Signs of concern in China

The whole world will be watching China for the 2008 Summer Olympics, and in these months leading up to the event, the Chinese government is getting worried. About their human rights violations? Religious persecutions?

No. About their signs.

For years, foreigners in China have delighted in the loopy English translations that appear on the nation’s signs. They range from the offensive (“Deformed Man,” outside toilets for the handicapped) to the sublime (on park lawns, “Show Mercy to the Slender Grass”).

Last week, Beijing city officials unveiled a plan to stop the laughter. With hordes of foreign visitors expected in town for the 2008 Summer Olympics, Beijing wants to cleanse its signs of translation nonsense. For the next eight months, 10 teams of linguistic monitors will patrol the city’s parks, museums, subway stations and other public places searching for gaffes to fix.

Signs.

Many in China regard the Olympics as the nation’s coming-out party — a milestone in its ascent as a global power. Anticipation of the Games is fueling a surge of national pride, and has sparked campaigns to make people smile more and embrace better etiquette.

In other words, put on a better show.

“We want everything to be correct. Grammar, words, culture, everything,” says Prof. Chen, whose formal English enunciation would befit a Shakespearean actor. “Beijing will have thousands of visitors coming,” he says as he flips through pictures of poorly translated signs on his dictionary-covered desk. “We don’t want anyone laughing at us.”

If they really want everything to be correct, how about this?

An official in Zhejiang said that his province plans to name and shame rich families who ignore the country’s strict one-child policy and simply pay the fine for having a second or third baby. Zhang Wenbiao, head of the family planning commission in Zhejiang province, announced on Wednesday that his agency was going to expose a few such cases in the near future.

Or worse, this?

Police in the eastern Jiangsu province have attacked a prayer meeting of Protestant Christians. Without bothering to identify themselves they confiscated biblical texts and beat members of the community who refused to show their identity cards (ID), according to the China Aid Association (CAA), a US-based non-governmental organization that lobbies for religious freedom in China.

On 7 February, police from Shanghuang City broke into the home of Tan Jiuanwei, a 36-year-old Protestant Christian who was hosting an unofficial prayer meeting. The police officers were joined by representatives of the provincial religious affairs office and members of the national protection squad.

The armed group entered the apartment without a warrant. The police officers demanded to see the ID cards of those present who were also photographed. Some Christians refused to supply their ID cards and were beaten.

Or their ongoing persecution of the underground, faithful Roman Catholic Church?

“The greatest obstacle in diplomatic relations between the Vatican and China in the omnipresence of the Patriotic Association (Ap). It is also the most serious problem for the life of the Church, because it risks corrupting the dogmatic fundamentals of Catholicism.

The Patriotic Association is the puppet church run by the Party to control Catholics in China.

Founded on August 2nd 1957, with the aim of mediating between the ideals of the Party and the Catholic Church, the AP has taken a lethal stranglehold of the life of Chinese communities.

With over 3 thousand secretaries, vice secretaries, chief officials and many more local officials the AP is able to control and dominate the small group of circa. 5 million official Catholics, thus preventing that any step by the Church escapes their notice: they nominate bishops, they “advise” the bishops on parish appointments, they decide who can teach seminarians; they evaluate vocations male and female for the entrance to seminaries and convents; they superintend diocesan administration.

Their “ideological” control is more or less total.

Those faithful to the Roman Catholic Church worship underground, and in constant danger.

The AP is also the cause of the persecutions.  In China, all Catholics who refuse AP control meet in places that are not recognised by the Government, with priests who are not registered and Bishops tied to the Holy See, but not recognised by the ministry for Religious Affaire.  According to a retired member of the Ministry, “the members of the AP reveal the places of the underground communities; they lead the police there and insist on the arrest of the non official Catholics”.

According to AsiaNews data at least 17 underground bishops have disappeared, been arrested or are detained in isolation; 20 priests have been arrested.  The latest arrest took place on December 27th in Hebei.  Of the 9 priests arrested, 5 remain in prison, 4 have been released.

Some official bishops confirm that there has been a hardening in AP ideology in recent years.  It is due above all to the fact that “(most of the) secretaries are not Catholic, but atheist, among the most radical members of the Party whose scope is to destroy all religions or at least closely control them”.

So…they’re concerned about signs? If the Chinese government is really worried about world opinion, they should attend to the more telling signs that indicate how out of touch they are with what really matters to the people.