288 dtg (rated "g" for general audiences)

I really don't know (wo zhende bu zhidao), but I am inclined to believe that the character for electricity (dian), must be one of the more recent additions to the ZhongGuo HanZi TiShuGuan (Chinese Character Library). Regardless, it provides a useful insight into how the Chinese language uses characters that are very old to name modern things. So, you can have a dian nao (electronic brain - computer), a dian shan (electronic wing - fan) and a dian shi (electronic "look closely at something" - television) amongst others.

It got me thinking about the way in which things (dongxi) are named, and whether the job of learning Chinese could be made that much easier if you looked closely at the individual characters that make up a name (since the name of something can often be two or three characters long). Not surprisingly, it does make it a little easier (yidianr rongyi).

I've put some literal translations here and the actual translations at the bottom of this blog - see how many you can guess correctly (cai cai bu suo):

Example
Dian Nao - Electronic, Brain - Computer

New Words (Sheng Ci)
Xiao Mai Bu - Small, Sell, Unit
Cao Ping - Grass, Flat
Chuan Shuo - Passed On, Speak / Spoken
Yi Yuan - Doctor, Compound
Hai Tang - Sea, something close to "road"

Before I get to the answers, it's time to award the prize for this month's "Best Local Impersonation of a Western Brand" - some of you may remember that Sasuk's Coffee was last month's recipient. For March though, it's time to give a big cheer for the good guys at Century22 Real Estate. Many of you will be familiar with the Century21 Real Estate corporation, and the many millions of dollars they have spent developing their brand. I'm not sure if Century22 have spent quite as much, but their mind-share in QingDao is certainly impressive. They also deserve a special mention for their website, http://www.22th.cn/, which you would have to agree is more than just mildly amusing. At first I thought they had made a mistake and should have registered http://www.22nd.cn/ (or changed their name to Centry24 Real Estate, in which case http://www.24th.cn/ would be okay), but apparently not. I checked here at the wang ba (internet cafe - literally "net bar") and if you go to http://www.22nd.cn/ you download some bizarre mail checking program, so there you go. Congratulations Centry22!

The Answers:
Xiao Mai Bu - Small, Sell, Unit - Snack Shop
Cao Ping - Grass, Flat - Lawn
Chuan Shuo - Passed On, Speak /Spoken - Legend, Myth (Oral Tradition)
Yi Yuan - Doctor, Compound - Hospital
Hai Tang - Sea, something close to "road" - Chinese Flowering Crab Apple

Okay, that last one was just a joke to remind you all that learning Chinese (xue hanyu) is normally straightforward, but occasionally hen qiguai (very strange).