Monday, September 22, 2008

Chinese Black Humor

中国人在食品中完成了化学扫盲:从大米里我们认识了石蜡,从火腿里我们认识了敌敌畏,从咸鸭蛋、辣椒酱里我们认识了苏丹红,从火锅里我们认识了福尔马林, 从银耳、蜜枣里我们认识了硫磺,木耳中认识了硫酸铜,今天三鹿又让同胞知道了三聚氰胺的化学作用。

How do Chinese learn chemistry? We study our food:
We learn to recognize paraffin in rice,
to recognize DDVP (dichlorvos - an insecticide) in ham,
to recognize Sudan Red in salted duck eggs and hot pepper sauce,
to recognize formaldehyde in hot pot,
to recognize sulphur in tremella (yin er) and candied dates,
to recognize copper sulphate in edible fungus (mu er).
Today we learn the chemical effect of melamine from Sanlu milk.

外国人喝牛奶结实了,中国人喝牛奶结石了

Foreigners drink cow milk to be strong;
Chinese drink cow milk to have stones.

日本人口号: 一天一杯牛奶,振兴一个民族;
中国人口号:一天一杯牛奶,震惊一个民族!

Japanese slogan: a cup of milk a day, invigorate a nation;
Chinese slogan: a cup of milk a day, eviscerate a nation!

(Note: I'm not satisfied with the last translation. Improvement anyone?)

4 comments:

alfaeco said...

How do you censorship black humor? ;-)

Xujun said...

That would be hard. :-)

Craig said...

Japanese slogan: a cup of milk a day vigorously develops a nation.
Chinese slogan: a cup of milk a day shocks a nation.

Xujun said...

Not bad, Craig. Would be even better if the verbs in the two lines rhyme, or have comparable phoneme, like in the Chinese lines.