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As a funny modern example, check out Kenyon Martin, former NBA all-star, having Chinese character tattoos. I never really thought about this until social media
by PakG1 9y ago
As a funny modern example, check out Kenyon Martin, former NBA all-star, having Chinese character tattoos. I never really thought about this until social media apparently all told him to back off when he said current Brooklyn Nets point guard Jeremy Lin shouldn't have dreadlocks in his hair because that was a black culture thing, and then Lin (politely) pointed out that Martin had Chinese character tattoos. I imagine very similar.
And then on the flip side, I read an article a while back about how t-shirt manufacturers in China choose English slogans for making t-shirts based on how nice they think the letters look, not based on what the words mean. They have no idea what the words mean and will actually even change some of the letters to make the pattern look nicer if they think it helps.
- asymmetric 9y agoI would be really interested in that article about t-shirt slogans!
- darklajid 9y agoDon't know about the GP's article, but there are actually quite some YT videos around of someone interviewing people in Asia (I think the last one I saw was based in Japan), asking them if they know the meaning of the words on their shirts. Some of these are hilarious..
- PakG1 9y agoSad to say I can't find it. But it had interviews of top sellers of t-shirts. These people would literally type random English letters into online search engines (obviously not Google) and see what got auto-suggested. Then they'd choose the auto-suggestions that literally looked the prettiest or coolest to them. Maybe change a letter here or there to make it look even more cool. Then off to the t-shirt printers.
- flyinghorse 9y agoWell in my country (3rd world country), most t-shirts are imported from China. If they have slogans, it's with English text with broken grammar or usually with text that doesn't even make sense. No one bothers though since English isn't widely spoken in neither of the countries.
- fludlight 9y agoThere is also the Western predilection for Chinese character tattoos which don't always mean what the customer thinks they mean and, of course, the Chinese predilection for English tattoos that...
- akavel 9y agohttp://hanzismatter.blogspot.com http://hanzismatter.blogspot.com - a blog "dedicated to the misuse of chinese characters in western culture". Highly recommended for disillusionment and entertainment value! :)
- chewz 9y agothere are few blogs re: Japanese t-shirts 'in English' 'Crap your hands'... etc. http://www.dorkly.com/post/70381/hilariously-translated-japanese-shirts http://www.dorkly.com/post/70381/hilariously-translated-japa...