WD-40 in Chinese

[NewDominion]

I'm just going to throw this out there for you all. My story is kind of weird, I'm teaching English out here in Xinjiang and for the upcoming Halloween holiday I had some of my kids carve pumpkins. I found a website that told me that WD-40 is a great way to lengthen the life of the pumpkins, so for the sake of my students I set out on finding some (psh, getting the pumpkins is an entirely different story itself).

Of course I immediately realized WD-40 is one of those products that soon gets identified by one particular brand name (like Kleenex or Xerox) and that I didn't actually know what WD-40 was technically called. Wikipedia helped and I found out it's called "penetrating oil" which is 渗透油 in Chinese. But nobody I talked to in my city knew what the heck ShenTouYou was. Asking for lubricant 润滑油 got me car oil and asking for something in a spray can 喷灌 got me carburetor fluid and car wax.

Eventually I located the closest thing to Home Depot and found it just walking through the stores. SOOO... if ANY of you find yourself in the odd situation of needing WD-40 and needing it FAST, ask your nearest hardware expert where you can find the 螺栓松动剂 (luo2shuan1song1dong4ji4) or "Bolt Loosening Chemical." The spray can I have says this stuff "Stops Squeaks, Drives out Moisture, Cleans and Protects, Loosens Rusted Parts, and Frees Sticky Mechanisms." Sounds like the right thing to me!

If this post helps even ONE person in the next 5 years - well, mission successful.

ND

[skylee]

My can of WD-40 (which looks quite rusty haha) calls itself 防銹潤滑劑。