Thursday, November 13, 2008 at 2:41 am
Naming the CCTV Tower (or Why "Big Underpants" is Better Than "Hemorrhoids")
The new China Central Television tower (Getty Images)
Walking through my neighborhood last night I passed an old couple walking a large, shaggy chow. Another neighbor gave it a look, paused and asked, “What do you call it?”
“We call it, ‘big bear,'” one of the owners said.
“Oh, I was going to say, it looks just like a bear,” the neighbor replied.
Names, especially nicknames, pet names and the like, can be incredibly literal things in China. If you are fat, there's a good chance people will call you “fatty.” If you have a big beard, people will call you “big beard.”
The same goes for iconic structures. The Great Wall (or literally, the “long wall”) doesn't leave a lot of doubt as to what it is. Many of the famous new buildings that have gone up in Beijing recently have been given their own tags by the people. The National Center for the Performing Arts is known as the “Duck Egg.” The National Stadium is known as the “Bird's Nest.” They're both humble yet fitting names for these grand edifices.
The people at China Central Television are apparently not so happy with the public's nickname for their gleaming new headquarters. The building, which was designed by Rem Koolhaas and Ole Scheeren, consists of two slanting towers that are joined by sections on the ground and two horizontal sections at the top to form a continuous loop. It is an architectural and engineering marvel. To the people of Beijing it is simply, “Big Underpants.”
That name is not yet as common as “Bird's Nest” or “Duck Egg,” and CCTV seems intent on thwarting the rise of the admittedly inelegant Big Underpants. The state-run broadcaster has asked for alternatives from staff members, according to a report in the Chinese press, but so far they've had little luck coming up with a popular substitute.
Centuries ago Confucius spoke about the “rectification of names,” which, somewhat ironically, is a highfalutin way of saying you need to call things what they are. Perhaps CCTV should heed the wisdom of the sage, and the people of Beijing, and go with Big Underpants. It could be worse. One possible substitute floated in the Chinese press was the “Wisdom Window.” Nice try, but as some online commenters have noted, in Chinese it's a homonym for “hemorrhoids.”
13 Comments and Trackbacks to “Naming the CCTV Tower (or Why "Big Underpants" is Better Than "Hemorrhoids")”
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Simon Elegant was born in Hong Kong and since then China has pretty much always been at the center of his life. Read more
Liam Fitzpatrick was born in Hong Kong and joined TIME in 2003. He edits Time Global Adviser and is also Time Asia's senior writer. Read more
Ling Woo Liu worked as a television reporter in Beijing and moved to Hong Kong to report for TIME Asia. Read more
Bill Powell is a senior writer for TIME in Shanghai. He'd been Chief International correspondent for Fortune in Beijing, then NYC. Read more
Austin Ramzy studied Mandarin in China and has a degree in Asian Studies. He has reported for TIME Asia in Hong Kong since 2003. Read more
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Thursday, November 13, 2008 at 10:24 am
How about "Biased Palace" ?
Thursday, November 13, 2008 at 5:27 pm
ZING!!!
Friday, November 14, 2008 at 9:34 am
[...] bookmarks tagged literal Naming Beijing's CCTV Tower saved by 2 others sweetcandy202 bookmarked on 11/14/08 | [...]
Friday, November 14, 2008 at 3:05 pm
Dear Johnsmith-the-sweety, don't be so serious and industious all the time, OK? Put aside your job and hatred and relax for a tiny bit while. It is a funny topic, although yours is creative, but didn't follow the rules mentioned here. try again!
And by the way, the translation "big underpants" is not correct and misleading. It should be "shorts" if the poster have better command of Chinese language or may just try to make it vulgar by distorting it, unless he himself is wearing rectangular underpants.
Saturday, November 15, 2008 at 4:51 pm
When I was last in Beijing, admittedly about six months ago, the drivers referred to it as the "bird legs" in keeping with the egg and nest naming convention. Perhaps that was the sanitized version...
Sunday, November 16, 2008 at 5:37 pm
Haha, such an interesting story. It is funny for chinese people to pick up a nickname. I have a friend is called "ironic egg" because of his dark face; another one is called " doggie", no reason, it was from his parents; another one is called " one eye" because of his disability. Too many examples.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008 at 1:05 am
[...] Times Kinablog har i øvrigt også skrevet om konkurrencen her. [...]
Thursday, November 20, 2008 at 12:56 am
[...] | Trackbacks (0) | Email This Because the China Blog will never tire in our dogged pursuit of this story, here's a link to a video imploring China Central Television to embrace the "inelegant" nickname of [...]
Wednesday, December 3, 2008 at 12:35 am
[...] with a man engaged in the same necessary activity, albeit with the aid of Western toilet. As we wrote earlier, the revolutionary building has been nicknamed "big underpants." The state broadcaster is [...]
Wednesday, December 3, 2008 at 11:19 am
I agree with mingming2's correction that the nickname should be translated as "big shorts(大裤衩)". Anyway, you did a great job, Austin Ramzy! You deserve a "China-conversance".
Tuesday, December 9, 2008 at 6:24 pm
[...] in his recent book ‘The City of Heavenly Tranquility’. Beijing’s cynical wags have recently nicknamed the CCTV tower ‘big underpants’ (da kucha) because that’s what they think it looks like, and China’s Internet users have enjoyed [...]
Wednesday, December 31, 2008 at 1:52 am
[...] prudes at state-run China Central Television have investigated the topic and concluded that funerals [...]
Tuesday, February 10, 2009 at 9:32 pm
[...] and propaganda, one of our commenters left this comment about the blaze (reminder: as Austin has noted, the adjacent CCTV Tower, part of the same complex and designed by the renowned Rem Koolhaas is [...]