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China and Japan: translating USA

Written byOiwan Lam
Posted 8 December 2006 18 years ago

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 Zhaihua looks into historical documents and tries to explain why there is such a difference.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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