Virtual China

Check out this hilarious ad from Chinese search engine, pointed out on Sam Flemming’s excellent blog.  It features a depiction of a tall, white foreigner in a tophat [representing Google?] speaking a somewhat stupidly accented Chinese, holding the arm of a Chinese girl in a wig and a white wedding dress.  Reminds me of some of the anti-foreign Chinese cartoons I’ve seen from the 1950s. Sam translates it as:

 Background: There is a poster challenging anyone to try to make sense of a Chinese text. The text is short, but has no “stops” such as periods, so it is a bit tricky to understand. A foreigner enters into the town claiming “he knows” how to interpret the text.

Foreigner : I know! Heh heh.

Tangbohu (a famous Chinese clever guy) : Hahahaha~~ You may not know!

Tangbohu : I know you don’t know. I know you don’t know I know. YOU DON ’T KNOW.

Foreigner : I know!

All : Ei? [audience is surprised at Foreigner's seeming agreement with Tangbohu that the foreigner does NOT know (as in does not "get it"]

Foreigner : Ei!I know!

Tangbohu : Not necessarily. I know you don’t know me, I know you don’t know me, haha~ I know you don’t know!

Foreigner : I know!

Tangbohu : I know that you don’t know I know. You don’t know that I know you don’t know!

Here is a translation of the final part of the commercial:

If you have any question, just “Baidu it”!

1. Baidu understands Chinese the best, with custom developed stop word technology, understanding more precisely.
2. Baidu understands Chinese best. Machine learning understands just as human along with phonetic key words customized for Chinese language.
3. Baidu respects Chinese language most. Customized Chinese language processing and web page indexing technology.
4. Baidu focuses on Chinese language most. Worlds best Chinese language technology team. Unbeatable.
5. Baidu hosts the largest online community in the world with Tieba.