Warm Notice
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A Hong Kong friend of Jeff DeMarco posted this photograph on Facebook (it's probably from Beijing, but he's not sure about that):
The Chinese text reads:
Huānyíng nín rùzhù Jǐngxīng jiǔdiàn. Wèile nín de ānquán, kěnqǐng nín zàizhù diàn qíjiān zūnshǒu Zhōngguó fǎlǜ, qiè wù cóngshì xīdú, piáochāng děng wéifǎ xíngwéi.
Duōxiè hézuò
Jǐngxīng jiǔdiàn
欢迎您入住景星酒店。 为了您的安全，恳请您在住店期间遵守中国法律， 切勿从事吸毒，嫖娼等违法行为。
多谢合作
景星酒店
Welcome to the Star Hotel. For your safety, while you are staying in our hotel, we earnestly request that you respect Chinese laws and refrain from taking drugs, patronizing prostitutes, and engaging in other such illegal activities.
Thanks very much for your cooperation,
The Star Hotel
The top part of the Chinese has been cut off. Judging from the English, though, it most likely would have been "wēnxīn tíshì 温馨提示" ("kindly notice").
The notice probably would have been addressed to "guìbīn 贵宾" ("distinguished guest").
As one would expect, the Japanese is exceedingly polite, but only the beginning part, which addresses the guest and thanks him / her for staying in the hotel can be seen in this photograph.
I should note that it takes self-discipline on the part of the guests in many Chinese hotels to avoid patronizing ladies of the night, because often, just as one is about to fall asleep, a call (woman's voice) will come and ask whether one is feeling lonely and whether one needs any special services. So far as I know, such calls are usually received only by male guests.
John F said,
May 27, 2014 @ 7:45 am
The logic in the English is fantastic.
George said,
May 27, 2014 @ 7:49 am
If it were only calls… I once answered a knock at the room door in a hotel somewhere in Fujian and had a young woman walk straight in, look around to check that I wasn't already taken and demonstrate the range of services on offer with various hand movements. My bewilderment was obviously enough to convince her that a sale was unlikely and she promptly walked out again.
I can't read more than a very small number of Chinese characters but there was certainly no English-language notice in the room enjoining me not to go whoring. Of course, even if there had been and if I had succumbed to the lady's charms, I could always have used the defence that I hadn't actually gone anywhere; the whoring would have come to me.
laclassic said,
May 27, 2014 @ 8:23 am
Anyone need a best star hotel in India. You have to come bangalore , will get a luxurious hotel with a hifi facilities . I am sure that you will never seen like this hotels in India.
arthur waldron said,
May 27, 2014 @ 8:59 am
Years ago I and David Bruce took a room at the old Bando Hotel in Seoul. No sooner had we entered than the phones rang: Miss Kim was having a party, Miss Li was having a party, etc. I slowly realized they were working with the management–I was young and innocent. I like a good deep muscle massage–had several wonderful ones in Siem Reap at the Grande Hotel there–all strictly above the board. Once in Seoul I looked for a massage too–in the best hotel–thinking, you are no idiot Waldron, and you understand what goes on, but surely HERE it will be on the level. The bottle of scotch in the corner of the room should have tipped me off, but I didn't really catch on until the gal started asking whether I wanted the "special" which she would not describe. She then poured verbal abuse all over me and I hurried away to the safety of my room. Ambassador in Taipei–Taipei mind you–completely straight, good, no nonsense. Gal really knew what she was doing–But next time I will check the notices to see whether whoring is permitted or not. I suspect that in China, everything is permitted including that which is forbidden (in the USSR everything is forbidden including that which is permitted, in France everything is permitted except that which is forbidden) ANW
Martha said,
May 27, 2014 @ 9:55 am
Do not take drugs *and* go whoring? So I can do one or the other, but not both?
So these women who come a-knockin' in the middle of the night, are they employed by the hotel?
George said,
May 27, 2014 @ 10:39 am
I'm assuming that the importance attached to high fidelity in laclassic's wonderful sounding hotel in Bangalore rules out any of this kind of stuff, at least for married guests.
Marta said,
May 27, 2014 @ 1:28 pm
@Martha:
On the pragmatic interpretation, you can do both. Just make sure you go whoring first, then take drugs.
KevinM said,
May 27, 2014 @ 1:40 pm
Yes, I think it's a warning on the order of "don't drive drunk."
arthur waldron said,
May 27, 2014 @ 2:56 pm
Martha I was once a late teenager so swept away by the intellectual excitement of my university and absorbed in course that I spent 1967 to 1980 there, even serving as a house tutor, WITHOUT EVER EVEN SMELLING LET ALONE SEEING, MARIJUANA. Strange thing, isn't it? People like that end up as professors. James Atlas, the editor and poet, wrote piece that sank into my memory about the indescribably joyful experience of sitting in the reading room, devouring (his favorite) the American classics, rising half dizzy when the buzzer sounded at 10 PM, drifting done the long stone staircase outside, in the cold dark night with the bright starts, one's head spinning with all one had read. NOW WE WILL HAVE WEED IN THE A & P. As for the girls–or should I say more correctly, enslaved women who ply their wares, for happy pain and tragedy free prostitution is a fantasy, perhaps a mostly male fantasy. I think they are free contractors who work closely with the bell desk. A fellow professor whose life and career hit some potholes, but who is an over flowingly gifted poet and writer, now teaches in China. When lonely who goes to Bangkok, where everything is taken care of. He went there when is father died. He told the mama san what had happened. She was genuinely feeling and sympathetic and chose a girl who was presumably the same (they are all people after all, and most have seen worse than we have). He wrote, "she just lay down on my bed, while I sat at the table, drinking whiskey by the class, and crying my eyes out." The World of Suzie Wong by Richard Mason (1957) is the classic of the genre, which approaches literature. He said that the old Luk Kwok Hotel in HK to write it. When my wife was in China business–lotteries- for a few years, long ago, we flew into HK full of anticipation for the luxury the company usually underwrote but the British Dependent Territory was packed. We ended up at the new, rebuilt Luk Kwok–modern seeming but stuffy and not quite right. No ladies. The next morning my student the Colonel turned up. We looked at the guests in the lobby. Asian, but from where? Not precisely Chinese. With a broad smile the Colonel said (for this was his line of work) "Arthur I know this place well. It is a great favorite of the North Koreans." He was right. Nothing to do with linguistics. I fear, but if you have not knocked around like this more than a little, you have no claim to area knowledge.Hsiao=hung Pai, the Taiwanese-English writer of reportage, has written several superb books on aspects of the overseas British Chinese underground and the migrant workers in China. "Invisible" is about the sex trade. She is a real author whose work i admire and recommend.
Brendan said,
May 27, 2014 @ 3:17 pm
A friend was once asked in a Chinese hotel whether he preferred "chicken" or "duck" (是吃鸡还是吃鸭, if I recall correctly) — i.e., whether he would rather his prostitute be female or male.
julie lee said,
May 27, 2014 @ 9:38 pm
I had this funny experience: Years ago, when my husband and I were poor graduate students, we moved into a cheap apartment building near the university. One day I received a telephone call from a man who asked if I was interested in working. As a matter of fact, I was thinking of looking for some work but had no skills. I could barely type. I asked: "What kind of work?" In those days I had just left a sheltered life at home and was very literal-minded. He said: "The entertainment industry." My (girl) friends and I in Taiwan had been terribly starstruck and worshipped the Hollywood stars. We'd tell each other, "You look like Ingrid Bergman", or "Don't you think she looks like Audrey Hepburn?" , and things like that. I thought this phone call might be connected to something in film, the stage, and so on. I said : "I can't dance or sing, what kind of work would it be?" He: "No dancing or singing, just entertaining." This went on a bit until he suddenly gave up on me (as a bad prospect) and banged down the phone and I suddenly realized what he had meant by "entertaining". (I later suspected the landlord because he was the only person who had our telephone number.)
julie lee said,
May 27, 2014 @ 9:48 pm
p.s. That experience was in New York City.
Matt said,
May 28, 2014 @ 8:01 pm
The logic in the English is fantastic.
I must disagree; by enjoining readers from X and Y, it implicitly allows either of the two on its own: "I may have taken drugs, but I didn't go whoring!" (The use of "rules" instead of "laws" seems to offer a sly loophole, too…)
We might also consider the possibility that the use of "staying" instead of "stay" weakens the idiomatic sense of the word ("period during which one is registered as a guest at a hotel") and encourages a literal interpretation ("period during which one remains at a hotel physically"), which would allow guests to go full Bacchus as soon as they're outside the doors. But that would just be pedantic.
leoboiko said,
May 29, 2014 @ 7:43 am
@Matt: In Brazil there's a common parking sign in telegraphic Portuguese that goes proibido estacionar dia e noite "Parking forbidden day and night". I always parse it as saying I can't park all day and night long, but as long as I park just during the day (or only at night), I'll be fine…
@Brendan: That's a cool euphemism! I wonder how I'd go about asking for a "full meal course" in this case… Sadly I couldn't find any well-known Chinese recipes using both chicken and duck. (Well there's this one but I'm certainly not asking for that…)
Chips said,
May 30, 2014 @ 4:17 am
I don't know about fractured English in Chinese hotel signs, but when I held the cursor over the graphic it tells me:
"Click to embiggen"
Rube said,
May 30, 2014 @ 8:56 am
@Chips: I don't understand your problem. It's a perfectly cromulent word.
Chips said,
May 30, 2014 @ 2:14 pm
Maybe, but my understanding of "embiggen" is to make things better (which doesn't necessarily mean larger). A lot like Australian Aboriginal English of "more better". It would have been clearer to me if it had said:
"Click to make more bigger"
Rube said,
May 30, 2014 @ 2:35 pm
@Chips: That's interesting, I don't remember ever encountering "embiggen" in the sense of "make better". In the original Simpsons episode, the quote is "A noble spirit embiggens the smallest man", so the meaning of "make bigger" seems to have been there from the beginning.
mira said,
May 30, 2014 @ 2:44 pm
I used to work at an ESL school where the students had made up a list of rules that was posted on the wall. As part of a lesson on modal verbs, I think. One of the rules said "We mustn't smoke, drink, and take drugs at school". It made me smile every morning.