Of Chinglish bells and bells that don't ring

Posted by Gingerblossom at 12:29 AM

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

I was just at the Shin Kong supermarket killing time when they started playing Christmas carols. I was happily humming to Jingle Bells before realising that it was in Chinese. "Ah well," I think, "We are afterall in China."

And then they started playing the Chinglish version and I absolutely had to finish up my shopping before I burst out laughing. Yes, I know I am mean. But this was how the song sounded:
Jin( like pronouncing 金) -gle bell, Jin-gle bell, Jin-gle all the wii
Oh wa fun it is to run on a one horse open slee
Jin-gle bell, Jin-gle bell, Jin-gle all the wii
Oh wa fun it is to run on a one horse open slee
The rest was rather garbled but it was the "jin", "wii" and the "slee" was enough to drove me nuts. And these lines are repeated over and over again!!! I HAD TO LEAVE!!

And on jingling bells, the fire alarm DID NOT go off last night when a neighbor's house down the corridor caught fire. It was my stuffy but still sharp nose that led to me bugging Daniel to open the main door to identify the source of smoke. It was then we saw the security guards milling around and several used fire extinguishers. The corridor also reeked of smoke.
Maybe the bell did ring... afterall the guards were there and I did see a red alarm light on the corridor BUT my point is, what if the fire spread down the corridor? We would have been oblivious to the fire thinking ourselves safely tucked at home!! The thought is really disturbing.

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