Baidu's ten mythical creatures
simonpettersson
December 07, 2009, 12:28 PM posted in General DiscussionThis slays me. It is, in fact, totally awesome. It's a Chinese Internet meme, except that instead of being a stupid waste of time like most memes, it's intelligent, funny, subtle and political.
changye
December 07, 2009, 01:05 PM我以前网上看过“草泥马”，它滑稽的表情令人印象深刻。幸运的是凤凰麒麟等中国传统吉祥动物都落选了！
pretzellogic
December 07, 2009, 01:38 PMsimonpettersson, I didn't even know what a meme was until now. I guess you've found the Chinese equivalent of George Carlin's 7 dirty words you can't say on Television. And to think I just learned what the 7 words actually are....
changye
December 07, 2009, 01:43 PM都是同音词惹得祸！
changye
December 07, 2009, 02:00 PM要说“拟子”(meme)，我很久以前买过一本英国学者里查德·道金斯（Richard Dawkins）写的书《自私的基因》（The Selfish Gene），可是至今还没读完呢。
pretzellogic
December 07, 2009, 02:04 PMChangye, it's unfortunate that Google Translate doesn't provide the pinyin version of a translation, only the full blown translation. I could get to "Dōu shì tóng blah blah blah de blah"
changye
December 07, 2009, 02:10 PMHi pretzellogic
(它们)都是同音词惹得祸！
They are troubles caused by "phomophones".
pretzellogic
December 07, 2009, 02:17 PMphomophones? Google translate said they were "homophones". I guess I should stop trusting Google translate.
changye
December 07, 2009, 02:26 PM哎呀，我写错了！它不是 phomophones 而是 homophones。 就像你说的那样，反正谷歌翻译不太可靠。话虽这么说，日语和朝鲜/韩国语之间的自动翻译比较可靠，因为这两个语言在语法和词汇上有很多共同点。
simonpettersson
December 07, 2009, 12:45 PMAnd there's a song!