麦当劳中国更名“金拱门” 炸出一堆段子手

McDonald’s China changed its business name, and consumers aren’t lovin’ it.

麦当劳(中国)有限公司近日更改名称，然而新名称似乎并不讨消费者喜欢。

Chinese media reported on Wednesday evening that McDonald’s Chinese business changed its company’s name from Maidanglao, a loose transliteration of the English name, to Jingongmen, or Golden Arches, on Oct. 12.

中国媒体周三晚报道说，麦当劳(中国)有限公司已于10月12日将名称更改为金拱门(中国)有限公司。原名“麦当劳”是对品牌名称的大致音译。

Although the fast food chain reassured its fans on its Weibo microblog that stores in China will still bear the old name, the new moniker was immediately ridiculed by net users for sounding unsophisticated.

尽管该快餐连锁公司在新浪微博上向其粉丝保证中国的门店不会改名，但新名称还是因为听起来太“土”而遭到网友嘲笑。

“Jingongmen sounds like a name for a Peking duck restaurant or a traditional Chinese medicine store,” one Weibo user wrote.

一位微博网友写道：“金拱门听起来像是北京烤鸭店或者中药店铺的名字。”

Picking a Chinese name can be tricky for foreign brands. US home-sharing company Airbnb earlier this year chose “Aibiying,” or “welcome each other with love,” for its Chinese operations, but the name was badly received for being difficult to pronounce. Last month, NBA team Dallas Mavericks asked its fans to come up with a new Chinese name because the current xiaoniu is a mistranslation, meaning “little cows.”

选择一个中国名称对一些外国品牌来说很伤脑筋。美国的共享住宿公司Airbnb今年早些时候为其中国业务选择了“爱彼迎”这一名称，意思是“用爱欢迎彼此”，但因为发音拗口遭人嫌弃。上个月，美国职业篮球联赛达拉斯小牛队请粉丝们为他们想一个新队名，因为“小牛队”其实是个误译。

McDonald’s low-key name change came after the fast food chain sold the bulk of its Chinese mainland and Hong Kong business to financial conglomerate CITIC Group and American investment company Carlyle Capital in January.

在麦当劳(中国)有限公司低调改名前，该公司已于今年1月将其中国大陆和香港的大部分业务出售给中信集团和美国投资公司凯雷资本。

McDonald’s opened its first restaurant in China in 1990, and the brand, closely associated with a Western lifestyle, took off. Long lines formed whenever a new location opened. However, in recent years the fast food chain has struggled to maintain its growth momentum in China as more prosperous, health-conscious consumers seek alternative dining options.

麦当劳于1990年在中国开设首家门店，生意迅速火爆起来，其品牌与西方生活方式紧密相连。每当有新店开业，门前总会排起长队。但近年来，中国消费者越来越富裕，也越来越有健康意识，就餐选择更多样化，麦当劳保持在中国的发展势头也开始困难起来。

Around this period, there was discussion for a new logo for McDonald's, and design consultant Louis Cheskin convinced the company to maintain its branding with the arches.

当时大家正讨论给麦当劳设计一个新标志，设计顾问路易斯·彻斯金说服公司保留了原有的金色拱门品牌标志。

Cheskin argued that the golden arches carried the 'Freudian symbolism of a pair of nourishing breasts,' the BBC reported.

据BBC报道，彻斯金建议说，金拱门“在弗洛伊德学说中象征着一对有营养的乳房。”

In this time period, the effects of Freudian theory were still reshaping the world and Cheskin's view is a deeply Freudian concept.

在当时，弗洛伊德学说的影响仍在重塑着世界，彻斯金的意见深受弗洛伊德学说的影响。

来源：sixthtone、新浪网 翻译&编审：yaning