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Dina Rickman
Dec 06, 2014
“Princess Road” for The Mall, “Fertility Giant” for the Long Man of Wilmington and “Mountain Earthworm” for Hadrian’s Wall.
These are just a few suggestions from a new campaign, “Great names for Great Britain”, which asks Chinese nationals to nickname 101 UK tourist destinations, well-known culinary dishes and famous people.
The national tourist board Visit- Britain hopes to capitalise on the Chinese tradition of christening people, places and objects with literal names. Benedict Cumberbatch, for example, is affectionately known in the country as “Curly Fu” – “Curly”refers to his hair while “Fu” is the shortened Mandarin version of Holmes, from Sherlock Holmes.
Here are some names that have already been 'changed'.
Stonehenge – Ju Shi Zhen
(huge stone clusters)
Big Ben – Da Ben Zhong
Cambridge – Jian Qiao
(Sword Bridge)
Edinburgh – Ai Ding Bao
(meaning a castle named Ai Ding)
The Gherkin – Xiao Huang Gua
(the pickled little cucumber)
London Eye – Lun Dun Yan
Shakespeare – Sha Weng
(Mr Sha)
Mr Bean – Han Dou
(funny beans)
More: Chinese citizens urged not to call themselves Dumbledore
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