"Wecker": an 'English' word used in China?

[Douglas G. Wilson]

In the course of explaining some weird Chinese-to-English
translations, I found one which I can't explain: Chinese "laoyeche"
("lao3 ye2 che1") translated as "wecker".

"Laoyeche" might be naively decomposed as "grandfather car", I think.

Here is "wecker" (= "laoyeche") at Yahoo-HK, even pronounced for us:

http://hk.dictionary.yahoo.com/search.html?s=wecker

It's in some other on-line dictionaries/glossaries too.

It apparently means "vintage/antique/classic car" and many examples
appear on the Web, in English, but always or nearly always in English
originating in China.

Here it appears in item 12 (in Chinese):

http://www.gowoo.com/yp/slist/site.aspx?id=203929&c=A16B02&u=http://auto.sina.com.cn/news/2007-09-17/2313310731.shtml&t=%B2%BB%CD%AC%CA%D0%B3%A1%C7%F8%D3%F2%BD%CE%B3%B5%CA%C7%C8%E7%BA%CE%B7%D6%C0%E0%B5%C4(3)

Here are some weckers on display:

http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200506/10/eng20050610_189556.html

Here a "wecker show" is advertised:

http://www.autoharbin.cn/en/activities.htm

There are many Web ads (in English) for toy/model weckers.

But sometimes "wecker" seems to be equated with "jalopy"/"beat-up
car". In this list "laoyeche" goes both ways ("beat-up car", "vintage car"):

http://www.chineselanguage.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=19933&sid=2d0e2974720a7f6abf2555d686fe8ce4

So where does this word "wecker" come from? It's not in my OED as far
as I can see. Not in other English dictionaries, at a glance. Not in
my Chinese/English dictionaries either.

["Wecker" is German for "alarm clock", but I can't see any connection
right away.]

-- Doug Wilson


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