Talk:Shanzhai

Rename?

Hi, according to Lin Yutang, A brigands' stronghold; a stockade or fort with walled defense. http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/Lindict/.

And on zh:山寨 (網路語言), the lead section has a better explanation. So I think since the current translation:Mountain village does not really convey the true meanings, for temporary measure, we change the title into the pinyin of 山寨:Shanzhai, until a better translation is found. What do you think? Arilang ^talk 20:57, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

I oppose change because I have found English-language articles using the term "mountain village", which is the plainest translation as opposed to "mountain brigand" etc. I suggest that we open a discussion, open to all Wikipedians. Do not invite specific debaters, but rather post the link on a public page here announcing that we will discuss the proper English term for Shanzhai. Bestlyriccollection (talk)

Thanks for your prompt reply. I agree with you about not inviting debaters, and please do not post any message on my talk page, because I am currently fighting a AfD tag, and I do not want all those people to come over here. Since you are the creator of the page, I think I just talk to you. Basically I have nothing to oppose Mountain village, but the original Chinese phrase 山寨 has much broaded meaning, that's all. Arilang ^talk 00:12, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Hi everyone. I looked up the Wikipedia naming policy and found the section called Use the most easily recognized name, which says this:

Generally, article naming should prefer what the greatest number of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity, while at the same time making linking to those articles easy and second nature.

This is justified by the following principle:

The names of Wikipedia articles should be optimized for readers over editors, and for a general audience over specialists.

Wikipedia determines the recognizability of a name by seeing what verifiable reliable sources in English call the subject.

Earlier today I tried to find out if there was anything on Shanzhai on the Wiki, so I looked up "Shanzhai" (the first word that came to my mind) but found nothing (just Shanzha). This is just me, but I would never have thought of looking up "Mountain village."

I also tried to find if there were better translations. "Copycat" seems pretty common (862 hits), but it's too broad for a wiki about "shanzhai" and it also doesn't convey the popular meaning of "shanzhai" very well. There's also "bandit" (104 hits), but it seems marginal and has the same general problems as "copycat." Finally, a search of "Shanzhai" and "mountain village" together yields 327 hits, much less than for copycat. In other words, there are many translations of "shanzhai," but none more srikingly common than the others and none that can properly convey the meaning of "shanzhai" as "cheap popular pirate version" of something.

Now a Google search of "Shanzhai" itself gives more than 45,000 results, spectacularly more than with a translation by its side. Some of these links explain what "Shanzhai" means literally, but almost all of them end up using "Shanzhai" as if it were an English word. They speak of "Shanzhai culture," "Shanzhai movies," "Shanzhai phones," whatever. To me, that's the clincher: the word "shanzhai" seems to have taken a life of its own even in English-language reporting on that topic. If reliable sources are already using "Shanzhai" instead of any particular translation, I think Wikipedia should do the same. And in terms of "making linking easy and second nature," "shanzhai" seems much better than "mountain village."

So my proposal is this:

• Rename this article "Shanzhai"
• Create a redirect at Mountain village (counterfeit)
• Create a page called Mountain village and redirect to Mountain Village
• Add an entry at the disambiguation page called Mountain Village that will lead to the page on "Shanzhai."

What do other editors think?

And just to prevent any misunderstanding, even though I've just posted about "Shanzhai" on Arilang's talk page, I'm not coming here at his invitation. I've actually nominated two of Arilang's articles for deletion in the last month, but in this case I just think he's right!

Cheers, Madalibi (talk) 04:18, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree with this proposal. "Shanzhai" is getting more use in the news (admittedly most of this is the Chinese English-language news or blogs dealing with China) (see Google news search here), whereas "mountain village" is rarely used. L ^talk 08:32, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Support. I think Madalibi's arguments are very convincing. This article should be renamed to Shanzhai. I have created Mountain village and redirected it to disambiguation page Mountain Village, and added an entry at Mountain Village that leads to Mountain village (counterfeit).--Neo-Jay (talk) 14:31, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, Neo-Jay. Right now, the article is still at "Mountain village (counterfeit)" and Shanzhai is only a redirect. Is this sufficient, or should we move the actual content of the article to Shanzhai? I know it doesn't make much of a difference in terms of search results, so I'm just asking. Madalibi (talk) 00:21, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

I support the move to Shanzhai because that is the proper name. Arilang ^talk 01:05, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

I also support the move to Shanzhai, as that is as it's being referred to, as the searches have shown. L ^talk 02:44, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Support to move. The title should be Shanzhai, the more common name. --Neo-Jay (talk) 02:58, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

I think Bestlyriccollection has seen the discussion, but he hasn't responded yet. If he has no objection (or if he presents no good counter-argument soon), I think we should proceed with the move. But I'm not too sure how to move pages around... Neo-Jay: would you mind doing it for us? Thanks! Madalibi (talk) 03:43, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Hi, Madalibi, there is a menu button Move at the top of the page, between History and Watch (or Unwatch). Hit it and you can move the page. --Neo-Jay (talk) 13:57, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Move successful

Hi, I have move the page successfully due to consensus. Arilang ^talk 06:20, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

The next internet catch phrase

Thanks Alainna for your support. If you are in HK, and I suppose you do speak Cantonnese, could you work out the origin of this word 打醬油. I know it originated in Canton, but Cantonnese is 鼓油(pinyin: Shiyao), not 醬油(pinyin:Zhianyu). And is 打鼓油 a local slang? I speak Canntonese but I do not know its origin, and it was a hot internet catch phrase of 2008. Arilang ^talk 03:04, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

New article

Please have a look at this:2009 CCSTV New Year's Gala Arilang ^talk 01:53, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Is it really necessary to have this article? The information is already included in this one. L ^talk 15:01, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Shanzhai translation

While I understand that the actual translation is more accurately "mountain stronghold", the Chinese English-language press generally translates it as "mountain village". (Compare the 527 results for searching ""mountain stronghold" shanzhai" to the 16,300 results for ""mountain village" shanzhai".) I edited the translation as such. L ^talk 13:39, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Fake Apple Stores

Those could be included in this article. 188.102.10.166 (talk) 05:42, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Are the Apple stores still "Shanzhai", or a higher level of fake? This seems to be suggesting they are "more than Shanzhai". Dcxf (talk) 08:23, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Hacking culture?

Is it similar to hacking or media jamming? Zezen (talk) 04:14, 21 May 2019 (UTC)