The chicken without sexual life is really delicious
Forget the Summer Olympics. This is the summer of “lost in translation.”
A sign put up by China Eastern at Ningbo Lishe Airport in Ningbo, China, says that passengers should check in animals and alcoholics. We’re presuming they mean alcohol.
With the games coming up in Beijing, China is doing its best to make the names of its food more palatable to foreigners. For example, CNN is reporting that
[China] is proposing that restaurants change the names of exotic, but bizarrely named, delicacies to make them more delectable for the estimated 50,000 visitors arriving in August for the Summer Games.
The appetizer “Husband and wife’s lung slice” is taking on the more appetizing “Beef and ox tripe in chili sauce.”
“Chicken without sexual life” has been transformed into “Steamed pullet.”
Of course, not everyone is pleased with the transformation. Columnist Raymond Zhou writes that,
The process of standardizing a menu translation is a double-edged sword…it removes the ambiguity and unintended humor” and “takes away the fun and the rich connotation.
It turns a menu into the equivalent of plain rice, which has the necessary nutrients but is devoid of flavor.
For more puzzling, and sometimes humorous, translations from Chinese to English, check out engrish.com.
Let the games begin.
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