David Tool is a professor at the Beijing International Studies University.From Monday to Thursday,He gets up at 4 a.m., and teaches eight hours of analytical thinking, four hours of writing, and another four hours of translation every week.

In what he calls "spare time" on Fridays and Saturdays, he works as a volunteer helping the Beijing government correct poorly translated English on streets and in museums, parks and other public places.When he was contacted yesterday, he was preparing English training courses for the elderly in a community in Beijing.

The three-hour training courses, which help elderly people learn basic English every Sunday, are part of the Ask Me voluntary program which was initiated by Tool to serve foreigners in Beijing.

The program is to encourage elderly Beijing residents to learn English. The best of them could be selected to wear a red shirt that says "Ask Me" and offer voluntary service at Beijing's busiest places such as parks, scenic spots and museums where foreigners often visit.

"The Ask Me program, designed specifically for elderly volunteers, is popular because they are eager to volunteer but have no direct role in Olympic volunteer services," Tool said."In pairs, they will patrol the most visited spots by foreigners in Beijing and help with directions or other questions," Tool, 64, prefers Chinese people to call him Lao Du to follow the Chinese tradition.

"It is important for elderly people to feel useful so they can be happier and healthier," Tool said. He suggested the government give elderly people more opportunities to volunteer their knowledge, experience and use their spare time for the good of society.

Tool, a retired U.S. army colonel, could have stayed with his family in Los Angeles where they have a big house, but for the sake of being a "useful old man," he refused to confine himself to retirement and came to China in 1991 to teach at the Beijing International Studies University.

In the past few years, Tool has been helping correct the misleading and awkward signage on roads and in subways, shops, public buildings and museums.The story started a few years ago during a Beijing opera performance at Chang'an Grand Theater, when Tool felt upset and embarrassed.

"I remember it was 'Monkey King Wreaks Havoc in Heaven,' an excellent episode of the 'Journey to the West,' but the screen on the stage read 'Auspicious Clods in the Sky,' instead of 'Auspicious Clouds in the Sky.'""Many foreigners were embarrassed by the mistake, and I was upset that the management had so little respect for their art that they presented it so carelessly," said Tool.

It is not easy for foreigners to learn about China, a country with 5,000 years of history. Museums and cultural relics help, but Tool found so many messy translations. After the performance, Tool wrote to the Ministry of Culture, offering to polish English signs at cultural sites, museums, parks and art galleries in Beijing.

The Beijing Speaks Foreign Languages Committee asked him to look over subway and road English signage first, before working on museums.
For years, foreigners in China have delighted in the loopy English translations that appear on the nation's signs. They range from the offensive -- "Deformed Man," outside toilets for the handicapped -- to the sublime -- "Show Mercy to the Slender Grass," on park lawns.

Last week, Beijing city officials unveiled a plan to stop the laughter. With hordes of foreign visitors expected in town for the the 2008 Summer Olympics, Beijing wants to cleanse its signs of translation nonsense. For the next eight months, 10 teams of linguistic monitors will patrol the city's parks, museums, subway stations and other public places searching for gaffes to fix.

Already, fans of the genre are mourning the end of an era, and some Web sites dedicated to it have seen traffic spike. The bewildering signs were "one of the great things we want to show people visiting us," says financial-services consultant Josh Kurtzig, a Washington native who lives in Beijing. Correcting them is "really taking away one of the joys of China."

Not many locals share this sense of loss. "We cannot leave (these signs) up just for the amusement of foreigners," says Olive Wang, marketing manager for a major sportswear company.

Many in China regard the Olympics as the nation's coming-out party -- a milestone in its ascent as a global power. Anticipation of the Games is fueling a surge of national pride and has sparked campaigns to make people smile more and embrace better etiquette.

The sign initiative is the latest part of a campaign to improve English translations in public, including on restaurant menus. The group behind the effort, called the Beijing Speaks Foreign Languages Program, is headed by Chen Lin, an elderly language professor who acts as its language police chief.

"We want everything to be correct. Grammar, words, culture, everything," says Prof. Chen, whose formal English enunciation would befit a Shakespearean actor. "Beijing will have thousands of visitors coming," he says as he flips through pictures of poorly translated signs on his dictionary-covered desk. "We don't want anyone laughing at us."

The sign police will conduct spot checks "to see if the signs are right," says Beijing Vice Mayor Ji Lin.

China hardly has a monopoly on poor translation. In the U.S., the popularity of Chinese-language tattoos during the last decade has left lots of hipster skin marked with nonsensical character combinations.

In anticipation of the Games, Prof. Chen set up his group in 2002 with backing from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The group's efforts, he says, will pick up over the next 1 1/2 years and will likely involve thousands of city employees and volunteers.

Already, the city has replaced 6,300 road signs that carried bewildering admonitions such as: "To take notice of safe: The slippery are very crafty." (Translation: Be careful, slippery.) Replacing signs will cost the city a substantial amount of money, although its isn't clear how much. Some of the faulty ones, Prof. Chen notes, are decades old and carved in marble.