Rejoice! Top Gear, the massively popular UK driving programme in which overfed manchildren do stupid (and often genuinely hilarious) things with cars, is coming to China.

The British newspaper and bastion of right-wing reportage, The Telegraph, has this to say concerning the Chinese version’s title:

The Chinese show will also retain the pun in its name. It has been titled Zui Gao Dang, which translates literally as “Top Quality”.

Despite the continued character-phobia of the western press, we can assume the Chinese to be 最高档 zuì  gāodàng – but why does the article only mention that the name translates “literally” to “top quality” (perhaps ‘most high-end’ is better). Right, they do say that the pun is retained, so we can work it out, but it might have been better to spell it out – 最高档 also means the top gear (of a vehicle), and unlike the English, both meanings of the Chinese are literal.

With the English phrase ‘top gear’ we think automatically about car or bike gears, and only secondarily of its figurative meaning – ‘in top gear’, meaning to perform well. With the Chinese 最高档 however, I think first we would think of high-grade, top quality, or whatever, and that it is used comparatively rarely to actually mean the top gear of a vehicle.  I personally believe that 最高档 is one of those phrases that has been misappropriated and ruined forever by the Chinese consumer market, as I can only think about tacky, ostentatious displays of wealth whenever it is uttered. Does anybody else have this problem, or is it just me?

At any rate, the content of the show may well be heavily toned down, from the looks of the article:

Cao Yunjin, a popular Beijing comedian who will be one of the three hosts of the Chinese version, told state media that he believed the antics of Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond, the hosts of Top Gear, are too extreme for Chinese censorship requirements.

“The boys go crazy in the show, like pushing a Maserati over the top of a three-storey building and smashing it. It may be too much violence for a fun programme in China,” said Mr Cao.

So vehicular destruction is considered ‘too violent’ for China? Tell that to the taxi drivers…

I’d be interested to know if anyone has seen this “popular comedian” chap, Cao Yunjin, on the television, or indeed live, and if they think he’d be a good host for the show.  I somehow can’t quite imagine the Chinese Top Gear imitating the quirky, sarcastic and sometimes downright insulting tone of the original show’s humour. We can but hope.