A Chinese Hamster
The other day my niece turned up clutching her newest birthday present. I asked what it was and was proudly told it was a zoo zoo hamster. Now I'd heard of these before but this time I was shown the box.
So Zoo Zoo was actually written Zhu Zhu! I assume therefore this is possibly a pinyin word. If this is the case it really interested me for two reasons.
1) I have seen an awful lot of toys in Britain over the years made in china, pretty much everything!. I have never seen one that was actually marketed with a Chinese name.
2) I've seen this ignoring of the H before in the way every one in the office pronounces ShenZhen ( shenzen with the en's very much the en in "hen"). I don't bother to put people right and I suspect it is a well known phenomenon to Chinese speakers
So am I right is this a Chinese product that's made it here with a chinese name and if so which "zhu" is the name representing? possibly 侏?
Trevor
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