Olympic Inspiration

Well the Olympics have started again. And I probably wouldn't have noticed except that Coca Cola had a whole series of cans gearing up for the Olympics. Actually I only buy them where there is a really good sale, so we only ended up with the Thai and Olympic cans, but it did inspire me to do some thinking.

On the Olympic can it says, "Coca Cola" means "delicious happiness" in Mandarin Chinese. This is what is looks like on the current Chinese can:


This is what it looked like when I went to China (1998 & 2000):

When I was in China, they told me it meant "Happy Mouth" and it isn't so much that Coca Cola means "Happy Mouth" or "Delicious Happiness", but "Kuh Co Kuh Luh" means that. The symbol shaped like a box means mouth. I suppose it might also mean delicious, I think I remember them telling us that, in another context, it could also mean door.

As a literate person, anytime you take a language class, they start with the same sorts of things - basic greetings, survival words, etc., and how to read in that language. But pre-literate children don't learn languages that way. They gravitate to the words that represent the things they like the most - Mama, Dada, baby, ball, coke.

And I find it very interesting that, although I never took a Chinese language course and cannot read Chinese, I know how to read Coca Cola in Chinese. It's interesting because, Caleb has no trouble reading this:


Of course, he also thinks this says "Coca Cola"!