In an effort to make facilities foreigner-friendly or simply to enhance the style of an advertisement Asian governments and businesses will often add English translations. However, many don’t feel it’s worth the effort to do a proper translation and simply rely on automatic ones. The results are often sure to put a smile on the face of English speakers in the rest of the world.

Now, Xi’an North Station has put another feather in the cap of gloriously wrong translations…and this time they called it macaroni.

This message on the train station floor was discovered by a foreign student reportedly called “Fletcher” while passing through on holiday. After posting it online, the pasta guideline further spread along the internet like all bad translations do.

Telling people to stay behind the line while waiting to use the ATM in the station, the message reads “Please wait behind the one meter line,” or more simply “Please wait behind the yellow line.” However, when introduced to an automatic translator the original Chinese words get all jumbled up. Resulting in the message of “Please wait outside a noodle.”

It didn’t stop there, either. Fletcher mentioned that this station was a treasure trove of hastily made English signs. There were numerous signs instructing “social cars” where they can and cannot stop. This would be fine if that wasn’t an unusually opposite translation of “private cars”

Then there are the directions to the airport which seem to require a certain knowledge of quantum physics to follow.

▼ “Go straight to airport bus station: Go straight, turn right and take airport bus 30 meters ahead of No.265 bus station.”

After word of these English foibles hit the Chinese media, it’s likely those signs will get a makeover in the not so distant future. So if you happen to be in the Xi’an area, why not stop by and wait outside the noodle a little before it’s gone for good?

Source: People.cn (Chinese), Livedoor News, Toychan Net (Japanese)