BEIJING—Eating at a Beijing restaurant is usually an adventure for foreigners, and particularly when they get the chance to order “chicken without sex life” or “red burned lion head”.
Sometimes excited but mostly confused, embarrassed or even terrified, many foreigners have long complained about mistranslations of Chinese dishes. And their complaints are often valid(有效), but such an experience at Beijing’s restaurants will apparently soon be history.
Foreign visitors will no longer, hopefully, be confused by oddly worded restaurant menus in the capital if the government’s plan to correctly translate 3,000 Chinese dishes is a success and the translations are generally adopted.
The municipal(市政) office of foreign affairs has published a book to recommend English translations of Chinese dishes, which aims to help restaurants avoid bizarre translations. “It provides the names of main dishes of famous Chinese cuisines in plain English,” an official with the city’s Foreign Affairs office said. “Restaurants are encouraged to use the proposed translations, but it will not be compulsory.” It’s the city’s latest effort to bridge the culture gap for foreign travelers in China.
Coming up with precise translations is a daunting task, as some Chinese culinary(烹饪) techniques are untranslatable and many Chinese dishes have no English-language equivalent. The translators, after conducting a study of Chinese restaurants in English-speaking countries, divided the dish names into four categories: ingredients, cooking method, taste and name of a person or a place. For some traditional dishes, pinyin, the Chinese phonetic system, is used, such as mapo tofu(previously often literally translated as “beancurd made by woman with freckles”), baozi(steamed stuffed bun) and jiaozi(dumplings) to “reflect the Chinese cuisine culture,” according to the book.
“The book is a blessing to tourist guides like me. Having it, I don’t have to rack my brains trying to explain Chinese dishes to foreign travellers,” said Zheng Xiaodong, a 31-year-old employee with a Beijing-based travel agency.
“I will buy the book as I major in English literature and I’d like to introduce Chinese cuisine culture to more foreign friends,” said Han Yang, a postgraduate student at the University of International Business and Economics.
It is not clear if the book will be introduced to other parts of China. But on Tuesday, this was the most discussed topic on weibo.com, China’s most popular microblogging site.
小题1:What’s the best title of the passage?
A．An adventure for foreigners who eat in Beijing.
B．Confusing mistranslations of Chinese dishes.
C．Chinese dishes to have “official” English names.
D．The effort to bridge the culture gap.小题2: “chicken without sex life” or “red burned lion head” are mentioned in the beginning of the passage to show .
A．some Chinese dishes are not well received
B．some Chinese dishes are hard to translate
C．some Chinese dishes are mistranslated
D．some Chinese dishes are not acceptable小题3:What measure has the municipal office taken?
A．Recommending a book on Chinese dishes.
B．Advocating(提倡) using precise translation for Chinese dishes.
C．Publishing a book on China’s dietary habits.
D．Providing the names of main Chinese dishes.小题4:What’s the meaning of daunting in paragraph 5?
A．confusing
B．disappointing
C．discouraging
D．Worthwhile
