Life's Persistent Questions

Things I love, things I hate.

I love old school restaurants in Shanghai. They are named after place, people or their famous dish. The names made sense. There is certain degree of classical culture and education that went into such names. Of course, now most of such restaurants have franchises all over the city while charging premium prices for their names, but they are still true to their tradition.

I hate the names of new restaurants and bars in Shanghai. These names are often idiotic and show a complete lack of culture sophistication. For example, 锅比盆大, "Pot is bigger than the dish." It is a hot pot joint. Of course, the pot is bigger than the dish. I actually just found a afternoon tea place, 锅比碗大，"Pot is bigger than the tea cup." I love it. A second option is the purposeful misuse of characters with similar phonetic sounds. Chinese is prone to such abuse, but this phenomunom still gets on my nerves. But the worst is when people name their restaurant/bar to their locations. It may be fine if you have a single digit address on the Bund, but otherwise... I think this originated from the art galleries in the West. Western restaurants, bars and galleries love this practice. Well, stop, I don't think it is original and it only shows a lack of creativity and intellectual laziness.

posted by hedgehog @ 4:14 AM