Chinese marketing myths (中国市场的神话)

In People’s Square subway station there is a small ‘market’. The sign next to it promises a lot…

在人民广场地铁站下有一个小市场.旁边的标志上写了很多承诺…

…one of the shops sells sponge bread buns…they have a special smell and texture that makes them feel very realistic – but they are actually fake! Rubber bread buns!

其中一个商店有卖海绵小馒头面包…他们特别的味道和质地让他们看起来跟真的一样-可是他们真的是假的!橡皮小馒头面包!

“Everything you need…nothing you don’t?” I beg to differ….

‘都是你需要的…没有你不要的?’ 我有异议…

Burger King can’t fool me! (汉堡王耍不了我!)

So I saw this sign in the local Burger King…

我在本地的汉堡王看到这个标志…

It says “Come to BK and buy a drink, and you can get a Whopper for just 1rmb (£0.10p, 0.5rm, €0.10c, $0.14c)”.

上面写着’来汉堡王买任意中饮料,加一元(£0.10p, 0.5rm, €0.10c, $0.14c)得皇堡’.

BUT THEY CAN’T FOOL ME! Check out the date:

可是他们耍不了我!看一下日期:

April Fool’s Day! Or wait, is it April Fools’ Day? Either way…surely this can’t be true! Because I have no pride to Lose Weight Exercise/”>Lose Weight Exercise, I will go, check it out and report back…

4月愚人节!哦,等一下,是愚弄人的日子吗? 都一样…这一定不是真的!
因为我很自信我不会输,所以我会去探个究竟然后回来汇报…

The only thing I don’t miss about my colleague… (我唯独不想念她的是。。。）

One of the teachers at my school has been kidnapped! She’s gone to teach in another school for two weeks…and the impact it has had on our team morale is devastating.

我们学校的一个老师被绑架啦！ 她要在另外一个学校带两个星期。。。这给我们带来了灾难性的影响。

Most days begin and end in tears, arguments and fights. The soothing influence on the office atmosphere has been replaced with tension and anxiety.

每天都以眼泪争吵暴力开始和结束。我们的安稳日子被紧张和焦虑替代，我们被和谐了。

But every cloud has a silver lining, and one thing I will not miss about ‘B’ is her ASS. Look what she did to my cupcake last week!

塞翁失马，焉知非福，我唯独不想念的是她的屁股。 看她对我的小蛋糕做了什么！

It was almost completely squashed! Now imagine what would have happened to it if she wasn’t a hobbit…
它彻底被压扁了！如果他不是个霍比特人试想什么会发生在她身上。。。

I wanted to eat some popcorn… (我想吃一些爆米花…)

But smell was too small…and I’m not sure if I could eat a vat on my own.
可是快乐包太小了…可是我不确定我能不能自己吃掉一大桶.

My name is Oli, and I’m a bad friend. ( 我叫噢力，我不是一个好的朋友。)

I’m sorry, but I know i’m really bad at keeping in touch with my friends back in England.

很抱歉，我知道我没有很好地与我在英国的朋友们保持联系。

My leaving party (a year ago) was subtitled “Because we both know I won’t keep in touch…”, and as tongue-in-cheek as it should have been, in the year I’ve been away I’ve pretty much lived-up to the low, low expectations that people had of me.

我的告别派对（一年前）的标题是‘因为我们知道我们不会失去联络…’可是在过去的一年里，我没有做到大家对我的期望。

So last week, I got an email. It was from a company called ‘SeeFilmFirst’, a service that I took advantage of a couple of times when I used to live in London. The idea is that you join an email list, and film companies send you invitations to free film screenings in London.

所以上个星期，我收到一封邮件，是从一个叫‘看电影先’的公司发来的，我以前在伦敦时用过的一个服务。那是一个只要你加入这个电子邮件列表，电影公司就会发给你邀请函去看在伦敦的免费的电影。

So anyway, they were emailing because their company was expanding to Australia, and they wanted to find people who live in Australia to join their list to become ‘founder members’.

所以他们发了邮件给我，因为他们的公司拓展到了澳大利亚，他们想找一些住在澳洲的人加入他们的列表，成为他们的‘元老级成员’。

So I thought…”I know someone who lives in Australia! Zahra!!!!”

所以我想……‘我知道谁住在澳洲！Zahra!!!

I was so excited, because I could forward this email to Zahra (time taken: 4 seconds) and basically be ‘keeping in touch’ without really making much effort. Perfect, right?!

我特别兴奋，因为我可以转发这个邮件给Zahra(花4秒的时间)，不用花什么功夫就做到了‘保持联系’。很棒，对吧？！

So I send off the email and sit back, content with how I’d turned over a new leaf of good-friend-ness.

所以我发了邮件然后坐着，非常满意自己是如何转变成一个好的朋友的。

A couple of days later, she replied:

几天后，她回复了：

What the hell!!! I couldn’t believe it. Spammers have reached a new level of cheekiness! So her account has been hacked…and now they wait until people send her messages, and then reply with cheery emails about holidays and what-not.

他妈的！！我不敢相信这个！垃圾邮件真不要脸！她的账户已经被黑了…然后他们等着别人发信息给她，然后用愉快的口气回复一些关于度假或者别的什么。

I thought it was pretty funny (sorry Z!), and so logged on to MSN to tell Jme…it took slightly longer than usual to get online because of offline messages being delivered…and up pops:

我觉得这个很有趣（不好意思Z！）。所以我登陆到MSN去告诉Jme…这个比平时多花了一点点时间因为脱机的消息发送到了…并且弹出：

Shiiiiiiiiiiiit…You can’t trust anyone anymore!

混蛋…再也不能相信任何人！

Facebook’s new design brings amazing hidden feature (新的facebook设计带来了神奇的隐藏功能)

Lots of people have been impressed by Facebook’s new design, but surely nobody could have foreseen this fantastic hidden feature – Future messaging!

许多人欣赏新的facebook设计，但肯定没有人会料到“未来的信息”的神妙功能！

Culture wars! (文化争论)

I don’t know why I find it so funny, but the cancelled Oasis concert in Shanghai was sponsored by…Kappa.

我不知道为什么我觉得这个那么滑稽，被取消的Oasis上海演唱会是由Kappa赞助的。

I’d never put Kappa and Oasis together in my mind (for me, Kappa will always be happy hardcore raver uniform and not moody, rebellious, whining mancs), but it did remind me of some of the wars which helped to define our teenage years:

在我的脑子里从来没有把Kappa和Oasis放在一起过（对我来说Kappa永远都属于快乐的硬核电音爱好者而不是情绪化的叛逆的呻吟的曼彻斯特人），不过这倒让我想起了一些争论可以帮我们界定我们的青春期：

Blur v Oasis (Oasis won (sorry Damon))

Blur对Oasis (Oasis胜（不好意思Damon）)

SNES v Megadrive (SNES won)

超级任天堂 对世嘉游戏机 (超级任天堂 胜)

Moshers v Ravers (Double disqualification)

狂舞派 对 锐舞派 （都不合格）

Steve Davis v Stephen Hendry (Hendry won)

Steve Davis 对Stephen Hendry （Hendry 胜）

Kappa v Adidas (Adidas won)

Kappa 对 Adidas (Adidas 胜)

…did I forget any?

我还漏掉什么吗？

Thieves in Shanghai subway (上海地铁里的小偷)

There are loads of funny signs around China which are mostly mistranslations, but my personal favourites are those which could be interpreted two ways.
故事是这样的：上海有很多有趣的，会误导别人的指示牌，但是我最喜欢的是那些有双关意思的。

My all time favourite is this one, which I see every day on the door of the underground:
我最喜欢的是这个我每天在地铁的门上都能看到的这个：

Is it a notice about trapping your hand in the door, or a warning about potential pickpockets on the metro? You decide!
它是在提醒你小心手被门挤伤，还是在警告你地铁里可能有扒手？你来决定！

Barbie Shanghai – House of Barbie flagship store opening (上海芭比- 芭比之屋开业)

The House of Barbie, at 550 Central Huaihai Road, opened in Shanghai last night – a six-floor Barbie themed megastore which sells clothes (based on Barbie designs), toys (dolls etc), jewelry (for you and your plastic friend), skin-care products (plastic surgery?) and also includes a café and spa…Check out my exclusive pictures of China’s newest and pinkest store…

芭比之屋昨天晚上在550号淮海中路开业 – 一共有六层，卖的全是芭比类的衣服，玩具，装饰品和美容品。店里还有一个咖啡店和美容院。看一下我为你们拍得照片吧！

Got pink?
你也粉红吗?

Barbie dolls! Lots of them…
许多芭比娃娃！

Erm…more Barbie dolls…
又是芭比娃娃。。。

An original Vera Wang wedding dress…
原先的vera wang婚礼服…

…and an orginal Vera Wang Barbie doll wedding dress.
…还有原始的vera wang芭比娃娃婚礼服.

A confused Barbie shopper?
一位迷茫的芭比迷?

Cool atrium (if you like Barbie).
好酷的大堂

PUNK Barbie! Rock on!
朋克的芭比！

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Barbie MP3 player…
芭比mp3…

…open.
开了.

Ken! I’m sure there’s a Ryu and Ken joke here somewhere…
ken！我觉得这里肯定有一个ryu和ken的玩笑。。

WTF glass dog?
什么东东！ 玻璃狗？

There was a fashion show of suspiciously non-Barbie looking women.
他们举行了一个芭比时装表演，可是模特都不像芭比娃娃。。

Black Barbie! Kanye would be proud~
黑皮肤的芭比! kanye肯定会很骄傲。。

And finally…the hottest Barbie I saw…Princess of the Incas!
最后。。。。 我所看到最辣的芭比小妞!