For most people, there’s little concern if our chicken meat has some pork or say some beef mixed in. But for some groups of Asians that would be an entirely different matter. Most people are already aware that Indians of the Hindu faith do not eat beef. But there’s also an entire class of Chinese Buddhists who do not eat beef as well. This appears to be a common trait especially in Buddhists of Chinese descent who live in south Asia. My own mother (and her sisters) adhered to that practice living in Taiwan. While she insisted her kids eat beef (for the protein), she herself never touched it.
So imagine my surprise when I learned this week that Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) is selling Kentucky Grilled Chicken (KGC) that’s made with beef. While 8Asians has already complained about racial stereotyping in KGC commercials, this brings KFC down to a whole new level. Many unsuspecting Asians for whom eating beef is against their religion and beliefs, probably won’t realize they’re eating beef when they eat KFC’s new offering of chicken. My mother, when she was alive occasionally ate at KFC, and would be likely a victim of eating beef if she had the chance to try KGC.
For those that are concerned, KFC lists the ingredients of their products on their website. It turns out, KGC isn’t the only product with beef. The chicken pot pie also contains beef. So if you’re not eating beef, you may want to stay away from these chicken offerings at Kentucky Fried Chicken.
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Know how someone will look at you funny when you try a foreign language and you totally say something that you don’t have a clue about? Especially in Asian languages, where you could be throwing around phrases online translation software cannot translate correctly.
Such is the case with a Huffington Post political piece by the former ambassador to Morocco, Marc Ginsberg – Russia “Nyet!” and China “Bu Shi!” to Tougher Iran Sanctions. Truth be told, I didn’t even feel like reading the piece since the title bugged me so much; it was one of those moments that you feel like screaming, “what happened to your copy of Rosetta Stone?”
So here goes a little lesson in basic Mandarin:
不是 (bú shì) – is an interjection. Basically, bu is a negation of whatever the second character is describing. Usually, you answer a question with “bú shì,” like “Is the pencil hers?” And if you answer “bú shì” — “it isn’t.”
不要 (bú yào) – is more of a “don’t want”. So, in this case, if you say that you do not wish to have Iranian sanctions, then in an answer to the question, you would say: “bú yào.”
There are many different ways around this particular question itself as to how to answer it with a negation, but none of them start or end with “bú shì.” In fact, I feel bad for picking on Google itself since their translation system does actually tell you the correct usage of the words. The most interesting part of this is that I’m glad it wasn’t any more difficult term being translated since throwing out incorrect translations could sometimes lead to, you know, international incidents.
Lesson learned: “不是” 用的不对.
(h/t: Joz)
Shopping With GASP!
At the U.S-Mexico border, an intriguing anomaly has unfolded. Authorities report an almost ten-fold spike in arrests of illegal immigrants from China in the southern Arizona desert. The Border Patrol in the Tucson sector has caught at least 261 Chinese crossers this year, compared to an average of 32 during the past four years — keeping the sector’s only Mandarin-speaking agent, a former Mormon missionary in China, very busy.
Chinese immigrants belong to a rare category known as OTMs: Other than Mexicans. OTMs are big business for smuggling gangs. Compared to Mexicans who pay about $1,500, fees for Central Americans and South Americans reach $6,000 and Haitians pay from $10,000 – $20,000. But the Chinese pay the most of all — they often work off fees between $30,000 and $70,000 over the course of several years as indentured servants in sweatshops and kitchens of New York and other cities. So why the influx of Chinese illegals? Enforcement officials are not sure. See the full story for more details.
A loyal reader pointed us to this latest Sony commercial. In an ever-increasing field of HDTV manufacturers, Sony has been making the case that it’s worth buying their brand and claims, “You can’t fake Sony quality. It makes watching sports in HD better.”
Justin Timberlake chimes that the more sports you watch on a Sony, the better you get at sports (while playing a mean Forrest Gump-like match of table tennis with quarterback Payton Manning). A claim like this is actually somewhat plausible — especially watching individual sports like golf or tennis.
However, Manning then claims that watching HD on a Sony has also improved his Chinese in Chinese. Now unless Manning is watching a lot of Ni Hao, Kai-Lan, I have a hard time believing that a product from a Japanese consumer electronics manufacturer such as Sony will improve my Chinese. And Timberlake’s Chinese is just God awful – is he even trying? His feeble attempt at Chinese is almost as bad as Rosie O’Donnell’s (okay, maybe not that bad).
Chinese can be a difficult language to learn, especially given its tonal nature as well as learning Chinese characters. I have to imagine that had Manning and Timberlake claimed that watching a Sony would improve their linguistic abilities with another Indo-European language besides English, the commercial just wouldn’t be as funny.
I have to admit, I thought the commercial was funny. And Timberlake can be quite the comedian. But I have to wonder, are we going to see more Chinese and Chinese families being the comedic twist in commercials, television and movies as China and Chinese language grows in global prominence and popularity? If watching HDTV can improve my Chinese, I should be completely fluent by now! Personally, my favorite Sony Bravia TV ad was an ad of bouncing balls in San Francisco that was ironically only aired in Western Europe.
h/t: David
Because I love geeks and because I love geek humor even more, one of my favorite TV shows is The Big Bang Theory on CBS. Last night, Season 3 started with our scientist heroes (Sheldon, Leonard, Wolowitz, and Koothrappali) returning from a research expedition to the North Pole.
I’m really not writing about the storyline so much as I am about a specific line that was uttered by the character of Sheldon’s mother, played by funny lady Laurie Metcalf. I would have shared a link to the clip except CBS doesn’t put full episodes online and the scene isn’t one of the featured clips. At the risk of ruining the line for people who haven’t seen the episode, the episode progresses so that Sheldon and his mom are at the dinner table and Sheldon thanks his mom for carving a smiley face into his grilled cheese sandwich. Sheldon’s mom replies, “His eyes came out a little thin, but you can just pretend he’s Chinese.” The line, delivered perfectly by Laurie Metcalf, made me LOL and pause the TiVo so I could stop laughing before moving on. Seeing as the show is produced by Chuck Lorre & gang, I know that the humor is written specifically to push the envelope as far as possible. (Lorre’s vanity cards routinely refers to things which the CBS censors made them change or take out.)
Did you see the episode and catch this line? What did you think?
(Note: The video above is from an old episode from where Sheldon is learning Mandarin. Especially hilarious if you understand Mandarin, I think! Special props for the final scene where Sheldon uses his mangled Chinese on the guy in the Chinese restaurant, played by veteran actor James Hong, who I met last week! Mr. Hong told me he’s been working on “Kung Fu Panda (2): The Kaboom of Doom!“)
American food companies are blazing new trails in China — with flavors, according to this CBS News Report by Celia Hatton. I enjoyed this story because she showed us examples of foodstuffs that Chinese consumers can find which look familiar, but really are not.
Citing blueberry-flavored potato chips, strawberry and milk-flavored Cheetos and aloe juice from Minute Maid, Hatton says that it seems like every major U.S. food label, “is trying to bite into China’s $186 billion fast food and processed food industries by creating new products made just for Chinese taste buds.” Shaun Rein, managing director of China Market Research Group, said China is going to be the second-largest or largest consumer market in the world in the next five years. He said, “If American companies don’t figure out how to get it right in China, they’ll be missing out on what should be their major generator for growth.”
Other strange American-Chinese products? Tropicana cantaloupe juice, orange-flavored Chips Ahoy cookies, Chinese herbal medicine Wrigley’s gum.
But, she [Hatton] said, it’s Frito-Lay potato chips that really push the boundaries.
Taste tests, Hatton reported, revealed Chinese people didn’t like popular American flavors like sour cream and onion. So, to reach their audience, researchers developed new flavors inspired by traditional Chinese food, such as savory Sichuan spicy, sweet and sour tomato and sugary options like cucumber, lychee and mango.
Of course, we’ve discussed how popular American fast food chains like McDonald’s have different menus for different parts of the globe, so it shouldn’t surprise you that McDonald’s has a purple taro pie in China. But could you imagine getting your Starbucks coffee with jelly cubes in the bottom? How about getting spicy squid on a stick at KFC. Does that make it “Kentucky Fried Cuttlefish” instead of “Chicken?”
Hatton even cites toothpaste companies which cater to the Chinese market with flavors such pointing out lotus flower Crest and salty Colgate.
I will admit that I like my toothpaste minty and I hate the taste of taro, but beyond that, nothing in this report sounds TOO scary for me to try. In fact, I’m really tempted by all those flavors of chips. Are you tempted by these “Chinese” flavors? Do you think that any of them would work here in the States?
All I know is that most of these snack foods don’t remotely resemble the Chinese snacks I knew while I was growing up!
Brr, is it cold enough for you? (If you’re on the northeastern seaboard, that is.) Hopefully to warm you — or at least your ears — up, here is some new music from Anna Tsuchiya, Chemistry and Park Jung Ah. I also have an exclusive interview with Deanna Wong, Executive Director for the Toronto International Reel Asian Film Festival.
For comments, questions, suggestions, feedback and requests, leave a message on our newly revamped website or shoot me an email at christine at popcast88.com. We’ve also got some merchandise, so check out some of the stuff over at Zazzle! Tis the season of giving!
Again, if you like what you hear and would like to support the podcast, please show it by supporting the artists by buying their music via the links provided.
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Don’t get me wrong; Maggie Q is absolutely gorgeous and is a great actress, although I see her more often in American films than Asian ones in the more recent years, and has done more spokesperson and modeling lately. But trying to gain market share with Need For Speed: Undercover in Asia? Come on.
Here’s the thing: there are several franchises of racing games that dominate the racing markets in Asia — none of them owned by EA, as far as I can tell. If you’re going to break a market, the best way is to either take something that a hot racing series in Asia (Initial D) and play off that, or you become the publisher of an already hot racing title (Gran Turismo) and you kick it up a notch.
I think the biggest mistake made here by EA Asia head Jon Niermann is assuming that using American tactics of playing up a hot Asian star will actually sell the item in whatever Asian market they’re targeting. That’s not the case in China, since they’re numero uno in pirated goods and Maggie Q is more of a Chinese action star than Japanese so it’s not there either, although I’d assume that the big console gaming market would be in Japan. Why an American guy is heading an Asian operation isn’t making sense to me; it wouldn’t worry me if it weren’t for the fact that this guy just isn’t understanding the Asian gaming market.
Just my own thoughts, but every single racing game on the console side that has been super popular in Asia has always had their beginnings on a Japanese publisher: Ridge Racer and Gran Turismo come to mind since those are the ones that still hit it big in the Akihabara District.
Maggie Q might be enough to break into the video game market, but somehow I would put my money on other franchises before Need For Speed: Undercover. It’s not that it’s a bad franchise, but I think that it’d be better suited here in the United States and will actually perform better in sales here than in Asia regions.
American Chinese take-out is a luxury that most of us have had the chance to try. In fact it’s what most Americans look towards as a fun little night out. But no more!
Yes, Chinese takeout places around the nation are now depending on one single organization to dictate pricing : The Chinese Food Organization of America. While they have the supplies to provide the increased production of take-out foods, they’ve decided to limit the intake of won ton wrappers. This has caused pricing of Chinese takeout to soar above the usual prices.
It used to be that you could get more food than your whole family could eat for a Jackson. No more. Since the holding back of won ton wrappers, trading of the wrappers have pushed the price up beyond what the middle-class can afford. Many Americans are having to give up their duck sauce and soy sauce individual packages due to increases. In fact, restaurants are now forgoing single individual plastic packets and are charging you $5USD to for one dip of your chopsticks into a vat of soy sauce to drizzle on your food. Chopsticks are also now being made 75% the size of what the regular size used to be and charged at $1USD a pair.
As many people are still paying the increased pricing of General Tso’s Chicken and there are some that are combatting this tragic food event by introducing alternatives such as Mrs. Wong’s fried rice and a soy sauce substitute called Mr. Chan’s soy subbyTM (more fondly known by fans as SS). There is another movement that is gaining force to move takeout food arena to Japanese food, but it’s slow rolling and thought to cost a lot in development costs before we actually see progress in this area.
There are also isolated reports of food prices going up as waiters in a small town Chinese restaurant in Arkansas were contemplating showing up to work five minutes late on a Friday afternoon. Wall Street just couldn’t handle that, and won ton wrapper prices shot into an all-time high.
Lest we forget, there are forums popping up all over the Internet on how they were told one price over the phone when ordering but in the course of an hour, the total cost of the food went up by almost 20% due to the delivery boys having a slight air leak which drove delivery costs up and trickled down to the consumer.
While none of the above is true, it’s interesting how a few individuals can effect the economics of the masses. And if American-Chinese cuisine ever organizes? Look out. I for one will be giving up my addiction for takeout spring rolls.
Photo Credit: (MarkPritchard)
In films, there’s one thing that really bugs me.
It’s when you know what’s being said, but the subtitles say something totally different. I had noticed this when I was younger for films that even did actually subtitle. Most of the time, it was either a fully subtitled film, where the person doing the subbing was mediocre at best in English and the subs were all over the board, or you would get the occasional film that had some actual asians speaking their native tongue and subbed.
But as of late? The subbing has been much better, and I’d be curious as to if there are language experts being brought in now to actually help out with these or if it’s just the progression of films. Even in Rush Hours 2 and Lethal Weapon 4 there are a couple lines in there that don’t jive with the translations. Perhaps it’s a story flow issue, but I’m not so sure.
In any case, it’s definitely interesting to see more and more native tongues being used in many Hollywood films and subtitling making it a more realistic environment instead of watching dubs, which …. is just hair-pulling annoying.
Photo Credit: (Daniel Hughes)
Having seen this commercial quite a few times since CNBC plays it all the time, I realized one day actually paying attention to it that it makes one of the fatal mistakes that Hollywood and American television have been committing for years and have only recently started to do more corrections.
The whole mix of dialects. The African Amercian gentleman is speaking Mandarin. The chinese customer is speaking Cantonese. There are nine tones in Cantonese, and only four in Mandarin not to mention knowing one or the other doesn’t necessarily mean you understand it. The former is also a more guttural dialect that is prominent in Southern China in the Canton province. Mandarin on the other hand is the national language.
This little mistake isn’t such a huge deal, but it is something that they’ve done in many American Hong Kong films where they mix Taiwanese with Mandarin. While actors and actresses will probably speak what they are most comfortable with, it actually doesn’t make too much sense just as if you had someone speaking German Spanish talk to someone speaking French, even though they’re both Romanic languages.
Simple mistake, but it’s also interesting that people don’t make that distinction.
UPDATE: Updated to reflect some changes. In actuality, there are Taiwanese as secondary lines in American films, but currently the things that pop into my head are movies like Born to be King which is HK (thx Joz for joggling my head for me). Also, thx to Grace for pointing out Romanic languages. My bad. Made the correction.
Have you ever noticed how Americanized Chinese food, really isn’t so Chinese?
I’ve found that interestingly enough, the food is… well, coarsely made. I’m not really sure how else to put it, but a lot of it is bigger, the time it’s taken to create the taste isn’t there. Just in general, it’s like the difference between say a burger at a fast food restaurant versus one served at a sit-in restaurant.
But that’s not all. A lot of the foods just aren’t the same, perhaps because the audience differs. It reminds of this one time when I took two of my colleagues to dim sum. They were open to trying the different types of food but in the end they broke down and asked if I could order something they were more used to seeing. The waiter actually asked me in Mandarin if he should bring out the American menu. (Yes, there ARE two different types of menus). From a Cantonese perspective, I would imagine that some people would have trouble swallowing the thought of eating barbeque chicken feet, or thousand year old egg in congee.
There are two different types of fried rice for example. When ordered in a Chinese environment, usually the rice is white and there are usually more vegetables and seems a lot less salty. In more Americanized fried rice, there usually is the tint of soy sauce in the rice itself, pan seared, and a lot more meat and egg. They both taste great, but one differs from the other.
Sorry, hate to break it to those that love it, but there isn’t chop suey, crab rangoon, or even the favorite “fortune cookie“. And I know that last one breaks the heart of one of my good friends to now know that it’s not even Chinese.
Photo Credit: (Slice)
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