Chinglish

I came across this funny article some time back in our local newspapers. It was about the experience of an expat lady from the West who took her car to a workshop for a check-up because she experienced difficulty in controlling her car.

After some time later, the mechanic who was a Chinese of Cantonese descend explained to her in the following manner :

Problem was that your tyres had no flower, so cannot eat the road!

To my English speaking fellow bloggers, perhaps you find that totally mind boggling! What did he mean by that? Well, in simple English it just meant that the tyres were worn-out hence poor grip on the road!

That much for flowers and eating! My wife Rock enjoys all these Chinese English Jokes and the word ‘Chinglish’ really originated from my neighbouring country Singapore! Sorry Doris! Rock used to laugh herself sick whenever we passed along this shop in Kuching, Sarawak which is known as East Malaysia The shop’s sign board was called ‘Human Trading’. What I guessed it really wanted to mean is Humane Trading which of course to an Englishman is already wierd!

As for me, my most unforggetably hilarious sign-board belonged to a car-wash shop in Bangkok. The name of this car-wash shop was “Puki Service” I will not explain this for the sake of the ladies blogger but if you are Malaysian or even understand the Malay Language you know what it means! That actually was the name of the owner of the car-wash by the way.

So keep smiling and looking around wherever you go for I am sure you will have your funny sign-boards too!

One Response to “Chinglish”

1. reddishice on January 28th, 2007 9:13 am

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