Sunday, July 25, 2004

Think of him as the Big Watermelon

Check out Brendan O'Connor in the Sunday Independent of Ireland whose annoying free registration should not dissuade you from My name Big Watermelon. I like China. This girl Monica very fat:
TRADING with foreigners has always been riddled with potential Lost in Translation moments. There are apocryphal stories told at business school about how, for example, the Pepsi slogan "Come alive with the Pepsi Generation" when translated for Taiwan, actually meant "Pepsi will bring your ancestors back from the dead".
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But even grammatical and cultural differences don't explain what a new translation has done with Bill Clinton's My Life which shows what a great admirer Bill is of all things Chinese and particularly of the great Chairman Mao, with whose sayings Bill has, apparently, peppered his book. We all know a certain amount of dodgy translation is required when you're dealing with Bill. "I did not have sex with that woman" means "Well, maybe a bit of light oral relief but what's that between friends?" And "My wife is one of the most capable women I know," means "I'm scared as hell of her." But the pirate Mandarin version of Bill's memoirs, which has come on to the market in record speed, is even more full of crap than Bill is. It manages to promise "new extra material" despite being half the length of the original book and it shows a picture of a great man, with a huge interest in and love for China and all things Chinese.

You will be hard pushed to find Bill recounting in the English language version of the book how, as a young child, he said to an uncle of his, "Take me to China to play. China is a mysterious and unique place. I couldn't help but marvel at the great inventions of the Chinese."
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There is also a refreshing frankness about the Mandarin version. Bill says he really doesn't trust his own judgement with women, confiding that Monica Lewinsky was"very fat". He also tells his wife to "shut up" on one occasion, although on first meeting Hillary, Chinese Bill apparently thought, "she was as beautiful as a princess" and told her his name was "Big Watermelon".
The "Big Watermelon!" I think these folks are on to something!