Beijing takes fun out of ordering Chinese food during the Olympics

As it readies for an influx of visitors for the August Games, the Chinese capital has offered restaurants an official English translation of local dishes whose exotic names and alarming translations can leave foreign visitors frustrated and famished.

• “Husband and wife’s lung slice” is now “beef and ox tripe in chili sauce”
• “Bean curd made by a pock-marked woman” = “Mapo tofu.”
• “Chicken without sexual life” = “steamed pullet”

Oh the humor! Will no one think of the humor???

Is there a version of Engrish.com for China?

Beijing unveils cartoon cops to police surfing habits

Police in China’s capital said Tuesday will start patrolling the Web using animated beat officers that pop up on a user’s browser and walk, bike or drive across the screen warning them to stay away from illegal Internet content.

Suddenly the phrase “blue screen of death” takes on a whole new meaning. Oddly the police aren’t wearing Google or Yahoo logos.  C’mon, guys! Sponsorship opportunity!

Lessons in bad PR: China Airline paints over logo on crashed airplane

Whatever their other differences Taiwan & mainland China do have one thing in common: A total lack of PR skills.

Example 1: Taiwan’s China Airlines apparently thought that no one would noticed if they painted over the logo on the remains of one of their airplanes which exploded shortly after landing in Japan.

Television footage showed a maintenance crew in green suits whitening out the name China Airlines on the plane’s mangled body as well as the Taiwanese carrier’s plum flower emblem on its tail.

Yeah, that tells the customers that you have your priorities in order.

Meanwhile in an apparent attempt to deal with negative publicity from making poisonous and/or fatally flawed products, Beijing has resorted to the time-tested tactic of yelling, “I’m rubber and you’re glue. Whatever you say bounces off me and sticks to you.”

China said Wednesday it had found pesticides, poisonous weeds, and dirt in shipments of imported U.S. soybeans, and a toy industry representative said U.S. manufacturer Mattel Inc. was partly to blame for lead tainting that caused massive toy recalls.

Yes, I DO find all their claims entirely credible. And I just bought this beautiful golden bridge out in San Francisco.

BTW, same day the Chinese government claimed that it was all our fault a Beijing newspaper reported that a

factory sold up to 100,000 pairs of disposable chopsticks a day without any form of disinfection.

I stand ready to find out how it is the US’s fault. Or to paint them over.

Penguins of Irony visit Beijing: Chinese government prosecutes a copyright infringement case!

They’re upset that satirists are doing naughty things to the Olympic rings and other symbols of the 2008 Munich — er Beijing — Olympiad.

“It’s a rights violation that contravenes our country’s laws and regulations,” an unnamed  spokesman said in a statement on The Beijing Organising Committee for the 2008 Olympic Games’ Web site.

China has laws and regulations? Wow. Learn something new everyday.