Tuesday, June 03, 2008

Groanin' Jock's Chinglish Adventures Volume I: You're Polite People

Well, we're home, and thoroughly exhausted by the combination of walking around one of the world's biggest, noisiest, dustiest, smoggiest cities, not to mention the jetlag and the fact that I was back in work at a time scandalously close to the arse crack of dawn yesterday.

Given that this is my "I'm home" post, I don't want to go into too much detail on what happened in China, but I'll come back to it in the fullness of time.

Instead, I'll firstly thank the wonderful guest posters who have filled the empty pages here at Dungroanin' during my absence - Misssy M, Erica, The Tomahawk Kid and Rachel - all of whom have done a far better job than me of being witty, entertaining and articulate.

And I'll also begin a brand new series right here, right now: Groanin' Jock's Chinglish Adventures.

Chinglish is a curious language that exists only in China. This peculiar written language tends to occur in places where Chinese directions or instructions have been translated into English in a less than coherent manner. And in Shanghai, they can be found everywhere - on street signs, in museums, in the printed media and on people's clothes.

This first one is from a street sign at a pedestrian crossing in central Shaghai.


5 comments:

Misssy M said...

Welcome home!

Erm...that broken coffee table was all Tomahawk's fault....

almax said...

That Central Shaghai place sounds well worth a visit. Is it anywhere near Shanghai?

Groanin' Jock said...

Haha, thanks for pointing that out Alistair - typical that it would appear on a post where I'm poking fun at the nonsensical writings of others! I was going to correct it, but I think I'll leave it for posterity.

the tomahawk kid said...

About that coffee table... erm... umm... erm... erm... umm... misssyhadaboyround... [runs and hides in cupboard under stairs]

Anonymous said...

Jock Alastair's post proves you need to poof read things before you post them.

Fnar fnar!

Welcome back!