Lost in Translation

If one does not know any better, or read Chinese characters for that matter, this billboard could be construed as an invitation for free-for-all sexual harassment. What better way to get intimately acquainted with China and its people by copping a feel whenever one feels like it. It's encouraged and heavily promoted by the famously uptight Communist government. Can one imagine if such public (mis)pronouncement happen in Malaysia? Visit Malaysia 2007 and please meraba to your heart's content. We're just the touchy-feely type of people. Anyway, on a serious note, according to the picture's caption (which was in yesterday's NY Times), the exhortation roughly translates to "Find something new and be pleasantly surprised." It's part of China's campaign to clean--literally--its public image, namely its people's bad habits, in preparation for the 2008 Summer Olympics. One such campaign is the anti-spitting drive.

A few habits disgust me more than wanton public spitting. Well, I do realize the need to occasionally relieve oneself from the blocked nasal passage or scratchy throat, but in the name of God Almighty, don't use the open space as personal spittoon. Even here in the US, the supposedly "cultured" and "advanced" country, I still see people spit in public with reckless abandon. Like a couple of days ago when I was waiting for the bus. A guy stood next to me smoking (as a fellow smoker I have no problem with this) but he then started to spit after every drag. And he was an indiscriminate spitter to boot as no open sidewalk space within two-feet radius from him was spared from his phlegmic strafing. Imagine my horror of standing barely outside his bombing zone with at least couple of the wet missiles landed merely inches away from my feet. Suffice it to say that I moved as far away I could.

My point is that "uncivilized" and not to say, unhygienic, habits transcend geographic localities. While there might be disproportionately more spitters and litterers in China, these "uncouthed" people also exist here in the West. A quote from the same article encapsulates this cultural determinism: The sinus-clearing, phlegmy pre-spit hawking sound is so common that one foreigner wryly dubbed it “the national anthem of China.” I don't know if any serious studies have been done to analyze these "socially-repugnant" habits. Can it even be called "socially-repugnant" if the habit is publicly acceptable? It would then lend credence to the social deterministic claim. I remember in the old-school punk subculture, mutual spitting is an accepted practice between the audience and the band as a sign of solidarity, support, and approval. On the other hand, if the habits are not culturally determined, are they then an act of rebellion against the established social norms and even the society as a whole? It's also interesting to note that in the same newspaper, there's also an article about street food in New Delhi, and the topic of hygiene is prominently featured.

Anyway, here are some of the "mangled" English translations also mentioned in the article: a local theme park about China’s ethnic minorities was initially promoted in English as “Racist Park”; the description of pullet, which is a hen less than a year old but appears on some menus as Sexually Inexperienced Chicken; and the Dongda Anus Hospital, which was later renamed to Dongda Proctology Hospital.