Posted on 01/07/2007 5:55:12 AM PST by Brilliant
BEIJING — Visitors to China's capital can stroll through "Racist Park," enjoy a plate of "Crap in the Grass" and stop by a Starbucks franchise for a cup for "Christmas Bland" coffee.
Now the Beijing government is trying to clean up such mistranslations and sloppy editing (including the inversion of "a" and "r" in "carp" on menus) before an expected 500,000 foreigners arrive for the 2008 Summer Olympics.
"Some of the translations in China aren't clear or even polite," said Liu Yang, director general of the Beijing Speaks Foreign Languages program. "The government realized that if they weren't changed, the city would lose face."
The campaign includes teaching 300 English phrases to 48,000 taxi drivers, helping restaurants edit menus and standardizing public signs.
The English translations on signs range from charming mistakes to baffling renditions that spread anger and confusion.
At a tourist site in Pingyao, a popular city for weekend trips from Beijing, visitors struggle to make sense of a sign stating, "Coming and going in turn, and don't stretch out your head to watch please."
There is such a plethora of entertaining "Chinglish" — the unusual and sometimes incomprehensible phrases that result when Chinese meets English — that several online communities are devoted entirely to sharing entertaining snippets.
A collection of photographs posted at flicker.com includes of a Chinese sign marking a loading zone but bearing the English message: "Vehicle-taking spot." Many of the funniest examples are found on packaging, such as instructions on a Chinese-made candle warning owners to "keep this candle out of children."
"For a foreigner, eating in a Chinese restaurant can be daunting, especially when you have a choice of dishes on the English menu ranging from 'Swallowing the Clouds' to 'Hot Crap,' " a newspaper reported.
"Racist Park," the English name given to a theme park extolling China's minority cultures, was obviously a bad translation, director Liu said.
I remember reading one of the earliest translations of "Coca Cola" saying something like "Bite the wax tadpole".
Get used to it, we're just round-eyed devils.
htpp://www.Engrish.com
I was in China a few years ago visiting Shenyang, the capital of Liaoning Province. Not a big destination for tourists, I suspect. I arrived in the early evening as the sun was going down with two Chinese men and we were walking along a row of restaurants looking for a place to have our evening meal. When the waitresses saw me -- a white foreigner -- they began smilling and saying, "Good morning. Good morning. Good morning." Apparently they thought "Good morning" was equivalent to "Hello" or something like that. It was unnerving at first, but then I had to smile to myself (couldn't laugh out loud for fear of offending someone.)
Eaxctly. Use those people skills. Big smile, suck it up, keep the conversation breezy.
When I attempt to speak Chinese, sometimes I get quite a laugh from my waiter! It goes both ways.
Next time get Rosie to help you, she's got a knack for languages.
As Dave Barry would say, that's a great name for a rock band.
I remember an advertisement for a vacuum cleaner in a Hong Kong magazine proudly stating "Nothing sucks like Electrolux".
That's what they get for ripping off Babelfish.
I work with someone from China that I have described as having excellent English, but being "idiom poor". For example, he told one guy that he wasn't as fat as he used to be, and told a woman once that her hair looked like grass.
I used to think it was just him, but now I'm not so sure.
A Chinese student once asked me to explain a phrase he'd read in a magazine..."I am a chocaholic and fell off the wagon." It took several days. We became very good friends.
A long time ago I worked with a Chinese woman who was reading Philip Roth's Portnoy's Complaint to improve her English. It wasn't easy to explain some of the references in that one.
It is a little tacky to make fun of folks who are trying to do something the right way. This may be a tad amusing I agree, but it is still not very polite.
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all true. But it would be worse to have that stuff up when the klieg lights of the world shine on bejjing during the olympics. better to let a little light in now and make the necessary changes.
That's right. It should be "Fascist Park."
Ah so... Someone who understands the new China...
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