by mariaC » Sun Jan 01, 2012 1:15 pm
r.green, thanks for the info and the link.
「 流 芳 園 」 itself as a Chinese name for a Chinese garden without any reference to a particular deep meaning of a literature will be acceptable for most of Chinese people. However, when “The Huntington Library of California” has pointed out about its deep meaning arises from a particular literature, then the meaning of that literature must be examined and considered.
I received a forwarded email (written by Tim Nash, Victoria College Jersey).
The following is his email, “I find your "About ILVTOFU" article very interesting. It reminds me of a friend of mine who used to work for Wang Global, the electronics giant. In the late 1990s, when "customer care" became a buzz word for large corporations, Wang Global developed a worldwide customer care program from their US Headquarters. They spared no expense on the launch event in the UK and as the packed room waited with anticipation, the President bounded through the audience onto the stage and proudly announced "Welcome to Wang Care!" Instead of the rapturous applause he expected, the auditorium collapsed into hysterics because "Wang Care" sounded like "Wanker," which is an insult (meaning 'masturbator') in Britain - the very antithesis of what the President thought he was communicating.
I am intrigued to know who actually named the "China Garden" and whether they had any idea of the modern connotations of "Liu" and "Fang," let alone the context from which their literary illusion was taken. My starting assumption is that they are "ignorant" but thought they were being clever by pulling a couple of poetic sounding Chinese words from a dictionary.
Helping people of different cultures to understand how they might unintentionally cause offense is precisely the kind of task that interests me, because I think it requires a human broker. Google may soon come up with near perfect translation tools but technology cannot prevent people from falling into the very pitfalls you describe in your article. Accurate translation of the sentences is not the problem - accurate understanding of the connotations of the original is. That's the premise on which I am committed to trying to build my educational business.”