[This is my Trail] A Chinese Joke: The Panda's Wish 熊猫的愿望

[Rachelle]

我知道熊猫的愿望。 他有两个愿望。 一个是去掉黑眼圈。 另一个是拍一张彩色照片!*

(Wo zhidao xiongmao de yuanwang. Ta you liang ge yuanwang. Yi ge shi qudiao hei yanquan. Ling yi ge shi pai yi zhang caise zhaopian.)

I know the panda's secret wish. He has two wishes. The first is to get rid of the black circles under his eyes. The other is to take a color photo!

Chinese people always love their xiongmao (literally: bear cat), which they refer to as "national treasures" and use as tools of diplomacy. Taiwan recently (in 2006) rejected China's gift of pandas--gasp!--calling them Trojan Pandas. Later, in a move that sums up my love of China, the government named those rejected pandas Tuantuan and Yuanyuan (团团 and 愿 愿 I'm guessing), which means something like "hope of unity.“**

Of course anyone who has met a Chinese tourist knows they also love to take their pictures! I considered dressing up as a Chinese tourist for Halloween...but I couldn't find a big enough camera or an obnoxious enough Hawaiian shirt. Haha. I guess that wouldn't go over so well here anyway...


*This joke/story comes from a lesson on ChinesePod. Definitely an amazing resource for anyone studying Chinese! Although, be warned, this one is from the Elementary Level. I will never make it to Advanced!!! You can get the podcasts for free from iTunes, but you have to pay to get vocab lists and other premium features on their website. I stole the picture from their website as well...

**Just to be clear, I love Chinese people, Chinese pandas, and China. No pandas were harmed in the writing of this blog post...

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Posted By Rachelle to This is my Trail at 10/29/2008 02:37:00 AM