Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/08/22/what-definitely-not-to-name-yo.html
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Yum, mystery meat!
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I wonder what the characters below actually say. I’d wager they were going for “exotic” more than “mysterious”
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You’re still implying that the virus is somehow Chinese with this “funny” post which hinges upon that misconception. I’m not laughing.
Be better.
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The last three characters are literally “seafood restaurant,” but I don’t know the first (big) one. My guess is that the characters are basically unrelated to the English words above them. I know that happens all the time here in the US. Here in Boston, one of the big dim sum places is “China Pearl” but the Chinese name is “Dragon Phoenix Restaurant,” and a block away you have “Gourmet Dumpling House,” whose Chinese name is “Northern and Southern Flavor.”
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I don’t think a chain around here is any better.
eta: Arrrr, Black Plague Beard!
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Was thinking the same thing, seems like “the joke” here plays on the racist punchline of the chinese flu or whatever. The restaurant name in itself i do find amusing but conflating it with the pandemic is not good optics. Frankly would rather see this BB entry deleted.
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Its just normal for restaurants in south east Asia to have funny/ironic names. Very common in Malaysia, even in places which are not intended to attract tourists.
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It looks a lot like two characters, 厚味. I don’t know if these two characters are ever combined as one, or if the sign maker simply got a little creative. I think they best translate to “rich flavor.”
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My birth country coming through again, I see. 
Within a couple of kilometers of my house we have “Dicey’s Pizza” and “Mr Funny Kebab”. Truth in advertising…
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Mark me down on team “this joke is pretty racist”. His other posts have been mostly miss for me as well. I didn’t gripe on those ones because life is too short, but he’s off to a bad start.
Also: in b4 anyone is disappointed in BoingBoing. I’m not, just disappointed in Matt.
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I’m pretty sure they have a menu, dude.
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At first I saw it this way too. But then I realized that it can be viewed another way: the restuarant name itself might be intentionally making a racist joke about Chinese food being dubious in light of the pandemic, and the BB headline can be read as calling them out on that.
Hmm… or maybe not.
Remind me to someday dig out my pictures of weird named restaurants and menu items in China. Highlights include:
- Meow Meow BBQ (restaurant)
- Cheers: Where everybody knows. (restaurant)
- Fried enema (dish)
- Cowboy bone (dish)
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What’s hilarious to me is that Cambodia , (pop 16m) has yet to record a death; peaked at about 85 active cases; reached zero active cases about two weeks before New Zealand (pop 6m) did; unlike NZ, doesn’t have the advantage of natural cordon sanitaire; has a GDP per capita about 1/60th of NZ and most other countries struggling to manage the pandemic; has since getting to zero only seen a few dozen cases, only from imports, all of which have been contact traced and followed up at an efficiency that puts most all other countries to shame.
There are probably deep, important factors in the serology of the people of this region that might impart immunity. It’s almost like if you were bombed relentlessly at a higher rate than any other country in history by the country laughing at you was the cause, because in Laos and Vietnam, it’s the same general story.
Clearly, the humour here is ignorant. But that ignorance is rooted in the attitude that there’s nothing to learn from the global poor, except where their mineral deposits and 15 year old sex slaves are. At least that’s what it looks like from here in Phnom Penh. The reality is that there’s probably more to learn from the work done by epidemiologists here (who I work with) than a week with Dr. Fauci. But keep laughing boys, you’re making a lot of the old generation of Khmer people really happy at the moment.
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Gotta be Monkey. Monkey meat FTW!
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Interesting name.
厚味 is an archaic saying for “delicious food” as per wiktionary.
So I’d blame whoever came up with the English name.
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Ah, wiktionary. That makes it easier.
This place looks fantastic. Like … seriously.
