Six time-weathered Beijing brands, some centuries old, received official new English monikers on Tuesday, organizers of a translation campaign announced.
The brands, including the famed Peking roast duck restaurant Quanjude and traditional Chinese medicine shop Tongrentang, retained their pinyin names but were given brief introductions of their business and history in their new English handle.
For example, Quanjude was now formally recognized around the world as Quanjude Roast Duck-since 1864. Tongrentang became Tongrentang Chinese Medicine-Since 1669.
The other formalized English names included Wuyutai Tea Shop-Since 1887, Ruifuxiang Silk-Since 1862, Rongbaozhai Art Gallery-Since 1672 and Wangzhihe Gourmet Food-Since 1669.
"The translations give prominence to the history of the brands, while giving English speakers an idea of what they are or what they sell," said Professor Wang Dili, dean of the translation school of Beijing Foreign Studies University.
"The uniform structures serve as examples and will make translations of famous Chinese brands more standardized in future," Wang said.
All six companies were satisfied with their translations and were making gold-lettered signboards with their new names displayed prominently.
"We will consider registering a trademark and promoting the new names internationally," said Shi Binfeng, vice president of Quanjude Group Co. Ltd.
The activity organizers, Transn Transcends Translation company, solicited 250,000 translations on the Internet, 20 percent of which were from overseas. The review committee comprised renowned translators and folklore experts from around the country.
The company was organizing a second round of the activity and was soliciting entries for dozens of Chinese brands.
Debate on the translations, however, had heated up recently as more people voiced their opinions toward entrenched English translations from the Chinese culture or society.
Zhao Qizheng, dean of the School of Journalism at Beijing's Renmin University, argued Beijing Opera should be re-named "Jingju", the pinyin term for the art. This was because of how different it was from Western operas and that "Beijing Opera" would easily cause confusion for English speakers.
Source: Xinhua
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