Years ago, when Beijing was preparing to host the 2008 Olympics, the municipal government set up an office to promote the use of English among its population of 13 million. Since then, the office has held English-speaking campaigns biannually, in spring and fall.
Most of the events are successful; they help entice more Chinese people to speak English, something which Beijing badly needs to be recognized as a global metropolis. At the same time, it’s inevitable to find Chinglish mistakes committed by even the organizers.This fall, for instance, organizers put up in some of the major parks posters that said, “Our foreign language-speaking environment is improving everyday!nstead of making a declaration, it actually meant to encourage people to participate in the events to improve the capital’s multilingual featue. Native English speakers would correct it to say, “Let’s improve the environment for learning to speak a foreign language.In one of the events last Sunday, a native English speaker gave the audience tips on how to improve their English in daily life.
“The most important thing is to practice and speak your English out, loudly,” the trainer said. “Remove your poker face and try to discover something new through your words and acti.”Most of the listeners, including me, got lost at “poker face.” As soon as I got hold of a dictionary, I looked up the phrase and found out that it refers to “a face lacking any expression that can be interpreted. T term alludes to the facial expression of a poker player who is expert at concealing his feelings about his hand.”In short, the speaker told his audience to throw themselves with passion into speaking English and not to be afraid of making mistakes.
