A Slow Boat to China

First there was Baidu, brazenly copying every look and feature from Google. Now, it seems there is www.56.com and www.tudou.com. A friend of mine in China recommended I watch the Chinese drama 奋斗, a wonderful TV drama that I’ll write about in a later post. He sent me the link to watch […]

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In a previous post, I tried to translate a “mountain poem” written by a Danzhou local named Li Hua. I wasn’t entirely successful, but the unique style and dialect of the poem has motivated me to find out more about this Hainan dialect.
My first discovery amongst English websites was the following: Dongpo. While […]

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Differences in humor between cultures is one of the most interesting aspects of human society. Anyone watching a Japanese game show will soon realize that some humor is socially and culturally unique, and that not all jokes translate between languages.
The same is true in Chinese; the following is a great example:
邓小平和毛主席散步
小平问：租西，四介桑最筒裤的是洒子四琴喽？
主席：桑阔！
小平：莫比择更筒裤的了？
主席深吸一口烟，凝视远方：田田桑阔！
Simply translated, the joke […]

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This comes from www.vipcn.com–a list of text messages that are passed around in China. I’d like to have most of these translated at some point, although some may not make it past my good-taste censor. We’ll see!
将军行房，突闻夫人屁响，兴趣大消，翻身下床，夫人意犹未尽曰：夫君为何下马持枪而立？将军道：后山炮响，必有伏兵，此地不宜久留，改日再战！
你的一笑，狼都上吊。你的一叫，鸡飞狗跳。你的一站，臭气弥漫。你一出汗，虱子灾难。你不打扮，比鬼难看。你一打扮，鬼吓瘫痪。
想你是件快乐的事!见你是件开心的事!爱你是我永远要做的事!把你放在心上是我一直在做的事!不过?骗你，是刚发生的事！哈哈！
Thinking of you is what makes me happy! Seeing you is what makes me joyful! […]

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A Washington Post article describes a song that Li Hua, a teacher at Nada #2 Middle School (那大二中) in Danzhou (儋州), wrote on his school website that criticized senior city government officials. Li was subsequently arrested. The Nada #2 Middle School homepage is no longer accesible, and the website archives are no longer […]

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