This came across Jeff DeMarco's Facebook yesterday:

Xi Jinping commits another pronunciation gaffe.  Even if you don't know Mandarin, you can hear it clearly here because it is repeated over and over again.  Instead of saying "pīngpāng wàijiāo 乒乓外交" ("ping-pong diplomacy"), he says "bīngbāng wàijiāo 冰邦外交" ("ice states diplomacy"), which some wits are further distorting as "bīngbàng wàijiāo 冰棒外交" ("popsicle diplomacy"):

“冰邦”外交是什么鬼啦，🐻你就真的离开稿子就话都不会说了呗🤣#出洋相 #反正洋人听不懂 pic.twitter.com/hXXKbsYMTN

— 维尼大帝 (@realEmperorPooh) June 29, 2019

From a colleague (with Romanizations and translations added by VHM):

Two of Xi's recent báizì 白字 ("miswritten / mispronounced character") that the CCP propaganda machine tries awkwardly to cover up:

Reading “jīngzhàn xìnì 精湛细腻” ("consummately exquisite") as “jīng shén xìnì 精甚细腻" ("very refined and exquisite”).

Reading“shànyǎng 赡养” ("support; provide for") as “zhānyǎng 瞻仰” ("pay respect").

Xi has after all only xiǎoxué shuǐpíng wénhuà chéngdù 小学水平文化程度 ("primary school level of education"), as the late Li Rui 李锐 (1917-2019; Chinese historian and politician) had famously commented. Xi therefore shows traits of some deep inferiority complex.

Headline in the Washington Post (a few minutes ago):

A professor at China’s permier university questioned Xi Jinping. Then he was suspended.

Obligatory screenshot:

After initially declaring that I wouldn’t be posting about the phrase keep arms because I had nothing interesting to say about it, and then declaring that upon further reflection I did have something interesting to say, I’ve realized after drafting a post discussing the phrase that I was right the first time.

So when “Corpora and the Second Amendment: ‘keep arms’” doesn’t appear, that’s why.

Emma Knightley asks:

My background is that I grew up in Taiwan learning Traditional Chinese and now most of what I use in my professional life is in Simplified Chinese. How exactly should the character of hē, "to drink," be written?

I grew up learning that the character inside the bottom-right enclosure is 人. Now I see that it is mostly written as 匕. I don't know when this changed, and I don't think it's a matter of Traditional vs Simplified, either, as I see both versions in Traditional writing as well. This Wiktionary entry illustrates the confusion nicely. No one I know has noticed this change, which leads me to think that I'm either losing my mind or experiencing the Mandela Effect.

Is there a mistake here?

Sign in Beihai Municipality, Guangxi Province that is circulating on WeChat:

Photo taken in the reception area of a hospital:

(Source)

We haven't written about tattoo fiascos for awhile.  Here's a humdinger on Ariana Grande's left palm, in Japanese:

From an anonymous contributor in Taiwan:

The president of China recently gave a major address celebrating the 40th anniversary of China's "gǎigé kāifàng 改革开放" ("reform and opening-up"):

"Reading Xi’s Reform Anniversary Speech", by Qian Gang, China Media Project (12/18/18)

Unfortunately, during his speech Xi misread a number of literary expressions at key moments.

For the last few weeks, the New York Times has been running a hyped-up, gushing series of lengthy articles under the rubric "China rules". On a special section in the paper edition for Sunday, November 25, they printed this gigantic headline in Chinese characters — and made a colossal mistake: