing campaign. I love how they tried to get specific with the bones of the foot, then drew an amorphous blob for the person. R E L A X.
Quite possibly the best window display of all time. Not only do you have the flaccid gloves drawing people in, you have the huge, glaring signs insisting there are NO DEPENDS WITHIN. One with the cross mark OVER the name, one behind, just so no one is left out. But the best part is the URINE SAMPLE in the bottom of the window. How much does THAT go for?
How much for a treament again? Screw that, I’ll just get the PARTY HAIRDO!
Hey man can I borrow your STICK for a minute?
Walking and shopping are happy by a vivid Manglish product.
Wishs you luck repeating remedial English.
Found in the Castro district. On the left “We all have HIV.” On the right, “Christianity is the real sin - Stop the Churh.” I’d agree with them, except I have no idea what a churh is.
5 responses so far ↓
1 The same gal from the Bronx // Jun 25, 2006 at 9:02 pm
18, 28, or 38 are the same to me, all with 8, but i dun think my chinois friends would like to pick 38. Cos i think 38 mean abnormal or stupid to them hehe
2 Kid // Jul 4, 2006 at 8:48 pm
When I read Vegetarian Goose, I was confused for another reason. How can goose be considered vegetarian? Is it not meat?
3 G. Val Hart // Jul 6, 2006 at 2:07 pm
Great stuff!
I love your Manglish posts!
I’ve been to Taiwan on a number of occassions and I love seeing all the Manglish there (especially on “fashionable” clothing)…even our own wedding album is rife with it! I’m also an American who married a Chinese and it is a constant source of amusement for both of our families as we all try to figure out what the person REALLY meant when they said whatever it was. I get outright laughed AT whenever I mangle Mandarin, and we tease the Mrs. all the time when she gets a bad case of Manglish (even though her English is DAMN good, she still makes mistakes once in a while), so we see it from both sides of the coin all the time.
As for the menus, I see many cases of that here in the US all the time! One restaurant we used to visit actually had two different menus; one for the Americans (in Manglish) and one for the “REAL” Chinese. It was always so much easier just to let my wife do the ordering from the Chinese menu (which also had many more items on it that were traditional Chinese foods that most Americans won’t eat if they knew what it was). My wife’s translations from the Chinese menu were FAR superior to trying to figure out what the heck the Manglish menu was offering. So I can understand how bad it gets over there in China when they try their hand at translating English so far removed from a large population of native English speakers!.
Since our business involves Chinese-to-English translations, we’ve approached several of the places that have Manglish menus, offering to help them “clean them up” a bit.
Their responses? No thanks! They are not only aware of their menu’s Manglish, they PRIDE themselves on it and deliberately don’t re-do them because they believe it gives their restaurant a “quaintness” in the eyes of their American patrons.
Who’d have thunk it?
I think I’m gong to have to start carrying my little camera around with me when I go to the Asian Markets around here with my wife, just to see if I find anything particularly funny to send you.
Thanks for all the laughs and for the intimate peeks into your world!
4 G. Val Hart // Jul 6, 2006 at 2:09 pm
Oh, I almost forgot: “Mangligram for Mongo” made me bust up laughing!
I love that movie & wonder how many others will catch that!
5 Jason // Jul 12, 2006 at 8:38 pm
I’m sick of your absence! Come back to us…
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