A Yahalingma motorbike from China

May 22, 2012 by Tycho de Feijter

Seen in my street in Beijing, a very red Yahalingma motorbike. The other text says: “Racing GP Super Motor Bike City Power Vehicle.” The Chinese name is indeed Yahalingma, 雅哈铃马, a phonetic and very unlicensed translation of Yahama. The Chinese name of the real Yamaha is… Yahama, 雅马哈, a slightly different phonetic translation with one character less. Consumers indeed, might get confused… This kinda name-nicking still happens a lot in China, see for example this Suziky.