Being able to read and understand Chinese slogans is a special thing. You get used to the set up; the slogans, whether advertising shampoo, promoting a soccer tournament or issuing a helpful warning, are generally written as two parallel phrases of four to six characters. They sometimes rhyme, and often have symmetrical grammatical structures or breakup of words (two two-character words, for example). It’s a fun linguistic exercise to try and understand why it’s a clever slogan, and how it might translate. The fact is that these don’t translate very well into English, and I’m convinced this is a part of the Engrish problem that is common on signs and advertisements. The slogan for the FIFA tournaments was “美丽足女 美丽世杯” which means “beautiful women’s soccer, beautiful world cup” The English slogan, however, said “Beautiful Game, Beautiful Goals”.
In many parts of China, litter is pretty commonplace. There are trash cans everywhere, but it’s not uncommon to see small plastic bags, cigarette butts and food scraps scattered through the smaller alleys, especially near where these things are bought. Sometimes at back gate (pictures are coming, I promise) there is just a pile of trash and waste waiting to be put in a dumpster, sitting against a wall. Things never get too bad, because of China’s remarkably efficient trash system. There are lots of people hired throughout the city to clean up the trash, and they do their jobs well. Also, though there are trash bins and recycle bins placed on street corners, people just toss things willy-nilly. This is because there are lots of peasants who come to the city to go through the trash cans, pull out anything and everything that’s recyclable, and take them to recycling centers to exchange for cash. There are literally hundreds of people who do this for a living. To the westerner who’s used to sorting the trash and putting it on the curb for someone to take away it seems like an odd system, but it works.
In any case, there’s no one hired in the school to pick up litter, and there are metallic bins set up maybe every 30 feet. Each bin has a sign on top bearing a slogan urging passers by to deposit their trash. The great thing is, these signs are all different. Each one maybe repeats once or twice, but there’s got to be at least 20 different trash slogans around the campus. Yesterday I took the liberty of jotting a few down and translating them:
Increase hygiene consciousness
Cherish the beautiful campus
Don’t spit on the ground
Don’t carelessly toss fruit rinds and paper scraps
Let the Gongda Campus
Always preserve life’s green color
Care for nature
Care for life
Cultivate the flowers and trees like a gardener
Together, greenify the new landscape
Pay attention to hygiene
Trash goes in the bin
Diligent study can initiate
A rise in culture and civilization
The school is my home
Sanitation relies on everybody
(This one’s especially cool in Chinese: 学校是我家 卫生靠大家)
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we've got the recycling people in NYC too, there are always people sorting through bins looking for cans and bottles and things. usually see them walking around with a big bag full of recylcables, once i even saw someone who had acquired a shopping cart from somewhere and had about five bags of bottles either in it or tied to it. i'm quite fond of them as there are so many people who don't recycle, especially in the bins that are just on street corners (as opposed to ones at people's apartment buildings), so the recyclers go through and gather up all the recycling and make some money off it too. i do get annoyed though when they go sorting through trash but obviously looking for things other than recyclables though. hence why i generally rip up anything with personal information into pieces that are no bigger than a square centimeter...
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