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Slogans with Chinese characteristicsPosted by Banyue on Monday, April 30, 2007 at 12:35 PM
 Slogan or poem? These days, there is little ideology in these slogans, but more and more ridiculous ones have appeared. For your entertainment, Danwei presents some of the more outrageous ones, although they do lose something in translation. 普及一胎，控制二胎，消灭三胎。 谁不实行计划生育，就叫他家破人亡。 武装抗税是非法行为。 谁烧山，谁坐牢！ 不怕死的就到十八里乡来作案！ 横卧铁轨，不死也要负上法律责任。 抢劫警车是违法的！ 光纤没铜，偷也没用。 违法越界观光，小心枪弹扫光。 集体上访违法、越级上访可耻！ Links and Sources
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Comments on Slogans with Chinese characteristics
Impressive
Calls to mind New York's "Don't even THINK of parking here!"
Or from a Sydney guitar shop: "Play Stairway -- get your elbows stapled together."
Be good, too, to separate the funny from the "funny in Chinglish translation". I would translate the fire one as "Light a fire here, and you'll go to jail." Not as funny as your faux-medieval trans, but closer to the Chinese.
I'd love to know the back story to the petitioning one...
Are there many carjackings of police vehicles in China?
I don't think the first slogan is translated correctly (it's mere literal translation, which, though funny, misses the real meaning of the Chinese slogan). What the original slogan means is "popularize the one-child-per-family phenomenon, control the two-children-per-family phenomenon, and exterminate the three-children-per-family phenomenon".
The "armed resistance to taxation" one has some new meaning with the middle and upper class grumbling about what they are getting for their tax dollars.
The picture of police officers getting jacked is pretty funny, I wonder if anyone has been fined/jailed for living after being run over by a train. Knowing China the surviving family gets hauled into court.
Quote:
[What the original slogan means is "popularize the one-child-per-family phenomenon, control the two-children-per-family phenomenon, and exterminate the three-children-per-family phenomenon". ]
AGREE!
adrfe and studentyoung: You're right, of course. The present version was my suggestion to Banyue; I tried to keep it slogan-like, and looking back, maybe 'eliminate' in place of 'exterminate' would have been better on balance.
Read it from somewhere (not sure if it was South China Morning Post) that a police car was ambushed somewhere off Guangxi.
Quote:
[I tried to keep it slogan-like, and looking back, maybe 'eliminate' in place of 'exterminate' would have been better on balance.]
Thank you, thank you so much for the kindness in your words, Joel! ：-）
I've seen a car-jacking of a police vehicle. At first I thought it was another policeman driving away with it (the policeman in question was busy with an accident involving a bus and a whole bunch of angry citizens) or maybe just a joke, but the others around me confirmed my suspicions: the car had been jacked.
Has anyone seen「打下來，墮下來，流下來，就是不能生下來！」? It's pretty scary.