Comments on: Neil Armstrong and Chinese Urinals

By: Peter

Peter — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 21:35:04 +0000

@FOARP

Shocked? Really? Did you try asking that in the US?

I’ve met supposedly “educated” people in the good ol’ US of A who don’t know who Yuri Gagarin was or that Canada is in fact not a US state!

The average Chinese has more things to worry about than remembring the name of a public-shy American astronaut from the 60’s who landed on the moon (IF in fact he did land on the moon and not on some Hollywood set in NASA’s back yards!)

By: Joel

Joel — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 18:12:17 +0000

oops, i messed up that link. anyway, our bathroom moon landing slogans didn’t have pictures, but it was still pretty funny for beginning language students because we could actually figure it out in the time it took to pee.

By: Joel

Joel — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 18:09:04 +0000

Ahaha. Tianjin had these, too: June’s slogan gets full marks

At the time I thought they were intentionally trying to be funny/allude to the moon landing, but now I’m not so sure.

By: Ji Village News

Ji Village News — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 01:14:53 +0000

Another common phrase pasted on top of urinals is 来也匆匆，去也充充, meaning “come in a rush, leave with a flush”. I saw this English translation at 武夷山, which I thought is really brilliant. It is a word play based on a pop song lyric in the 80s, 风雨兼程. One line says, 来也匆匆，去也匆匆，就这样风雨兼程.

By: GAC

GAC — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 16:07:39 +0000

@FOARP

Why would that be shocking? I’m sure a good number of Americans don’t know that, either.

By: FOARP

FOARP — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 15:52:12 +0000

Had the shock of my life when I discovered just how many ordinary Chinese folk don’t know who the first man on the moon was, probably a good 30-40% even in the cities.

By: Wesley

Wesley — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 08:57:47 +0000

I’ve seen that exact urinal verbiage somewhere, but on a totally generic looking black on white sign — I think it was Chengdu?

By: Tex

Tex — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 04:53:07 +0000

I had seen this before and thought about this concept, though my Chinese/English translation didn’t quite make the smooth transition. Good read.

By: GAC

GAC — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 01:47:37 +0000

Funny stuff. I believe the technical term for that is snowclone. Maybe the Chinese translation of that should be 一步. I know some people that might be surprised about Chinese slogans coming from an American hero (granted, given the accomplisment Neil Armstrong and the Apollo 11 crew should really be considered heroes to all humanity), but hey, doesn't surprise me.