Wednesday, May 24, 2006

Signs in China

Have you ever seen a sign that just didn’t make sense or perhaps was written in some pigeon style English? Well it is fair to say that many (if not the majority) of signs in out of the way places in China will bring a smile to your face and giggle to your tummy. In the UNESCO protected site of Dan Xia Shan there was no exception to these great signs. I just can’t imagine how a country with over a billion people can’t hire one native English speaker to be the sign police and save the embarrassment. Yet although it may be loosing face to the Chinese the foreigner wouldn’t change them for the world. Perhaps they did hire just the lad and he is just having fun keeping all these signs just the way they are.

“No Burning” – I am not quite sure if I should be smoking when I see this but about a dozen other Chinese people who were there at the same time as me interpreted this as “no burning” as they took long meaningful puffs on their cigarettes. So I am proud to say the sign did not get burned as a result.

“Up Special Way Slip With Care” – As we went up the special way (which mind you was the only way) we made sure so slip with care and even style as we finally made it to the top.

“Upper The Highest Peak” – This was an especially satisfying time as we went highest before reaching the upper peak…or was that upper before the highest peak. Anyway we made it to the top of something…

“Caution Dander" – Deep in the heart of this wilderness likes the dreaded beast "Dander". Luckily we were careful and did not run into this kind of Danger!