2012 seems to be the most discussed movie here in Taiwan right now. This is pretty disappointing since I haven't heard a thing about it that seems worht discussing, but whenever one of my English students, or Chinese teachers, my roommate or anyone else for that matter, tries to bring it up there's a moment of confusion about what exactly to call it. My students in particular cant sort out whether to break it into smaller numbers - Twenty Twelve - or just take it on one digit at a time - Teacher, have you seen Two Zero One Two?
We started talking about movies in my Chinese class, and our teacher brought up "The Day After Tomorrow." In Chinese there's an actual word for the day after tomorrow - "houtian" - so Tiffany, one of my classmates, joked that it must have been really easy to translate when it opened here. Our laoshi assured us that while in mainland China they just directly translate movie titles, in Taiwan they try to be more poetic, and to capture the essence of the movie. So instead of just "Houtian," in Taiwan they called it "What Will Happen After Tomorrow?"
"Also, like, 'Top Gun,'" she said, "In China, they just call it 'Big Gun.' Here we call it, oh I don't remember. But it's much better."
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