Chinese premier Wen Jiabao (pictured) was bearing gifts when he arrived for talks in Kuala Lumpur on Thursday, but Malaysia’s bloggers were much more interested in the welcome banner put up for him by his counterpart Najib Razak.
While the two prime ministers talked trade and investment, the blogs were running hot with complaints from some of Malaysia’s many native Chinese speakers about grammatical mistakes in the banner.
Contributors to Lowyat.net differed over the precise meaning of the Chinese characters, but complained bitterly that the Malaysian government appeared to have used some sort of automatic translation program, such as Google Translate, a free online language service.