Chinese Signs

China is trying to welcome foreign tourists in many ways. One way is the increasing use of English on signs. Unfortunately, they often lose something in the translation. Like this sign:

I'm glad there wasn't an emergency at this hotel, because this confusing map might have caused me to scatter incorrectly.

This sign caused us to ponder what suddenness was and we decided to avoid it at all costs.

Smoking is quite common in China especially among the businessmen, but it was nice to know that we were always in non-smoking rooms.

This sign was near the river and I'm thinking it was anti-littering.

This sign was encouraging people not to walk on the grass. I think. Maybe.

At all the tourist destinations we saw star-rated toilets. These were not only clean, but they frequently had toilet paper and western toilets.

Speaking of toilets, all over China you see these toilets. The Chinese prefer them because you don't touch anything and we all used them with no problems, but some Westerners had trouble with them and were constantly looking for western toilets.

One enterprising restaurant had this thoughtful solution for their western patrons:

One evening we had a drink at this bar. We wondered if our drinks were poured from Mason jars.

But, after all the hub-bub of shopping and sight-seeing, it was always comforting to pass through a civilized airport. Thanks China, for showing us such a good time.