Humor regarding the misuse of language is humor regarding the misuse of language. And if you print ridiculous gibberish on something and then sell it, well, you’re opening yourself to ridicule no matter what your nationality.

It’s a fact that the balance of power, population and wealth in the world is shifting in China’s favor while America tanks. This state of affairs is not an unqualified evil and America is not an innocent victim. Still, it gives Americans who have nothing against Chinese people a valid reason to fear China the world power–the only kind of fear I see in the comment. It’d be a shame if we could no longer have national interests just because of the competition’s skin color.

As for the analogy of badly translated Chinese signs in the US–we already have something far dumber. It’s the trendy use of random hanzi/kanji in graphic design. Of course it doesn’t escape me that the Westerners who mangle Asian languages for decoration are colonial throwbacks with their pith helmets up their asses…while Asians who do the same thing to European languages are learners trying their best in the face of oppressive ridicule. Tell me, are there two opposing schools of thought here, or just another case of “it’s only racist when whitey does it”?

I just read the other entry cited by peer-see, and I agree that it offers some balance for the comment I highlighted, and gives a more complete understanding of peer-see’s viewpoint on this issue (though I will point out that the other entry involves an example of non-standard English generated not by the Chinese, but by Western marketers working in China, so it is really an example of “pseudo-Chinglish,” with its own problematic implications as to Western attitudes to the Chinese). But that still doesn’t change the sense the reader will get from reading the comment I highlighted in my post, standing alone.

It would be better if we can always read every single written statement in the context of the author’s entire body of writing and thoughts. But that is not always possible, and the Internet has a tendency to isolate what we write into small sound bites. It doesn’t hurt to be reminded, once in a while, how something we write can be taken to have a more sinister meaning than we intended when read in isolation. (I intend this comment to apply to peer-see and myself equally.)

Doesn’t “gan” mean “do”? I wonder why the translator has to resort to the English-slang connotation of “do.”

Well, regarding the blocks, “chopper” wasn’t too bad compared to the rest of the ones shown. I actually found that one quite amusing