There’s something about the way Chinese like to name establishments that just doesn’t make a whole lot of sense in English. We saw it in the earlier “Say What??” photo with that funky restaurant title. Today’s entry brings us a whole new perplexing title…and no, your eyes are not deceiving you, that sign really does say “stope the boar and lodging!”
This sign marks a hotel in which I spent an extraordinarily short amount of time. You see, this classy place is where I stayed in the transit town of Xiangcheng, a brief stop between an evening arrival from Litang and a 6am departure to Shangri-La. But in my brief time there, I am fairly certain that I never spotted any boar. I would think the altitude, at some 3200 meters or 10,500 feet, would be too high for them!
And stope? According to the dictionary it’s a mining excavation comprising of terraces or steps. Well Xiangcheng is in the mountains, though I don’t recall any rice terraces… Not quite sure where they were going with that… “Stop the Boar! And Lodging!,” perhaps?