Yesterday I saw this logo plastered on the wall of a construction site. It’s the logo for a new office tower in Shanghai.
Apparently the recipe for their English name and logo went something like this:
I’m guessing that getting a sexually charged name like “Oriental Virgin” was pure …
Oyoo.com screenshot
哦哟! is a Chinese expression that means something like, “whoa!” But 哦哟！视频 (www.oyoo.com) is a video guide to the shops along Shanghai’s subway lines. Ads for the new website are currently plastered all over the Shanghai subway system.
It’s an interesting concept. You take a bunch of short videos, set them to poppy music, and put them on the site in YouTube fashion. But the videos taken are all of shops along Shanghai’s subway line. …
I regularly ride the subway to get to ChinesePod headquarters, and on each ride I am subjected to the advertising played on those flat LCD monitors. One of the ads I see a lot is for Jacob’s Creek, an Australian wine. I noted that the Chinese name is 杰卡斯.
杰卡斯 is obviously a partial transliteration. 杰 is chosen for its sound and favorable meaning of “outstanding,” and 卡 and 斯, both chosen for their sounds, are commonly used in …
I found this 8-page Carrefour ad in my mailbox the other day, and I thought I’d scan it and share it. For those of you not in the know, Carrefour is a French supermarket chain that is super popular here in the PRC. It just recently opened at its new Zhongshan Park location in Shanghai. Anyway, I would think that this these pages might be very interesting for anyone interested in China, Chinese, or Shanghai.
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Three Guns
What would you expect a store called “Three Guns” (三枪) to sell? If you guessed clothing, you guessed right! Just in case there’s any confusion as to what the name of the shop refers to (could it be some kind of literary reference or something?), the logo clears that up.
Still unsatisfied, I went inside and talked to one of the employees. “Why would a clothing store call itself ‘Three Guns?’” I asked. The …
It seems hard to believe, but bulk pricing is hard to find in China. When I had only been in China for about a year, I would typically have conversations like this with supermarket clerks:
Me: How much for one?
Clerk: 5 rmb.
Me: OK, how about if I buy this 6-pack?
Clerk: (looking at me like I’m a little slow) 30 rmb.
Me: OK, then this whole case of 24?
Clerk: (wondering what’s wrong with me) 120 rmb. Like
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Oatmeal beverage
I still get a kick out of seeing what form Western products take in China. Sometimes it’s just a matter of checking out how the company chose to represent its product name in Chinese, but other times the trip across the Pacific also results in other unexpected changes. This is a perfect example. In China instant oatmeal is suddenly a drink? Bizarre.
Carl bought this stuff about a year ago, and it’s still sitting on top of …
Spicy Sprite
Why can’t Coca-Cola leave Sprite alone in China? Why does it keep coming up with freakish flavors? First Mint Sprite, and now this. “Sprite on Fire.” Chinese name: 火辣雪碧.
I took my first sip with great trepidation. It didn’t really seem any different from regular Sprite though. After a few more gulps, I was noticing a slight spicy sensation. It didn’t taste like cinnamon; it seemed to have some of that spicy effect that …
This Asian toothpaste (now called “Darlie”) has been brought up on the China blog scene before, but I’m revisiting it (prompted by Matt in Xi’an) because I recently found a picture of the old toothpaste clearly showing the old name and the new name, as well as the old logo and the new logo.
Yikes. That really is offensive.
From Toothpaste World:
Hong Kong’s Hazel & Hawley Chemical Co. would probably still be hawking Darkie toothpaste had the
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Without a doubt, food is one of the major perks of living in China. Not only do we get the most authentic Chinese flavors here, but we frequently get them cheap. In addition, a Westerner living in China will inevitably be exposed to all kinds of new and exotic foodstuffs completely unavailable back home. What the Westerner doesn’t expect is to discover those exotic foods produced by familiar American multinational corporations and displayed in Chinese convenience stores.
One such …
John has lived in China for
11.5
years. He is a linguist focused on SLA and tech.
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