No
more 'steamed crap' on Beijing menus
THE
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Article Last Updated: 08/31/2007 09:52:57 AM EDT
BEIJING
-- 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.
campaigns
are afoot to stamp out bad manners such as jumping ahead in line, spitting, littering
and reckless driving. The revised menu names are part of an effort to ban unintelligible
English, known as "Chinglish," that abounds on signs everywhere.
A
team set up by the Beijing Municipal Foreign Affairs Office and Beijing Tourism
Bureau has been working on the menu names for more than a year, Xinhua said. Translators
developed names for dishes based on one of four categories: ingredients, cooking
method, taste, or the name of a person or place.
For
example, a dish with mushrooms and ducks' feet will be listed as simply "Mushroom-Duck's
Foot." Others proposed names include "Fish Filets in Hot Chili Oil"
and "Crispy Chicken."
The
tourism bureau is soliciting public opinion on the translations. Once a final
decision is made on the list of names, they will be used in restaurants across
China, Xinhua said.
