Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and his entourage would have been perplexed had they spotted the words in Chinese printed on the backdrop at a welcoming ceremony in Putrajaya this morning.

Apparently, the words were a direct translation from a sentence in Malay: "Istiadat Sambutan Rasmi Sempena Lawatan Rasmi TYT Wen Jiabao Ke Malaysia" (Official welcoming ceremony in conjunction with official visit of His Excellency Wen Jiabao to Malaysia).

However the Chinese translation turned out to have serious syntax and grammatical errors.

Translated literally, it reads: "Official welcoming ceremony, with him Wen Jiabao His Excellency's official visit Malaysia".

NONE The embarrassing backdrop had been raised at the rear of a podium set up in front of the Prime Minister's Department in the federal administrative capital for the official welcoming ceremony for the Chinese leader.

It depicts flags of China and Malaysia, the Great Wall of China and Malaysia's Twin Towers and a photo of Wen shaking hands with Najib. 

Chinese-literate reporters and guests at the ceremony were stunned by the backdrop, including several Chinese Malaysian ministers. However, it was too late to rectify it.

Photographs of the backdrop soon made their way into social networking website Facebook and micro-blogging website Twitter , creating an uproar among netizens.

Some of them said that the popular online translation application 'Google Translate', which can only do literal translations, was used to translate from Malay the welcome statement on the banner.

Many were baffled that the Prime Minister's Department could make such a glaring mistake that could turn Malaysia into an international joke.

NONE "They would rather use Google translator than ask the Chinese staff in the Prime Minister's Office? Oh my God!" commented a Facebook user.

It was echoed by another user who said, "As if there are no Chinese in government agencies, or they can't even bother to get an interpreter to translate it."

Wen arrived in Malaysia yesterday for a two-day official visit.

After the welcoming ceremony at 10am, he had a dialogue with Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak, followed by a joint press conference.

It was not known whether Wen had noticed the bungle.

Attempts to contact the prime minister's political secretary, Oh Ei Sun, on this matter have been futile while the Najib's press secretary, Joan Lai, said the Prime Minister's Department would not respond for the time being.