Now the Economist blogger needs to put the "n" in "southwestern".
I think the blogger totally missed the point. Mashing English into Chinese is something done not because there is no equivalent meaning in Chinese, but rather is done by students/teenagers/college students as a way to seem hip and cool or just to be funny. In a word, it's just a fad, in fact, this fad has come and passed and not too many of my students use it any more (they've gone on to more "cooler" phrases). There are many examples of this phenomenon.
Newbility (Niubility/牛bility) = The ability to 牛(cow) = being able to shoot the shit, show off, etc.
You are OUT (你OUT了) = You are out of the loop, out of fashion, etc.
HOLD it (HOLD住) = Bear it, Hold your ground, etc.
So what does all of this mean? I think, and I'm not a professional like the Economist, it means that the Chinese society, esp the younger ones, have become more and more comfortable with the English language due to the emphasis by the government, that they are now using it in their colloquialism, making slang by combining English and Chinese.
Of course, I am generalizing and leaving out a lot of intricacies for this phenomenon as I do not think many people care about this issue.
Bottom line, while I don't think the days where we can get a good chuckle out of Chinglish will be over soon, I will say the level of English here in China will increase rapidly in the coming years.
very intresting!
