Doggedly searching for the crux of the biscuit.
This nostalgic tip o' the hat to socialist realism comes from Kentucky Fried Chicken, which is trying to woo the Chinese market with tasty looking mannish fists. I don't know about you, but this really makes me hungry for... er... public self-criticism.
(Post stolen in toto from Neatorama)
...if you follow the links, apparently the text says: "KFC. Changing for China. Creating the New Fast Food."
Makes you wonder how those first three ideograms are pronounced, and what they mean. Is that first character a stylized mint julep meaning "Kentucky"?
Posted by: mike d at October 31, 2006 11:08 AMI'm pretty sure the second-to-last ideogram is the first ideogram in my daughter's orphanage name, "qing4".
Posted by: Clownæsthesiologist at October 31, 2006 12:17 PMYour daughter's orphanage name was "Fast Food"? Those inscrutable Chinese.
(for what it's worth, I'm pretty sure the second ideogram in the second row - the horizontal rectangle on a toothpick - is the ideogram for "China")
Posted by: mi at October 31, 2006 12:30 PMMake the Great Leap Forward with a 12-piece leg bucket for $4.99!
Posted by: Cangrejero at October 31, 2006 02:42 PMHungry after that Long March? Grab our Eighth Route Army extra value meal!
BTW, the 2nd character on the second row (the "rectangle on a toothpick") is the character for "middle" and the 3rd character is "kingdom" or "country." Those two characters together mean "China" (the "middle kingdom.")
Posted by: My Alter Ego at October 31, 2006 02:57 PMCrush the dog head of Soviet Revisionism! Add 2 sides for only 100 yuan!
Posted by: Chopper at October 31, 2006 04:05 PMThe first three characters, the red ones, are the name KFC uses in China. In Mandarin the pronunciation is something like "kun duh jee" ("ken de ji" in pinyin), which is how they transliterate "Kentucky" in Chinese, except the middle character, while pronounced the same, is a different character from the standard one used to represent Kentucky.
"Ken" means something like ability or permission, "de" means something like virtue, and "ji" means something like foundation or base. Together they suggest power, virtue and stability
Also, the last character, "ji", is a homonym for the Chinese word for "chicken".
Posted by: M/tch M/lls at October 31, 2006 05:15 PMMake the Great Leap Forward with a 12-piece leg bucket for $4.99!
Once they get the four-legged chicken production up and running, the price will drop to $4.19.
Posted by: apostropher at October 31, 2006 10:04 PMOr $6.98 for the 8 for 4 for 2 special! With three and a half sides only a dollar extra. The more you buy the more you save.
Posted by: froz gobo at October 31, 2006 10:58 PMConfucius say, he who eats only drumstick is left wing.
Posted by: Gaijin Biker at November 1, 2006 03:58 AM"Feed Your Gang of Four For Less Than 200 Yuan!"
Posted by: norbizness at November 1, 2006 08:59 AMVirtual China has got translation of the ad, and also some interesting stuff about KFC's China site.
Posted by: Clownæsthesiologist at November 1, 2006 10:35 AMAlso, in comments to that post are links to (1) a photo of the KFC placemat from which the above image was clipped and (2) a post by Micah Sittig translating the placemat text.
Posted by: Clownæsthesiologist at November 1, 2006 10:41 AM