Have you heard of Chinglish?

The word refers to spoken or written English that shows the influence of Chinese language or culture. I understand that translating Chinese ideas into English is difficult for the hundreds of millions of people in China who either speak English or are learning it. Spoken phrases and in particular signs in Chinglish often evoke laughter from Westerners but we might want to think of it as the continuing globalization of our language. Have you ever bumped into someone you haven’t seen in a while and said, “Long time no see”? That’s Chinglish. The powers that be tried to clean up English signage for the 2008 Olympics. They replaced 400,000 street signs in Beijing so you would be directed to the Dongda Proctology Hospital instead of the Dongda Anus Hospital and to Minorities Park instead of Racist Park. Some 1300 restaurant menu items were changed so we wouldn’t be faced with “fried enema” and “monolithic tree mushroom stem squid”. Those who needed to purchase “roomier” clothing found that extra-large sizes sometimes came in “fatso” and “lard bucket” categories. Now, Expo 2010 has opened in Shanghai and once again officials have done their best to clean things up for the roughly 70 million expected visitors. The Shanghai Commission for the Management of Language Use so far has fixed thousands of signs, rewritten placards and helped hundreds of restaurants reword menu items. That means we won’t see the sign, “The Little Grass is Sleeping, Please Don’t Disturb It”, which I rather like as a stylish and gentle version of “Keep Off the Grass”.