Signs #3

When I see odd signs and hilarious Engrish on my trips around the city a business proposal often comes to mind: I will become a travelling English merchant going door-to-door to business and companies selling grammar, punctuation and correct spelling from my magical carpet bag. Or I could be like a wonderful fairy-grammar mother who drops by to grant lexical wishes and restore a sense of normalcy to the signs and their English leaving a trail of glitter and confused Japanese people in my wake. But then I think, why would I want to do that? They're hilariously perfect just the way they are. No point messing with a good thing.

I want to live here just so I can give this address to people

Thanks dude but I'd rather not be your anything

A restaurant in Kobe. Is it still politically incorrect if the majority of people can't understand it?

Popular boyband Arashi dressed as pieces of popcorn. There are just. no. words...

Interlude: Engrish

This episode of Engrish comprises a random collection of nonsense from various places. I will seriously never tire of seeing what bakeries are prepared to get permanently printed on to their windows.

Roll chicken cow?! Why do we not have this magical animal in Ireland?!

A beer company's description of their beer.

Bakeries never learn...

A trip to Takamatsu is a trip into the Matrix!

And unfortunately lacking pictures are these other fine examples of Engrish from round and about:

"Ride on fuckin' age" This was printed on  an elderly gentleman's shopping bag.
"So Gut" On a t-shirt. No clue.
"I will become a cool adult in these clothes" Another t-shirt offender. Yes young man you certainly will.
"I looks for clover" T-shirt.
"I love hug smiles"  T-shirt.
"Curious stiff" T-shirt again. This one I love though. Imagine being so curious your body becomes rigid and you find yourself unable to move. Hilarious.

Signs/Engrish Mash-up (The Health and Beauty Edition)

Over the last while I've come across some amusing Japanese English that falls into what I suppose would be a health and beauty category? i.e. on shampoos, beauty products, signs outside hairdressers. To be honest I could walk down to the ¥100 shop (which actually charges ¥105! Liars!) and come back with a folder full of photographs of English blurbs on Japanese beauty products that were blatantly copied and pasted from Google translate. (That's if I didn't get caught taking the forbidden photographs and booted out of the shop.) Bad grammar aside though they make sense and the message they are trying to convey is always obvious. I'm not here to spitefully mock bad grammar and it is also very helpful in some cases to have the English description there so I can figure out exactly what I'm buying. In some cases though it just makes me laugh. And then I put them on the internet.

Is a hair manicure a thing? The more I look at this the more it sounds
like something you could possibly find at home... Strange nonetheless

Introducing my new shampoo: Horse Fat. Now featuring real pieces of horse!

Sick of painting those pesky nails of yours? Remove them!
 

 

"We always never forget a replay a greeting and cleaning" : your guess is as good as mine

My Neighbourhood

That's my trusty beige bike there on the left

This may be the most artsy fartsy picture I've ever taken

One of my neighbours collects toys and glues them to their lawn

Woof!

 

I tried to catch him but he was too darn quick for me

Encountering the Dharma, I was informed that the return to the home
of a great life (Em.. ya)

 

Obligatory hilarious Japanese street sign

I debated putting up a link to a Google street view of my neighbourhood but I didn't want to encourage stalkers. Not that anyone would want to stalk me but you never know...

Signs #2

As I've noted before (here) signs in Japan are pretty interesting. And by interesting I of course mean adorable and hilarious really. I cannot think of one pharmacy in Ireland that would not be slightly embarrassed to have a poster of a smiling poo advertising constipation medicine in their window, or ESB Ireland using a dungarees outfitted, flying electric fairy-baby to warn children of the dangers of touching electrical wires. It just wouldn't happen. People in Japan have no such qualms. And far more active imaginations than graphic designers back home (or perhaps easier access to hallucenogenics?)

Park here and feel the wrath of my GIANT hand!

A poster warning not to litter in the area. Why he has an orange for a head I
could not tell you

This one's fairly obvious. It's the slightly malevolent look in the pigeon's eyes
and karate chop pose that makes me giggle every time. "Feed me or I'll f*ck you up!!"

A warning in Nara how not to treat the deer. It makes me think of attack options when you're playing Pokemon on the Gameboy. "Deergong! Use knock down, take that old bitch out!"

Umm.. This is where the aliens come to walk their horned children

This poor little fella got his hand trapped but he's still smiling. What a trooper!

Last but not least this articulate gem. Mmmm love me some combustible baked goods... Yummy!

I hope you have enjoyed the latest installment of Signs. This is Ciara Long, your reporter of all things random in Japan signing off for now. You stay classy... internet.

The animals went in two by two, hurrah

Today I went to Asa Zoological Gardens just north of Hiroshima City centre. (Here is the English page with times and travel info.) Highlights included baboon mountain (which is, as its name implies, a mountain with baboons on it), a giant turtle, two turtles in the same enclosure trying desperately to take advantage of a third, meerkats racing around their holey meerkat village, two baby meerkats trying to show off and falling off a log in the process, a rat kangaroo (which genuinely does look like a cross between a rat and a kangaroo) hopping around, a sugar glider gliding, an enormous, lumbering elephant having lunch, the wonderfully drawn signs around the park warning and informing visitors about the animals, like these gems:

Their faces say it all really

Pull our rabbits' ears and we'll pull your childrens'. At least
that's what I assume it says...

The poor little fella on the bottom right makes me sad

This child is either crying because he got his hand bitten or the
tiger peed on him. If only I read Japanese I'd know

accidently taking a photo of a parrot that looks like it has a man's head (thanks to Brian for spotting this):

and finally the looks on the faces of the Japanese people strolling by when I did this:

Lowlights of the day included the smell from baboon mountain, the depressingly small enclosures that some of the animals lived in, the fact that I got sunburned even though I had sun screen in my bag (remembered to bring it, forgot to put it on. Doh!), and a bird in one of the bird enclosures that sounded like a dog's squeaky toy that would not shut the hell up. I bet the other birds hated him. Here is a video so that you may see what I mean:

Signs

I've noticed a big difference between signs here and signs back home. I'm not talking about the kind of sign where you are contemplating heading out to the pub for the night but you are too poor when lo and behold a €20 note blows up onto your doorstep in front of you as you are entering your house. (This actually happened to me. It was a great night!) I am speaking about the kind of signs that decorate the roads warning people not to litter, to clean up after their dogs, or those that indicate which bathroom belongs to which sex. In Ireland, and in most other European countries I've visited, unwanted actions are generally conveyed by drawing an outline of said unwanted action and putting a red line over it. For example:

Fairly standard. (And not very imaginitive might I add). The kind of thing you might see on a promenade located next to some free pooper scooper bags. However, I don't think "fairly standard" would cut it for the Japanese. Oh no! They have taken their love of all things kawaii (cute) to a new level and even public information signs are home to a cast of cutesy, smiley, colourful characters informing you, warning you, or showing you the way. Observe:

At least this little guy has the decency to look guilty

Whereas this dog just looks disgusted

These fellas advertise a car park. Drive your turtle in here rabbit people!

This poster asks that you keep the children's area inside clean (as far as I can tell)

Here's the local electricity fairy flying to the aid of a child about to be electrocuted

A warning to the cartoon children living in the area to be careful on the roads

Even the toilet signs are more imaginitive than our bog standard outline of a man or woman shape. Overall I'd have to say that I much prefer Japan's method of sign posting. Adorable characters, lots of colour, and they really catch the eye. What's not to love? They can even make painful bodily functions seem happy and fun:

This is on a poster for constipation medicine in the window of a pharmacy in my area.
Aside from Mr. Hanky this may be the first happy poo I've ever seen

There are times though when they get the English wrong. But in some ways this is still kind of cute. If they had covered the sign in wide-eyed, cuddly animals and smiley poos I might not have even noticed.