It's only called that (美国) through abbreviation, the full name is [美]利坚合众[国] meilijian hezhongguo (Federation of American States) where meilijian is 译音/transliteration/phonetic. The 美 on its own yes means beautiful but it's used here for sound not meaning.

Same for people who think England (英国 yingguo) is the 'heroic' country when it's also just another abbreviation, this time of 英格兰 yinggelan or [英]联王[国].

[–] [email protected] 32 points 5 months ago (1 children)

TIL

[–] [email protected] 59 points 5 months ago (5 children)

It's kinda funny, I've seen Chinese people online swap out the 美 mei beautiful for 霉 mei 'moldy' or on r/sino 没 mei 'not' (as in, America will soon not be a country)

[–] [email protected] 30 points 5 months ago

Inshallah

[–] [email protected] 30 points 5 months ago

lmao

[–] [email protected] 17 points 5 months ago

they're copying me, i've been calling it ugly country for years now

Death to America

[–] [email protected] 16 points 5 months ago

One of my great regrets is that there are puns in like 2,000 languages that i will never get.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 5 months ago

Furthermore, the idea that a named coined for a country in a completely different political landscape, in a completely different time, would be indicative of contemporary opinions and ideas of Chinese people today is a stupid conclusion based on the premise alone.