![]() ![]() This is one of my favorite Chinese terms due to its sheer poetic nature. So, what do you get when you mix a bear and a cat together? According to the Chinese, a panda. While both are still used today, “bear cat” is more common. The story goes, that when the first one of these animals was put on display at a zoo, nobody was sure which way to read its name. Chinese text can be read in many directions (top to bottom, left to right, right to left). This one can also be a “cat bear” depending on who you ask. Fortunately, this funny Chinese word just refers to an animal that moistens its food before eating, the raccoon. Washing Bear – 浣熊 (huànxióng)īears can be trained to do many things, and I suppose doing the laundry would be a hilarious (and inhumane) circus trick. But I guess because its eyes are flat on its face instead of towards the sides, in Chinese, the owl gets associated with predatory cats. While a chameleon might not be the size of a dragon, it certainly does change color, so this Chinese name is spot on. The English name for this lizard traces back to the Greek for “lion”, I personally think “dragon” is more apt and the Chinese language agrees. 企’s standalone meaning is “upright”, so the Chinese for penguin is just “upright goose”. The true translation is still worth a chortle though. ![]() So with the penguin’s snazzy get-up and all, you could be forgiven for translating its name as “business goose”. The modern Chinese word for “enterprise” (something an entrepreneur would start) is 企業 (qǐyè). To make this English translation of a Chinese word really funny we have to cheat a bit. Image created and owned by author with AI drawing tool ![]()
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