cursing in chinese = dumb idea

POSTED BY: ladyhawk3
UPDATED: Sunday, September 6, 2015 21:57
VIEWED: 47868
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LADYHAWK3

Thursday, February 25, 2010 12:23 AM

if Joss Whedon ever does another series, he doesn't have the characters curse in Chinese again. First of all the actors don't even try to get hit tones when speaking Chinese, so if you're a chinese person watching the show it literally sounds retarded.

BYTEMITE

Thursday, February 25, 2010 12:30 AM

According to the RP manual, most predominantly English speaking people in the future really only know how to SWEAR in Chinese... And not necessarily very well.

It could be just via degeneration and common use as slang from people who originally couldn't speak much Chinese in the first place has caused non-standard (incorrect) pronunciation to become widespread.

But, if you mean in the modern day, yeah, I hear it's pretty bad.

MINCINGBEAST

Thursday, February 25, 2010 12:34 AM

who's to say when gutter-chinese sounds like 500 years from now, if not joss whedon?

always sort of felt that the cursing-in-chinese thing was uncomfortably akin to white dudes with awkwardly shaped chinese pictograms tattooed on 'em, that they'd can't even read in the first place.

"dude, this tattoo, like, stands for spirit and duality and stuff."

and a chinese guy looks at it and recognizes that it says douche...

AURAPTOR

Thursday, February 25, 2010 2:26 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by ladyhawk3:
if Joss Whedon ever does another series, he doesn't have the characters curse in Chinese again. First of all the actors don't even try to get hit tones when speaking Chinese, so if you're a chinese person watching the show it literally sounds retarded.

I'm inclined to agree. If it takes too long to learn how speak the words / phrases properly, or darn near close enough, well.... what % of viewers would ever really know ?

I don't speak Chinese, and w/ out a proper primer on the show, it took me a while to figure out what was going on. While a novel idea, I think it sells the idea short if it's not done right.

Bones: "Don't 'rawr' her!"
Booth: "What? she'rawred' me first.

PIRATENEWS

Thursday, February 25, 2010 3:32 AM

But it IS creepy. Like the future is far more terrifying that were were led to believe. Too bad the future is now.

That's what Joss was doing... not trying to say Commie China is 'cool'. Perhaps that's why none were in the show? Maybe that's why the Chinese owner of Fox, Deng Wen Di Murdoch, banned FF before it's first epp?

In fact, Commie China has a recent history of cannibalism, during it's "Cultural Revolution". School teachers were considered especially tasty. Reavers were made by the jew banks in NY and UK who founded Communism with the British Fabian Socialists. Now the Chinese just eat babies, thanks to mandatory abortion ordered by sodomite jew Heinz "Henry" Kissenger Knight of the British Empire.

Gruesome discovery in China: Aborted baby as herbal soup
http://greenteachat.com/2009/05/17/baby-aborted-and-eaten-afterwards/
http://www.abortiontv.com/Glitch/AbortedBabiesSoldAsHealthFood.htm
http://www.weirdasianews.com/2007/04/02/cannibalism-in-china-acceptabl
e-if-for-health/

Reavers... jew banksters made them

"I am not a crook!"
-Old Dead Guy, a/k/a Tricky Dick, who opened the West to Commie Chinese invasion

ZEEK

Thursday, February 25, 2010 4:19 PM

I recently found out that Serenity wasn't even an actual spaceship. I mean wtf if they aren't going to make an actual ship that can travel through space then they shouldn't even make the show. Am I right?

TUJIAOZUO

Thursday, February 25, 2010 5:39 PM

I always liked the use of Mandarin in the show.

Sure, the cast butchered the pronunciations in Mandarin. But I think in that case it helped sell me the idea. Slang in all cultures is an ever changing aspect of the human vocabulary. It bastardizes words, adopts different definitions, alters spelling and can warp an original word's pronunciation. If you look up American slang from just fifty years ago, it's vastly different from what's being used now.

So to hear some horrific use of Mandarin set 500 years in the future feels logical to me. If the States joined with China to create a superpower, both countries languages could meld over time. If America was still a superpower, English could be more prominent for formal/business occasions whilst Mandarin would be for more personal aspects of life (as it's used for cursing or showing affection on the show). And Americans could be horrible at picking up the Mandarin, leading to more of a lax diction as time goes on.

That's just my theory though.

Your Indian Pirate Lord,
Ash

THESOMNAMBULIST

Thursday, February 25, 2010 5:53 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by ladyhawk3:
if Joss Whedon ever does another series, he doesn't have the characters curse in Chinese again. First of all the actors don't even try to get hit tones when speaking Chinese, so if you're a chinese person watching the show it literally sounds retarded.

Yes that's like those war films where the German officers speak to each other in English but with a German accent?!... Sometimes you just have to let things slide no?

I'm fairly certain that if you maintain your rigid stance on entertainment you'll probably ruin all TV for yourself.

THESCARREDMAN

Sunday, November 28, 2010 9:14 PM

I think we need to employ a little suspension of disbelief here. While it's true some show and fic fans obsess over the use of Mandarin in Firefly, it's really a great illustration of the 'Verse's polyglot nature. As for pronunciation and translation issues (who can forget Atherton Wing's mangling of the word 'go se'), as long as the meaning is revealed by context, who cares? Think about what English sounded like 500 years ago, forsooth. I'm just glad we can understand what the characters are saying, neh?

DREAMTROVE

Tuesday, December 21, 2010 11:11 PM

Oh come now, like no chinese film has ever has people speaking bad English in it?

Half my family is Chinese, and none of them were bothered by it. They commented on the actors ability or lack there of with the language, the idea is to present the impression of a culturally merged world, and it is similar to at of bladerunner.

Many remarked that the actors were not created equal, people thought Jayne did pretty well, etc.

But there was one complaint that drew Somme fire from my various family members: okay, given that River and Simon are vaguely Asiatic, like some sort of Slavic, still, where are the actual Chinese? There are many more Chinese than westernerks today, but how would a future culture evolve as a merger between east and west in which the result would be racially diverse, there are after all two black crew members, but there would be no actual chinese people left alive?

Also, another comment I got a lot was that the swearing was all derived from Beijing street slang, and while modern and legit, did not show a spectrum of the chinese language and would be meaningless to most Chinese. But this skips the point that it wasn't made for a chinese audience, it was made to create the impression of an east meets west world.

The answer to the missing asians is obvious, of course. Hollywood. There are precious few Asian actors available, the town is primarily made up of blacks and whites, with ther largest ethnic group being Jews, though i never did a head count to see who was jewish, I'm sure someone here has ;)

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