I can reproduce on a simplified chinese installation using Oneiric Desktop i386 20110901 on VirtualBox.
after install 'Mute' is empty and 'Empty Label' is displayed instead of 'Preferences'
LANGUAGE is set to "zh_CN:"
LC_ALL is empty
everything else is set to "zh_CN"
I can reproduce on a simplified chinese installation using Oneiric Desktop i386 20110901 on VirtualBox.
after install 'Mute' is empty and 'Empty Label' is displayed instead of 'Preferences'
LANGUAGE is set to "zh_CN:"
LC_ALL is empty
everything else is set to "zh_CN"