Friday, June 1, 2007

Some Written Chinglish:

This is a short list of some fun Chinglish I've seen around. Most are from T-shirts. Essentially, they view English words on t-shirts similarly to how we view Chinese as a tattoo. It's cool, because it's different. The problem is, no one speaks English, and apparently no one proof reads it:

"Caivin Klein": This is what brand my belt is. I like to refer to it as my "Authentic" CK belt.

"Ulgy Girl": This is another one of my favourites. This was on the shirt of a girl walking around downtown in big block letters. I love it because it's a double whammy, not only is it spelled wrong, but it insults the wearer.

Other T-shirts:
"Favorite Stove Ranges"
"2% Hommie"
"Foppery"
"Biella Italia"
"Yourng Blood"
"Fairy Fox Sports"
"RNA Sweat: I wanna be your dog"
"Electric Snow"
"Love is in the fish"
"Egoist"
"How many flapper..."

Lastly, this was all on ONE t-shirt. The girl sat facing me on the train to Xuzhou:
"Sport Girl OK Stripper Androgynou"
"To Da Break of Dawn"
"All Starz"
"Girl OK"

Here's the kicker. All of the shirts from Ulgy Girl to this line here were seen within hours of each other. All are spelled as they were on the shirt, and if I didn't write it down in time, I didn't include it. I've seen all of this Chinglish in a matter of about 3 to 4 hours, before getting on the train. Now extrapolate that to the month and a bit I've been here... I'm amazed my English hasn't gone in the John.

One last one, this is from Carrefour, the french-owned Chinese Walmart department store. It is a sign on the door into receiving:
"This door merely supplies to the exigence must keep it very expedite"
Not a single typo, I swear. You figure out what it means.

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