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Q: Can anybody tell me why Elvis Presley is called 猫王 (the cat-king) in China???
I know he was the King, but why the cat-king???
'Maowang' also doesn't sound like 'Elvis' in a phonetic way... and he didn't look like a cat at all!!
so why????
WHY??????
10 years 24 weeks ago in Arts & Entertainment - China
It's from Cantonese. Hong Kong are most Westernized than mainlanders, and heard of him way back.... in the 70's.
I think it's a "cool cat" reference. Of course, by the 70's Elvis was in "fat cat" territory so take your pick.
Zhi bu dao.....as Jixian residents say.......
Yolanda_Leung:
the "zhi bu dao ,is "bu zhi dao" means i don`t know? your chinese is so so so good
icnif77:
My Chinese is non-existent = 'not good'. I know, whatever I pick-up from students during my English classes.
Butt...it doesn't matter level of your Chinese: 'if you say 'zhi bu dao', many Chinese won't understand you.'
In Jixian, Hebei, all Chinese use that form of 'I don't know'. They don't expect laowai would know it, so we laughed there often. I was working with 2Y old kids in Jixian, when I spotted all Chinese babies ' (can) play with the letters'. How kids can change/replace 'bu zhi dao' with 'zhi bu dao', if they don't know the letters? So, I spoke about 2Y olds with Chinese teacher at the Middle School. She explained to me 'speciality' of Jixian. Apparently, only city in China, where Chinese do 'zhi bu dao'.
According to Baidu, Elvis got a nickname "The Hillbilly Cat" from his fans from the southern America. The HK people translated this name into Chinese to be Cat-king in 70'S. And then all the Chinese use this name reffering to Elvis.
