Asia Blog: China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam

The kind folks at Work Unit have published a list of guidelines used by the editors and writers at Xinhua, China’s official newspaper. Surprisingly, most of the advice is to avoid racial stereotyping of the sort seen in America’s early days. Except, in our case where it was mostly black v.s. white, writers in China have to be aware of a huge number of ethnic minorities and their sensitivities.

Unfortunately, there are a number of politically sensitive editorial demands:

• Don’t use “Islamic fundamentalism” or “Islamic fundamentalists.” Use “religious extremism” as a substitute.
• It is strictly forbidden to refer to Xinjiang as “East Turkistan.”
• The Diaoyutai Islands must not be called the Senkaku Islands.
• The Nansha Islands must not be called the Spratly Islands.
• Do not write “Tourists from Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan visit China.” The proper use is “Tourists from Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan visit the mainland.”

As you can see, most of these come from the desire to strengthen China’s claims on territory it contests with other nations, or territories which have their own seditious desires. Taiwan, HK, and Macau are given special attention; they must always be included as parts of China, not separate nations.

There are also a few completely strange guidelines, like “In all reports concerning persons who believe in Islam, pork must not be mentioned.” That’s about the same as saying, “In all reports concerning persons who like to wear socks, bare feet must not be mentioned.” Still, Xinhua gets a nod for their tact, even if it is overly sensitive.

As far as I know, Fei by itself doesn’t mean anything, but as Feichang (非常) it means “very” or “particularly.”  It’s so pretty, with two wings side by side.

This is pretty random, but here’s some awful subtitles used in real (probably Kung Fu) Hong Kong movies.  My favorites are:

• I am damn unsatisfied to be killed in this way.
• A normal person wouldn’t steal pituitaries.
• You always use violence. I should’ve ordered glutinous rice chicken.
• Beat him out of recognizable shape!
• The bullets inside are very hot. Why do I feel so cold?

One of the things you want to know when learning a language is all the bad words and phrases. Besides knowing how to come on to someone, or swear really well, learning what a culture uses to express its strongest, most vehement word-forms can tell you a lot. That’s where this handy list in Swedish, Chinese, and English comes in.

For summary’s sake, here are the most useful terms:

• 性 xìng = sex
• 性生活 xìngshēnghuó = sex life
• 肏 cào = to f*ck (vulgar)
• 打炮 dă pāo = have intercourse
• 老屄 lăobī = old hag (vulgar)
• 牛屄 niúbī = really phat, way beyond cool (vulgar)
• 艺妓 yìjì = geisha

There are also a huge number of words to describe prostitutes, various parts of intercourse, STDs, and other such things.

However, when you look at some of the etymologies, barring things which are simply put together piecemeal in the expected way (性生活 being 性 + 生活), you can derive a more interesting cultural view. For example, 肏 is 入 + 肉, literally to enter meat, from which we learn that sex in China is defined by the language as a male-dominating act. This isn’t unexpected, but it’s interesting how language ties into culture, especially in these taboo waters.

Filination has an interesting entry which lists all the possible Chinese-language helper extensions you can get for Firefox:

ChinesePera-kun is an excellent tool that “will popup the pinyin reading and English definition when you mouse over Chinese in Simplified or Traditional characters.”

Sounds good–sign me up, mate!