Items Tagged With Chinese Culture

As we countdown to the Beijing Olympics, it looks like the folks over at Engrish.com are going to be getting fewer submissions from China if the Beijing Municipal Tourism Bureau has their way.

As part of their determination to internationalize Beijing ahead of the Olympics, it appears they're on their final draft of English translations for Chinese menus.

Misleading, and often hilarious, translations such as "chicken without sexual life", "husband and wife's lung slice" or even "bean curd made by a pock-marked woman" have been replaced with "Spring chicken", "pork lungs in chili sauce" and "stir-fried tofu in hot sauce".

I bet that Chicken Without Sexual Life gets ordered a lot by tourists out of sheer curiosity. Darn. I have to admit, those menus in China have been the source of some harmless laughs during the years I was living there. I'm going to miss them.

In the meantime, you have to give them credit for trying right?

Now...I wonder if someone should go around helping all the Chinese restaurants in the U.S. with their menus. Somehow placing an order for Strange Flavored Chicken and Pu Pu Platter always made me think twice. And while we're on the topic, I think someone needs to finally tell the American public that "chop suey" was invented in America.

...and ever wonder who General Tso was and how come he got a chicken dish named after him? Yea, me too.