BEIJING, Oct. 9 -- Visitors to China wanting to exit a gallery or a shop are often confronted with signs that read, "Go Out," or "Way Out." There are even signs saying, "Export," which aptly recognize the visitors' international stature.

    The owners and managers of places wanting to "export" their visitors do have an excuse. "Export" and "exit" are expressed in Chinese with the exact same characters. But there still needs to be more effort in this important area of public communication.

    The English levels reflected in road signs, placards and tourist notice boards is not encouraging, considering China is to host the Olympics and the World Expo over the next few years.

    While there is comic value in signs, such as "Pee Park" (a parking lot requiring a fee), poor public signs cause great inconvenience to those who do not read Chinese. Visitors feel hopelessly lost in translation.

    It is actually quite surprising to see so many misleading signs, especially when China cherishes its image so much and welcomes back every year tens of thousands of people who have studied overseas. Despite complaints about the problems in many cities, so far, only Shanghai and Beijing have made an effective effort in tackling the problem.

    Shanghai's road signs have already been properly Anglicized. Beijing's work in standardizing the English content of its road signs has started and is expected to be completed by the end of this year.

    The capital city, with the assistance of a group of volunteering native speakers, is also striving to compile a list of thousands of public signs. They even ventured into the translation of Chinese menus.

    It is certainly good news not only for Beijing, but also for other cities, which can simply copy Beijing's translations if they find them usable. Still, this is a project that should be funded and co-ordinated by the central government, not just for the sake of the Olympics and the World Expo, but for the sake of a more agreeable environment for foreign visitors.

    An increasing number of foreign visitors to China are travelling to places outside the biggest cities, but many of the smaller places are still not capable of doing the translation themselves.

    The establishment of a task force, co-supported by related central government departments, should be an appropriate arrangement for this purpose.

    The task force can base its first endeavour on Beijing or Shanghai's work and make it a version recommended nationally.

    This version can be amended regularly by the task force until even smaller cities can manage to produce the correct English translation by themselves.