Japanese Names

One problem I have been encountering quite often is Japanese names pronounced in Mandarin. In the U.S. Japanese names are all spelled out in English. However in Taiwan, the Japanese names are pronounced in Mandarin because they consist mainly of Chinese characters. Since I know Japanese people mostly by their romanized names, I often have conversations as follows:

"Michael, you must know the designs by 深澤直人 (Shen Ze Zhi Ren)"

"Uh, how to you say 深澤直人 in Japanese?"

"I dunno."

Conversations like these all require a Google search on my iphone to continue. Most of the times I actually do know the Japanese people in the conversations, just not their names in Chinese characters.

Note: 深澤直人 is Naoto Fukasawa, one of my favorite Japanese designers.

蕾絲邊

When Kelly McGillis came out of the closet recently, the newspapers in Taiwan used the term 蕾絲邊 in lieu of 女同性戀. I must admit that was the first time I ever heard the term; my Chinese is no longer up to date. A quick search on the internet revealed the term 蕾絲邊 originated with the deceased Taiwanese author 邱妙津 and first appeared in her novel 鱷魚手記 in 1994. I can't help but wonder why there is a need to invent a Chinese term based on the sound of an English word, in this case "lesbian", when there is an existing Chinese term already. It also seems strange that 蕾絲 is the phonetic translation of the English word "lace" but is now being used to refer to the sound of another English word: "les" in "lesbian". Furthermore, what does lace border or periphery of lace really mean anyway?

夯

These days one the hottest words in Taiwan is 夯. I can't quite decide whether I like the word or not, but I do find myself using it from time to time. The character 夯 is being used to represent "hot" because the pronunciation of the character in mandarin is the same as the Taiwanese pronunciation of the character 烘. My problem is the character 夯 does not mean hot but has multiple meanings that all deal with construction; this is quite obvious from the elements in the character: 大 (big) and 力 (force). According to a dictionary by 丁德先, Maria's grandfather, 夯 can also be a replacement for the character 笨, meaning stupid. So hot and stupid are now the same and I suppose that might actually be true some of the times.

Po

An article in today's 聯合報 has this headline: "有夠扯！全美核設施誤PO上網". I didn't know what "po" means. At first I thought "po" stands for pissed off, but that didn't make much sense with regards to the rest of the headline. Then I thought maybe "po" stands for petty officer. Quickly, I figured "po" must be one of those new "Chinese" words that I haven't learned yet.

It turns out "po" is not an acronym but a shorthand version of the English word "post". This is a strange way of modifying the English word. Instead of writing or saying "post online", the general public in Taiwan is now accustomed to using "po上網". I can't understand why people don't just use "po" as an acronym for "post online" and simply eliminate the words "上網".

In my research for the meaning of "po" I came across an alternative explanation. The Chinese term for "post online" can be "鋪上網". The pronunciation for "鋪" In Taiwanese is "po", therefore, "鋪上網" has become "po上網". This version is probably not the generally accepted meaning of "po" but is more fun to me.

粉

Recently, I am learning many new Chinese terms and one of them is 粉絲. I don't know who started using this term since I cannot seem to find its origin. 粉絲 is the phonetic translation of the English word "fans". Frankly I don't really understand this term at all.

First of all it isn't necessary to have this term at all since the Chinese language already has a term for fan, 迷. For instance, a basketball fan is a 籃球迷 and a fan of a movie star is a 影迷. This is unlike western words such as chocolate (巧克力) or coffee (咖啡) where there are no Chinese terms.

Second, 粉絲 is the phonetic translation of "fans" only in the plural condition. Therefore it simply doesn't make sense for an individual to be a 粉絲, because it really should be just 粉.

Maybe I should start a 粉 club (俱樂部) to promote the elimination of the term 粉絲.