Lost in Translation
A month ago, my Personal Computer, otherwise known as my PC, began making a loud chopping noise. Kind of like a helicopter descending to earth as rapidly and as safely as possible because something is about to go wrong.
My PC was sidelined.
I still had my Laptop and my phone, so this was not an existential emergency, but there are certain things I perform on my PC that are more convenient than anywhere else.
Normally I call my personal IT guy, my oldest son Francisco, to perform diagnostics and tell me what’s wrong, but he was in Costa Rica with his wife on a well-deserved vacation and I was pretty sure he wouldn’t come back early to help out.
So, I carefully unplugged everything in the back of the computer, but not before I took a photo so I’d know where to plug everything back in. Then I unscrewed the sides of the tower. I blew out all the dust which is the first thing everyone should do, but after I plugged in the power and turned it back on it still made the noise. By then I could see clearly what was rattling – a plastic fan at the top of the housing was broken.
I took photos of the fan and sent them to Francisco, Costa Rica or not, and he kindly put the right fan in the cart of my Amazon account!
Now in a previous column I told the story of how things worked out just peachy, and how proud I was to do something useful for once. This time, however, I want to talk about the fan’s instructions, Chinese on one side, with an English translation on the other.
Let me make this very clear. English is a difficult language to master. Fun Fact: Did you know there are more English speakers in China that there are in the United States?
I admire anyone who tries to learn English. Chinese entrepreneurs learn English specifically to sell their manufactured goods in the Englishspeaking world. That makes these capitalists a subversive Fifth Column in a monolithic Communist country.
Shh.
So, if I share these instructions it’s not to make fun of someone’s attempt to speak English, but to remind us how odd we must sound to others when we try to speak their language. So here are some quotes, complete with original spelling:
“Thanks for Choosing our Cooling fan, you will be assured with our professional after sale Service.”
“We can overcome difficulties during the growth when selling on AMAZON with your trial.”
“These Cooling fans was Designed for computer cooling system, any other kinds of cooling or help your space be full of fresh air.”
“It will be dangerous or fan broken by wrong instruct, For safety, Please read this User Manual before using and keep it at place where can be read it easily.”
“Fan picture will be different due to fan type or mould difference, Hope you can understand.”
“Warnning: Please do not work over Rated Working voltage, it will cause fire and fan board will be burned.”
“Please do not use finger to touch the blade when it working.”
“Please do not put the products on the place where kids children can get it.”
“Please do not try to repair, open, DIY the products by yourself.’
By the way, this person knew English better than me, because I had to look it up DIY. It means Do It Yourself, and their advice is Don’t. Boy, they know me, don’t they?