TRANSLATIONS I, like many others, I'm sure have long wondered what the city name "Shanghai" actually meant. I have a URL address which gives me the true meaning of such words, now but for along time I lived this written word world without that aid to verbal respectability regarding the true definitions of foreign words.
Just last night I was reading a nostalgia article by a GI who once
talked to a Chinese person he met on one of the docks along the Whangpoo River who told him that the name "Shanghai" meant:"up from the river."
It sorta makes sense, doesn't it.? People who hailed from south of wherever you may have been could speak with pride of being from the more populated coastline. Or, highlanders could look down on such a visitor as something dragged in by sea gulls from down on the salty waters.
I have met people from other countries who have thought it to be great fun to teach others improper meanings of words, so for the moment, until I can check it out, I'm going to accept that "shanghai" means "up from the sea."
I remember one "Little Theater" group years ago, when, when they did a very good production of "Teahouse of the August Moon" did not find out that the long banners they had made were not really Japanese words for "Tea House", "Moon", or "August". No. They were a laundry list - in Chinese. It was hushed up pretty well, and didn't cause any to-do.
A GI friend of mine who was taken prisoner at Anzio and remained in German prison camps for the rest of the war tells or double-featured word switching tournament which and, probably, never been duplicated in detail. My friend, aware of the Nazi tendency to segregate captured officer and enlisted men when taking prisoners not wanted to end up in a locked cell. He thought he would "last longer" as an active, working, laborer type. To accomplish that goal he ripped newly stitched corporal stripes from the arms of his uniform and smearing mud on the areas. He knew his dog tags still read:"Pvt."
His plan worked and Frankie, from that time on, did what I call his "share cropping for the Reich". They were marched back up through Italy, their freight cars bombed by American planes gave them freedom for a short time but they were recaptured by their German "tour guides" and marched up through Italy, through central Europe and into Germany proper where they were put to work on a potato farm.
The word thing? No, I've not forgotten ... let's see. Yes, one more detail: There happened to be a detached of Russian female prisoners the same farm site. They became casually acquainted and the GI's thought it would be fun to mis-teach the Russian women the rawest elements of our language first. They did and only later found the Russian females were doing the same thing in reverse!
CODA: Something of value ought to evolve from a piece such as this. Over the years, I have often thought that in those eras of so-called "cultural" or "Arts" exchanges we have with foreign nations from time-to-time we have not always sent our "best". We have not used this exchange opportunity wisely. We should send our very best. We "translate" true American values ineptly.
Andrew McCaskey amccsr@adelphia.net 7-30-06 [c576wds]
