Why ‘soup dumpling’ Scarlett Johansson, ‘baby face’ Selena Gomez and ‘big cousin’ Jennifer Lawrence will never be lost in translation in China
- US superstars given ingenious and adorable nicknames by film fans on mainland social media
- Lady Gaga, Tom Cruise and Britney Spears among Hollywood favourites to be renamed
Attempts to bridge the linguistic gap between Chinese and English can often lead to things being lost in translation.
This has helped spawn a cottage industry on mainland social media of giving Hollywood movie stars ingenious and often adorable Chinese nicknames.
Among them is Scarlett Johansson, who starred alongside Bill Murray in the above-mentioned 2003 blockbuster Lost in Translation set in Tokyo, whose nickname relates to one of China’s most famous culinary delights.
The phenomenon in part relates to difficulties encountered when pronouncing English names, but there is more to the endearing nicknames than meets the eye, or the ear.
Often it makes long foreign names easier to remember while giving them some form of Chinese meaning.
For instance, Ryan Gosling is nicknamed “General Gao” because in Mandarin his surname is pronounced gao si ling and si ling means a commanding officer.
The Chinese internet went into a meltdown about US singer Katy Perry being called “Fruit Sister”, or shui guo jie, due to her penchant for fruit-styled costumes.
