BITE THE WAX TADPOLE

Cultural and linguistic idiosyncrasies

The Chinese written language is picto/ideographic. Each character is an abstract graphic representation of an object or concept. It differs from Latin/Arabic/Cyrillic, which have an alphabet made of arbitrary symbols that when arranged in specific ways generate a learned meaning; in and of themselves they provoke no useful insight whatsoever.

Bold Leap. I propose that a culture raised on a pictorially representational language has a higher propensity toward understanding literal visual stimuli; tapping more directly into visual memory triggers than a language that relies on conjuring your own images, drawing your own visual conclusions. This is of course not to say definitively that Latin-rooted or alphabetic languages are more precisely articulate and poetically expressive or that Chinese is limited in that regard, but I do believe that this difference lends itself in asian cultures raised on ideograms to at least facilitate a high degree of readiness to respond well to graphic stimuli.

Branding communication in China has some pitfalls, particularly in terms of integrating with international communication and lingua franca. An example of this is in brand names. Coca-Cola, which has been in the Chinese marketplace for more than half a century, had a great deal of trouble finding a suitable expression for its name in the Mandarin language. Often, foreign brands trying to bed into China opt for homophonic matches in existing chinese words - chinese words combined to sound-a-like the foreign language name, with sometimes hilarious consequences. Coke had variously been presented in outlets as “female horse fastened with wax”, “wax flattened mare” or, my personal favorite “bite the wax tadpole” (蝌蚪啃蜡), these being various literal translations of the chinese characters chosen purely for their approximately similar spoken pronunciation. They did finally arrive at an official trademarked name, translating literally as "to permit mouth to be able to rejoice" ( 可口可乐), a much more appropriate match for the product.

You can see how, relying on our mental processing of associative image memory, undesirable associations might be made with these bizarre descriptions, in this case, of what many regard as a perfectly pleasant and tasty beverage. This is an area of global communication where there is a lot of scope for misunderstanding if not outright ridicule, loss of business or even causing offence. 

So, what has been discussed so far and what should we hold on to? 

*The visual interpretation of stimuli is tied directly to emotional response triggers based on established memories, catalogued understanding and rationality, all of which can be utilised in communicating on conscious and subconscious levels. 

*It can also help us identify specific themes in design and what exactly they are tapping into.