Monday, September 12, 2005

"tank"


http://photobucket.com/albums/y198/tank666/?action=view&current=Picture001.jpg

Many Asian countries use squatting type toilets, where the user squat over a water trench and water would wash the bio-mass down into the septic tank. These types of toilets in China are called (feces trench) or 尿 (urine trench).

The character may also mean “tank”, “trough”, and “groove” depends on context.

I had a good laugh when a reader emailed in his friend’s tattoo (see above) and said his friend wanted “tank” (military type, not the toilet kind) on him because he liked military tanks and he is a big guy.

By the way, “tank” (military type) in Chinese is 坦克 or 戰車, and 戦車 in Japanese.


10 comments:

  1. Hahaha, quite silly....

    水槽(water tank)
    浴槽(bathtub)

    are the Japanese words that I thought of.

    I am surprised to learn that Chinese people use 糞槽/尿槽. To me, they both seem quite straightforward. In Japanese, we use 浄化槽(purification tank) instead.

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  2. hey tian:
    i'm a first time visitor. love your site. reading your site proves my point why i refuse to wear anything with chinese characters on it. A chinese person with "love" on their shirt is just plain tacky.

    i showed your site to my mom and we couldn't stop laughing.

    Maybe i should just get a gibberish chinese tattoo as a joke... then again... my mom would probably cut if off with a knife.

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  3. Ru,

    Thanks for the comment.

    I have received many emails asking if I decide to get a tattoo, what would it be?

    The only thing I think is suitable was an insipration from the movie Toy Story, where the plastic toys had "Made in China" on the bottom of their feet.

    I probably will have 中國制造 (Made in China) on the bottom of my foot.

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  4. Ken,

    糞槽 and 尿槽 are not used often colloquially, as far as I know. Perhaps they are more common depending on the region. Generally, we refer to the modern toilet as , and the restroom as or .

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  5. if the guy who got that tatt is in the military, he's gonna get clowned on for life when his friends find this site.

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  6. Oh no...It's like the subbed documentary that had biologists releasing 'ikan goreng' (fried fish) into a river instead of 'anak ikan' (fish fry). ROTFLMAOZEDONG!

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  7. heh. is the tattoo owner american?
    One nickname for americans here is "Seppos", short for "septic tank" (rhymes with "Yank".)

    em, random Australian

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  8. Dude! Even I knew that was toilet before you told me! and it means mens toilet doesn't it?

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  9. The guy had it done because his nickname is Tank. He's not American and he's not in the army or anything. He got the nickname from "He's built like a...".

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