Example:
USA 美国 - 美 mean “beautiful” and 国 is “country”
So when my mom told me we were going to move to 美国, I, having never heard of anything about this country ever before, already had a positive impression of this “beautiful country”.
France 法国 - 法 is one of the characters in 法律, law, so my first impression was, that these people probably have very strict rules and are law abiders
Britain/UK 英国 - 英 is one of the characters in 英雄, hero, so I just imagine British people like to help the innocent (this was before I learned about British colonialism lol, but I guess the 英 character still sort of partly relevent, as in they view themselves as “hero”, aka: they interfere with other’s countries bussiness a lot)
Germany 德国 - 德 is one of the characters in 道德, morality, so I had a subconcious belief they were very moral people. I didn’t even know about the holocaust yet. 💀
Mexico 墨西哥 - 墨 is ink, 哥 is brother, so I though these are dark-skinned people that value brotherhood, masculinity.
South Korea 韩国 - 韩 sounds like 寒, so I just assumed it was a very cold country (isn’t it tho?) Oh BTW, I was in South Korea… in the airport waiting for a transfer flight, never actually entered the country for real, that was 15 years go, the closest I’ve ever been to South Korea. Wanna go there someday, see the snow (cuz its a 寒国 “cold country” remember xD)
Japan 日本 - 日 is the sun, so I thought it gets like very sunny or something
These are the few on the top of my head. You can mention any below and I can tell you what my “subconcious feel” about the name is.
If you can separate out the politics, America really is a beautiful country. So is China, I’ve been to both. Everyone should see both at least once.
I’ma hold off till yalls stop it with the outrageous political tourist vetting.
A couple points that media routinely skips right past because the current drama is great for clicks and views.
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The current “escalation” of immigration hostility is only slightly more aggressive than it’s always been. Not counting the performative stunts ICE is doing in cities and neighborhoods, those are also just isolated cases that most people will never see in person, even ones who live in areas that have news reports showing fires and riots and standoffs… these kinds of things are happening in areas like, one square block at the most. Not downplaying it, but I do want people to have an accurate perspective.
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And that percentage of bad cases and horror stories against tourists is very, very small to begin with. At least compared to the HUGE number of people flowing in and out of the country every hour. This is why the whole spectacle being played out by this administration is so ludicrous and pointless. More people were still deported under Biden. More people still stay in the country illegally just by overstaying their permits or travel visas. Most will never be caught or prosecuted.
I’m not a Trump fan. Any review of my socials will reveal some pretty ‘strident criticism’. Do you still recommend I chance losing 5k to 10k of bookings and weeks of leave on the chance I’ll get detained and deported?
I already cancelled my Hawaii trip in Feb and my trip to Miami in April.
Nah fam you should probably wait until Trump dies, which won’t be much longer.
My point was only that a lot of the news is a little hyperbolic, you should check other sources to see exactly what people in your situation are facing, I ain’t passing out financial or travel advice, just providing perspective.
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iirc japanese has entire vocabulary and mannerisms for formal vs casual settings. higher or lower ranking. and it shows in their culture.
it’s kind of mindblowing how language itself can shape culture, not just vice versa. the powerful even uses this to their advantage.
a language might be a tool we use, but it absolutely shapes the way we see the world itself to a significant degree, even to the point where speakers of different languages might disagree on basic physical facts
eg: if you ask an english speaker how many fingers they have - they’ll answer 10. but if you answer a polish speaker - they’ll answer 20. polish makes little linguistic distinction between fingers, and how we call them, foot fingers
this is one example of many. i find it deeply fascinating and quite scary. it feels weird to realise that my understanding of the world is broadened and structured better thanks to the fact i use a language to describe it, but there might be things i’ll never notice, or will always confuse, simply because the tool i use is not perfect, and yet, that is the basis through which i perceive the world
Japan 日本 - 日 is the sun
Makes sense, since Japan’s name in Japanese means “sun’s origin,” a reference to the fact that the sun rises there before anywhere else in Asia. What does 本 mean in this context?
I attempted to learn Mandarin in 2019, at first with Duolingo with an aim to find more robust resources along the way. I had to stop because I couldn’t distinguish among the characters. I’ve looked for resources for learning Mandarin in braille but can’t find any.
I really enjoyed what I did learn though. It’s such a laconic language, and I’ve nabbed some grammar here and there for one of my conlangs.
Mexico is actually right
This is also a huge problem when deciding how to write foreign names into Chinese: imagine the difference in public perspective when reading a news article about some country leader named “Prime Minister Sleepy Swamp Pit” vs “Prime Minister Strong Universe Zephyr” or whatever.
I Remember a decade ago i read a post on blogpost on exactly this
I wasted thirty minutes to search but I didn’t find it, but it was something like Michael Jackson was shocked to learn during his First tour in mainland china that the locals gave him the Hanzi 迈克尔·杰克逊 where the last character means “inferior” or something like that, instead in Taiwan the locals chose 麦可·杰克森 which has a better meaning.
When I studied Chinese our teachers basically took the first two letters of every student’s first & last names and associated it with pinyin & corresponding Chinese characters. So my Chinese name became Horse Angel.
The Netherlands (荷蘭), obviously is something with flowers. Google translate tells me 蘭 means “orchid”. Also the sound “Hèlán” is fairly close to how the natives pronounce “Nederland”.
In China I replied “New Zealand” when someone asked where I was from. Complete blank stare… A friend of mine said something like “Nova Zelandia” which was immediately understood
Interesting. In Japanese, we have the concept of ateji, where we just put Chinese characters for the sound so we just know not to take the meanings so literally. But we do tend to pick nice or neutral-sounding characters. i.e. we wouldn’t use characters like 死 or 糞 for the sound lol. This is the same for peoples’ names.
OP, what do the names for Brazil and Peru mean?
Most of those do make sense from a 19th century or older viewpoint, so I suspect that it’s not just a coincidence that those words were linked to those countries. If it was only one or a few with an ulterior meaning, then I could believe it to be a coincidence, but it’s most of them. I more believe that there were chinese word artists at work who looked for words with both a fitting meaning and the right sound.
When it comes to nature, the USA is a really beautiful country. France gave the world the Code Napoléon, which is one of the most influential evolutions in law systems. Britain’s success in it’s colonies and in the industrial revolution was very often based on the endeavours of individuals, ie heroes. Northern Germans are sticklers for following rules, politeness etc (which was back then viewed very positively by others, but has since become a bit tainted because an attitude of the law is the law will often lead to inhumanity). Mexico: not a clue. Korea: I just have vague guesses. Japan, when seen from northern China, is where the sun rises.
I mean the Mexico one doesn’t sound too terribly far off from reality lol. Neither does Britain, with the the last sentence especially.
In all seriousness, this is a very interesting post. It’s very cool to see what other languages call other countries and what it means.
Kind of ironic that we named the western countries with nice words and got invaded instead
美國 can be very 美, politics aside
Time Square and the surrounding area is cool, although it make me anxious as fuck since I’m an introvert and because 嗰時咁細個喺外國，英語當時亦唔係幾好, so I kinda have to stay very close to 父母 to feel safe, but its just amazing how so many people can fit in such a tiny island (Manhattan, that is)
唐人街 in 曼克頓 is a reminder that I’m not alone is this place, last I checked, there are 5 Million of us here, it’s always a good reality check when faced with the constant news of political problems and the government constantly threatening to deport people.
My mom always said “唔洗怕，如果係排華唔會淨係趕你一個人” (You won’t be the only one to be deported, we’d all be together) lmao
I remember 啱啱來到美國嗰時 we’d use the subway a lot, but when we cross from Booklyn, where we lived, to Manhattan, the subway goes above ground to cross the water separating the two 區 on a bridge. That was the coolest scenes, just crossing the bridge, looking outside of the window of the subway. This place is so big.
I remember in 廣州, 住喺嗰啲樓，the apartment unit was 好窄好邋遢
嗰時喺布碌崙租嘅個間單位 (its a townhouse in suburban area, not a apartment building)，雖然亦係覺得好窄，但係覺得好似比較新，現代，like… it’s just 睇落去好好多，睇落去順眼 know what I mean?
There are just so many cool places like there’s 好多公園 and 好多樹 where 廣州到冇咁多 greenery，空氣冇咁好
It really is a beautiful country, but then you have these politicians trying to ruin it… and also um… 你知啦… foreign policy… 👀
I really like the way you wrote this comment with the languages intermingled, with a touch of translation and the rest left to context.
That’s just an average Hongkonger message lol
Now do US actor names. Or Chinese first names. Or street names
Also, sometimes the characters just make for the sound, not the meaning. Like deguo for Germany or bali for Paris
I don’t even know much actor names.
But I think the first foreign name that comes to mind was 奧斑馬 (Obama) I don’t think those are the correct characters of the transliterated name, but that’s how I thought heard the adults said it, I think it was like 2012, right on election year and my mom was talking to like a friend/acquaintance, and Obama was talked about. But the 馬 immediately made imagine like: does this person like horse or like come from a family that has horses, then I think later I learned about presidents in school and learned the English version of Obama and I was like: oh it sounds the same as the 奧斑馬 the adults talked about, its the same guy right?
But does Obama like horses tho? 🤔 (I was so silly as a kid lol)
Street names, there is one memorable one in Philly Chinatown called Race St or 禮士街 on the sign (it’s in both languages on the street sign near the Chinatown Area).
In Cantonese, 禮士 sounds too close to 瀨屎 (to shit yourself) lmfao I always tell my dad “hey it’s the 瀨屎 street” and laugh when I see that street sign, yes I’m that immature (I mean I was still a minor when I was first in the Philly Chinatown, you know, jokes like these was nornal)
As for Chinese first names, yes I joked about my parents names a lot, but unfortunately I can’t share those jokes since its personal info.
I don’t really have memories of names of classmates when I was in school in China, like who cares about classmates. None of the nameswere memorable or that I can make a joke out of.
As a teen, I noticed that Xi Jinping, the Xi in Mandarin sounds too close to 屎 in Cantonese so me and my brother would just call him 屎精評 in Cantonese which sounds almost the same as Xi Jinping in Mandarin. 屎 for shit and 精 is a character in 妖精 monster, and 評 is commentary, so Xi Jinping is a monster that shits itself while public speaking. xD
Your comment reminded me of a road in a suburb in Ohio I once heard about called Sharts Road. For context, in American slang to shart is to fail to merely flatulate. Every once in a while I look up if that town ever noticed and changed it. And well…
Interesting, Japan does a similar thing I think and the US is 米国 meaning rice country. Which sort of makes sense since the US has always had a huge agricultural / grain surplus. I wonder if the japanese think / know we’re fat because of the name.
Also england/ UK is the same 英国 as above so maybe they learned about them from the Chinese whereas they independently learned about the US and gave it a different name.
I think and the US is 米国 meaning rice country.
Lmfao, pretty sure that’s also the Chinese Nationalists’ internet term for it
