what do these things mean?

[moderntime]

For fun, I'm translating this list of what is in and what is out in Chinese popular culture, but there are a few things that are very culturally specific that I'm confused about. Can you help me out and let me know if I got these correct?

The left side is OUT and the right side is IN, I've provided both sides for context.

艺术人生 Artist (CCTV show) 康熙来了 Kangxi Has Arrived

http://space.tv.cctv.com/podcast/yishurensheng http://ent.sina.com.cn/f/kxll/

节能灯泡 Fluorescent lights 有设计感的白炽灯 Well-designed luminescent lights

注册聊天网站 registering on chat sites 路人申网站 anonymous expression on websites

单机麻将 offline mahjong 开心网种菜 growing plants on Kaixin001.com

天籁之音 the sound of heaven / the sound of nature 恶搞串烧 Internet parody culture created by mashing up random things (I think!) or 恶搞串串烧

安妮宝贝 Annie Baby (author and blogger) http://blog.sina.com.cn/babe 不生病的智慧 The Wisdom of Those Who Are Not Sick / Healthy (a book)

卡耐基 Dale Carnegie, the author of How to Win Friends and Influence People 杜拉拉 Du Lala The fictional heroine of Du Lala Gets a Promotion and how she survives on her way to the top

* 清炖 clear soup *萌 sprouts

OR, I think this could mean purity and "cute, adorable girls"

跟贴 Thread 建楼 First post?

This really confused me...

。 ......

I'm not sure about why these forms of punctuation would be in or out!

Thanks!

[roddy]

节能灯泡 are energy-saving, rather than florescent. Although obviously energy-saving ones usually ARE fluorescent lights. 有设计感的白炽灯 I might translate just as 'designer incandescent bulbs'?

[leeyah]

I think 不生病的智慧 would be 'Wisdom for staying healthy' or 'The key to staying healthy'

& my guess for 跟贴 is 'reply post(s) following the OP (原贴)' to build a thread = 建楼 from 讨论上的跟贴 forum posts [跟 = follow + 贴 post + build 建 + thread = 楼]

天籁之音 sounds of nature (自然界的声音， 如风声，鸟声，流水声等等) from 籁 traditional Chinese pipe >>> 天 + 籁 literally: sounds of heavenly pipe; now probably referring to (popular) music sites

Edited July 17, 2009 at 11:23 AM by leeyah

[Lu]

萌 is a certain look/image/type, not sure if I have enough of a grasp of what it means to explain it... first time I heard this term was on 非诚无扰 where it was used to describe a guy who was fairly young, small and skinny, and sweet & caring (dropped out of uni to care for his sick mother).

[lingo-ling]

When translating proper nouns, research is necessary to determine if an official English name has already been chosen for it. (There are caveats, which I will mention below.)

Looking at Wikipedia's Chinese page for 康熙來了, I see that the apparent "official" English name is (if that page can be trusted!!) "Kangxi Coming".

So onto the caveats:

Sometimes (quite often, in fact) a successful search for the most authoritative source reveals that the official English name is some bizarre Chinglish name.

Sometimes there are several conflicting "official" English names, even from the same authoritative source. For instance, a company's name on a webpage could be different in its logo, the body of the text, and the footer of the page. It could still be something else on the sign above the company's door.

Sometimes no English name can be found online or from other sources, even if it turns out (perhaps hidden in some dusty book at the corporate office) that it actually has one.

Sometimes there is no English name at all.

The crux of the matter is that proper nouns can't be translated willy-nilly... one has to find the most authoritative source available, and even those are not reliable.

[michaelS]

I agree with Lu about 萌. You can read where it comes from here, or just do a baidu image search to get the idea (and notice that the suggested 'related searches' are stuff like 萌宠 萌妹子 萌猫. )