The T-shirts sold to foreign visitors in Beijing. Photo: Screenshot of Taobao

A decidedly low-tech translation service in the form of T-shirts covered with simple bilingual requests is helping foreign tourists get around Beijing and receiving tens of millions of amusing compliments on Sina Weibo.

One of the T-shirts has the words and Chinese characters reading: "I want to go to," below which are pictures of Beijing's famous scenic places including the Bird's Nest, the Forbidden City and the Great Wall with their names in Chinese and English, according to a photo posted on Weibo.

Another T-shirt is printed with a list of verbs including "take, find, eat, buy" with various options below them. A person can simply point to "take" and then to the icons for a plane, taxi, subway and bus. 

The hashtag "T-shirts sold to foreign visitors in Beijing" had been viewed 210 million times as of Monday. 

A netizen suggested expanding the options on the T-shirt. "We could design a T-shirt with pictures of Chinese cuisine so foreign visitors don't need to worry about ordering food."

Another said the designer should copyright the idea for the T-shirts, perhaps suggesting tourists could pack a different T-shirt displaying the icons for each city they plan to visit.