Chinese clean up translations

communication — By Bob Riel on September 5, 2007 at 2:38 pm

The Chinese are busy preparing for the 2008 Summer Olympics. In addition to infrastructure, tourism and environmental projects, the government is also apparently engaged in a campaign to rid Beijing of bad (but humorous) translations on restaurant menus. The Associated Press has the story:

Hungry visitors to next summer’s Beijing Olympics won’t have to choose between “steamed crap” and “virgin chicken” if Chinese authorities succeed in ridding restaurant menus of mangled English translations.

The Beijing Tourism Bureau has released a list with 2,753 proposed names for dishes and drinks, designed to replace bizarre and sometimes ridiculous translations on menus, the official Xinhua News Agency reported Friday.

Foreigners are often stumped by dish names such as “virgin chicken” (a young chicken dish) or “burnt lion’s head” (Chinese-style pork meatballs). Other garbled names include “The temple explodes the chicken cube” (kung pao chicken) or “steamed crap” (steamed carp).

“These translations either scare or embarrass foreign customers and may cause misunderstanding on China’s diet habits,” Xinhua said.

It’s the latest effort by Beijing Olympics organizers to clean up the city and ensure that the best image is presented to the hundreds of thousands of visitors expected next summer.