Foreigners will not have any difficulty in ordering a meal in Beijing during next years Olympics, as most dishes and drinks will have English translations.
New Delhi, Aug.31 : Foreigners will not have any difficulty in ordering a meal in Beijing during next year's Olympics, as most dishes and drinks will have English translations.
The Beijing Tourism Bureau has released a list of translations for 2,753 dishes and drinks to solicit public opinions.
Once fixed, the list will be used in restaurants across the country, according to the bureau.
Authorities in the Chinese capital have also moved to standardize English translations of public facilities, including road signs, and the hotel service.
Bad translations of Chinese dishes are headaches for foreign epicures. There used to be translations like "Virgin Chicken" and "Burnt Lion's Head", which are actually dishes based on young chicken and pork ball resembling a lion's head. These translations either scare or embarrass foreign customers and may cause misunderstanding on China's diet habits.
According to The China Daily, a team of the Beijing Municipal Foreign Affairs Office and the Beijing Tourism Bureau has been working on the problem since March 2006, backed by a committee of 20 language experts and catering service managers.
Translators have divided the dish names into four catalogues: named by materials, by cooking method, by tastes, by name of a person or a place.
Translation of the first type is done simply by linking the the name of each material with a hyphen. For instance, "Mushroom-Duck's Foot" and "AmentJuice-BalsamPear", which helps foreign guests to recognize the materials and content of the dish.
The second type is translated according to cooking methods. Some Chinese cooking methods are unique and do not exist in other countries, like stew, quick-fry or saute, braise, and chilioil-boil. The translators now put the method in the beginning, followed by the material, forming a verb-noun phrase. For instance, "Stewed Diced Porkand Sweet Potatoes" and "Fish Filets in Hot Chilioil".
The third type begins with the taste or texture of the food. For example, "Crispy Chicken".
The last type is named after either its creator or the place it originates from. Such examples include "MapoTofu", which is a kind of Tofu invented by Mapo, the name of a Chinese woman.
The committee also plans to launch a training program to equip waiters and waitresses with knowledge of the dish names in case customers seek explanations.
ANI