“Young chicken without sex”: China bans Ch inglish for Olympics

[Dennis Baron]

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“Young chicken without sex”:  China bans Chinglish for Olympics.

Wanting to show off its cosmopolitan modernity while maintaining  
tight control over what the Chinese are allowed to say in public,  
China has banned Chinglish, the oddly-phrased, unintelligible, and  
often unintentionally funny English translations of Chinese signs  
that have been proliferating in the capital in the run-up to the 2008  
Beijing Olympics.

For example, there’s the bus sign that announces pregnantly in  
English lettering under the Chinese, “Offer the Seats to the Old,  
Weak, Sick, Cripple, and Gravid,” or the awkward but apt warning on  
the gasoline tanker, “Dangerous Goo Keep Clear.”....

It’s not just the signs.  Chinese menus in the city abound with  
English translations like “young chicken without sex.”  More  
adventurous diners at the same restaurant can order “stewed chicken  
with sex” from the adult menu (under 17 not admitted)....

China employs 30,000 Internet police to keep the nation’s websites  
free of content embarrassing to the government -- references to  
Tiananmen Square, Taiwan or the Falun Gong -- yet Chinese cyberspace  
abounds with photos of signs and menus that make the Chinglish cited  
here seem tame in comparison.  In contrast to its well-manned Web  
Squad, China has hired only 35 English specialists (many of them not  
native English speakers, but Chinese) to police the use of English in  
public spaces....

Beijing English tsar Liu Yang admits that Chinese taxi drivers are  
managing to pass the English tests and still not understand English- 
speaking passengers.  Liu also acknowledges that the official "little  
red book" of English translations is not entirely idiomatic, and that  
the English competence of Beijing’s 5 million English “speakers” is  
very low and likely to remain that way ...

Liu shouldn't worry, though.  English was suppressed for years as the  
language of the capitalist enemy, so it’s not surprising that once  
China began re-engaging with the West that it had shunned for so  
long, sporting a knowledge of English, however minimal, has become a  
symbol of upward mobility -- Chinglish is the cultural revolution of  
Beijing’s new capitalists, or entrepreneurial capitalist wannabes. ...

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DB


Dennis Baron
Professor of English and Linguistics
Department of English
University of Illinois
608 S. Wright St.
Urbana, IL 61801

office: 217-244-0568
fax: 217-333-4321

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