Hanzi Smatter 一知半解

[randomness]

Again, thanks to ishaa, source of many amusing things:

http://www.hanzismatter.com/

Dedicated to the misuse of Chinese characters (Hanzi or Kanji) in Western culture.

狂瀉 (crazy diarrhea) is probably my favorite tattoo seen so far.

Edit: 宦官 (eunuch) is pretty good, too. :)

Update: The bearer of 狂瀉 now claims she meant to do that.

Comments

[digitalemur.livejournal.com]

That's marvelous. Reminds me of the story of the guy who took his first Japanese calligraphy class, decided to try the kanji for "foreigner," and then had to run for the bus afterwards. Only after he got home did he realize he'd just run to the bus stop, the only white dude on the street, waving this piece of paper with "FOREIGNER" on it the whole way. No kidding, you think people could tell he was a gaijin?

[earthling177.livejournal.com]

There is something about "cool visuals" that makes people use phrases, icons, pictures etc from other cultures without caring if it's a good or bad idea. One sees it all over the world. Still, the stories quoted in that site are funny.

Some time ago I used to live in an apartment in Somerville, and when we replaced the wallpaper in the bedroom (don't ask) I decided I was tired of a bedroom without ceiling lamps. And the easiest thing to do was to use those paper lanterns that are so common. For some reason I love them. But at that particular time, I only could find them at Urban Outfitter, and only with Chinese characters. God only knows what was printed on those lanterns. I bought them anyway, and thankfully no one poked fun. I was tempted to photograph them and ask people at Mary's, but never did. Afraid it might be something really bad and then be banned from one of my favorite restaurants.

Still, one of my favorite stories (which may or may never have happened) was told to me by relatives. As the story goes, this woman goes to a Chinese restaurant for the first time and loves everything. She takes the menu home and is so enchanted with the characters on the menu that she knits a black sweater with white Chinese characters on one side, going vertically from the shoulders down. One day, many months later, she meets with a long lost Chinese friend, who cracks up uncontrollably. When the friend is finally able to talk again, she is informed that right over her nipple it reads "this dish is very cheap but extremely delicious"... ;-)

[holmes-iv.livejournal.com]

There is something about "cool visuals" that makes people use phrases, icons, pictures etc from other cultures without caring if it's a good or bad idea. One sees it all over the world.

Very true. And the people putting random English gibberish on T-shirts in Europe (popular a decade ago, don't know about now) don't even have the excuse that there's no easy way to look up what those letters mean.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

bedfull_o_books and I were riding up the escalator out of the Causeway Bay station in the Hong Kong MTR one time when she suddenly collapsed in hysterical laughter.

She says she saw an impeccably-dressed woman, possibly Japanese, solemnly riding the down escalator wearing some article of clothing with "Tiny Penis" emblazoned across it.

I didn't catch it.

The Japanese have a love for bizarre English gibberish. http://www.engrish.com/ has a lot of great examples.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

P. S.: Check out the "Clothing" link.