"Going Postal": In Chinese, please
By Bruce Humes, published June 1, 2010, 8:17p.m.
From the June 1 New York Times:
BEIJING — A security guard apparently angered by a court-imposed divorce settlement shot and killed three people and wounded three others at a courthouse in Hunan Province before turning the weapon on himself, the state media reported.
...the assailant, Zhu Jun, 46, was the head of security at a local Postal Savings Bank branch and had access to a small arsenal.
Thus my question: How does one say, "He went postal" in Chinese?
Comments
My sense is that, in any given society, terms like "going postal" only enter the popular argot after the country experiences a rash of such incidents, and there's enough a certain period of public discussion and soul-searching.
So, sadly, we might not have a good Chinese translation for "going postal" until after the country's had time to digest all the school attacks…
Thanks be to God and Google. Now I know I am not the only one asking this question!
Having referenced several of them, it now appears that the most feasible might be:
发邮政疯 (fā yóuzhèng fēng)
For which the Google reverse translation is:
postal crazy hair
I hope it will never enter the Chinese language. I know it is not language's fault, but such references may encourage copycats. Putting a label on an individual case of violence can be dangerous in such cases (but of course, not as dangerous as the situations leading to them.)
Berlin Fang, June 2, 12:26p.m.
That must be an Americanism because I had know idea what it meant until I did a Google search.
I'm guessing China would need to have a gun culture in order to develop a popular term for people who shoot their managers.
Tom Saunders, June 3, 5:01a.m.
Bruce, One need only watch the videos on YouTube of China Post employees smashing and throwing customer packages and parcels to realize that the term "Going Postal" has taken on new meaning here in the PRC.
Tom Carter, June 16, 11:02p.m.