| JS, that's great that you care enough to do something about it! What bothers me the most, is that these are not very difficult words, they are common vocabulary that could be found in any Chinese-English dictionary. You don't need an expert, you just need the right person who care enough to look it up in a dictionary!! So it seem to me the typos are not the result of lack of "expert" knowledge rather the sign of apathy.
I don't know much about how things work in China, so I can only offer what I would do in similar situations here: ===> find out 1) who manufactures these signs 2) who is ultimately responsible for signs for public transportation system (i.e. is there a dept of transportation in SH?) ===> then write letters to them as a concerned citizen, including pictures, and the correct spellings. ===> send pictures to the press, which you have already done. Do you think they would publish it? since this could give incentive to other concerned citizens to take on your cause. ===> would it help to have so called "experts" write to these places? I only say this b/c of the employee's response to your phone call (i.e. native speakers who work in SH, Linguistic professors in SH) I don't know if this would backfire. It seem that sometime its difficult for people to accept criticism from foreigners, b/c of the "face loosing" aspect. I guess no matter what you do, its important to be clear that you are doing this b/c you care about SH, you care about SH's image, and its for the betterment of SH. I wish I can help you! b/c this is one of my pet peeves everytime I go to SH. If you think it would help, I can write to the Chinese Embassy here. Maybe to the Tourism and the Economic depts. I could attach your pictures the pictures you have if you send it to me. Let me know what you think. In the mean time best of luck to you. It would be awesome if things started changing b/c of one concerned citizen!! |
So Many Typos in Shanghai Metro