A compound near our home in the Spring Legend is named Block Town. The compound is still under construction.
In the last fall when no one ever had heard anything of the Novel Coronavirus, now it is called Covid-19 that is still rampaging the entire world, my husband and I often had lovely walks along the Yanqi River. One day, we noticed a name-sign of a new construction site. It was named “Block Town”. If we had not have noticed the Chinese name, we would have not laughed the odd name .
The Chinese name of this future little town is 水岸雁栖。 In Chinese, the name is quite artistic: 水岸 — banks of rivers or lakes; 雁栖 — the real meaning is a playground of wild geese. So, Yanqi River could be literally translated to River of Wild Goose Place (or even deploying a grandeur word of PARADISE 😏 ). To be simple, I prefer Yanqi River. However, “banks of Yanqi River” sounds too plain, doesn’t it?
At the time, we thought a better name for the compound: Town of Blocks-by-the-Yanqi, mimicking the City of Carmel-by-the-sea in California. In Chinese, Carmel-by-the-sea could be translated to 海岸卡麦尔, which comes the same beautiful, playful and meaningful sense.
But, one has to admit that “Block Town” is quite easy to remember. When my husband sent me the following picture, I realized why it would be a block-town.
On the red banner, it writes “中国科学院”（Chinese Academy of Sciences）blah, blah. It makes perfect sense of naming its own dormitories as the Block Town. Very well, the Block Town it is, quite scientific, stoical and serious.