Spring mud

November 25, 2018 @ 9:04 am · Filed by under Lost in translation, Metaphors

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Sign in a restroom at the Taipei Public Library:

biàn hòu suíshǒu chōng
chūnní liǎo wú hén

便後隨手沖
春泥了無痕

After relieving yourself, don't forget to flush,
So there will be nary a trace of "spring mud".

In the Confucius Temple in Tainan, these two lines are translated thus:

After then conveniently flushes,
spring mire has not had the mark.

As described in this article, 300,000 people, of whom about half are from overseas, visit the temple every year.  It seems that the foreigners don't grasp the euphemistic metaphor.

Incidentally, today's post is out of season (haiku poets would not be happy), but we did write about spring mud twice before in season:

Reading

[h.t. Timothy Clifford; thanks to Grace Wu and Melvin Lee]

November 25, 2018 @ 9:04 am · Filed by under Lost in translation, Metaphors


3 Comments

  1. Jonathan Smith said,

    November 25, 2018 @ 11:16 am

    From Su Shi "…春梦了无痕”

  2. Annie Gottlieb said,

    November 25, 2018 @ 11:46 am

    Free-associating: for some irrational reason this reminds me of a sign in a swimming pool dressing room in Germany in 1962.

    Lenk zum Abort deine Schritte
    Auch wenn's grade nicht pressiert,
    Sei so gut und tu' es bitte
    Eh's im Wasser dir passiert.

  3. Victor Mair said,

    November 25, 2018 @ 12:21 pm

    @Annie Gottlieb

    "Please pee in the pool" (8/4/14)

    http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=13679

    "Please micturate in the urinal" (4/9/15)

    http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=18681

    "Mind your manners at the urinal, won't you?" (11/16/15)

    http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=22273

    "You aim too please" (6/20/16)

    http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=26296

    "Signs from Kashgar to Delhi " (10/11/13)

    http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=7682

    "One small step for…" (6/4/09)

    http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=1479

    "Remembering Neil Armstrong and his 'one small step'" (8/26/12)

    http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=4144

    "One small step backwards" (10/2/06)

    http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003630.html

    "Armstrong's abbreviated article: notes from the expert" (10/3/06)

    http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003635.html

    "Everywhere, anywhere" (1/29/15)

    http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=17392

    "Pwimming poot" (8/29/11)

    http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=3396

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