Well, that didn’t take long: On the same day that an announcement confirmed the Guangzhou Evergrande Football Team will now be called “Evergrande Taobao”, people took to the internet to voice their outrage at the awkward moniker.
The renaming of the team revealed Friday by Jack Ma and Xu Jiayin combined two very popular name brands together: the “Evergrande” football club and the “Taobao” e-commerce website portal. However, the point of contention for netizens is with the abbreviation of this name.*
It turns out that one nickname of “Evergrande Taobao” in Chinese can be the term “Great Treasure”, a term with positive connotations until you realize that the Chinese name Dabao is already an established brand name in China—for a cosmetics line.
Such a small detail may seem insignificant to cultural outsiders until you realize the depravity to which Chinese football fans will use to insult opposing teams. It should also be noted that Dabao isn’t the equivalent to Maybelline or Max Factor, but serves the less-glamorous demographic of middle-aged women. Dabao products aren’t as much lip gloss or eyeshadow as they are anti-wrinkle creams.
Dabao can also take on a different meaning. As many Chinese call their children the “family treasure”, “Dabao” can be construed to mean “big baby”.
Here’s a short sample of what people had to say about the new name, “Evergrande Taobao”:
如果_这是真的_：
Very ugly team name!!!!
我想和上帝聊聊：
Lousy name
优雅的番茄：
Isn’t it called the Guangzhou Evergrande Alibaba Taobao TMall Alipay Team? [crowd.emo]
偶尔爱上孤独：
Dabao!!
找一片乐土：
Dabao
红酒庄园2011：
Reasonable!
潘帕斯小白兔：
Jack Ma and Xu Jiayin made a billion yuan investment just to make an advertisement for a household product…
爱你犹如爱呼吸：
Feel as though the people running around on the pitch will be the (Taobao) delivery service [bored.emo]
Well, at least in this way, the feminization of the French word “Grande” in “Evergrande” now finally makes sense.
***
*Quick Chinese explanation: long names are often abbreviated in Chinese into something more manageable. For example, “Beijing University” becomes “Beida” from taking the first character of each character pair (北京大学, Běijīng Dàxué) and make them form their own pairing regardless of meaning (北大, Běidà).
In this case, the new formation does have a literal meaning (ie “North Big”) but its nonsensical meaning is overridden by its use as an abbreviation.
Like any other long name, Evergrande Taobao (恒大淘宝, Héngdà Táobǎo) can be abbreviated, but it’s what happens when the second half of the character gets paired up to become 大宝 (Dàbǎo), or literally, “great treasure” that has gotten netizens so furious.
Photos: nipic (2), Chinese News Network
Photos that show medical staff taking a group photo during an operation while a patient lies unconscious in the background have lead to outrage in China, but said they were just posing for a “commemorative moment.”
Zheng said through tears (seen above) that the surgery lasted for seven hours, forcing all medical staff to work without time for food or drink.
China Insider: Hainan Rendez-Vous and its Sex Scandal — Outrage a la Carte
Posted: 04/11/2014 8:02 pmDownright disrespectful lot, the poors. Why must they hate the rich? Why aren’t the captains of industry allowed to sip their champagne and eat their caviar fetter-free? With the weight of the world upon their shoulders, must they always need to shrug off the bitter attacks of the poors and their compulsive need to be supplied with cake?
The Hainan Rendez-Vous is just your normal, run-of-the-mill convention for the average Wang or Zhang to browse through this year’s new multi-million dollar collection of yachts and private jets. Held annually in Sanya, Hainan Province, the fledgling luxury exhibition managed to strike a nerve last year when rumors spoke of massive sex parties to which famous celebrities like Wang Xiaofei and Sun Xing were photographed having attended.
Those poor rich people. The indignant outrage of the internet would be galvanized and ignited by this decadent symbol of the rich like a divine match up in heaven. All related information that exposed the secret lifestyle of the rich and famous were ravenously consumed by the masses so that they can properly condemn the bourgeoise and their non-counterfeit LV handbags..
This year’s Hainan Rendez-Vous wrapped up on March 30, and already the condemnation by Chinese netizens was as heavy as the interest was rapt. Insider terms like “society girl” (外围女) have long flooded the public consciousness because the average person needs to know the obscure term to call those people busy in the background of “Eyes Wide Shut”, just as there will be a term for hiring a jazz pianist to play two notes all night so long as he can pass the audition.
To drive up the hype, a reporter from Phoenix Entertainment went undercover in the inner circles of the Hainan Rendez-Vous in order to write an expose of its notorious sex culture. The report would insinuate a major Hong Kong entertainment company was behind the hiring of many of these society girls. This unnamed company would demand secrecy from these sex workers through non-disclosure agreements while party attendees would wear face masks to hide their identities yes just like that really boring movie again. All the same, the report did not provide any concrete proof or names, and there’s still no word as to whether or not Nicole Kidman got to say the last line.
Well, sanctimonious people of the internet: we hope you’re satisfied now. Everyone is so outraged at Hainan Rendez-Vous, and yet it wasn’t even held last week in Sanya, Hainan. Instead, someone else had stolen the name and held an event without the organizer’s consent. Meanwhile, the host of the event which is still called “Hainan Rendez-Vous” by everyone in China has in fact not denied the charges of prostitution, and are looking to cooperate with Hainan police in cracking down upon these “sex scandals” you’ve been hearing about.
Hainan Rendez-Vous (the actual organizers) insist that they have absolutely no connection to the nefariousness that was going on in Sanya, while the host of the Sanya event has insisted that any actual licentious and illegal activities that were going on were not officially sanctioned by this non-sanctioned organization that just happen to be rendez-vous (lowercase) in Hainan.
So everyone can stop being angry. Poors: your indignant outrage has been misdirected, this obviously must be some kind of mistake. With this many denials going on, one more counterfeit “Hainan Rendez-Vous” needs to be established so that all of these Matryoshka dolls may ride the kick back up to the waking world after hitting of the raw subconsciousness of Leo DiCapprio’s throbbing forehead.
And honestly, being angry is no way to amass a fortune. It just gets in the way of being greedy.
Photo: Hainan Rendez-Vous