Friendly, funny, revealing, and infuriating current signage in Tianjin & Beijing
| Beijing
| Being Chinese about it | China: life & times | Learning Mandarin | Places | Propaganda | Tianjin | All these photos are from within the last couple weeks, some from yesterday. The translations are definitely suspect.
“Donkey meat take-out”
Trying to read signs pays off. I recently ‘discovered’ that there’s a donkey meat restaurant on my way to the gym. Donkey meat is good!
“Donkey meat take-out” / 外卖 驴肉 / wài mài lǘ ròu
“No making a ruckus”
From a nearby vegetable market:
“Civilly do business, compete fairly, it’s forbidden in the market to make a noisy ruckus”
文明经商，公平竟争， 市场禁止喧哗吵闹
wénmíng jīngshāng, gōngpíng jìng zhēng, shìchǎng jìnzhǐ xuānhuá chǎonào
Civilized bus riding
From a bus stop in Beijing:
“Please line up and wait for the bus, civilly swipe your card, orderly get off the bus”
请排队候车，文明刷卡，顺序下车
qǐng páiduì hòu chē, wénmíng shuā kǎ, shùnxù xià chē
“Orderly get on the bus, politely take your seat, respect the old and cherish the young, civilly ride the bus”
有序上车，礼貌上座，尊老爱幼，文明乘车
yǒu xù shàng chē, lǐmào shàng zuò, zūn lǎo ài yòu, wénmíng chéng chē
Nothing that special; I was just happy that I could actually read something! We were in Beijing seeing friends that we hadn’t visited for over a year. Last time we had to speak mostly in English and couldn’t read signs like this. This time we used 99.9% Chinese and could get around no problem.
“Harmonious Tianjin”
Post-Olympics Tianjin banners on the left (not the best translation):
“With this well-loved place, establish a happy homeland /
Harmonious Tianjin, Joyful New Year’s Day”
同在一方热土，共建美好家园 / 和谐天津，欢度元旦
tóngzài yī fāng rè tǔ, gòng jiàn měihǎo jiāyuán / héxié tiānjīn, huān dù yuándàn
On the right, one of the many surfaces on Tianjin University campus completely covered in ads for daily/hourly rental bedrooms. There’s a booming market in daily/hourly use rooms and “love hotels” near college campuses in China.
Curse you, Beijing signage!
They told us we’d need to learn characters in China, but they never mentioned night vision! Us and a bunch of other people looking for the Beijing South Train Station wandered around last night in sub-zero temperatures in the wind following conflicting signage and conflicting directions from random passerbyers until we backtracked and took a closer look at this particular sign, or more specifically, the home-made one beside it, which says the train station is the other way:
Nice that they scribbled out the arrow for us! (Construction has made the area a little chaotic, and the bus routes and stuff apparently haven’t been changed yet.)
Canada:
China:
Taiwan:
The States:
Ecuador:
Brazil:
Haiti:
UK:
…wandered around for about 45 minutes in the subzero temperatures, you mean. We were never so happy to get our tickets, buy a sandwich, and get onto the warm train back to Tianjin.
From Jessica’s words,we can know that you guys had a good trip yesterday evening.
“”This time we used 99.9% Chinese and could get around no problem.”"
Wow,wonderful,it seems that during the passed year,you made a great progress in chinese character,how I envy you.As for me,I don’t think I have made some progress in my english learning.
BTW,to those two signs,which one is the right one leading to the beijing south train station?
The one on the right side.
[...] dump-of-a-restaurant two photos up, but it wasn’t great at either place. Not like some of the donkey I’ve had. ~ Discuss (7) [...]