A Chinese Hamster
trevorb
February 27, 2010, 08:50 PM posted in General DiscussionThe 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
trevorb
猪! 真奇怪。I guess this is because the original pet was a pig or something!
bababardwan
猪 in this context makes me think of another rodent...the guinea pig. Edit, this gets even more interesting because I've just looked up guinea pig and one translation is 天竺鼠。。note yet another zhu option here. ..and this pic of a "Zoo Zoo Hamster" could also pass for a guinea pig: http://www.thetoyzone.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/ZuZupets_921C/ZhuZhuPetsHamsterMr.Squiggles.jpg
BEBC
February 28, 2010, 07:50 PMIf it's a Siberian hamster, it's name is probably Basil :)
(Fawlty Towers)
trevorb
que?
你觉得猪猪是老鼠吗
curious how do you know if 老鼠 is a mouse or a rat? My dictionary seems to think its both, and though my Nan would have reacted the same to both they are quite different. As different as Basil noted poor old Manuel's hampster was...
BEBC
Well, a rat is bigger, has a long tail, and goes for the throat when cornered :) Seriously, I've no idea. You know the observation about ekimoes having umpteen words for different types of snow - well maybe the difference between rats and mice isn't significant for the chinese. Maybe they're just considered to be the same type of lovable cuddly vermin ??
trevorb
February 28, 2010, 10:29 PM猪! 真奇怪。I guess this is because the original pet was a pig or something!
trevorb
February 28, 2010, 10:33 PMque?
你觉得猪猪是老鼠吗
curious how do you know if 老鼠 is a mouse or a rat? My dictionary seems to think its both, and though my Nan would have reacted the same to both they are quite different. As different as Basil noted poor old Manuel's hampster was...
bodawei
March 02, 2010, 07:58 AMSpeaking of vermin (and dictionaries), or what people think of as vermin, I had a discussion yesterday about the lowly weasel. It's actually a mammal, but it seems to have a bad reputation. In Chinese, at least hereabouts, they are called 黄鼠狼 huángshǔláng - not the other expressions you might see in the dictionary 鼬鼠 yòushǔ and 黄鼬 huángyòu.
Here's something interesting - weasels are everywhere on the planet except Australia and Antarctica according to Wikipaedia. And it took an Australian to coin the term 'weasel words'.
chrka
February 28, 2010, 07:24 PMIt seems to be 猪 (pig), some googling came up with this wikipedia entry.