China Travel Forum

[Guy]

While at the Beijing airport I approached two young security guards located near the gates and asked where I could go to eat.

I assumed they knew at least basic English and repeatedly used the word food. One of them immediately became extremely agitated. Since one of them seemed to misunderstand, I patiently pantomimed what I meant in order to make myself absolutely clear. To my horror, this only served to further infuriate the security guard who walked away in a rage and began shaking his head negatively and while he seemed to be telling the second security guard, who also began looking upset not to listen to me.

I began thinking that I must surely have said something wrong. Otherwise why would he have that glaring murderous angered facial expressions and belligerent general body language?

So my question is this:

Is the English sound of the word food something obscene to the Chinese?

So I am wondering if the English sound of the word food is obscene to the Chinese.

Guy

[kamal]

There are several meanings for the sound "fu" pronounced foo in Mandarin, but none that I can think of that would be extremely offensive. Fu could mean: blessing/luck, to pay ($), a bat (the kind that fly), etc.