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the messenger
BOILING POINT
V
ietnam is forever looking at
improving its lucrative tourism
industry. A growing number of
visitors are rightly coming to
savour the incredible variety of things
the country has to offer and so over the
last decade huge investment has been
poured into the tourism sector. Even
now, publicity campaigns, forums and
delegation visits regularly take place
to uncover new ways of improving the
tourist experience, attracting more visi-
tors, and boosting tourism revenue.
I often get asked by Vietnamese
friends and colleagues how things can
be improved for tourists and I struggle
for a good answer - this is not my field.
However, as a writer, English teacher
and pedant, I do have one suggestion:
improve this country’s poorly translated
museum and heritage site information
boards. It may seem a small thing, but
for me it is a recurring problem that
often takes away from my experience
as a visitor to these sites.
Of course, in a non-English speak-
ing country it is inevitable that mistakes
will be made and I have no problem
with this in other contexts. I have seen
and laughed at spelling errors and bad
translations in restaurant menus, ka-
raoke song listings and shop names,
among many other things.
At one of my favourite places to eat
I can order a baghetti sandwich, a dish
of five pre-destined affinity noodles, a
bowl of fried bumps, a real estate salad
or a vegetarian meat warehouse. This
doesn’t spoil my experience of the res-
taurant or the food in the same way
that mistakes at a museum or heritage
site do.
Similarly, I own a collection of T-
shirts bearing wonderfully meaningless
and misspelt slogans, mostly bought
from the Big C range. My favourite
boldly reads, above a picture of a car,
“Now! In three flavours. Hot wok! Tojgh
challever avwestean coucar!”
However, as a paying visitor at a
museum wanting to learn about a sub-
ject of historical significance, I would
expect to find clear English language
explanations.
Recently, a secret bunker used by
Vietnamese military commanders to di-
rect troops during the American War
was opened to the public for the first
time inside the Thang Long Citadel
complex. It has been preserved amaz-
ingly well and is a fascinating place to
visit. Unfortunately though, the Eng-
lish information board outside is almost
incomprehensible. Not only is it full
of spelling and grammatical errors, the
way it is written is confusing and fails in
its purpose of providing any insight into
how the bunker was used in the war.
The recently refurbished B52 muse-
um on Doi Can street in Hanoi provides
another example. It offers visitors the
chance to see the well preserved wreck-
age of an American B52 bomber along
with many anti-aircraft weapons and
a Vietnamese fighter jet. It also man-
ages to include mistakes on every sin-
gle accompanying information board. A
display of bombs typically used by the
Americans in late-night raids is helpfully
labelled ‘Sume types of boms.’
For some, mistakes like these can
be laughed off easily. Maybe they are
even worth a fun photograph. For many
others however, they take away from
an otherwise informative experience.
Mistranslations can mean that a seri-
ous and meaningful subject is reduced
to something to laugh at. The sense of
importance is lost.
Above all else, it is perplexing. Mis-
takes like this are entirely preventable.
Surely it cannot be that difficult to find a
native speaker to proof read a paragraph
before an information board is produced.
Typographical mistakes too can be cor-
rected quickly if thorough checks are
made. It is an easy thing to get right.
Kim Megson
highlights what he sees as Vietnam’s
key tourism shortcoming and suggests action to
address it.