To Take Notice of Safe - The Blog

This at first kind of doesn’t make any sense at all… but then, once you get to read the Chinese, you find out that you’re supposed to keep your distance away from “sharp stuff”. It’s just the original Chinglish “Please watch out the obstacle” (what obstacle?) that throws people off.)

Spotted inside China Merchants Tower (underground car park exit), Guomao Bridge, Beijing on June 15, 2008.
Chinglish: Please watch out the obstacle.
(What this means in Chinese: 请小心东西)
Should read: Please Keep Clear of Sharp Objects

This kind of puzzled me as I drove out of a Beijing garage. The first impression: What the heck is this sign trying to tell me to do?

Spotted inside China Merchants Tower (underground car park exit), Guomao Bridge, Beijing on June 15, 2008.
Chinglish: The money for a ticket
please in front of inspect and verify
(What this means in Chinese: 钱给一个票
请在前面检查和确认)
Should read: Please Check Your Change

Yes, you have to do the whole process carefully to end your life in 220 volts and counting…

Spotted inside Guohua Tower, Dongzhimen, Beijing.
Should read: Danger of Electrocution

Help!

January 15, and Beijing on September prefix bus passengers a “card” fare introduced 4% discount for students on a student card a 2% discount travel, and now, by BUS members of the public and the suburbs of Beijing City members of the public can enjoy the same preferential treatment to the Government. It is learnt that the immediate effect, Beijing company will be added to P Plus 220 bus routes in September prefix operators can be transported more than 45 million passengers.

The first sentence is not just a complete run-on sentence, but starts with a date, goes back to September, meddles with tiny discounts, and jumps back into the present. The grammar’s totally messed up. All we know is that the public is being treated well by the government…

The second sentence is odder still. “add to P Plus 220 bus routes” — sounds like “added to 220 more bus routes”. The last one, “prefix operators can be transported more than 45 million passengers”, looks more like a telco ad.

Amazing stuff…

What the heck is this… independent Beijing and independent Yanqing?

Spotted at the crossing between the Litian Highway and the Airport Side Road.
Should read: Beijing City, Urban Beijing or Beijing Urban Area.

Spotted on National Highway 110 in Changping.
Should read: Yanqing County

It’s the Chinglish, of course. There are billions of bones to pick there, but this stands out as particularly hilarious:

January 1996 Publish propagation booklet “Introduction to Logistics.

August 1996
Co-host “The 2ND Taipei International Logistics Show” and Conference with Chan-Chao Corporation. The Show is held every year since then.

See for yourself here (it’s deep into the page). Here’s where the whole thing’s out of control:

* “Publish propagation booklet…”: Taiwanese propaganda? All too sinister to me. Better said with “published Introduction to Logistics booklet”. Leave out the propaganda bit. And by the way, add that second quotation mark.

* “Co-host “The 2ND Taipei International Logistics Show” and Conference with Chan-Chao Corporation…” I nearly screwed up and thought they meant the Chow-Chow Corporation (orz). First, it’s “2nd”, not “2ND”. Second, dump the “The”. And lastly, “The Show is held every year since then” doesn’t make sense at all. It should be “the show has been held every year since.” Neat and simple.

Even our buddies at the wrong side of the Straits have it really, really difficult in translating stuff from Chinese to English…

You may want someone who has no understanding of the English language to take the wheel here, since you may cause an accident by laughing out way too hard…

What the heck is this? Apparently, it was supposed to say: “Hawking, the establishment of checkpoints, the piling of objects and the dumping of garbage and waste earth are prohibited within the confines of the highway”.

Then again, they messed this one up big time…

Stolen from National Highway 101 near Gubeikou (Beijing direction)…

Take a look at this page from the Taiwanese freeway authorities…

“Major Service Area / Connect Road”
“Only have S.B. Entrance & N.B. Exit”
“The Lists of National Highway Interchanges Mileage”…

Both halves of the Straits are now reunited by Chinglish…

They should read:

“Major Service Area / Connections to”
“Southbound entrance and northbound exits only”
“National Highway Interchange Mileage List”…

A separate nation inside the nation’s capital? On National Highway 110 heading out of Changping (think north), there is a sign that reads “Yanqing Country”, not “Yanqing County” (延庆县).

A serious, political mistake. I hope someone fixes it.

(Too bad I didn’t snap a photo of it. Turns out I was driving…)

Beijing is redoing all road signs. In one of its best moves, it dumped the “MS imperialist” Arial font and opted for national font neutrality — it stuck with Switzerland’s Frutiger, and his Univers font.

Along with the font change, however, also comes the re-emergence of officially approved Chinglish. Zhongguancun, in particular, is being hard hit. All bridges are being Chinglishified as 中关村一桥 becomes “Zhongguancun Bridge 1″.

That’s weird already. They should change it to “Zhongguancun 1st Bridge”. (I emailed the “guys in charge” and my email remains unanswered. What else do I expect…)

Here’s why:

Question 1: Is this the first bridge in the series in the Zhongguancun region?
Answer 1: Yes.
Next Steps: Rename it “Zhongguancun 1st Bridge”. Next sign, please…

5th Avenue, Zhonghua 1st Road… Something xth something-or-other isn’t all that weird. (And our “Taiwanese compatriots” use it for Zhonghua 1st Road in Taipei, by the way, so it’s all supposed to be “real local”.)

The upshot:

Wrong: Zhongguancun Bridge 1
Right: Zhongguancun 1st Bridge