D'BLOG

The Blog of Dabido (the Baka one). Everything in this blog is copyrighted. Copyright 2004, 2005, 2006 by D. Stevenson.

06 January, 2006

How To Offend Chinese People Without Even Trying.

Hmmmmm ... I realised something today - I went down to the local Mall (pretending to be some sort of Mall rat or something). Only had to run a few errands for my mother (Post letter, get her milk, pick up her photo's etc), and I saw some Chinese people look at my T-Shirt. I was wearing the one which says, 'Applicatons Open for Japanese Girlfriend.' I noticed something. First of all, the Chinese people would smile seeing my T-Shirt (which is written in Japanese Kanji), then, they would pull a nasty face, which I interpreted to mean, 'JAPANESE!!!!' I'll have to find out whether the Chinese means the same as the Japanese. Afterall, I can read the Japanese, I just don't know if it has the same meaning in Chinese - because most Chinese dialects are SVO languages (like English), while Japanese is an SOV language. So knowing the verb in Japanese comes at the end of the sentence, would it mean the same in Chinese??? After all, if I was to say to you Cows Grass Eat, would you know that I really meant Cows Eat Grass??? In this case the Japanese says, 'Japanese Girlfriend Application Open', how would the Chinese read that in Chinese???? (And let's face it, when you know what Chinese characters mean, you can read it in almost any language.) 日本 = Japan (I hope in both Chinese and Japanese) So, did the Chinese read it correctly and were p***d off at the obvious Japanese preference, or did it mean something else in Chinese ... or did they just recognise me for the Geek I am????? Here is the photo for anyone who can read Chinese.