Christmas Stockings in Chinese

Christmas stocking for sale on a Chinese site. Image source.

How do we say "Christmas stocking" in Chinese?

Well, it's 圣诞袜子 [shèng dàn wà zǐ]. 圣诞 [shèng dàn] means "Christmas", like when you're using "Christmas" as an adjective to talk about Christmas cookies, Christmas trees, etc- but when you're talking about Christmas the holiday, as in "Today is Christmas", it would be 圣诞节 [shèng dàn jié], because 节 [jié] means "holiday." And 袜子 [wà zǐ] means sock.

Wait, 袜子 [wà zǐ] means sock? Like any normal sock is 袜子 [wà zǐ]? Yes, any normal sock is 袜子 [wà zǐ]. Every day when you wear socks, they are 袜子 [wà zǐ]. The Chinese word for Christmas stocking is Christmas sock.

Something about this feels a little wrong, to me. When we talk about "stockings" in English, the feel of it is like... an old-fashioned sock. An old-timey word for "sock." Like the origins of this tradition are that long ago, people really did hang up actual socks for Christmas, but now we use a dedicated product specifically made to be a Christmas stocking, which would not work as an actual sock you can wear on your actual foot. 

All of that is wrapped up in the English word "stocking," and the Chinese 圣诞袜子 [shèng dàn wà zǐ] doesn't have any of the same feel.

There's no tradition about Christmas stockings in China. I think a lot of Chinese people have seen them used in Christmas decorations, so they vaguely know that Christmas stockings are a thing that exists, but they don't know any details beyond that.

This is how translation always is. You take a word in one language and you want to translate it to a second language, but the second language doesn't have a word with the exact same feel. And I just asked me husband (who is Chinese) about this, and he said "we don't care" about the fact that "stocking" sounds more old-fashioned and not like an actual sock, because in China they don't have this tradition. (And perhaps there *is* a Chinese word that feels more old-fashioned and is related to socks- though I don't know one myself- and one might argue that it is a better translation for "stocking", except that you won't get anywhere making that argument, because Chinese people are already using the translation 圣诞袜子 [shèng dàn wà zǐ].)

Translation is like that.

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