Language jokes are tricky. Think of the number of dunderheads who have meaningless Chinese characters (or with meanings far at variance to what they imagined) tattooed onto themselves. Still, it can be amusing. And though we’ll never have the “Anus Hospital” anymore as it’s been changed to “Proctological Diseases Hospital” ahead of next year’s Games with a capital ‘G’, there are still plenty of anomalies. Take this effort, which I passed on a hike through a section of the Great Wall. It appears to be striving for Welsh in the first line (which says, “Unrenovated section of the Great Wall” in Chinese), then switches to English, producing a phrase that sounds like it describes what foreigners in Beijing tend to do after a few too many baijius (Chinese firewater) in Beijing’s Sanlitun bar district.
(As is probably pretty obvious, the Chinese says, Climbing Forbidden.)
Sunday was probably our last day of what locals call jinqiu, golden Autumn and we’re now getting into full grey winter lockdown. A few more pictures of a truly great piece of Beijing architecture:
