Hong Kong, Jan 6: Few weeks ahead of the Beijing Winter Olympics in February, the Chinese capital city started replacing English names in the city’s subway with the pinyin, a romanized version of Chinese.
Stirring an online campaign, many Chinese nationals question the rationale behind such replacements, since foreign visitors who don’t speak any Chinese are unlikely to understand pinyin, reports CNN.
English station names such as Olympic Park and Terminal 2 of the Beijing airport have become “Aolinpike Gongyuan” and “2 Hao Hangzhanlou” — though the English translations are still displayed in brackets underneath.
In a statement last week, Beijing Subway said the changes are part of “the city’s ongoing efforts to unify translations of subway station names in accordance with relevant regulations.”
However, the justification did not convince Chinese social media users.
“English translations are meant for foreigners to read. Why don’t you just have only Chinese then? This kind of translation is redundant,” a comment said on Weibo, China’s answer to Twitter, reports CNN.
Questioning the practicality of the move, the state-run Guangming Daily, last week said,” For foreigners, the overwhelming majority probably don’t recognize pinyin…Therefore, this kind of translation may fall into an awkward situation: Chinese people don’t need it, foreigners don’t understand it.”
The move is accentuating fears that China’s ruling Communist Party is increasingly pushing back against English, amid its ongoing ideological war against Western influence, reports CNN.
