Fake Lu Xun Quotes on a Truck

So I was strolling down the street in Shanghai, and passed this big crane truck parked on the sidewalk:

Lu Xun-quoting Truck

Then also noticed that it had this “Lu Xun quote” on it (which is kinda unusual for a truck):

Lu Xun-quoting Truck

In Chinese text, that would be:

原本是可以赚钱的后来做的人多了,也就不赚钱了慢慢的变成为人民服务了。

*鲁迅 (not really)

In English, that would be:

Originally it made money, but then too many people started doing it. It slowly changed from making money to serving the people.

Pretty unusual quote for the side of a truck, right? Some kind of weird brag about service attitude and not caring about money?

Well, that’s not really a real Lu Xun quote. There’s a similar Lu Xun quote that goes like this:

希望是本无所谓有,无所谓无的。这正如地上的路;其实地上本没有路,走的人多了,也便成了路。

Translated to English (and somewhat simplified):

Hope is like a path in the countryside. Originally, there is nothing, but as people walk this way again and again, a path appears.

Lu Xun

Oh, and also the quote on the truck uses “de” wrong (“慢慢的” should be the adverbial “慢慢地”).

Yeah, Shanghai has some mean streets… fake Lu Xun quotes and bad grammar, right there on the sidewalk. Look out!

Share

John Pasden

John is a Shanghai-based linguist and entrepreneur, founder of AllSet Learning.

Leave a Reply