Thursday, June 15, 2006

English?? in Japan

Having lived in Japan now for more than a year, I'm used to seeing the English language butchered on a regular basis. There is a kind of prestige attached to using English on signs in many types of companies, even though most potential customers are unable to understand most of it.
T-shirts are the worst. They've got the bizarrest (is that a real word?) expressions on them. For example, "Happiness and joyful living take the world to the heartfelt insides." Huh???
We were in Kurashiki on the weekend in a store that sold cat stuff. Not like a pet store, more like a store where they sell everything you can possibly think of with a cat theme. You know like cat-themed-pictures, cat-themed-dishes, cat-themed-clothing (for people, not for cats). Anyways, you get the point. Don't ask what I was doing in there. The point is, I came across the picture at the top here. It cracked me up because it's a really good example of the types of things I see everyday on Japanese goods. It's a picture from some kind of handbag. There's a free cat-shaped-popsicle maker for anyone who can tell me what the hell it means.
The lower picture here, we also saw in Kurashiki the same day. At least this one I can understand, but it still made me laugh. The French at the bottom translates the same as the English.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Jason, I found lovely nightie, it wasn't white,but...let's go and see it when I came back to Japan.

Anonymous said...

Oh,no.....I just had mistake,not [clazy]....maybe [ crazy ]ne....

Anonymous said...

I'm impressed with your site, very nice graphics!
»

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.