Summer Olympics Translations

[Joe Pelonio]

Many of us have had a laugh at the instructions included with items made in China, they seem to be using translation software or maybe grade-school English students much of the time. For the Olympics, they have come up with a pamphlet to ensure more acceptable names for the food.

According to an article I read on this, mapo tofu was previously translated as "bean curd made by a pock-marked woman". Another good one is
"fragrant spring onion sauce explodes cow" or "Government Abused Chicken" which was their translation for Kung Pao Chicken.


Now hopefully they will work on the signs.

[Jim Becker]

I read that same article on MSNBC.com about the effort to "standardize" on English menu translations. That was one thing I really got a chuckle out of on my two trips to China last year...for those times when there was a translation on the menu, they were "interesting" it the least and hilarious at times. Keep in mind that there are cultural aspects of the language that result in these expressions that seem quite funky to many of us non-Chinese speakers.

It was actually just as well to use the Chinese only version and point at the pictures. For those of you who have not traveled there, many of the restaurants, even some smaller ones, feature great tomes of incredible photography of the food. It's almost as fun as the Sears Christmas catalog was back when I was a kid. And, of course, sometimes it was just better not to know what it was made of...

[Joe Pelonio]

For those of you who have not traveled there, many of the restaurants, even some smaller ones, feature great tomes of incredible photography of the food. It's almost as fun as the Sears Christmas catalog was back when I was a kid. And, of course, sometimes it was just better not to know what it was made of...

So that must explain why all the Chinese restaurants in Honolulu have the pictures. We though that was odd, never seen it here.

[Lee DeRaud]

So that must explain why all the Chinese restaurants in Honolulu have the pictures. We though that was odd, never seen it here.

Fairly common in the smaller Japanese restaurants here, especially for the sushi.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

And, of course, sometimes it was just better not to know what it was made of...

You can eat what you want.....but this ole boy ain't putting nothing in his mouth that he doesn't know what it is!

Right now that includes tomatoes....

[Joe Pelonio]

You can eat what you want.....but this ole boy ain't putting nothing in his mouth that he doesn't know what it is!

Right now that includes tomatoes....

I hope that by now you're feeling better!

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Joe,

I actually went to supper with one of my classmates tonight. It was the first meal I had since supper on Saturday night where I believe I got the tainted cobb salad.....that's all I had cobb salad & 2 draft beers - Imperial Red My fever appears to have finally broken today. I'm better.