"Clumsy robotaxi" — Phrase of the Week
Driverless cars in Wuhan take-off but it's not been a smooth ride
Our phrase of the week is: "clumsy robotaxi" (苕萝卜 sháo luóbo)
Context
A fleet of more than 500 driverless taxis operated by Baidu’s autonomous-driving unit in Wuhan, capital of central Hubei province, is quickly gaining attention and customers.
Operating under the brand name Apollo Go (萝卜快跑 luóbo kuàipǎo), Baidu, which is China’s main internet search engine, has invested heavily in developing autonomous vehicles since 2013.
Wuhan, a city of 13.7 million, is positioning itself as China’s “first city of autonomous driving” (自动驾驶第一城). It is the first city in China to issue pilot licences for the commercialization of intelligent and connected vehicles (ICVs), and the first to open public test roads in the city centre.
Taking a ride on Apollo Go has become an attraction for punters. Many people share images and experiences of their journeys on social media, and how it differs from the usual ride hailing experience.
But on July 7, an Apollo Go self-driving car collided with a pedestrian on the street who had tried to cross the road on a red light. The self-driving car had just started moving when the traffic signal turned green. The car was moving slowly at the time, and the pedestrian did not sustain any injuries.
These limitations of the driverless technology has led to the creation of a new slang phrase to refer to the Apollo Go cars:
Due to the design of self-driving cars, they have limitations when it comes to navigating intersections, narrow roads, and other complex urban scenarios. Because of this, many people in Wuhan call Apollo Go self-driving taxis “Silly Turnip”.
囿于无人驾驶车的性能，其在通过路口、窄路等复杂道路场景的效率还稍显不足，正因如此，有不少武汉人将萝卜快跑的无人驾驶车称作「苕萝卜」。
Yòuyú wúrén jiàshǐ chē de xìngnéng, qí zài tōngguò lùkǒu, zhǎilù děng fùzá dàolù chǎngjǐng de xiàolǜ hái shāo xiǎn bùzú, zhèng yīn rú cǐ, yǒu bùshǎo Wǔhàn rén jiāng Luóbo Kuàipǎo de wúrén jiàshǐ chē chēng zuò “sháo luóbo”.
And with that we have our Sinica Phrase of the Week!
What it means
"Silly turnip" (苕萝卜 sháo luóbo) is the direct translation of a phrase which needs some unpacking.
It starts with the Chinese name of the brand, Apollo Go, which translated directly is "turnip" (萝卜 luóbo), "go fast" (快跑 kuàipǎo).
The pronunciation of "turnip" in Chinese ("luóbo") sounds similar to "robo" of "robotaxi" in English. So the brand name signals: "this robotaxi gets you there fast". As far as we can tell the Chinese name has no link to the English, Apollo Go.
According to some complaints of pedestrians and customers of Apollo Go in Wuhan, the robotaxis can be anything but fast. In certain situations, such as busy road intersections, the vehicles move slowly, apparently finding it hard to sense its surroundings and make decisions.
Which is why the locals of Wuhan call the Baidu robotaxi a "silly turnip" (苕萝卜 sháo luóbo).
The character 苕 sháo is from the Wuhan dialect of Chinese. As a noun, it means sweet potatoes, and as an adjective, it describes someone as “stupid” or “clumsy”, similar to the word "silly" (傻 shǎ) in Mandarin.
The Wuhan dialect, also known as the Hankou dialect, belongs to the Southern Mandarin spoken across the southern part of China. It is spoken in the city of Wuhan and surrounding areas in Hubei province. The dialect has limited mutual intelligibility with Standard Chinese, and has many unique slang phrases and expressions.
One such slang term is "silly" (苕 sháo), which here has been added to the word for "turnip" to create a new name for Apollo Go robotaxis.
So in the context of the dithering driverless cars at busy road junctions in Wuhan, we translate this week's Phrase of the Week not as “silly turnips”, but as "clumsy robotaxis".
Andrew Methven is the author of RealTime Mandarin, a resource to help you learn contemporary Chinese in context, and stay on top of the latest language trends in China.
😂
In pure Wuhanese tho, it’s pronounced more like “sao”