Let's go to the toilet for dinner tonight
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Considering all of the unsavory, scatalogical Chinglish vocabulary that we have been examining lately, I find it particularly amusing that a very successful chain of restaurants in Taiwan has chosen to call itself Modern Toilet. Here is a novel theme restaurant if ever there was one.
The originator of the chain apparently got his inspiration from reading Japanese manga, and the Chinese name of Modern Toilet, BIAN4SUO3 便所, is actually a borrowing from Japanese BENJO 便所. That literally means "convenience place," hearkening back to our earlier discussions of the greater and lesser varieties of BIAN4 便.
Consequently, if one wishes to understand fully all of the appurtenances and symbolism of Modern Toilet, it would be best for one first to make a careful study of Japanese toilets. Here are a couple of sites that will help you familiarize yourself with the fixtures and dishware should you ever find yourself in a Modern Toilet restaurant are here and here: the Wikipedia article, and a set of instructions for traditional squat toilets that should be especially useful for female readers.
Before proceeding further, you should take a virtual tour of some of the Modern Toilet restaurants. Feast your eyes…
For those of you who have not travelled much in East Asia (including those who have been to East Asia but haven't ventured outside of Western-style hotels), that fixture they serve their sundaes in is a miniature squat toilet.
Never mind what the ice cream is shaped to resemble.
I haven't yet had the opportunity to eat in a Modern Toilet myself, but a trip to their home page affords a good introduction. Note that there are four versions — Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Japanese, and English.
Perhaps the most remarkable thing about Modern Toilet, in the context of our ongoing discussions concerning Chinglish, is that the English translation of the menu is virtually error free! (I noted only a couple of minor flaws.)
It is evident that the owners invested a lot time and also probably money in getting their English translations right. It is virtually certain that they asked (or hired) a native speaker of English to look over their menu before going public with it. Despite the dubious decor, this is one classy restaurant!
I suspect that the biggest problem in going to Modern Toilet would be figuring out how to sustain a coprological conversation while maintaining one's appetite. It might be better just to eat in silence and not think too much about the ambiance.
Bob O'H said,
August 8, 2008 @ 8:16 am
Has no one reported on the smallest room in the restaurant?
Mark Liberman said,
August 8, 2008 @ 9:41 am
Bob O'H: Has no one reported on the smallest room in the restaurant?
Are you wondering whether the "conveniences" are in the shape of table settings or other conventional food-service objects? I wondered that myself, but I concluded that it's unlikely, since if it were true, some of those who have written about these restaurants would have commented on it.
Mark P said,
August 8, 2008 @ 11:32 am
This seems exactly the situation in which a very good translation of menu items would be necessary.
Sili said,
August 8, 2008 @ 11:34 am
Oddly enough this reminds me that The Holy Cow and the Abominable Pig didn't at all touch upon coprophagia.
I'm a bit dissappointed at the lack of bedpans and urinebottles – I'd have thought the latter'd make for great carafes.
Bill Poser said,
August 8, 2008 @ 12:00 pm
Personally, I think this is disgusting. It also reflects a bourgeois disregard for the very real problems of sanitation faced by poor people in China and elsewhere in the world.
Rob Gunningham said,
August 8, 2008 @ 1:48 pm
a bourgeois disregard for the very real problems of sanitation
Wasn't it in The Discreet Charm of the Bougeoisie that Bunuel had, as Mark suggests, a party of friends sitting on toilets chatting around a table, and then a man excuses himself and goes to eat a quick meal in the privacy of the smallest room?
Bill Poser said,
August 8, 2008 @ 2:56 pm
That vaguely rings a bell, but I' not sure. I saw it only once, over thirty years ago.
KYL said,
August 8, 2008 @ 4:33 pm
Does BENJO 便所 also literally mean "convenience place" in Japanese?
Dahnielson » Modern Toilets said,
August 8, 2008 @ 6:44 pm
[…] Language Log blev jag i dag varse den Taiwanesiska konceptresturangkedjan Modern Toilet, vars inredning och meny finns att beskåda […]
felix culpa said,
August 8, 2008 @ 7:19 pm
Rob is right.
And the food was wolfed down furtively in the loo.
Discreet embarrassment attended the trip (IIRC).
anonymous said,
August 8, 2008 @ 11:08 pm
Dude. 便所 is precisely how you say bathroom in Taiwanese. There are many different ways to say it in Mandarin but in Taiwanese it is pretty much 便所 and nothing else.
The term was probably was borrowed from Japanese a long time ago, as a lot of Taiwanese is, but I doubt the owner of the restaurant considered or even knew that choosing the name of the place.
Peter K. Austin said,
August 9, 2008 @ 7:06 am
KYL asks: "Does BENJO 便所 also literally mean "convenience place" in Japanese?"
Yes, it does.
It is only one of the many ways to refer to that place in Japanese, and probably not one of the most polite. Others commonly seen in restaurants include (o)toire (from English 'toilet' with "honorific" prefix o-) or (o)tearai, literally 'hand washing' (which also has a correspondent Chinese, eg. Cantonese sai2 sau2 gaan1 'hand wash place').
Chinese also borrowed English W.C. as 衛生間 Cantonese wai6 sang1 gaan1, Mandarin wei4 sheng1 jian1
Alan Shaw said,
September 26, 2008 @ 11:56 pm
@Peter K. Austin: In what way is 衛生間 "hygiene room" a borrowing of W.C. "water closet"?
Micah said,
November 14, 2008 @ 12:08 am
weishengjian and WC are both used in mainland china. As alan said, the former simply means "hygeine(ic) room" and they pronounce WC the same as we would in English (Most Americans don't know "Water Closet")