It’s official. Hungry foreign hordes craving a fix of diced chicken fried with chili and peanuts during the Beijing Olympics will be able to shout “kung pao chicken!” and have some hope of getting just that.
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.
If officials have their way, local newspapers reported on Wednesday, English-speaking visitors will be able to order “beef and ox tripe in chili sauce,” an appetizer, rather than “husband and wife’s lung slice.”
“Bean curd made by a pock-marked woman,” as the Beijing Youth Daily rendered the spicy Sichuanese dish, is now “Mapo tofu.” And “chicken without sexual life” becomes mere “steamed pullet.”
I well remember the Bitter Tea of General Yen.
A dish named,”chicken without sexual life”, is obviously not Californian.
Heh heh. English-to-Asian translations are always fun. More so when food is involved (especially “Chinese” food, which is about as American as barbecued beef brisket – apple pie not being American at all).
“Bean curd made by a pock-marked woman”. Priceless
Very young Chinese couple, newly married.
In bed together for the first time:
Man: what now?
Woman: We get undressed.
Man: what now?
Woman: I heard #69 was good.
Man: (pause) You want General Tao Chicken & white rice ????????
Cream of Sum Yun Gai; I think I’ll pass.
That’s flied lice you plick.
If you do get the chance to be in China during the Olympics or at any other time, you’ll be a fool to pass up getting real Chinese food to eat!
Believe me, the real stuff is the best stuff!
Here are some basic rules.
#1, and most importantly, DON’T EAT OFF THE STREET. Eat in a real restaurant and not off a street vendor. The real restaurant may be off the street, but they get their meat from a certified dealer. Who knows where the street meat came from?
#2, be prepared to eat stuff you didn’t know existed, because outside of China, most of this stuff doesn’t exist.
#3, don’t ask what it is you’re eating. Just be comforted that it tastes real good and isn’t poisonous.
#4, don’t choke or up-chuck your food. Bad manners.
For an example, one of the dishes I have come to like is cuttlefish. They are a type of squid, bite sized. When you get your cuttlefish, it looks back at you. All they do is remove some of the intestines (if you’re lucky) and then boil, bake, or otherwise prepare.
Then you get to eat it all up, head, tentacles, fins, and all!
Bon Appétit!
A bigger concern than what the food is called might be how to say “WHERE IS THE GAS MASK STORE??” in Chinese.
I just hope not too many athletes die from breathing the air.
I remember that film too. I just don’t get the reference?
# 6 AH_Yea
#5 Don’t eat anything that moves on your plate or anything that is not dead.
I drink from the teat. Whats wrong with that?