Kitsch/Posh

Last year I went to China (PRC), and by far the funniest part of the trip was reading all the poorly-translated English. In slang terminology, this “practice” results in Chinglish, or the direct translation of Chinese into English without applying any common sense. Most of the time I found Chinglish in more affordable establishments, such as the fake jewelry shops in the Pearl District or markets in the alleyways of Beijing, though certain stores in prominent commercial venues were not spared (read: Wangfujing). I can imagine why this happens: the Chinese shop owner, eager to sell his products to dollar Euro-carrying foreigners, feels compelled to accommodate them with the lingua franca so that the tourists can at least understand where they are and what they are buying. The shop owner just doesn’t know that what he actually wrote in English can be different from Mandarin. Thus, these efforts do not always come out as intended, especially in restaurants. Now the Chinese government is doing something about it:

“Local dishes like ‘Husband and wife’s lung slice’ or ‘Chicken without sexual life’ conjure lots of furrowed eyebrows on famished foreigners. So, with the Olympics a few short weeks away, China is giving its cuisine a linguistic makeover. It is proposing that restaurants change the names of exotic, but bizarrely named, delicacies to make them more delectable for the estimated 50,000 visitors arriving in August for the Summer Games. [. . .] The government has put down more than 2,000 proposed names in a 170-page book that it has offered to Beijing hotels, according to state media.”

So Beijing continues to change, presumably for the better, due to the Olympics. No fair. Westerners and other people who speak English should be able to chuckle when ordering the “chicken without sexual life,” or, in my case, the “sacrifice beef with red pepper” and “deep-fried chicken Muslim”:

In all seriousness, this cosmetic fix, though long overdue, takes away some of the adventure for tourists. Yes, the Chinglish is humorous, but oftentimes it is the navigation and interaction that comes from trying to understand what you are buying that makes Chinglish worth keeping around. I still remember the various instances when I had to use my Chinese-speaking skills (basically saying ni hao and glancing at my Lonely Planet guidebook every five seconds) to know what I was ordering. The waitresses and I developed a quirky bond due to my lack of understanding and her inability to explain right away the contents in the menu. I spoke to the waitresses longer than I would have done otherwise; it was a type of cultural exchange between two people from different societies. Isn’t that the ultimate goal of these Olympics? If you don’t like that reason, then isn’t just plain fun to say you ate a “chicken Muslim” for dinner? At least one Chinese journalist thinks so:

“The process of standardizing a menu translation is a double-edged sword. It removes the ambiguity and unintended humor, for sure. But then it takes away the fun and the rich connotation too. It turns a menu into the equivalent of plain rice, which has the necessary nutrients but is devoid of flavor.”

Nevertheless, though Beijing will try to erase the Chinglish…

…some of it will remain in place for the world to see.

-L.