Last week my co-workers and I went to Shanghai Wild Animal Park as part of a team-building day. The park is divided into a pedestrian area and a vehicle only area. In the vehicle area, a bus takes you through several animal areas divided by electric fences, à la Jurassic Park. Apparently you used to be able to drive your own vehicle through the park until someone had car trouble in the lion zone and was killed when he got out of the car to check the engine. So actually, exactly like Jurassic Park.
I spent most of the day with my Chinese co-workers and took it as an opportunity to learn some animals in Chinese. This was interesting because I discovered that the Chinese take animal names quite literally. For instance, panda in Chinese is xióngmāo, which literally translated means bear cat. Some other enjoyable animal names:
Kangaroo - bag rat
Penguin - goose with fin
Llama - sheep camel
Alpaca - camel sheep
Flamingo - strong fire bird
Hippo - river horse
Zebra - horse with stripes
Swan - goose in the sky
Lemur - fox monkey
I feel that this strategy of naming animals based on what other animals they resemble makes more sense than our penchant for giving everything its own unique name. Perhaps it wouldn't work as well in English, but I do think it could be turned into an excellent game (skunk = stinky squirrel, vulture = death bird).
- "Do not harm the animals due to the evil is little."
- "Green trees and blue sky are the best health foods for human."
- "All of us, regardless of color of skin and nationality, unit to protect the earth."
- "One more tree would contribute to turn the desert green."
- "Whether the environment is destroyed while we create values?"