In 1984, the American television journalist Lesley Stahl produced a report that rebutted several of President Ronald Reagan’s re-election campaign talking points. Not long after the special was aired, she received a call from one of Reagan’s advisors. Expecting him to be angry at her negative coverage, she was stunned when the advisor thanked her. As it turned out, interspersed with Stahl’s critical analysis of Reagan’s politics was video footage of the president smiling, shaking hands, and looking sunny. These images reinforced Reagan’s “Morning in America” slogan, and were far more powerful than Stahl’s words.
A new bakery opened in Kunming recently, selling mainly European-style bread and Italian coffee. On its sign (adorned with a photo of several smiling Chinese wearing chef caps) is written perhaps the most mangled English slogan I have ever seen. Unlike Chinglish that is unintentionally hilarious, this makes absolutely no sense. The Chinese written next to it, of course, is perfect and expresses what I imagine the English message intended to.
Malaprop English in China isn’t particularly noteworthy, as few billboards and signs here are written perfectly. I used to wonder why, if a business went to the trouble and expense of having an advertisement in English, they didn’t bother making sure that the English was correct.
The story of Reagan’s imagery provides an answer. In mainland China, having English advertisements represents modernity, internationalism, and sophistication. Most Chinese people wouldn’t realize that the actual words were nonsensical, as most don’t read English. Besides, their eyes would immediately go to the (properly written) Chinese text first. Just having the words there is what matters, not what the words actually say.
A corollary to this phenomenon are the Westerners with embarrassingly stupid Chinese characters tattooed on their body. Since most Westerners don’t read Chinese, it doesn’t matter what the characters mean, just what image they characters represent. A Chinese tattoo indicates depth, internationalism, mysticism, and sensitivity even if the tattoo reads “my mother eats maggots”.
Chinglish is a great source of mirth for both English-speaking Chinese and foreigners here, but we aren’t the target audience. Just as in American politics, image matters more than substance.
Comments 4
I don’t think these Chinglish signs were intentional, or because they don’t care. It would be a great story to tell if someone do an investigative piece about how did these mangled translation came to past. Who did the translation, and why did they shop owner/managers think these translators know what they were doing. Was there any QA performed on the product ? The common appearance of these in all kinds of signs, including government signs and publication, indicates to me there is a systematic problem. Did some schools trained all these “translators/manglers” and promoted themselves as experts in English ? Or did they asked their children in secondary school to do the translation ? Or did they just pick someone in the neighborhood they thought they know English ?
Posted 19 Aug 2008 at 11:38 pm ¶This is pretty interesting. If you dig deeper still, you can see the same, opposite effect here in the States in other businesses. Take, for example, Haagen-Daaz ice cream. It’s meaningless. It isn’t German, it isn’t Danish, it isn’t Dutch. But it “sounds” imported and premium. Another example is Heineken. It’s a Dutch beer. But “heineken” sounds so German – so it’s mistaken for a German beer. “Becks” on the other hand IS a German beer, but it sounds English and common. Of course the chinese tattoo snafus are funny too – but not exactly on the same level as “honest” marketing. More like…ignorance is dangerous.
Posted 20 Aug 2008 at 2:31 am ¶Don’t forget the vanity of the translators. Many times, I have noticed poor translations, only to hear “but it’s right – our translator says so”. More than once, I’ve corrected something – BY REQUEST – and sent it back, only to see the final version changed from my perfect (well not really) English into semi-Chinglish again. Reason? The translator thinks she’s God and my corrections make her look bad.
Posted 21 Aug 2008 at 5:05 pm ¶Totally agree with : “having the words there is what matters, not what the words actually say” as it often concerns marketing signs. In my opinion, the problem is often coming from a word by word translation. Translating means reading/hearing something in a language, digesting the message and getting the meaning out in another language. This exercise needs to be able to adapt or rearrange sentences which can be a complex task. This is why people often prefer to stick to a kind of word by word meaning. Still now living in China for years, I realized that recently people tend to be a bit more careful at least in big cities. Probably a question of time before chinglish like rickshaws or €˜hutongs’ become, in big cities, part of the past.
Posted 12 Mar 2009 at 2:36 pm ¶Post a Comment