Archive for
April 15th, 2006

   

Stories

What's in a name: Google in Chinese

A small portrait of the translator John Kennedy · 22:48 · East Asia

Not huge news, but Google's announcement this week of their official Chinese name, 谷歌 [Gu Ge, meaning valley song], has provoked a lot of discussion across Chinese blogs. While most people will likely continue using the particular pronounciation—there are several—of the English name they've grown most accustomed to, that one interpretation of the new moniker suggests something along the lines of rejoicing after a bumper harvest, in a culture that emphasizes subtlety many here say Google could have done better. Here are some snippets of conversation:

CNBruce

估计外国人对”谷”字认识觉得有那般”古”"中国”味吧，反正我想到了”绝情谷”什么的类似世外桃源的地方。
不过，也许是思维定式吧，”百度”没出名前还真不知道这词有啥价值~~
又不过，还是觉得有些不能这么容易接受，于是有人也恶搞了下：比如”股沟”、”蝈蝈”
Google，你应该在正式命名中文之前征求下大家的意见嘛
现在网友们只好马后炮了，NND

I guess for foreigners the ‘谷' character [phonetically pronounced ‘goo,' meaning valley or grain] has a bit of ‘古' [also ‘goo,' but meaning ancient] feeling to it, but it reminds me of someplace idyllic like Passionless Valley [a hidden valley ruled by villains in martial arts novelist Louis Cha's Return of the Condor Heroes].

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Don't go near the sea on Good Friday, and other Caribbean Easter traditions

Georgia Popplewell · 11:31 · Americas

The Easter Weekend in the Caribbean arrives at the height of the dry season, with gorgeous weather and Christian traditions conspiring to make it a time both solemn and fun-filled.

A popular Easter weekend activity is kite-flying, and a number of bloggers did just that on Good Friday. Barbados Free Press took the day off, leaving readers with a photo of a spectacular mad bull kite and a link to the lovely photo essay at JustBajan.com about the kite-flying festival at Vaucluse, St. Thomas a few years back. Among the impressive creations featured at that event were a massive mad bull emblazoned with the face of Osama Bin Laden and another featuring Barbadian Olympic sprinter Obadele Thompson.

binladen_madbull.jpg

Bin Laden ready for flight in Barbados. From JustBajan.com

Caribbean Free Radio took a less impressive ready-made kite out for a spin in the Queen's Park Savannah in Trinidad and, along with Nicholas Laughlin, made a failed attempt to find a Good Friday bobolee, an effigy of Judas Iscariot which is traditionally hung in a public place and beaten. The bobolee is not, however, the weirdest Caribbean Easter tradition: that distinction would have to belong to the Good Friday prohibition against sea-bathing, which Barbadian Campfyah recalled in her Good Friday post:

I vividly remember the no going to the Beach on Good Friday. Boy that was a definite for the villagers, don't dare be caught near the beach. Also the breaking a fresh egg out in the sun at pricesly midday. whatever shape the eggs form is your destiny for the coming year. Eg. a ship or anything resembling a boat means you going away.

For the record, entering in the sea on a Good Friday turns you into a fish. Simone Engeln noted that a version of this superstition also prevails in Belize, where people fear they'll turn into mermaids.
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