Chinglish

Judging by the number of hilarious English translations of signs we've seen in the few short days that we've been in China, Chinglish may have to become a regular installment on the blog. Here are a few of our favorites so far.

A sign on the wall at the immigration port read "Please do not shake my head so that I may serve more of your heads." (Then, at the border control desk itself, we were invited to "assess the performance of your inspector" by pressing one of three buttons marked "perfect," "ok," and "unsatisfied," somewhat undermining the all-powerful air that immigration officials are supposed to assume. I wondered, if my inspector had rejected my visa and banned me from entering the country, whether I could have changed his mind by pressing the "unsatisfied" button. Luckily I didn't have to try.)

A sign on the door of a toilet cubicle at the immigration port instructed the occupant to "please keep cleaning."

Another sign on a toilet door read "Male; Man."

A notice outside a doctor's office in Guangzhou reassured potential patients that "We cure your pain and care about the health of your Spondyle."

And then there was the German beer ad promising a "naive feeling derived in germany," which we thought sounded more like a crossword clue than anything else.

As for our Chinese language skills, we're attempting to learn a couple of basic Mandarin words but were in Cantonese speaking places for the first few days so haven't had much chance to try it out yet. As a result, ordering lunch the other day consisted of pointing to what the people at the next table were eating and hoping it didn't turn out to be cat.