Latest cleanup of Chinglish long overdue (2)

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The menu at a Sichuan restaurant chain where I often dine has an especially entertaining item on the menu, titled “porn pie.” Of course, the word should be “pork,” not “porn,” but only someone who can read the original Chinese would realize that. Another favorite is a sign I once spotted at a milk tea shop. It contained the puzzling and somewhat feudal line, “My drinking controlled by my serf,” meaning “myself,” which is still a bit odd.

The list goes on.

China should be praised for its hospitality and efforts to make the country more accessible to foreigners. After all, it’s not very common to find Chinese signs in the US or Europe, even though they are usually grammatically correct when they do occur.

I don’t know what the new Shanghai regulation will contain, since there was no draft version that I could find on the website. But I suggest the city not only regularize its own procedures for translating signs, but also provide translation resources to its many private businesses.

An effective approach would be setting up an online resource where anyone could find native speakers to translate for a fee.

After all, many private shops and restaurants don’t get good translations simply because they don’t have access to native speakers.

The city would have to promote the service to ensure that everyone knows about it. That kind of coordinated effort could help Shanghai to become a model for the rest of China in the slow but necessary clean up of Chinglish.

While some expats may mourn the loss of this entertaining Sinofied language, many more will be pleased and relieved to find signs and other materials that are informative, rather than confusing and comical.

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