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China and Japan: translating USA

Written byOiwan Lam
Posted 8 December 2006 7:35 GMT

The Japanese translation of USA is “rice country”, while the Chinese translation is “beauty country”. Zhaihua looks into historical documents and tries to explain why there is such a difference. One explanation provided by Chiang Kai-shek in 1934 was that “rice” is edible… (zh)

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Written byOiwan Lam

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