Fun With Subtitles
Okay, this is fucking awesome. I’m sitting here watching old South Park episodes on DVD. I randomly stuck one in and it was one where Trey and Matt introduce their favorite episodes. They’re performing at an old folks’ home when the turn to the camera, and announce that we’re about to see their favorite episode, “Conjoined Fetus Lady.” The dialogue then goes something like this.
Matt: ‘It’s all about the boys and their trip to China to compete in a dodgeball tournament.”
Trey: “We got the idea when Matt and I visited Beijing, China. Here we are at the Great Wall.”
[Photo of them at the Great Wall.]
Matt: “And here we are at the Forbidden City.”
[Photo of them in an alley.]
Trey: “And here we are at Tiananmen Square, where students were massacred by the Chinese army.”
[Photo of them in front of the Forbidden City.]
Trey: “And here we are reenacting the Tiananmen Square massacre.”
[Photo of them in Chinese army clothes pointing their fingers at a Chinese guy’s head as if they were guns. Cut to another shot of them strangling the same guy.]
Matt: “After we got out of jail for reenacting the Tiananmen Square massacre we came home and thought, ‘Wow, China is really stupid. Let’s make fun of it.’ So we did.”
Trey: “And this episode has that old ‘Woman who has a conjoined twin attached to her head’ joke in it.”
I was really curious to see how the Chinese subtitles would translate this so I started the DVD over again with the subtitles on. When it gets to “We got the idea when Matt and I visited Beijing, China” there is an accurate translation. I recognized the characters for Beijing and China. The funny part comes through the rest—this exact same translation remains on the screen through everything I quoted above, until it gets to the last line, about the conjoined twin joke. For the entire section dealing with Tiananmen the translators conveniently forgot to put up subtitles.
High-larious family entertainment. Of course, the fact that I’ve just written the words “Tiananmen Square massacre” is probably going to get this site blocked by the government. Note to the government functionary who will be evaluating this: this is a personal blog designed for my family and friends, not a political or anti-government website. We’re lao wei, we all saw what happened live on TV. It’s on YouTube, for God’s sake. No Chinese are going to be reading this, so please, cut me some slack. I’m making fun of the DVD, nothing more.
