The venerable Guardian caught stoking the fires of East-Asian thermonuclear war. New Zealand's top Bursary scholar not Chinese for the second year running. These are surely the end times.
On the 'big scary China zombie-attack leaping from cupboard' Japanese translation debacle, Jim Cathcart writes further:
Oh, this has got big. It turns out that I know the Guardian journalist who misquoted the minister. I contacted the trade ministry who are completely pissed, and will be issuing a statement. Also, the Guardian's editors are running for cover.
Fark it, the mainstream media has to be responsible.
Meanwhile, my step-cousin-in-law Derek Cheng, an invader embedded within our own mainstream media, alerted me to this newest blow to our people's honour. A Chinese kid comes second two years in a row. The tears Derek must have shed, writing that article. It gives you fearful flashbacks to the wipe-out of 2001, when there were no Chinese in the top Bursary echelon at all. We can usually count on some halfbreed ethnic 'smuggling', but that year not even the top Maori and Pacific scholars were secretly Chinese (though one was secretly Indian). When Chinese high school students are no longer the best in the country at being Maori or Samoan, you have to ask yourself: Are we going soft? Are Chinese kids these days no longer being locked in the basement for a week with only Euclid's Geometry and a roll of haw flakes to sustain them? Are their parents not whipping them on the legs with chopsticks to drill them in the laws of thermodynamics? Are these kids... god forbid... relaxing and having fun instead? Becoming (shudder) well-rounded individuals?
Goddamn NCEA.
ADDENDUM: The gaijin experts battle it out. Stephen Walker wrote from Japan on the Trade Minister's verbal output:
what he said, in a post-cabinet press conference was: [paraphrase] blah, blah, Chinese govt needs to rein in those protesters, blah, blah, if they want to joint the ranks of market economies, blah, blah [/paraphrase] "Kowai kuni desu ne." well this last part does indeed mean, "Scary country, eh?" and it wasn't a very diplomatic aside. but nakagawa-daijin is not known for his tact and diplomacy. mainly because he is a right-wing nationalist prat. in terms of mistranslation, i don't think so. the word "kowai" has several meanings depending on the context, and "scary" is one of them. whether it is the most suitable translation in this context is debatable, of course. "intimidating" and "frightening" are two other options that spring to mind.
I guess the Minister didn't see the tape-recorders on the news-conference table.