'Chinglish' signs targeted for Olympics
Wednesday, 11 April 2007 13:28As Beijing prepares to host next year's Olympics, officials want to rid street signs and restaurant menus of the unique Chinese-English hybrid language nicknamed 'Chinglish'.
China is littered with signs that are wrong, embarrassing or just plain rude.
For instance, a petrol station might be called an 'oil gate' with warning signs like 'the slippery are very crafty' (slippery when wet).
Road signs have already been corrected and now officials are targeting the tourist, business, medical and public transport sectors.
There is even a 35 person committee of experts charged with addressing the 'Chinglish' problem, particularly advertisements and menus.
A well-known Beijing restaurant chain has menu items like 'it is small to fry the chicken miscellaneous' or 'mixed elbow with garlic mud'.
For adverts, the committee wants firms to get prior approval in order to avoid mysterious slogans like 'myriad stretch golf, ethereally luxury home'.
Even though the government published an enormous list of standardised signs, some corrections still invoke giggles.
A bright neon sign advertising Beijing's 'Hospital for Anus and Intestine Disease' is now the 'Hospital for Proctology'.
