Chinese blogger Wang Kang has recently become an internet sensation after posting images of himself wearing a home-made Iron Man MK I costume on China's micro-blogging platform Weibo. The costume is made of high density foam, wires and tubes; it took three months to build, weighs 50 kilograms and cost 3,000 Yuan ($460). His costume is so impressive that when worn to his place of work Wang was even asked by the office security guard to inspect his Iron Man costume on the chance that it was real.
Chinese have been quite creative when emulating their movie heroes. Last year, a Chinese man recreated the Iron Man Arc Reactor while the Shanghainese Wang has expressed interest in moving on to recreate the red and gold Iron Man MK III costume.
Iron Man is known in China as 钢铁人(gāng tiěrén) which literally means “iron person”; when the characters 钢(steel) and铁(iron) combine they can together mean both “steel” or “iron”. Chinese netizens have been very enthusiastic of Wang Kang’s efforts; a commenter on Tiexue said of Wang and his Iron Man cosplay:
“有点意思！很喜欢这种放松的方式！”(Yǒu diǎnyì si! Hěnxǐ huānzhè zhǒngfàng sōngdefāng shì)
[Translation] “Quite interesting! I really like this kind of relaxation method!”
“有意思” (yǒuyì si)means “to be interesting”, and is often confused with “对…有意思” (duì… yǒu yì si), which means “to be interested…(in this thing)” (usually another person). This is very similar to the difference between “有趣” (yǒu qù)and “对…很感兴趣” (duì… hěngǎn xīng qù).The former refers to “something that is interesting”, while the latter shows that “someone is interested (in that thing)”. An example of these sentences would be:
“钢铁人很有趣！” (Gāng TiěRényǒu qù.) “Iron Man is interesting.”
“我对钢铁人很感兴趣！”(Wǒ duì Gāng TiěRénhěngǎn xìng qù.) “I am interested in Iron Man.”
So if you had wanted to say, “Since Iron Man is so interesting, I am interested in Wang Kang cosplaying as Iron Man!”, you would say:
“因为钢铁人很有趣，我对王康扮钢铁人的假装很感兴趣！”
(Yīnwèi gāngtiě rén hěn yǒuqù, wǒduì WángKāngbàn Gāng Tiě Rén dejiǎ zhuāng hěngǎn xīng qù!)
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