This is the typical Chinese motivational message that can be seen everywhere, often in the form of rhyming Dos and Don’ts. For a while now many of them are appearing with the Expo as central theme. The Oriental Post had an article yesterday announcing new measures in some districts to have locals take responsibility for their street’s cleanliness.

Handwritten signs like this are very usual in the lanes. They are organized by the residents committee following directives from above. The task of writing the signs is often delegated to the local calligraphy hero, and then you get beautiful pieces of writing (but not in this case, IMO)

The translation of this one is:

The “Seven Builds” proposed by the City of Shanghai’s “Welcome the Expo Civilized Activities Plan”:

• • Maintain order – Build a lawful City
  • Keep Hygiene – Build a Healthy City
  • Protect Environment – Build a biological City
  • Be Polite – Build a Polite City
  • Have solid Credibility – Build a honest City
  • Love Science – Build a Study City
  • Give Kindness – Build a Friendly City

Any corrections welcome. As I usually say, Chinese slogans are very hard to translate because they rarely make any sense, so I didn’t bother to take out the dictionary. Use at your own risk.

A bit of background: signese is the Chinese humour contained in public signs before they are translated to English. It is not Chinglish, it goes much deeper into our cultural differences, and it is funny because it shows an unexpected approach to life. Look at this sign below, it is a classic of toilet signese, a sign that hangs above millions of urinals in China, from the Summer Palace to the smallest alley in Shanghai:

A small step for man, A great leap for civilization

Approximately 50 million urinals carry this sign in the mainland. I wonder if somebody has told Neil Armstrong in his old age that his famous and well rehearsed line is remembered today by 1/5th of humanity as a hygienic measure for urinating gentlemen.

Bad aiming skills in the toilet is a common ill in all societies, any lady will tell you that. But in China the problem is most acute, and sub-urinal ponds are part of the landscape. Some ascribe it to the natural optimism common in most Chinese males. I prefer to think it is a matter of multi-tasking abilities: speaking on the phone while smoking a cigarette is not the best way to ensure full control.

In any case, the Ministry of Health prefers to not leave anything to chance, and already a tech startup is taking care of this:

Until this new product hits the market, please one step forward.

I just hope the developers are thoughtful enough to give it hands-free capabilities, ashtrays and Bluetooth.

PS. Speaking of technology, I know, if I am going to take blogging seriously I better get rid of this phone and get one that can take proper pics. The problem is I am torn between that and the best dictionary of Chinese in the World, that runs in my second hand Palm from Taobao.

Government slogans are some of the phrases that I find most difficult to translate from Chinese, perhaps because they don’t usually make sense.  Anyway, here is my take:  “Policemen harmoniously build peace”. And the three sub-slogans on top:  “Penetrate the bases”,  “Penetrate reality”, “Penetrate the masses”.

Yeah, said like this, it sounds like something out of 1984, but that’s only if you are not used to Chinese government slogans. This is a PR campaign that has been done many times before in China. The objective is to show the police close to the people, as explained in this old article in the Xuhui district website.

We already saw some similar campaigns in late 2008, and more are sure to come this year, as the government takes every possible measure to avert risks of instability.

On the other hand, I am not sure how necessary this is. From my own observations, policemen here don’t have the bad image they have in some places in the West. They tend to be quite humble, they rarely use violence, and they get yelled at by the citizens they are supposed to protect. More than once I’ve had them visit my house at midnight, just to shyly ask us to please turn down the music and try to not let more people in if we don’t mind.

So  I have to say that, at least in Shanghai, the government has done a good job of managing police PR. Even I find it hard to believe that it is this same 公安 (police)  who arrests activists and bloggers,  the same who kicks villagers out of their old houses marked for destruction.

Thank you for adding now pictures to your yesterday’s article :  China’s “scientific development” works to counter economic downturn. And thank you for choosing the most beautiful of the slides you published last week, the one which I call:  “La vie en rosy”

Now it has the completeness I was looking for. I will keep your article for further reference in my database of Crisis Commentary, and I will look at your slide every time that Shanghai weather makes me feel down.

But no worries, I think I know just how to do that:

Make up your mind: N.1 or N.2?

Everybody knows that serious China bloggers don’t do Chinglish. That’s for newbies, and we are past the “mamma, look what I got” stage. But before you leave, take a look at this a pic I took yesterday on my way to Ningbo . It is now part of my new classified collection of Signology. And there’s more here than meets the eye.

It all started when this inspiring picture recently published on the the 55 blog caught my attention. Something was wrong with it, it was funny, and in the same time completely at odds with the classic definition of Chinglish: it was entirely written in characters!

Sleepless nights followed, while I reflected on this important exception to the rule, until I saw what might prove to be a breakthrough in the field of Asian Studies.  Working overtime, I have finally come up with  the first attempt ever to develop a taxonomy of Chinese signs. Provisionally, I am calling it Signology, and it is composed of the  following main branches:

1- Chinglish:  Discipline that studies faulty translations of Chinese signs.
2- Signese:  Discipline that studies untranslated or correctly translated signs that were already funny in the original Chinese version.

In its turn, Signese can be divided in a few subfamilies. For the moment I have found the following:

• Toilet Signese
  
• Tourist Spot Signese
• Commercial Copy Signese
• Communist heritage Signese.

Each of them has its own merits and deserves a special chapter, but they all have one characteristic in common. They are funny not because there is anything essentialy wrong with them, but because they originate from a Chinese mentality that is different from the commonly accepted Western standards of social behaviour. Just like grandpas walking birds or older ladies rehearsing their fan dances.

This is the reason why some sad, narrow-minded  foreigners living in China spit all their venom against the poor Signese, mumbling weird comments about “lack of religion” and “5000 years of history” and what not.

For the sake of brevity, I will stick for today to the Toilet Signese.

Toilet Signese

Look at exhibit 1 above: have you ever thougth of what would happen if our toilets in the West were divided in 2 sections with clear signs indicating “defecate” and “urinate” ?

I can picture the embarrasment of some gentelmen, the giggling of prudish girls and the general chaos when some responsible citizen of the community would eventually send the picture to a newspaper, accusing the Council of improper signaling.A promising political career would be broken and hundreds of innocent users irreparably shocked.

But  instead of  pointing a finger at the Chinese, the sensitive China expat will turn his eyes round to himself. And he might want to ask the following questions: At which point in Western culture did we decide that “shit” had to be banished? At which point did we became so clean, so perfect, so sophisticated that we decided to socially ignore our own bodily functions? Did nobody realize at the time the enormous potential in jokes and funny signs that was lost in the process?

Will the West eventually change this abnormal behaviour when China becomes the first World power?

Look at the park picture below and ponder.

Please don't shit or pee all over the place

UPDATE:  I just found out that  I was re-inventing the wheel: signese already exists, and this website does a great job of  it. So you can send your pictures there instead of here, and with their permission I will pick from their stock next time I want to continue developing my signese theories.

At least my classification system seems to be completely new. I am sending it to scientific journals to get it accepted officially.

It is the one that prohibits feudal behaviours, expects visitors not to shit, strictly bins comping, gawbling and gombing, and generally limits, with a rich variety of forbidding synonyms – existing or invented-  all the favourite Sunday activities of us mental patients escaped from custody.

You can still find these signs in most parks, even in central locations like People’s Square. Note they are collectable items, each park provididing a new variation on the theme with different combinations of letters. They will probably dissapear sometime in the next 500 days of Expo countdown, so let this be a last tribute.

And since we are at it, I will post some more of the great sign watching session we had yesterday in Luxun Park. This park is absolutely recommended for a Sunday stroll, it contains one of the highest concentrations of culture and local life in the city. It sparkles like pearls from Heaven. Really Splendid.

Around the center of the park there is a little house which, on one of its four sides, has been decorated to look like a romantic Greek Villa. It is a haven of romantic notions.

And one can’t help but wonder: what would nearby poet Petofi have to say of all this?

But you need not worry. If you didn’t like the poem, there are many more to be read on the Greek corner at Luxun. My favourite is the one below: “Romantic Person”. And the best of all is: It is served Daily!

And now, here’s the riddle of the day. The first one to guess it will win an exclusive 6 month VIP membership to Chinayouren:  Name the original greek myth that inspired the poem “Romantic Person”. (No cheating with google!)

Leave your answer below.

Every village had a church

热闹 means Hot and Noisy!

The temples were 热闹

The faithful like burning stuff

The mosque was less 热闹

Love Church was not 热闹

Beach of the Grande Jatte

No! Muslims don’t eat porc

We met an electric fisherman

Administration + Participation = Administpation

Hate those noisy cracker vandals

Shooting and Bumpers: Safety first

Ming Walled Chongwu is Magnetic

Let’s get chicken at EFC’s!

No! my chicken at CBC’s!

Ah, finally: it’s a KFC’s!

Macdonalds + Kentucky’s = Mac-Ken-Ji’s !!

Mac-Ken-Ji’s: Children’s playground, Grandpa’s shrine

Fairy houses made of seashells

发展 wave engulfs the past

Model Street Award: Zero Imitations

I

My polos always at Coddle’s

Model Workers Instruction: Model Street

I mean, take the weather in Shanghai, for example. Did you ever imagine we would see these long weeks of clean blue skies? You lose faith in things and then they happen, and it makes you dream. If this is possible, then everything else must be: World Peace, End of Poverty, China winning the soccer World Cup.

On Fridays like this my mind drifts on the world wide web and I end up reading funny bits of information, like this delicious “boat drifting skills” I found over at the Engrish website. I saw it and laughed for a bit, and then I read the comments and I thought I might do something useful for the community.

So I went on Google Translator and I asked it to translate the drifting instructions into English. This is the disappointing message I got:

What! No translation English-English? What kind of service is this? And who said that it was English in the first place?  If there is someone at Google reading this now (other than my friends the bots) please raise the issue immediately to your management:

“You are missing out on the largest market in the World. Develop Chinglish translator ASAP!”

Lately I have received by email these pictures that are widely circulating on the Spanish speaking internet. They apparently originated in Colombia, so they are referred by some as Colombianadas.

Colombianadas are the Latin American equivalent of Chinglish: signs and other pieces of writing with a twist of unintended humour. What makes Colombianadas even more amazing is that they are written by people using their own mother tongue!

Chinese toilet keepers and sign translators: you better get moving fast,  watch more Marx brothers movies or revert to using older dictionaries. A whole new continent of talent is on the rise, and your monopoly of world sign humour is going to be seriously challenged.

Someone needs to open a website urgently to collect these gems:

Sexshop and Seafood / Ladies with O please do not use swimming pool / No urinating, fine: machete/ Cold ice available / We paint houses, home delivery service/ Carrefour Supermarket