I’m in the city of Manzhouli along China’s far northern border with Russia. It’s snowing like crazy outside and I’ve just woken up in my bone-dry hotel room with a terrible thirst.
I reach for a plastic bottle of what appears to be the complimentary drinking water. One can’t drink tap water in China, so it’s this or nothing.
The label reads: UP-O2, All-Weather Movement Drink.
Then it says, “Relieves thirst omnidirectionally. Golden Natural Mineral Group.”
“UP-O2 is one kind of the moisture consumption and the 02 healthy drink of human body supplement because of the movement.”
“UP-O2, The especially quality after the movement, the work, bathes and gets out of bed drink.”
But is it water? The “gets out of bed” part describes me to a T, but I just want plain old water. The Chinese characters on the label don't seem to offer any further clarity. All I know is that I don’t want any treacly sports drink or weird beverage.
So I open it up and … Ah! It’s water!
I love it.
Posted by: Damian | March 16, 2009 at 08:26 PM
HAHA, Taoism mystery stuff. You'll get used to it.
Posted by: jeff | March 16, 2009 at 08:59 PM
Funny. But on the other hand, you see the same thing in American supermarkets too. For example, the detergents here often don't have the word "detergent" on the lable. Sometimes they do, but only in small prints and in non-obvious places. The products almost always highlight what kind of scent it has (ocean, mountain breeze, some flower, April, etc), in very big print, but not the product name. Quite confusing to newcomers to the country.
Posted by: Jennifer Hudson Lip-Synched at Super Bowl | March 16, 2009 at 10:23 PM
Really interesting!
Posted by: LC | March 16, 2009 at 11:33 PM
“Relieves thirst omnidirectionally."
I'd like to get a piece of that...
Posted by: meh | March 17, 2009 at 12:27 AM
ワイシャツ
Yシャツ
ボタンダウン
Posted by: none | March 17, 2009 at 05:56 AM
Yes, but did you drink it?
Posted by: Jon D. Moulton | March 17, 2009 at 02:23 PM
Just Arrival, Slim Milk Sick, Cow juice for heathy baby on breast make ill.
Posted by: Dalton Priddy | March 18, 2009 at 03:55 PM
In Urumqi recently, I drank a beer which claimed "The entire process is of asepsis." I assumed that was a good thing.
Posted by: otherlisa | March 22, 2009 at 05:02 AM
Haha, I love how the Chinese use words to make something so simple sound SO special.. great post!
Posted by: China Success Stories | March 23, 2009 at 08:56 AM
I live in China, a transplanted American and the Chinese tend to use "flowery" language to describe things which of course translates to the same in English. Sometimes the translations are so bad that it's amusing.
Like this one for instance.
On a menu in a up scale restaurant here in the central part of China.
Crushed ice on side boat with western style flavor of syrupie cherry delighted poured over to teach the tongue bountiful lesson.
My Chinese friend translated the translation == Banana Split with cherries on top.
Peace
Jim
.
Posted by: James Em | March 24, 2009 at 08:27 PM
Jon, I drank every last drop. I was thirsty.
Posted by: Tim J | March 24, 2009 at 11:05 PM