DPP potty-mouths … or “how to swear in Chinese” (if you like that stuff)

this posting contains bad language
– not to be read by minors or easily offended people

the Taipei Times report on yesterday’s anti-KMT rally, “Protesters find novel ways to voice discontent”, included the following:

One man in Taipei was spotted wearing an upside-down bamboo basket … on his head as a hat with a banner reading “With the ECFA passed, farmers will eat shit.”
Another protester, surnamed Wang (王), wore a banner reading, “Fuck, where is 6-3-3?” referring to Ma’s campaign pledge that Taiwan’s annual economic growth would be 6 percent, per capita GDP would be US$30,000, and the unemployment rate would be reduced to 3 percent if he were elected.

I know what you are all asking: “Finally, who cares about Wang? When there’s something useful to know, why doesn’t the Taipei Times put the Chinese in brackets behind the translation?”

So I dusted off my press card and headed down to Day 2 (the "illegal" bit) of the rally, whose theme was

哀 (ai, mourning) for Ma's 無能 (wu-neng, inabilities)


The good news: I had a very nice, civilized conversation about politics with Ben, a retired professor.

The bad news: A fair sized proportion of slogans on banners, caps and t-shirts on display at Ketagalan Boulevard are unnecessarily rude, probably libelous, and in at least two cases, anti-gay. Is this really the way to create a better society?


馬的 (ma-de, "the horse's", or since this is also the president's family name, "Ma's") is a pun on similar sounding 媽的 (a shortened version of 他媽的 (ta-ma-de, “his mother’s …”), which itself is possibly associated with 幹你媽的 (gan-ni-ma-de, “fuck your mother’s”) or its Taiwanese equivalent 幹你娘 (gan-lin-ngia, “fuck your mother”).

In any case, it's slightly rude even without the g-word.





ah, that makes it clearer.






And here's another, with the 馬 upside down, and 我受夠了 (wo shou-gou-le) added to give "Fuck it, I've had enough."

[reader Leou Chia-feng (柳嘉峰) reports that the KMT started it themselves: "The KMT had a banner reading 他馬的，真好 (which perhaps translates something like: Fucking Ma, really good!) on a banner at a rally in Kaohsiung. They took it down pretty quickly, but not before DPP members had seen it."]

獨裁者滾下來 means “dictator, come rolling down”,
though 滾 (gun,“roll”) has a vulgar usage, it perhaps falls short of outright swearing.


This next one is a bit complicated:



貓纜趴落土 basically means "Mao(kong) Cable (car) fall down (to the) ground"
and
馬統土土土 means "Ma President tou-tou-tou [Taiwanese for “completely fail"] "

but 纜趴 is pronounced lan-pa in Mandarin,
and sounds like the Taiwanese slang for male genitalia,
normally abbreviated to “LP”
(in fact, if your vehicle number plate has LP on it, you can change for free,
as you can with GY, Taiwanese slang for female genitalia)

Ma-tong also could be translated as “Unificationist Ma”,
and also sounds exactly like 馬桶 (toilet)

this one is simpler, he is just saying
"Jiang family [蔣家, including presidents Chiang Kai-shek and Chiang Ching-kuo] has had seven widows" [i.e. the males don’t live long],
"[it] is a warning from the gods [神] to Chinese people[華人]"



This one is interesting because of the character [top-left] 屌 (diao, “penis”), which used to be a swear word but for the younger generation now just means “cool”



This one is in very poor taste. It plays on the “pun” of comrade 同志 (tong-zhi), which is commonly used for "homosexual", and says:
"Comrade Ma, have you washed your arse, Brother Tao [CCP Chairman Hu Jintao] is waiting for you."



Before you think the whole DPP has gone down the toilet, there were some funnier signs such as this one:

which says 兩用口罩 既防豬流感 又防限制集會遊行人權的馬流

wear a face mask to protect from horse (Ma) flu as well as swine flu, since Ma's flu will restrict the human right of assembly and parade

胡主席:我的貢品準備好了，請笑納
(Chairman Hu, I have your gift ready, please happily accept)
(死旗 = Dead flag [upside down])



and others simply engaged in earnest political discussion

actually, perhaps the saddest thing was that, on seeing a foreigner with a camera, many in the crowd automatically assumed I was with some big important international media organization, and their plight was about to get transmitted around the world. If there is one thing the KMT is good at (and the DPP not) it is getting its message out to the lazy foreign press.

[thanks to Shad for help with interpretation]