THE Lowly Peon

found in translation 
18 February 2009, 12:03pm

i just watched lost in translation the other day. i like that movie. but it has nothing to do with this brief and pointless post.

some things in chinese are simply far more brilliant than the english counterpart. a lot of it has to do with the characters. for example, the character for big (?, 'da') looks like a person spreading his arms and legs the way a five year old would if he were saying how much he loved his mommy (thiiiis much!). or peace (?, 'an') is a woman under a roof, because during peacetime, you leave the battlefield and go home to your woman.

but there's one other one that is just too perfect to pass up.

i bought some pistachios the other day, and a bottle of wine, because work has been a drag, as has the weather, and i needed a bit of a pick me up. so, i watched lost in translation and ate my pistachios and drank my wine. and i was happy.

pistachio, in chinese, is 开心果 (kaxin guo). directly translated, "happy fruit".

right on, china. a happy fruit indeed.