Reef Fish wrote:
>
> But for some reason, the dates of my arrival was in high demand,
> and the HH points could not be used.
> 527.61 USD 1 KING BED DELUXE MOUNTAIN VIEW
> the CHEAPEST room that night. So, I asked my borther to
> book a hotel in Hong Kong for me at a reasonable rate for
> my two nights of stay until we leave for Shanghai.
>
> My brother scanned the Chinese name and address
> of the hotel in the event I have to ask directions to get there.
>
> It has been almost 50 years since I left Hong Kong and had
> not spoken, read, or write Chinese. When I saw the address,
> I noticed the last two character that I can distinctly recognize
> to be the characters for "liquor" and "shop", and so I asked
> him why the hotel was named a "liquor shop", surely not as
> a way of attracting tourist boozers. :-)
>
> This was the reply I got:
>
> > I guess you can still read some Chinese, and yes, "hotel"
> > in Chinese literally means "liquor shop"!
>
> So, NOW your travellers to Hong Kong and China will know
> what a hotel is called in Chinese.
>
> The next episode will be on my return from HK/Shanghai to
> report what a REAL liquod store is called in Chinese, if you
> are looking for liquor instead of a hotel.
I don't have to wait till I return to Hong Kong to give the piece
of trivia about the difference in the two Chinese Characters
for "hotel" and the REAL "liquor store" as we know it.
The FIRST character is the same character for "liquor",
"spirits", "wine", and all "alcoholic breverages", including
rice wine, for that matter. !
So, the second character is what defined "liquor store" to
be a "hotel", while the second character that accompanies
the "liquor" character for a wine-liquor-beer store is the
character that corresponds to a "cellar". There's the
secret in CHINESE characters: "liquor" "store" = hotel;
"liquor/wine" "cellar" = store for aloholic breverages!
And DON'T ask me how you order a glass of wine from
a glass of liquor. :-)
The only trivia i know there is that a Martini is
transliterated into Chinese phonetic characters that
means "horse" "kicked" "you" which is what Ma - ti -
nee in Mandarin means. :-)
-- Reef Fish Bob.
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