A few days ago, I attended a conference. Most of the participants were people who work for multinational companies, the type that marketing people in China call ‘white collars’ or bai ling (白领).
There was a panel discussion. Many of the speakers seemed unable to speak Mandarin properly and could only communicate in a strange language that we can call bai ling Chinese. Here is a verbatim transcript of one of the panel speaker’s comments:
我们今天要analyze一下这个online和offline marketing的区别和similarity. Actually, 从我的point of view最好是要pursue一个比较integrated的strategy. Because, 对consumer来说，他们对online 和offline不会有很大的preference.
UPDATE:
– Shanghainese blogger Bingfeng comments:
已经不是港台同胞的专利了，呵呵，耶—-!
This is no longer the special preserve of Hong Kong and Taiwan compatriots, ha ha ha!
– Tian of Hanzi Smatter (a blog about foreigners misusing Chinese characters) and Tian.cc comments by email:
Once in a while it is very difficult to describe something in Chinese, when the English equivalent is so much easier, but that is for specific type of lingo, ie. HCl, Hydrochloric Acid.