Ordinary Gweilo

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Euphemisms

I love it when companies try to get away with whopping great lies.

A drive-in cinema opened in West Kowloon at the end of last year, and it has had an advert in the SCMP for several months.  For the last few weeks the advert has solemnly announced that the cinema is closed for a private function.  Then the advert stopped appearing.  What can this mean?

One of the restaurants at the somewhat beleaguered Ngong Ping Village, has a sign announcing that it is closed for “emergency renovations”.  Yeah, right.   

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4 responses to “Euphemisms”

  1. fumier avatar
    fumier

    You complain when a blog closes down without explanation, and you complain when someone gives an explanation. Some people are never satsified.

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  2. michael avatar
    michael

    In Chinese culture, it’s bad luck to say a business has been “closed”. The sign always says “short rest” or something else. But it will never say the business is “closed”, even if in our Western minds we know it only to be closed for the day or a short while. Maybe you haven’t lived in Asia long enough to learn this. The way the Chinese language is used and what it literally means is not the same as they way we would use it in English.

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  3. ulaca avatar
    ulaca

    Most Chinese businesses don’t bother with signs when they shut down. Mind you, they get a few V-signs from the poor buggers who turn up at 6am and find the place all shuttered up.

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  4. Chris avatar
    Chris

    I’m not convinced this is totally an Asian thing – companies all over the world are reluctant to admit failure, and often come up with very imaginative announcements to try to convince everyone that things are wonderful when they obviously are not.
    Equally, plenty of businesses in Hong Kong do post signs to inform you that a shop has closed down (or ‘relocated’, which is often another euphemism).

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