Sometimes German Aesthetics Appeal To The Wrong Crowd

December 10, 2008 5:14 PM

The MaxPlanckForschung journal cover gets some extra attention when it tries to be 'cool' and get a Chinese tattoo. MaxPlanckForschung usually publishes fairly esoteric scientific papers, and for a special issue on China, it wanted a nice artistic cover with some Chinese writing on it... little did the editors know that they had just published an ad for a brothel. LOL.
posted by mhh5 (60 comments total)

Geil!
posted by chillmost at 5:19 PM on December 10, 2008

Was the brothel peer reviewed?
posted by klangklangston at 5:22 PM on December 10, 2008 [5 favorites]

A much less LOL-laden analysis of cover and the consequences on LanguageLog.
posted by ardgedee at 5:23 PM on December 10, 2008 [2 favorites]

Do not write LOL on the front of my Metafilter, please.
posted by Catfry at 5:40 PM on December 10, 2008 [34 favorites]

From the Hat's blog:

To honor the theme of the issue, the editors asked one of the journalists who worked for the magazine to find an elegant Chinese poem to grace the cover...

This is a rough translation of what the text says:

With high salaries, we have cordially invited for an extended series of matinées
KK and Jiamei as directors, who will personally lead jade-like girls in the spring of youth,
Beauties from the north who have a distinguished air of elegance and allure,
Young housewives having figures that will turn you on;
Their enchanting and coquettish performance will begin within the next few days.

I dunno. Sounds like poetry to me.
posted by lekvar at 5:45 PM on December 10, 2008 [1 favorite]

Wie sagt man "rotes Gesicht" auf Chinesisch?
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 5:46 PM on December 10, 2008

Jade-like? Green women are for Kirks. Plancks are all about the black bodies.
posted by qvantamon at 5:47 PM on December 10, 2008 [4 favorites]

Also, more like Max Prank, amirite?
posted by qvantamon at 5:49 PM on December 10, 2008 [4 favorites]

Is it just me or does "Illustrated Explanations of Strange Devices" sound even dirtier than what they had to begin with?
posted by Horace Rumpole at 5:54 PM on December 10, 2008 [2 favorites]

ok, the thing I don't get as a scientist myself: They couldn't ask a freaking chinese post-doc/research scientist?

I could throw a pipetter in my lab with my eyes closed and take out someone fluent in chinese, and percentage wise our lab isn't even all that heavy in chinese people compared to other labs. This had to be a joke someone was playing
posted by slapshot57 at 6:01 PM on December 10, 2008 [3 favorites]

The part about "jade girls" (玉女) is usually used to denote young virgins, I think. Jade-like in terms of "purity", as opposed to physically.
posted by destrius at 6:05 PM on December 10, 2008

LOLocaust
posted by Burhanistan at 6:13 PM on December 10, 2008

Do not write LOL on the front of my Metafilter, please.

It likewise offends my sensibilities.

*fans self delicately*
posted by six-or-six-thirty at 6:15 PM on December 10, 2008 [4 favorites]

destrius, given the nature of the ad, I'd say green is more credible than young virgin.
posted by qvantamon at 6:19 PM on December 10, 2008

"But publication of the journal caused some anger among touchier internet users in China"

Alas, won't someone think of the touchy internet users!?
posted by mannequito at 6:26 PM on December 10, 2008

qvantamon: destrius, given the nature of the ad, I'd say green is more credible than young virgin.

Well, you know.. they're "virgins" in the same way they're all young housewives.
posted by destrius at 6:29 PM on December 10, 2008

aah, but are they desperate ?
posted by infini at 6:39 PM on December 10, 2008

Alas, won't someone think of the touchy internet users!?

I prefer to think of the ones having a good laugh about it. I'm sure the snark is strong at Metafilter-equivalents in China right now.
posted by mediareport at 6:42 PM on December 10, 2008

That's a new take on knocking copy.
posted by Abiezer at 6:44 PM on December 10, 2008

This has somewhat happened to german mags before. Lufthansa had to pull back an issue of their in-flight magazine when they showed a bunch of heavily tattooed japanese men taking a bath. they turned out to be gangmembers and the tats were apparently offensive.
posted by krautland at 6:47 PM on December 10, 2008

ROR
posted by An Infinity Of Monkeys at 7:05 PM on December 10, 2008 [4 favorites]

Do not write LOL on the front of my Metafilter, please.

Do not write LOL ever, please.
posted by gman at 7:11 PM on December 10, 2008 [1 favorite]

LOL









(grins sheepishly)
posted by infini at 7:19 PM on December 10, 2008 [1 favorite]

ROR

It's not Japanese.
posted by Burhanistan at 7:20 PM on December 10, 2008 [1 favorite]

It's not Japanese.

And that's a pretty played-out non-joke anyhow.
posted by jessamyn at 7:22 PM on December 10, 2008 [1 favorite]

I agreed with the comment on languagelog: the correction is more offensive than the original cover because it confirms the editors' total disinterest in the content of the writing, and that they were exclusively interested in using Chinese characters for decorative value.
posted by serazin at 7:32 PM on December 10, 2008

The part about "jade girls" (玉女) is usually used to denote young virgins, I think. Jade-like in terms of "purity", as opposed to physically.

In Chinese symbolism, jade is commonly metaphorically associated with sexuality - something to do with its smoothness & warmth to the skin, apparently.

"Jade girls" should be as immediately blatant in meaning to a native speaker as, say, "foxy" or "hot" girls, without anybody needing to manually piece the metaphor together.
posted by UbuRoivas at 7:34 PM on December 10, 2008

LOL. Really?
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 7:41 PM on December 10, 2008

ROR

Yeesh. People are actually *favoriting* that shit?
posted by mediareport at 7:44 PM on December 10, 2008 [2 favorites]

Yu⁴: jade; beautiful; pure; handsome.

Can't easily find any decent online information on the symbolism because of a mountain of hippy-dippy crystal-loving misinformation making searches 99% noise, but it's worth noting that a jade stalk is a penis & a jade gate a vulva. For any more than that, I'd need to get home to my more scholarly books on Chinese symbolism.
posted by UbuRoivas at 7:47 PM on December 10, 2008

No more LOL.
posted by paisley henosis at 8:03 PM on December 10, 2008

All that can be said about LOL has been said so consider the offense in question as a test in willpower to not get caught up on it.
posted by Burhanistan at 8:05 PM on December 10, 2008

Perhaps they hired a sinusologist.
"But I'm an ear, nose and throat doctor!"
"We don't care, we were told to go get a sinologist to find a poem, and here's 5000 euros."
"Um ... well, it's out of my usual line of work, but I suppose ..."
posted by aeschenkarnos at 8:14 PM on December 10, 2008

One poster on LanguageLog said exactly what I want to say: '
'And, of course, it is a very low-class strip bar because the handwriting is very ugly.'
posted by of strange foe at 9:08 PM on December 10, 2008 [3 favorites]

Wow it's really sad that despite a "focus china" they had nothing they actually wanted to say in Chinese on the cover.
posted by Wood at 9:22 PM on December 10, 2008 [1 favorite]

Do not write LOL ever, please.

Yes, everyone knows the proper spelling is lulz.
posted by afu at 9:43 PM on December 10, 2008 [4 favorites]

I should have added a link to a blog of the Asian analog of Engrish.. where examples of Asian languages mis-use by Westerners are collected. Lulz!
posted by mhh5 at 10:46 PM on December 10, 2008

How silly. Everyone knows that physicists and biochemists are not interested in beautiful women.
posted by ikkyu2 at 12:00 AM on December 11, 2008

can I give a hearty har har har instead ? ;p

btw Ubu, did you get into my dad's books that I found between his mattress and bedframe when I was 9 years old as well?

the phoenix and the dragon it was called, and along with the jade nether regions was the culmination, known coyly as the "clouds and the rain" ;p
posted by infini at 1:34 AM on December 11, 2008

infini - i was the one who planted that book there! *cue creepy music*
posted by UbuRoivas at 2:01 AM on December 11, 2008

I never did get the whole 'sexy housewife' thing. What, is she going to hoover my cock?
posted by chuckdarwin at 3:22 AM on December 11, 2008

ubu: you don't need to cue the music, its already running its fingers up and down my spine reading your reply
posted by infini at 3:39 AM on December 11, 2008

wait... that's not how it sounds ;p


*&^%$$# textual limitations meh
posted by infini at 3:39 AM on December 11, 2008

Jade implies many things including purity, cleanliness, beauty, grace, and chastity. To say they are "jade girls" means they aren't just "hot" or "foxy" in our base Western way; they are also pure, virtuous, and intangibly beautiful. It's more like saying "hot virgins."
posted by Pollomacho at 4:57 AM on December 11, 2008

From the Hat's blog

Not my blog (I wish I had their traffic!... no I don't, then I'd have to pay for more bandwidth). I extend "language" in the direction of literature; they extend it in the direction of comics. If you run into a discussion of Mandelstam, that's the Hat; if it's about Zippy or Zits, it's the Log.
posted by languagehat at 8:38 AM on December 11, 2008

Also, to quote my comment at LL:

The fact that the Max Planck Institute treats Chinese as decoration rather than a language speaks volumes. "Well, we had some guy take a look at it and he said it looked pretty traditional…" Give me a break. Would they have published an "English issue" with a cover reading "GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS! Hot housewives for fun and frolic!!"? Was it really impossible for them to find someone who could actually read Chinese?
posted by languagehat at 8:39 AM on December 11, 2008

"Genuine jade is always cool to the touch; for this reason the skin of a beautiful woman is compared to it. It symbolises purity. 'Playing with jade' is a metaphor for sexual intercourse; 'handling jade' means cunnilingus. 'Jade sap' is a woman's saliva, 'jade fluid' is semen or vaginal secretions, the 'jade gate' or 'jade wall' is the vulva, 'jade stem' is the penis. A young girl has a 'jade bearing' and 'jade legs' and her breasts are as firm as 'warm jade'. All of these are still in current use; they are always complimentary and usually have a sexual connotation."

- Wolfram Eberhard: A Dictionary of Chinese Symbols - Hidden Symbols in Chinese Life and Thought
posted by UbuRoivas at 9:04 AM on December 11, 2008 [1 favorite]

(that was more in agreement with Pollomacho than disagreement)

also: clouds & rain - yes: "perhaps the most frequent image involving clouds is yun yu: "clouds & rain". This refers to sexual union, the clouds being the blending of male with femail, and rain the climax of the union".

hm, "cloud-fog is an enticingly full brassiere". what will they think of next?
posted by UbuRoivas at 9:10 AM on December 11, 2008

femail?!?
posted by UbuRoivas at 9:16 AM on December 11, 2008 [1 favorite]

slapshot57 : I could throw a pipetter in my lab with my eyes closed and take out someone fluent in chinese,

This leads me to believe that you have dangerously heavy or toxic pipettes, very weak lab-mates, a terrifyingly strong throwing arm, or perhaps some combination of the above. Either way, I would suggest you stop trying to find out what takes them out, it just seems needlessly mean. (That, or maybe you could film it. I sense a pretty good reality show in the making here.)
posted by quin at 9:43 AM on December 11, 2008

How silly. Everyone knows that physicists and biochemists are not interested in beautiful women.

Are you kidding? Entire fields of science are dedicated to the study of heavenly bodies.
posted by FatherDagon at 9:52 AM on December 11, 2008 [1 favorite]

only from afar, though.
posted by UbuRoivas at 9:54 AM on December 11, 2008 [2 favorites]

Yeah, it was a mistake. *shifts eyes* That’s what it was. *shifts eyes*

Hmm...and yet the term “jaded” in English.

Strange how things can be related but oddly different. Like we call shoes “shoes” but some people on a Tuesday will eat hot dogs and there’s people who have Jack Russel terriers that walk them on the “grass” in the “park” on leashes when clearly there’s no street parking and yet the roof will blow off .... but perhaps I digress.
posted by Smedleyman at 10:19 AM on December 11, 2008

chuckdarwin :

In a manner of speaking, yes.
posted by Arthur Dent at 2:01 PM on December 11, 2008

Heh. China deserves it. They needlessly plaster English on everything without giving half a shit whether it's right. It's decoration here.

I've seen t-shirts with a caption of nothing but consonants, hell, I've seen "qwerty" as a caption a few times too, and usually associated with a picture of a cute cat or something. Then, back in my English teaching days, there were the times when I would walk in on teachers leading 50 kindergarteners in repetitions of "The big cock is hungry" or "The little cock wants to play", cock meaning rooster here. There was the "CAUTION: GLASS IS TREMBLY" sign on a window in a new mall I was visiting. There was the infamous Dongda Anus Hospital that it took them 10 years to correct. The most surreal moment for me was when I got hired to translate some ad copy for a real estate firm - and then they went back and edited my English translations. I asked them for a copy of the finished brochure, and the editor in charge of the project told me her Hong Kong overlords had asked her to change some things, and it was gibberish again. Boss's own editing, and he's got very good English, apparently.

So sure, I'm not exactly unbiased, but I do like to see that carelessness and disregard of the language coming from the other side of the cultural divide for once, and I hope it happens more often. It's about time the Chinese populace got their own version of Chinglish to laugh at, and that I have some ammunition with my clients to say, "Look, this is what will happen to you if you're not careful with your language."
posted by saysthis at 10:34 PM on December 11, 2008 [1 favorite]

yes but:

I change my english here in Singapore depending on the requirement into "Singlish"

and here its not just the words its also the intonation, cadence and emphasis that changes

and in India, depending on the need, into "Hinglish"

ditto

what to do, we are like that only...
posted by infini at 1:56 AM on December 12, 2008

saythis, think about it though. They try and acommodate the west. How many (non-Chinese) restaurants have you been to in the US or UK that have a Chinese menu? How many times are safety instructions in a public place written in Chinese in the West? You see it more and more and god knows (or more accurately, someone who reads Chinese knows) if what's in those instructions is the Chairman's Chinese. So while I'm not above a little chuckle when I see signs reading "Be Dressed In Rags - Don't Come In" or "Hubei Family and Abortion Hospital," I don't begrudge them for at least trying, even if it isn't the proper English.

What I do find aggrivating is the Chinese use of English characters or words that have no meaning at all or vice versa, simply to give a product (or buildign development) a certain air of foreign mystery or credence. You see it on te billboards for new luxury villa developments in the suburbs that won't ever be filled or finished, there will just be a word like "Sports" I saw up north of BJ one time. What Sports had to do with some shoddy villas I don't know. But we do it all the time here too. You see some herbal tea or cheesy piece of furniture with random Chinese characters on it to make it somehow Chinese, when it was really pressed out in a crap factory (possibly in China). I can just imagine some assembly line in the Pearl River Delta where a woman turns to her coworker on their break after 3 shifts in a row and asks, "do you think the Americans know that this chair says 'boobs' on it?"

"I don't know, all I know is they give me sixteen cents for 100 I glue together and that's good money, so I don't ask questions!"
posted by Pollomacho at 4:25 AM on December 12, 2008 [1 favorite]

Their Own Worst Enemy

After two years in China, there are still so many things I can’t figure out. Is it really true, as is always rumored but never proved, that the Chinese military runs most of the pirate-DVD business—which would in turn explain why that business is so difficult to control? At what point in Chinese culture did it become mandatory for business and political leaders to dye away every gray hair, so that gatherings of powerful men in their 50s and up are seas of perfect pitch-black heads? How can corporations and government agencies invest huge sums producing annual reports and brochures and advertisements in English, yet manifestly never bother to ask a native English speaker whether they’ve made some howler-style mistake? (Last year, a museum in Shanghai put on a highly publicized exhibit of photos from the Three Gorges Dam area. In front, elegant banners said in six-foot-high letters The Three Georges.) Why do Beijing taxi drivers almost never have maps—and almost always have their own crates or buckets filling the trunks of their cars when they pick up baggage-laden passengers at the airport? I could go on.
posted by infini at 9:35 AM on December 12, 2008

How the hell does a typical whiny Asia newbie rant make it into the fucking Atlantic? Goddamn it, I give up.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 3:01 PM on December 12, 2008 [2 favorites]

wait, there's more

the very next article in the Atlantic startles me in its irony
posted by infini at 3:52 PM on December 12, 2008