东西

Wondering why Pepsi, Mountain Dew or Male Weekend? Here some “footnotes” to the translation of Han Han’s “I am just speculating” by ESWN:

Pepsi, Chinese: Baishi 百事 - Baidu: 百度, only one character changed

sina.com, Chinese: Xin Lang 新浪 - Mountain Dew: Ji Lang 激浪 (a soft drink made by Pepsi), only one character changed

Southern Metropolis Daily, Chinese: Nanfang Dushi Bao 南方都市报 - Male Metropolis Daily: Nanfang Dushi Bao 男方都市报, sounds exactly the same

Southern Weekend, Chinese: Nanfang Zhoumo 南方周末 (Southern Metropolis Weekly) - Male Weekend: Nanfang Zhoumo 男方周末, sounds exactly the same

Yellow: stands for pornography

50 Cent Gang: “50 Cent Party”, paid “internet commentators”, see http://chinadigitaltimes.net/china/internet-commentators/

Zhou Jiugeng 周久耕: Nanjing city Jiangning district housing department director Zhou Jiugeng was removed from his post in December 2008 after being scrutinized by netizens. Today he is sitting in prison writing a novel.
See http://globalvoicesonline.org/2008/12/18/china-commissioner-scrutinized-by-netizen-detectives/ for the flesh search.

Yu Qiuyu 余秋雨: prominent writer and critic, got involved in a scandal for falsely donating 200,000 yuan to the quake-hit regions of Sichuan in 2008.
See http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90782/90872/6681526.html and
http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2008/06/yu-qiuyu-tearfully-asking-the-victims-not-be-used-by-anti-chinese-forces/

Here some comments from an unblocked discussion on douban.com about Han Han’s (韩寒)《我只是在猜想》- “I am just speculating”. Just to get an idea. I find it quite unusual to see that people really seem to be worried about him:

刚刚去看博客里没有了~
I just looked, it’s not on his blog anymore~

http://mirror.mlkz.cn/redirect.php?tid=259183&goto=lastpost 这个暂时还可以
This one is still working for now.

不久韩寒也成了敏感词
It won’t take long and Han Han is a sensitive word, too.

感谢韩寒！希望他不会被迫屈服！
Many thanks to Han Han! I hope he won’t be forced to surrender!

总有一天，韩寒会突然消失的。
There’s bound to be a day when Han Han will suddenly disappear.

真担心他有一天会消失
I’m really worried he will disappear one day.

以前不稀罕这人 现在觉得 小孩挺有意思 韩寒 你知道的太多鸟～～
Before, I didn’t care about this person, now I think, pretty interesting boy, you know too much

牺牲了一个产业，换来了国家的稳定，值。
Sacrifice one industry to keep the country stable, that’s worth it.

太不和谐了
Too disharmonious!

韩寒同学要穿防弹衣了
(Classmate) Han Han needs bulletproof clothing now.

很担心 hanhan 同学，被车huo了，它们可是啥都干得出来的
I’m very worried (classmate) Han Han will have a traffic accident, they are capable of just anything

哥　要保重啊!
Mate, you must take care of yourself!