A Chinese version of the billboard is up at http://www.rockets.com... I think it is the best translation available. What do you guys think? By the way, this is my first posting in this great board... Chinese: ˜a‰ä˜ìˆê‹N ŠJ‘n‘åê–Ê English (roughly): Be with us to create a big scene. PS: Yao's hair is a little "flared up" in the Chinese version...
In my opinion, even though the director of marketing for the Rockets have taken windandsea's comments into consideration, but the "flared up" hair of Yao's is just too fake and too artificial... I guess the reason why they couldn't change Yao's hair in the English version is that those ones are already under production when windandsea posted the comments...
personally i think gong4-xiang1-shen4-ju3 (join us for our grand celebration) shin1 - tian1 - di4 (new heaven and earth) shin1 - ji4 - yuan2 (new era) shin1- shi4 ji4 (new century) ba4-yeh4 (grand conquest) feng1-gong1-wei3-yeh4 (grand achievement) cheng1-ba4 / cheng1-xiong2 (declare our mastery/dominance) would be a better translation than da4-chang3-mien4 (big scene/stage/commotion) and if we wanted to replicate the pun (with Ming's size and the rockets coming playoff accomplishments) it would probably involve something like: tai4-shan1-bei3-dou3 (Mount Tai and the North Star, i.e. things we all look up to) or xiong2-wei3 / xiong2-zhuang4 / hong2-wei3 (grand, magnificent, majestic) can't think of a precise translation of the pun right now, but suffice it to say, i think the translation is a bit off, and getting across the wrong message... but definitely, i'm certain there is a perfect translation out there... just need someone with a stronger background in Chinese than me... but who cares! if the rockets kick ass next year, the chinese press will hype it like mad and our chinese fan base will grow exponentially anyway, regardless of an ad campaign... go rockets!
First of all, I don't like that photo. Secondly, half of Ming's head is cut off in this picture. For Chinese, it's unpolite and unauspicious. Third, the translation is bad.
Man, you people are picky. Could the Rockets have developed a Chinese language marketing campaign that made all posters happy? No.
Great to hear all the comments on the Mandarin version of the billboards. All the comments about there being no perfect translation are absolutely correct -- we went through a lot of work to get what we thought was the best translation of the spirit of the idea. We worked with Berlitz to get the translation -- they came highly recommended by our contacts in the advertising industry who work on international accounts and have to make translations like this all the time. We did look just under 100 different translations before settling on this one. That's right, one 5-word headline with 100 different ways to translate it. So, while we fully realized we weren't going to be able to find one translation that everybody would agree was perfect, we feel pretty good about where we ended up. As for Ming's photo ... it's supposed to be the same photo that was used for the first board. The spiky hair tends to get smoothed over once the billboard company gets to work; it's hard to build an extension that takes all those little details into account. The extra redness in his face will get corrected by the time the boards go up, as well. We'll continue putting them up all this week, and the Mandarin versions could be up as early as Friday if the weather and printing gods cooperate. And for all of you Clutchcity denizens complaining about what a long, boring summer it's been ... check out the Comets, why dontcha? The playoffs start Thursday, with the Comets playing at home either Saturday or Sunday. Tim McDougall Vice President of Marketing Houston Rockets and Comets timm@rocketball.com
Thanks for all the work. I like it, as a Chinese, especially Yao MIng's deep eyes. It's always easier to criticise, I guess.
Thank you for the comments Tim. Reaching out directly to fans is what makes a sports franchise successful. Looking to hear more from you. Apu
To answer ROXTXIA, the English language Yao Ming boards should be going during the week. The Mandarin Yao Ming boards could go up at the very end of the week, but might not be up until the beginning of next week. The Mandarin Steve Francis and Mandarin Cuttino Mobley versions (for those of you who haven't seen them, they're up at rockets.com) will be going up about the same time. We also have kiosk posters at a lot of malls in the area -- most of them went up last week. Thought we'd sneak those out there on y'all. Thanks for the continued welcome, everyone. Tim McDougall
