Wangfujing’s War on Chinglish
23rd January 2013
Wangfujing is the latest area of Beijing to have its Chinglish tidied up, after Dongcheng district chengguan (urban management officers) helped foreign affairs officers to inform store owners of their errors in translation Tuesday.
Forty stores in the famed shopping street were found to have problematic English in their signs and labels, according to Beijing Speaks Foreign Languages (BSFL), a program launched by the municipal government to promote the use of English.
“The way they translated the signs was so literal, so word by word, they can hardly be understood by foreign travelers,” BSFL wrote on its website.
Well, we can’t have that.