The Global Times published an article last week that promised to be a ‘close look’ at the Peace Mission-2007 counter-terrorism exercise that took place in Russia between members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. Despite not providing any information about the actual exercise, journalist Ma Jian still took time to make fun of Chinese signs that have been posted around the army barracks at the Chebarkul military range. This is what he said:
Because Russians translated the Chinese (on the signs), people can make neither head nor tail of some of the translations. For example: The Chinese sign on the Russian troop transport truck says people (ren men). I guess that’s meant to mean ‘passengers’ (zai ren). Washroom (xi shu jian) is translated as ‘face washing basin’ (xi lian pen). Between each nation’s barracks area, there’s a sign in Russian and Chinese that reads ‘consolidate the combat friendship of the squad of brothers’ (gong gu xiong di ban zhan dou you yi).
Despite the wide internet coverage of Chinglish signs, I still reckon that foreigners are fairly tolerant of bad English by Chinese. Recently on a Southern China Airlines flight, I had to put up with terrible English announcements that I couldn’t understand a word of. And as anybody who has polished translations in China can attest to, correcting Chinglish grammar can be extremely hard-going. I am also sick of having my spoken Chinese devalued when Chinese often begin talking to me in mistake-ridden English. If The Global Times doesn’t have the guts to write anything interesting about Peace Mission-2007, then it shouldn’t resort to poking fun at Russianese that is designed to make it more convenient for Chinese soldiers. The world is tolerant of Chinglish, so Chinese should be tolerant of foreigners trying to speak and write in the Chinese language.
The same edition of The Global Times had another interesting report about Sino-Russian ties. It reported that 25 Chinese got into a fight in St. Petersburg, with three people being taken to hospital. Most of the fighters were illegal immigrants and nearly all of them didn’t speak Russian. The article went on to paint a grim picture of how Chinese criminal gangs in Russia are tainting the Chinese image.
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