I Don't know Sister Li 
​(wobulijie 我不李姐)

The title of the work, I don’t know Sister Li  (Wo bu Li jie 我不李姐), is a widespread phrase derived from the Chinese internet that came to be interpreted by Chinese speakers as “I don’t understand” due to the exact same pronunciation of li jie 李姐 referring to “sister Li” and the verb li jie 理解 meaning “to understand/comprehend”. Yaoxi further explains her idea: “We [foreign students] communicate with peers [at UAL] from different countries on a daily basis, and since English is often not our first language and we don’t know enough about the other party’s culture, misunderstanding occurs quite frequently. Sometimes it is impossible for us to clearly express ourselves or get the correct meaning of someone’s words, so we [Chinese students] use automatic translation in WeChat (author’s note: Chinese messaging & social media app). However, the software cannot always recognise some homophonic characters and common sayings, and this is when some strange and amusing translations emerge, which then turn into small jokes.”

The content of the stickers could be divided into two groups. One is addressing incorrect translation, for instance the “ma ma hu hu 马马虎虎” phrase, the characters of which were translated here directly into English as “horse horse tiger tiger”, but in fact is a single expression meaning “not so bad” and is used by Chinese speakers to reply to a How are you? question. The other part of the stickers can be grouped according to the incorporation of English words, which the software often mistakes for the words in Chinese with similar pronunciation and vice versa: Bu ke si yi 不可思议 (English: inimaginable) and book 思议, Shen cang bu lou 深藏不露 (English: keep one's own counsel) and 深藏 blue among other examples. 

​———— Daria Ozerskaya