Official Thread on Yao Ming's Summer Activities 2006

Ying Xiong, not yin xiong,

 

Man...nobody knows that Chinese stuff...at least Americans.

It is obvious that Shaq was trying to compliment Yao...he had no idea that in China the black bear meaning was a negative.

And then he was joking by making the retirement statement.

Give the guy a break. Unless you are from China you would think the black bear is one bad ass animal.

Who knows why the Chinese are so different when it comes to identifying animals as strong, weak or whatever. That is the issue, not Shaq's statement. If the same comment was made to media in the states, people would have viewed it as a compliment.

 

Who knows why the West is so different? Come on, stop it with the blatant "the American way is the only way" attitude that is so obnoxious everywhere else, even in your allied countries. The onus is on Shaq to understand the cultural connotations of what he's saying, not on the Chinese to think like Americans.

 

Look, I'm all for cultural sensitivity period, but this is BS. If you invite Shaq to your country, you want him there because he runs his yap. He can seem completely ignorant, but it's the force of his personality that makes him attractive and he doesn't take himself that seriously.

And your supposition that it's the onus of a foreigner to know what's offensive is just ridiculous, especially if you're being paid to "mak schau".

What's really funny about this is Yao's probably the last guy in the NBA Shaq would seriously criticize, and there's no way in hell he'd do it in China.

No, the West isn't superior, but if foreign cultures want to pay us to come over and we use our own metaphors and analogies - meaning no harm - then perhaps certain cultures should stay clear of NBA coaches, trainers, superstars, $160.00 tennies...

Oh, that's right China's doing the opposite...

 

I loathe the "American way is the only way" crap as much as you do, but I think you guys (i.e., my fellow Chinese posters) are unfairly judging Shaq. He was invited to visit China as a guest. He didn't go there to preach American democracy. The onus is not on Shaq to think and speak like Chinese, although it's beneficial to him to learn some culture and stuff. So do cut him some slack, better yet, give him a break.

On the "black bear" to "gou xiong" translation and interpretation, I think your guys (yeah, same people I was just referring to) have just created something out of nothing. The reason being:

1) Shaq merely said "bear", the literal translation into Chinese in pinying is "xiong". The word, as I explained in an earlier post, can be used in both commendatory and derogatory contexts.

2) If you read the actual article itself, Shaq immediately explained what he meant by associating Yao with "bear" -- strong and powerful. The TITAN interviewer tried to stir the pot by focusing on the negative usage.

3) The prefix "gou" attached to "xiong" is a kiddie play, only to further stigmatize the beautiful animal.

 

Yao hopeful
http://www.shanghaidaily.com/art/2006/08/19/289565/Yao_hopeful.htm

 

I didn't say the American way is the only way. But who would know that crap about the bear unless you were born and raised in China?

 

Could be. We know Boki still owed Yao $60 when he left for New Orleans. Yao is asking him to pay back or else ...

 

I beg to disagree. IMHO this man looks as much like Boki as you can get.

 

It looks exactly like Nachbar. I guess this confirms that all white people look the same to Asians.

 

Glad someone said it +1

 

BTW Pruyen yet another Chinese article that confirms Yao is 2.28m barefoot (= 7'5 3/4" or same height Carroll dawson claims to have measured Yao at barefoot)

So thanks for jumping all over me when I pointed out Yao is NOT actually 2.26m and that the discrepancy has nothing to do with shoes as yao is over 7'7" or over 2.31m with shoes on.

So take THAT.

 

Guys, this is not accurate, Black Bear is Hei Xiong in Chinese,
where Hei stands for black, and Xiong stands for bear in this
perticular word.

Whileas Gou Xiong if translated literally into English would
be *Dog-Bear*, it does have subjective implications with negative
meaning, sort of like the bear-market term in stock market.

So the TITAN interviewing guy did a bad job in translating black bear,
he should have said Hei Xiong which is a more accurate translation
of black-bear that also does not have any subjective implications.
The guy picked the wrong word.

 

This is the case of delicate differences, also google need to blur up this
kind of delicate differences between words so that your search will hit more
relevent web pages, which is what you want when doing google search
most of the time. Google is not about accuracy but about getting relevent
information.

Having said that, Gou Xiong actually does not have a strong negative
meaning by itself, as long as you don't use Hero (Ying Xiong) and Gou
Xiong in the same sentense and use Hero (Ying Xiong) to reference one
person and Gou Xiong to reference another person. Hero (Ying Xiong)
and Gou Xiong rhymes in Chinese, that is about the only reason they
are used togather for comparison purpose.

Other than that, Hei Xiong and Gou Xiong is basically inter-changeable
in most other cases.