Eating a whore on Royal Caribbean? (I) (Hilarious errors)

I got an email with a joke and some pictures in it. The writer of the joke claimed that he had got the pictures from a friend, who had taken them at the buffet on the Royal Caribbean.

It’s about some hilarious mistranslations of the cuisines. I have to say I’m not sure about the authenticity of these pictures. It could be real as the writer had claimed, or as you know what’s like with the virtual world, someone had just made it up to entertain us. Whatever it is, it is just too far-fetched and hilarious to be ignored. I’m picking out some of them here for you.

The first one is English Bacon, which is translated into 英語培根(ying yu3 pei2 gen) or英语培根as you see in the picture in simplified Chinese. Does it mean the beacon speaks English? In fact the right translation should be 英式培根(ying shi4 pei2 gen), which indicates the origin or the style of the beacon, but not the “language” of the beacon, because 英語 refers to the English language. I think the mistake was made by someone without much  knowledge about the Chinese language, who just resorted to an automatic language translator as many people do today.

For this one we have to pay more attention to the left half, Regular Milk, which is put as 規則牛奶(gui ze2 niu2 nai3)，or規則牛奶. Milk with regulations? 規則 means rules or regulations as in traffic regulations, 交通規則(jiao tong gui ze2). But it has many other meanings. Here it should be 一般牛奶(yi4 ban niu2 nai3), regular or normal milk, to be contrast to the Half &Half.

This one mixes the beef with a mess of unorganized message雜亂信號(za2 luan4 xin4 hao4). 醃牛肉(yan niu2 rou4)is enough for Corned beef. The usage of the adjective form 鹽醃的(yan2 yan de) is unnecessary and redundant. The punch line here is the latter part 雜亂信號, which is one of the meanings hash has that has nothing to do with food. Judging from the info I get in the dictionary, it should be 煎醃牛肉(jian yan niu2 rou4) or 牛肉燉菜(niu2 rou4 dun cai4), depending on the way it is cooked or the ingredients.

As to this one I’d like to start from the latter part “Bamboo Shot Salad,” which I doubt if the word “shot” is a misspelling of “shoot.” Bamboo shoot is 竹筍(zhu2 sun3). Bamboo shoot salad is竹筍沙拉(zhu2 sun3 sha la), and the word的(de) is unnecessary.

The former part “Ham” is 火腿(huo3 gui3) in Chinese. But again it is translated into something that has nothing to do with food. Instead, it is translated into 笨拙的演員(ben4 zhuo2 de yan3 yuan2), a clumsy actor. I checked the dictionary and found out the word ham could be used to refer to an actor or performer who overacts. But I believe in the dictionary the term火腿would be on top of the meanings. Did the one who put down the Chinese just go from bottom of the list with every word? That is a really unlikely and unusual practice. Or did he just find out that he’d had enough of those stupid or overacting actors and decide to eat them all?

(TO BE CONTINUED)

雜亂信號=杂乱信号

鹽醃的=盐腌的

牛肉燉菜=牛肉炖菜

竹筍=竹笋

笨拙的演員=笨拙的演员