CHINA:THE DAYS of "government-abused chicken" on Chinese menus are officially over.
Following a move by the government to introduce standard dish translations ahead of the Olympics, diners can ask for plain old "Kung Pao chicken" when they order the tasty dish of fried cubes of chicken with peanuts and chilis.
The guide Chinese Menu in English Version, published jointly by the Beijing municipality and the city's tourism bureau, contains 170 pages of official translations of Chinese and English dishes.
The dishes in the guide are mouth-watering, but it has to be said that the translations lack the piquancy of the older versions.
"Chicken without a sexual life" is off the menu, replaced by the sadly prosaic "steamed pullet". "Beef and ox tripe in chili sauce" replaces "husband and wife's lung slice", while "bean curd made by a pock-marked woman" gives way to "Mapo tofu".
Beijing is getting ready to host 2.5 million visitors, 500,000 of them foreigners, at the Olympics in August and is keen to ensure that visitors aren't scared off by alarming translations. A team of 24 translators studied menus from Chinese restaurants around the world to come up with the accepted phrases.
Menus have improved in recent years and there are fewer references now to "dumpling stuffed with the ovary and digestive glands of a crab" or "crap in the grass", but overly literal translation is still pretty common.
The guide has been broadly welcomed, but there were some reservations that the spice of the language may suffer.
"The process of standardising a menu translation is a double-edged sword. It removes the ambiguity and unintended humour, for sure, but then it takes away the fun and the rich connotation too. It turns a menu into the equivalent of plain rice, which has the necessary nutrients but is devoid of flavour," wrote commentator Raymond Zhou in China Daily.