Chinglish

This is from a newspaper article voicing concerns over the low level of English skills shown in the recent Hong Kong Certificate of Education Examination:


It's ironic that education is increasing (today's primary schoolers are learning things that were taught to highschoolers 10 years ago) and yet when it comes to English, skill levels have taken a nosedive. I think it has a lot to do with pop culture. The popularity of English songs and movies comes in a distant 4th place when compared to Chinese, Japanese and even Korean entertainment. It's hard to get a grasp of a language when you seldom use it.

But enough seriousness. The real point of me posting this article is that it made me LMAO when I saw some of these answers. My favorite? "Jagon" (dragon). I guess you need to be local to get that one, but it's just so typical Chinglish. In some ways, you have to admire whoever it was who wrote that; at least he knows how to spell phonetically. And "walking in the Victoria Harbor"... maybe this guy was witness to a miracle?

But there's one entry I couldn't figure out: "can don't throw". I tried directly translating into Chinese but still couldn't decipher it. Was the writer's intent simply something along the lines of "don't throw" as in "don't throw, contents fragile"? Or does the "can don't" mean something like "may" (可唔可以)?

Feel free to share your theories on this one.