Mad About Shanghai

Another Bad Translation

Heres another "printing error". Apparently,this company missed out the word "Insurance" from their English name.

Pic of the Day

I have seen some really bad signage in China. This is one of those that takes the cake.

Apparently, the owner of the establishment didnt get anyone to proof read this. Like so many others in China, the Chinese characters are just fed through a translation webware like Babelfish. The results are often totally different from what it is meant to be. The results of the online translation is then sent to print without any form of verification.

The Chinese word actually meant "Restaurant".

Pic from Anonymous

Chinglish of the Day

Chinglish at the Detriot Motor Show

Several China car manufacturers recently took part in the Detroit Auto Show 2008. BYD, Lie Bao and Geely were there to name a few.

While it is a commendable effort by the Chinese car industry to go international. One of the first few things they definitely need to fix first are their marketing collaterals. It doesnt inspire much consumer confidence when an interested customer come across a brochure riddled with bad translations. It makes one wonders if the car has been properly customised for local conditions when the company cant even get the marketing stuff right. Perhaps they are not ready for the international stage after all...yet.

Heres a few excerpts from some brochures:

“No matter what kind of transmission you choose, the world will run after you.”

“Gene of being Wild: VM engine brings you the long-awaited shock…only by stepping on the accelerograph, the mph will come to the peak in a second.”

“Agility: MK drivers feel like kicking lighthearted dance in the streets, the incomparable pleasure brings you unlimited self-confidence.”

"Move you in a moment. No splurge, nor scrupulousness, but only pureness…. In fact, even the Liebao CS6 runs over beside you, tightly grasp your eyeballs will be the pure metropolitan feeling reflected by its appearance.”

Read the rest from Car and Driver here.

You can see some wacky modifications here too.

Chinglish of the Week

Wise saying spotted at a Shanghai Metro station...

Restroom Rules

(Left) Yes Sir, would try my best to have a graceful fall

(Below) The no -nonsense straight-to-the-point toilet cubicle

 

Shanghai "Seven"

And you thought living in New York is tough ?

Chinglish on the Huangpu River

Sorry - I can't resist - but while looking for something different to do in Shanghai (except shopping and eating) whilst my Mum, partner and brother are in town next week, I came across the website for the Dragon Boat run by PJ River Cruise.  This is from their info about the A class cabin:

The cabin A is special suitable for inside, small scaled group to make the activity, its price economy is reasonable and the personal status is high, is ideal whereabouts that party, pleased celebrate, birthday etc active, particularly well worth mentioning of is for cold meal in self-help meeting that visitor deal, its food is flourishing, environment grace, make visitors placing oneself in the special atmosphere that having a meal on the water. The other dining environment can't compare to this.

The part that sold me on this for a trip is the fact that the "personal status is high", I can't remain living in this town with low personal status!

Here's a pic of the Dragon Boat I took at the Bund one day.

Tags: Shanghai China Huangpu River Chinglish

FUFTCH Hotel

I was looking at hotels in Fujian today, and I couldn't resist putting this one into the Chinglish files.

"Fujian Foreign Trade Center Hotel, a Coop erated 5-Stars commercial hotel, located in the center of the Fourth-May Road. The hotel is about 40,000m2, with 2 magnificent towers in the northern & Southern, and it is known as the pearl of hotels.It has 323 sets of rooms (apartments), provide with purified drink water and hot-spring water in 24 hours, it is the only hotel which has official flats kitchen in Fuzhou. Dinning halls with kinds of character provides you global delicious foods romantic winsterian bar and elegant piano room makes you unforgettable, wide & luxurious  multi-function dinning palace is the best place for your activities , exercises and entertainments, and the international hall with multi-translation equipment shows the most advantages a modern commercial hotel.East, West, FUFTCH is best." 

All punctuation, grammer and spelling are the original.

The Pleasures of Piracy - Chinglish

One of the pleasures of video piracy in China is the absolutely great Chinglish that abounds.

My favorite thing when getting a new DVD is reading the synopsis on the back cover. On the DVD 9 covers they are usually perfect copies of the original, but on the other DVD covers they can be absolutely hilarious. And yes, there are standards in the video Piracy world - DVD 9 is a perfect replica of the original including all the features and working subtitles. Sub DVD 9s although amusing are often very annoying. These are the ones where the you hear the audience coughing, heads bobbing around or like the Harry Potter I saw this year - incomprehensible subtitled, I literally had no idea what was going on.

I have often thought that I should put some of these online, but never got around to it, but after reading the back of `The Legend of Zorro' I couldn't resist. It was either translated by one of those terrible software translators, or someone who has no clue!

I have not adlibbed or changed any of this (including punctuation and spelling), this is straight off the back cover - I swear I couldn't make this up if I tried:

"From the class virtous pull virtuous Luo of mulberry of the impersonation of diligent bottom,