If Michelin gave stars for unintentionally brilliant dish names, an eatery in Pingyao, China, might well be the world’s top restaurant. It has a large sign outside showing some of its tastiest dishes, with English translations: “In Bowl,” “You Flour Silk,” “Beef Cat’s Ear” and a noodle dish in broth known as “Sauce on My Grandma.”

The Chinese and English languages are so completely different that you often see awkward translations like these. They may make English speakers chuckle, but Chinese officialdom is not amused: When major international events come to China, the state tries to clean up the most egregious ones. Before the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, for example, 400,000 signs and 1,300 menus were revised, including “Racist Park,” a permanent cultural exhibition that was rebranded as “Minorities Park.”

Still, a stroll through just about any Chinese city will reveal the joys of eating in China: A restaurant menu in Xian offers “The Smell of Urine Dry Noodles.” Shenzhen is proud of its famous “Gollum Shrimp.” A Beijing restaurant serves “The Hand That Grasps the Cowboy Bone” and “Fried Swarm.”

Public institutions don’t do much better with their signs: One warns travelers in Shanghai to “Beware Wallet/Carefully Slide” (it means to suggest that you should watch your wallet and your step on the slippery floor). In Beijing, some wheelchair-accessible bathrooms are marked “Deformed Person.”

And it is worth a visit to the Ecstasy retail clothing chain on the island of Taiwan just to see what is posted out front. Apparently unaware that its trademark is also a street name for the illegal drug MDMA, the store has signs saying, “Welcome to the Ecstasy World” and “The Ecstasy Family Make You Crazy.”