Chinese stories

Students already have to pass several physical exams to go to college in China. You first have to pass the academic exams, then there’s a preliminary physical, then another after you enroll. Problems such as a fast heart rate are grounds for refusal to admit a student (I’m not kidding).

On friday the Ministry of Education listed several majors that can refuse to accept students with certain health conditions (story):

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Related to the Qingming post, here’s a news story about two giant statues of the Yan and Huang Emperors that will be officially shown to the public on the 18th. The article makes sure to point out that they are taller than both the Statue of Liberty and Mother Russia.

They still look kind of unfinished to me, like they’re barely peeping out from the mountain they were carved from. It’s too bad they couldn’t make the Yan Emperor more like this flattering portrait of him:

Instead they both have kind of blockish faces, and I can’t really tell which one is which.

Update: I found a better picture of the statues here.

The following is a translation of the article: Continue Reading »

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弔喪弗能賻，不問其所費；問疾弗能遺，不問其所欲；見人弗能館，不問其所舍。賜人者不曰來取，與人者不問其所欲。

When paying respects to a mourning family, if you have no money to give them for assistance, do not ask how much they have spent on the funeral. When visiting a sick person, if you cannot offer a gift, do not ask if they need anything. When receiving guests from afar, if you cannot offer them a place to stay in your home, do not ask where they are staying. When giving a gift to someone do not tell them to come to your home to pick it up. When giving something to someone do not ask if they want it or not.

(Translation based on 王文錦’s modern Chinese translation. From 禮記：曲禮上第一.)

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I saw this on Digg the other day (also picked up by a Canadian Chinese language paper). A lady had ordered a dark-brown couch, only to get it and find that the label said its color was “nigger-brown.”

Whaaaaat????

It turns out the couch was made in China. Now I’ve seen enough bad translations to not be suprised by anything I see in English here, but they had to know what that meant, right?

 A quick Baidu search for that offensive adjective showed otherwise. It’s mentioned all over the place as an acceptable translation of 深棕色, otherwise known as “dark brown.” Four people on this Baidu forum give n-brown as the most preferred translation!  They even give a link to a dictionary entry that supports this translation! I only saw one search result that cautioned against using that translation. Other companies come up on the search that officially use this word as well.

 A google search turns up an old prospectus for a school at Oxford that describes the school uniforms as being n-brown. I can only guess that this used to be a widely used term, which carried over into China back in the day, and during all those years of separation from the west the dictionaries kept giving that as the proper translation. I suppose as a good netizen I should register on all those forums and try to make sure no one else makes that mistake again.

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It’s been my experience that China’s leaders try to have as little to do with religion as possible. Unlike America’s leaders who get big points for going to church and the like, you’ll never see a photo-op of Hu Jintao visiting a local Buddhist temple or something. (Although I think they are all huge closet Buddhists and Daoists, and they just are afraid to admit it.)

 So I was interested when I saw a news story on Sohu about the Qingming Festival, which is when the Chinese people go out and honor their ancestors by visiting their graves. I guess it’s a Confucian thing, which I think counts as religion (ancestor worship), but no one wants to admit that, either. The article is titled ”Governor Yuan Chunqing Gives Address at Shaanxi Ceremony Held in Praise of Yellow Emperor.” I’d say this is about the closest thing you’ll see to a public official doing something religious.  

 The address is dull and generic, but seems to make the big assumption that all of China should participate in the event. Although not mentioned explicitly, it seems to be a distinctly Han event. Sure, 中华民族 is supposed to mean all of the Chinese people, but surely the Yellow Emperor is not the ancestor of all the 56 ethnic minorities in China (which include Russians and kazakhs).

 One of my colleagues pointed out the terrible style of the address. The first part seems like a stock introduction, then the rest was probably written by whatever unlucky secretary got stuck with the job, and doesn’t even stick to a 4-character pattern. He told me if I wanted to see a real bad-ass address to check out something from the good ol’ days, and rummaged up this, which is a link to the text of a joint Qingming ceremony held by the Nationalists and Communists in 1937 during WWII. Much more powerful and better written. It says a lot that they would come together and both participate in the ceremony. I’m not sure if a Taiwanese delegation came to this year’s ceremony or not.

My translation of the news story:

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乱、扯、舒。

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翘、绰、着。

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This happens all the time with the bikes. You’d think people would catch on and not put up flimsy metal signs. A few weeks ago people were setting off fireworks when it was really windy and one blew over and started firing into the street at cars and people. There was also a big metal sign that was blowing around, smashing into cars.

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