While visiting the small Szechuan city of Dujiangyan today, I was amused to see a sign directing me to the city centre's "famous" 'Night Beer Corridor'. Every home should have one!
I was considerably less charmed to find, in a public toilet nearby, a small well (not sure if there's a more particular word in English for this kind of basin) for rinsing mops..... well, ordinarily it would be for rinsing mops, but here it was labelled - with seeming pride, in English - 'Vomit Pool'. Ugh! Where on earth did they get that idea from? And WHY would they want to make that the only bilingual sign in the place? They didn't have 'Press to Flush' or 'Now wash your hands' or 'Please put used toilet tissue in the bin' - only 'Vomit Pool'. Has the 'Night Beer Corridor' been overrun by English lager louts who vomit copiously in non-designated places? I hardly think so.
And in my hotel bathroom, there was a complimentary dispenser of hair-styling mist (well, it appeared to be complimentary, but Chinese hotels are often rather sneaky about concealing or completely removing the price labels, attempting to ambush you with unwelcome extras on your bill: there were a couple of unlabelled but clearly very high-end souvenir mini-pouches of tea on my nightstand which I just knew it would be perilous to my wallet to open...). It promised me "no discomfort or constraint of head". Oh good - I hate that. I didn't feel moved to try any, though.
Ah, the delights of travel in China...
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