What may be missing from the Beijing Olympics

According to reports, the Chinese government has for years now been working to clean up non-standard English translations on signs in anticipation of the attention soon to be focused on Beijing. My son Cal, who studies Chinese in college, is somewhat sad about this. He says he will miss the quaint, odd, and sometimes undecipherable English he used to encounter on his various trips around China.

Here are some of the Chinglish signs we photographed four years ago, when we traveled to Beijing and Shanghai. These may already be relics.

The translation Cal ponders on the window of this restaurant reads: “Dumpling stuffed with the ovary and digestive gland of a crad.” Yum!

Of course, what would be even funnier would be English attempts to write Chinese signs.

For more information, see the interesting entry in Wikipedia.

Comments

[Amy]

Thanks for this amusing post, Steve. Too bad they are cleaning up the signs but it's probably understandable! They are doing their best to look like a country that is acquainted with the rest of the world.

I don't know if you are aware of Engrish.com, which focuses on the interesting uses of English in Japan. Many of these are "alternate usages" of English instead of misuses... Japanese English is quite different! I go to this site whenever I am in need of cheering up - it never fails to make me laugh out loud.

http://www.engrish.com/

Amy