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Thursday, 28th March 2024

Irish Born Chinese

No more "Virgin Chicken"

Created Friday, 31st August 2007, 22:11 by whykay
(NOTE: This is a migrated article from the old IBC blog)

...in the menu, that is. The Chinese government is tackling badly translated menus.

[...] the poor English translations “either scare or embarrass foreign customers and may cause misunderstanding of China’s diet habits”.

Two examples from the article:

  • “virgin chicken” for a young chicken dish
  • “burnt lion’s head” for pork meatballs

Thing is, anything translated straight from Chinese, from kungfu styles to food dishes to meanings of paintings to people’s nicknames etc., they can be confusing. That is why especially in martial arts movies, names are so funny.

But aside from bad translation, the Chinese government are tackling bad manners like spitting and just being plain rude. Hopefully this will last longer, and it’s not just for the Olympics.