Why Chinese People Say Scrambled egg tomato

[EN] Origin: This phrase most likely emerged from Chinese‑English menus in small restaurants or food delivery apps around the 2010s, when translation was done by amateurs or using machine tools. It spread on Chinese social media platforms like Weibo, Tieba, and later Douyin, where users would post pictures of menus with funny English translations. The meme gained cross‑platform popularity around 2015–2018, with netizens sharing “Scrambled egg tomato” alongside other classics like “Chicken without sexual life” and “Four glad meat balls.” It remains a beloved example of “中式英语” (Chinglish) in food contexts. Today, it is often used self‑deprecatingly by Chinese people to mock poor translation, and even appears in ESL teaching materials as a cautionary example. [中文] 来源：这个短语很可能源于2010年代小餐馆或外卖平台上的中英文菜单，由非专业人士或机器翻译而成。它在中国社交媒体（如微博、贴吧，后来抖音）上传播，用户常发布带有搞笑英文翻译的菜单照片。2015‑2018年间，“Scrambled egg tomato” 与 “Chicken without sexual life”、“Four glad meat balls” 等经典一起被广泛转发。现在它已成为“中式英语”在餐饮领域的标志性案例，被中国网友自嘲式引用，甚至出现在英语教材中作为反面教材。