Take Care, Knock Heads
Live From Beijing June 9th, 2008
I wrote on my own blog a little while ago about the Chinglish signs and menus popping up around the city. Since it’s an Olympic improvement, I thought it might be of interest to you Olympic fans!
Snapping photos of inadvertently dirty Chinglish signs is sort a hobby for me, but personal amusement aside, I’m worried that the almost-English signage is going to cause more harm than good.
Here’s the summary:
The new English signs and menus are prone to other problems, like the typos of normal human error, rush-job spelling mistakes, confusion between similar letters and words, and so forth. At times, it鈥檚 literally easier for me to decipher the Chinese. (Which either means that I rock, or that I鈥檝e memorized the collection of dishes we usually order. You decide.)
…
The plan is great. A few words of English 鈥� even broken English 鈥� have helped me out many times. But in practice, there is an East-meets-West problem. The Chinese praise even the clumsiest attempts at Mandarin and will probably be expecting the same in reverse. They鈥檒l be expecting thanks and praise for their English accommodations. They鈥檙e adding English to places they expect foreigners to visit, with the convenience of foreign visitors (or at least the tourists鈥� wallets) in mind.
But Western visitors of all sorts will be giggling and snapping pictures of Crap Salad or Bland Kitty, which are just too funny not to be shared with folks back home. The offended Chinese will wonder why Westerners have not only failed to thank them for their English translations, but are actually criticizing them, failing to respect the effort that went into creating an English-language menu just for foreigners (even if it was plugged into Babelfish and then printed off).
I鈥檓 worried that this attempt at hospitality is doomed create more international bad blood. Negative comments in the Western press about any aspect of China, are often seen as proof that the Western media is biased against China. I鈥檓 sure this will be a general problem with all the foreign reporters and visitors at the Olympics, someone鈥檚 going to have something negative to say, but it鈥檚 especially rough in this situation. I鈥檓 worried that this will feed the Western stereotype of the Chinese producing worthless garbage, and the Chinese stereotype of rude, anti-Chinese foreigners.
What's Next
Related Posts
- Chinglish Improvements
- No Chinglish In China
- Improved English Menus
- No Bad English in China
- We Are Ready! Say Volunteers Of Beijing 2008
Leave a Comment