Wo Ai Zhong Guo

Shopping List

I am returning to the UK for Christmas as I nearly always do.  Of course many of my Chinese friends know about my plans and there are inevitably requests for items to buy which I usually politely refuse as it's my one chance to stock up on things that I myself need - shower gel, tea bags, Walkers cheese and onion crisps, that sort of thing.

But what surprises me always is the cost of some of the things I am asked to buy on behalf of girls who are either unemployed or earning a very modest salary.  Where does this money come from?

Today for example, a friend of a friend asked if I could buy a Louis Vuitton bag which apparently is 2000 rmb cheaper in London than it is in Shanghai.  That's right - not 2000 rmb but 2000 rmb CHEAPER!

This is a country where average incomes barely reach 100 US dollars a month and where university graduates can earn less than 300 dollars a month, but somehow, 1000 dollar luxury brand bags are common requests for today's fashion conscious young Chinese girls.

Don't get me wrong.  There are girls here earning good salaries and like their counterparts in Europe, they enjoy spending their money on quality products.  But I'm talking about girls who earn next to nothing yet have extremely expensive tastes in clothing and accessories.

It reminds me of the hilarious time in an upscale department store when a German guy was trying to explain to his unhappy young - and to be fair quite attractive Chinese girlfriend why he felt she did not need those US$500 pair of leather boots!  I literally followed the couple around the store to listen in on the discussion to see where it went and trying hard not to burst out laughing!

Fuck The Cabbage

There are literally hundreds of examples of poorly translated signs around China, but by far the most amusing is the confusion surrounding the translation of the word 干 (gan) which can mean "dry" or can also be a verb meaning "do", as in 你在干吗? meaning what are you doing?  In the same way as it works in English, "do" can mean to fuck as in "I'd really like to do her" and this is where we start to see amusing results, examples of which are given below.

(Image reproduced by kind permission from Craig)

(Image reproduced by kind permission from Xia Ming who has an entire set devoted to amusing signs).

For those who are interested there is a further discussion on this here.