Kevin Rudd's Beijing University Speech

[889]

It is quite good, though to preserve the original sense a bit better, I'd make it, "Nothing to fear more than heaven and hell, save for the laowai who speaks Chinese well." That does eliminate the poetic resonance of "in all" and "and hell," though.

[Guest realmayo]

Do we have to assume that the laowai in this sentence can speak Chinese "well"? I assumed it meant that it's a horrible sound coming out of his/her mouth, that's why it's so terrifying.

[889]

"Nothing's more feared than heaven, or more feared than hell, save the laowai who thinks his Chinese is swell."

[creamyhorror]

889: "Nothing's more feared than heaven, or more feared than hell, save the laowai who thinks his Chinese is swell."

But the original sense is that they aren't afraid of heaven or hell (i.e. they aren't afraid of anything, save the Mandarin-spouting laowai). Good work on "swell", though the sentence gets a bit unwieldy with the "who thinks his".

[roddy]

Hang on . .

There was a young man named Xiao Chen

Who feared not god, devil or men

But one day milking the cow

He heard a Yank say 你好

And ran home to mum like a hen

I'm sure someone can do better than that. Perhaps a haiku?

[889]

“Chinese don't fear heaven, Chinese don't fear hell. They only fear laowai, who can't speak Chinese well.”

(Read as “Chinese don't fear heaven, Chinese don't fear hell. They only fear laowai, who can't speak Chinese well.”)

[rob07]

I think the original joke is 天不怕，地不怕，就怕温州人说温州话。 温州话 has the reputation of being the most incomprehensible dialect of Chinese for the average Chinese person. Apparently it was used instead of code for secret wartime radio messages.

[889]

A 1934 issue of Shanghai, a Japanese magazine published in Shanghai, discusses the saying as 天不怕地不怕,就怕廣東人說官話.

[jbradfor]

Perhaps a haiku?

You fear not heaven

nor do you fear hell below

just fear my Chinese

[Matty]

@ kdavid

I direct you to the original post date of this post, which can be found at the very top: April 10, 2008.

Point taken, I clicked the new button, forgot it would bring up old threads that had been updated.

Posted Today, 06:35 AM

I direct you to the original post "time" of "my" post ... and hope it people will notice my posting at 6:35am more than my mistake. And, errr... can I pretentend I knew it was old and just added it as a note for interest? (That may work since I, no... I give up, 6am excuse it is! I'll sit in the corner till it blows over.)

I still find it interesting that he was fired over night none the less.

[Guest realmayo]

You don't mind heaven, you don't fear hell

But I hear your groans as I mangle my tones

And think it's just as well.

[creamyhorror]

You fear not heaven

nor do you fear hell below

just fear my Chinese

Haha' date=' this is the best one.

You don't mind heaven, you don't fear hell

But I hear your groans as I mangle my tones

And think it's just as well.

Perhaps "And I think it's just swell."?