Sounds like the title for a new anime series, doesn’t it? But no, we’re actually talking about the pandas Beijing hopes to send Taiwan’s way later this year. This topic became a little more heated this week with Beijing’s official announcement of the two bears selected for the honor.
(Beijing’s getting much better at the PR game, by stretching this entire production out into extended phases. 1) the ‘selection’ pagent, 2) the ‘naming’ pagent next month… and who knows what else to follow.)
(my translation) The two pandas that the Chinese mainland has unilaterally decided to send are “unification war cats, unification war animals”. We resolutely oppose any government decision to allow these pandas to arrive in Taiwan. Without government to government negotiations, we can’t allow “political pandas” to enter Taiwanese borders.
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I have to add the almost witty comment by the normally Sahara-dry Lien Chan:
[quote]國民黨榮譽黨主席連戰上午說，大熊貓沒有藍綠之分，只有黑白兩色.
Pandas don’t have any blue/green components. Their only two colors are black and white![/quote]
It’s not unification war cats, but as Sun Bin pointed out on Asiapundit, “United Front Pandas” – TONGyi ZHANxian MAOxiung – and is a witty reference to cooperation between the KMT and the CPP in the prewar era.
The literal translation into English remains exactly what I just said it was: ‘unification war cats’. You guys get to have your little fun at Engrish now and then… just thought I’d join in. And does the corrected English version of the quote seem any less proposterous to the rational mind? “The two pandas that the Chinese mainland has uniliaterally decided to send are united front pandas, united front animals”. Heck, “united front animals” could still be the name of an anime series.
Besides, I’m still not quite used to the Taiwanese practice of calling pandas ‘maoxiong’ as well as ‘xiongmao’. I’m sure some anthropologist could figure out where the divergence with the mainland occurred… but to me, they’ll always be xiong first, mao second.
[quote]he literal translation into English remains exactly what I just said it was: ‘unification war cats’. [/quote
The LITERAL translation is wrong. The correct translation is as above.
No, because again the CCP and the KMT are conspiring, in this case to destroy a free and independent Taiwan. It’s really not surprising, though, that two authoritarian parties might work together. I can understand why people who are authoritarians might conspire together, since they are unscrupulous, power hungry, and controlling. What I don’t understand are their supporters. Why on earth would anyone support people who hate human freedom?
Sure. And “Kuomintang” could be the name of a dog food brand. And your point would be…?