Wishing you “Pepsi” (Chop suey)

Many Taiwanese have been busy buying lottery tickets these days. The “big lottery” has accumulated a prize about NT1.5 billion dollars. The lottery dealers are smiling big.

My point here is not about the lottery, but how the word “lottery” is smartly translated. In Taiwan, we call it 樂透 (le4 tou4). 樂 (le4) means happy as in 快樂(kuai4 le4); 透(tou4) means thorough. If you hit the jackpot, you’ll be樂透, thoroughly happy. The term not only sounds similar to its English origin but carries a smart interpretation.

Another example is bully, which appeared frequently in the news of the past month. Like樂透, we use 霸凌 (ba4 ling2) to mimic the pronunciation and meaning. If we say someone is霸道(ba4 dao4), it means he’s overbearing. And we use 霸王(ba4 wang2) to call those supreme tyrant. And the word 凌(ling2) means bully as in 欺凌 (qi ling2)

When go shopping, you might spend a lot of money and feel like losing gallons of “blood.” That’s why we use 血拼(xie3 pin) for the word “shopping.” 血(xie3) is blood. If you do something with tooth and nail, we’ll say you’re 拼命(ping ming4)

How come the drink Pepsi has anything to do with your wishes to others? Let’s start with its counterpart, coca cola. We call the drink 可口可樂(ke3 kou3 ke3 le4), which makes it a very pleasant beverage. 可口 means delicious while 可樂, with the word 樂, you’ll associate it with happy like 樂透

What about Pepsi? It is translated as 百事可樂(bai3 shi4 ke3 le4). 百 means hundred, which is a lot.  事 is things. 百事 together could mean everything. Plus 可樂, 百事可樂 can be interpreted as “You’re happy with everything in your life.” There had been a while when some youngsters would use it as a wish for their peers. Like what Confucius had taught us, a name is very important. (必也正名乎bi4 ye3 zheng4 ming2 hu) No wonder these two brands have been so successful.

As to what I’m doing here now, running a blog, I think we have a smart translated name for that too. We call a blog 部落格(bu4 luo4 ge2). For 部落 means a tribe. Through your blog, you gather a tribe of people, who share common interests or ideas. They also share their lives and feelings like people in a tribe or a community do.

 As what is said in the commercial of the lottery, “你今天樂透了嗎*(ni3 jing tian le4 tou4 le ma)?” I hope you’re thoroughly happy today and I may as well stop here and go get some lottery. Perhaps I’ll be the one. Who knows?

*你今天樂透了嗎?  ”Did you get any lottery today?”

                 or “Are you happy today?”

            

樂透=乐透