who taught: Andrew, Jake, Jean and Carol

Public Bathhouse (목욕탕)

One time, I was in Paris, the capital of fashion. (Some may argue that New York City is the capital of fashion.) As I walking around the city, I found very familiar language written on a bag that a woman was carrying. It was Korean. (She was not a Korean or Asian at all.) It says, “서울 목욕탕.” If I would translate it into English, it would be like, “Seoul Public Bathhouse.” Here, most of American friends would be curious about public bathhouse. It is a place where all of the people pay and go in to take baths together. I mean people share spa and sauna, etc. And, of course, they are all naked. People go there with their coworkers or friends to have some time together, relaxing and, at the same time, taking baths. I bet it sounds weird to you, my American friends, right? But, there are so many other countries having this kind of place in the world. So, who want to go to the place with me? Andrew? Oh, maybe you, Pat! Well, going back to the story, to Korean people, it is weird to carry any bags with “Public Bathhouse” on them. But, I am pretty sure it would look cool for foreigners to have those bags with foreign language written on. In fact, you would be surprised, if you were in Korea, that how many people wear clothings with English on them. I am pretty sure that some of the expressions or words are not really correct and some may even worse than incorrect.

Men's restroom sign in China

Speaking of wrong expressions in non-English speaking countries, I ran into this interesting article today about wrong translation. One of the examples is a restroom sign. As you can see in the picture here, there is “Male Man” on the door of men’s restroom. I wonder whether there is “Female Man” or “Female Woman” on the door of ladies’ restroom. This would happen because of the thinking process of a person who is in charge of the signs to translate to English based on the meaning of his/her own native language. Now, if you were in front of the door, looking at the sign, what would be your reaction? I know! You would be like, “Wow, what is going on here? Male Man?” Andrew! What would be your correction here?

Have you gone camping? I mean the real “camping” camping. You know… bring your own tent and sleeping bag. When you get to the camping site, what is the first thing you would do? Let me guess! Build a tent, right? Well, do you also know that you can say “pitch a tent.” A few weeks ago, Andrew asked me a question to me, “Hey, Terry! Do you know what ‘pitch a tent’ means?” Well, I actually thought ‘build a tent’ but I knew that it should have another meaning. “Think about the shape of the tent if you already built it,” Andrew said to help me out.

So, what do you think it is? Here is the definition I found from the Urban Dictionary.

To have an erection while lying down so that the sheets covering you pop up like a tent with a pole in the middle.

That is right! That is what it means. But, I doubt you would use this expression for this meaning at all. I mean how many times you would see this situation and, even if you see it, would you dare to say it? But, again, it is always good to know just in case 🙂

Actually, you know what? You could find some guys in Korean public bathhouse, pitching a tent because some guys really fall into sleep in the place and you know…. that could happen. So, that would be the time you can really use the expression.