Tuesday, February 27, 2007

Almost.



At first it appears to be total gibberish, but looking at the subline twice identifies it as almost perfectly mirror-inverted, only that the letters aren't...

The question behind it all is - as usual - why?

美发 mei3fa4 - hair dressing

美容 mei3rong2 - beauty stuff, cosmetics

用品 yong4pin3 - items, products


Thanks go to Benedetto for this precious one!

27Comments:

At 7:09 AM, Anonymous Anonymous wrote ...

I don't get the toolsco part...thats all

 
At 7:54 AM, Blogger olr — 纪韶融 wrote ...

Good question, could be the remains of "Company" as in "Co." ...

Best,

olr.

 
At 3:42 AM, Anonymous Anonymous wrote ...

so so so funny

 
At 9:43 AM, Anonymous 天下第一味 wrote ...

有趣!第一次看到這樣的看板!能夠把英文反過來真是太強悍了!

 
At 10:01 AM, Anonymous Anonymous wrote ...

Couldn't it be that the photographer just shot the photo from a mirror. I'm not sure if this photo is genuine at all.

 
At 12:35 PM, Blogger olr — 纪韶融 wrote ...

I appreciate your doubts, but I can assure you that all Chinese characters in this picture are NOT mirrored.
Besides, try mirroring the picture and you will realize that the Latin characters are NOT mirrored in the original, they are just put as if... :).

Best,

olr.

 
At 11:00 PM, Blogger laichungleung wrote ...

If I were to make a wild guess to the why, I would say because the person making the sign thought that English can or should follow the Chinese flow, that's traditionally form right to left, alphabet by alphabet. He goes to make the spelling from right to left thinking that it makes sense too.

The result is like Matrix or the Da Vinci Code ... only except funnier.

 
At 3:56 AM, Anonymous Anonymous wrote ...

^^P
哈哈!
這個有好笑到(^_^)=v
Or2佩服佩服

 
At 8:18 PM, Anonymous Anonymous wrote ...

美发=美髮,髮音fa4

:)

 
At 7:21 AM, Blogger olr — 纪韶融 wrote ...

当然啦。。。

谢谢你的修改!

祝好,

纪韶融。

 
At 7:23 AM, Blogger olr — 纪韶融 wrote ...

laichungleung,

that's by far the best guess one can make.

But I still marvel at the thought process of our sign maker...

 
At 6:18 PM, Anonymous Sonia Wu wrote ...

Hi, olr,

To offer my humble correction:
Yes, "美发=美髮"
but 髮 is "fa3,"
not "fa4."

:-)

I have to agree with laichungleung. We were taught to write from left to right "horizontally" and right to left "vertically," if you know what I meaa. That is probably why the store owner thinks English writing works in the same way like Chinese does.

:-)

 
At 6:31 PM, Anonymous Anonymous wrote ...

Can the picture taker please ask the owner the same question we all want to ask about the sign?

On the other hand, I suspect that the "toolco" probably means "tool" and "company" since there is not enough space in the end for anything extra.

Well, you might find my suspicion ridiculous, but I don't. Based on my knowledge about the people, I stand by my guess.

:-p

-Sonia W

 
At 2:53 PM, Blogger olr — 纪韶融 wrote ...

Dear Sonia,

welcome back :)!

You're Taiwanese, right? I think, this is one of the cases where the 声调 tone differs between mainland China and Taiwan.
Since I am a PRC Chinese student, I hope you don't mind if I leave it like that. But your comment is most welcome.

About the "Toolsco" thing, I think, "Co." really is the best guess, 差不多 :).

The photographer of this sign has left China already, very unfortunate for our quest. But I'll ask him where he took the picture and maybe someone else will accept the task ...

 
At 12:21 AM, Anonymous Sonia Wu wrote ...

Hi, Olr,

Oh! It's okay. And yes-- I am Taiwanese. (Good guess! Or good memory?)

But...I'm going to check with my Chinese friends from China.

:-D

Good day!

 
At 8:05 AM, Anonymous Anonymous wrote ...

Ahh...

I looked up the word 发 on a Chinese website and found out that you were right!

I am trying to catch up to the Chinese version of Chinese language in order to teach it to the students who are either the second generation from China or Americans who are eager to learn multiple languages, so hey--I'm learning something from you, too!

Excellent!

:-)

-Sonia W

 
At 2:11 PM, Anonymous Anonymous wrote ...

应该是在上海拍的
我不觉得错
我觉得幽默
错了也没什么
反正是给中国人看的
中国字写对了就没问题

 
At 5:50 AM, Anonymous 学外语(转) wrote ...

http://www.bullog.cn/blogs/huaniubo/archives/31913.aspx

 
At 3:11 PM, Blogger Jeffrey wrote ...

Interesting site, and the most amazing thing is that your Chinese name has same family name with me.

haha!

Take a look at my blog:

http://stupid-fake.blogspot.com/

You can find a brief introduction of your Chinglish site at the bottom of my blog.

 
At 12:14 PM, Blogger Francis wrote ...

呵呵,应该说这家店主很有创意,在古代中国,汉字是由右向左书写和阅读的,因此,在当代,会采用仿古的方式来显示自己的与众不同,来凸显自己的位置。不过,连英文也倒过来(包括一个单词的每个字母)就显得不伦不类了^_^
这倒没有什么必要,就是给中国人看都是很别扭的,更何况外国友人了……

 
At 3:11 AM, Anonymous Anonymous wrote ...

firstly i thought it is indian or arabic in latin letters. haha

 
At 8:59 PM, Anonymous johnhollon wrote ...

看到这张照片,开始感觉比较搞笑。不过如果对中国古代阅读习惯有着较深入的理解,也许您会觉得更加有趣——也许会有一种温馨的感觉。

解放以前,中国的书写和阅读习惯与现在有很大不同,除了繁体字简体字外,从方向上来讲,书写和阅读一般是从上到下,从右到左的方向进行的。

比如:

野火烧不尽,春风吹又生。在以前是下面样子的:

春 野
风 火
吹 烧
又 不
生 尽

而对于单行字——特别是横幅来讲,从方向来说,简单的从右至左独占一水平行比较方便。特别是到了近代,垂直方向的招牌变得越来越少,所以简单的从右至左独占一水平行就越来越流行了。后来一般书籍都采用了从右到左,从上到下的方式进行文字排版了。

在中国,有时人们讲究“传统”和“经典”。对于一些商家来讲,有时需要传统和经典为自己招揽顾客,作为一种心理上的销售策略,传统和经典便自然而然的不那么传统经典的表露在外了(含蓄美是中国人的一种传统美——你可以这样理解)。

商家采取了比价传统的文字排版,而后想到是否应该为外宾提供一种传统的消费环境?在一种积极而好客的心理驱动下,以缺少西方文化背景为前提,对拉丁文字同时采取了中国式的经典排版方法。

随之产生了这种很搞笑的街头景致。不过,说它搞笑,或者说取笑它,是因为缺少对西方文化的理解;而在这个缺点背后,却似乎隐藏着一些令人感觉愉悦的内容。

nollohnhoj

moc tod 361 ta neloh_nhoj

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

johnhollon

john_holen at 163 dot com

 
At 6:14 AM, Anonymous Markus Tüngler wrote ...

I've seen the store yesterday. It is in Shanghai, not far from the 人民广场 and the 南京路.

It actually is at the intersection of a paralell street of 西藏路 and 广州路.

Unfortunately my time was limited yesterday, so I couldn't go there. But I will go, to ask all the questions that are stated in the commentaries and who knows, perhaps I will get a haircut there ^^

 
At 9:15 AM, Blogger olr — 纪韶融 wrote ...

Markus,

excellent, please do so!

Curious,

olr.

 
At 10:09 AM, Anonymous Michael wrote ...

you can not get haircut cause they just sell haircut stuff. GuangZhou Rd. is haircut stuff market center.
maybe they should layout like this:
'Co tools beauty & hairdressing'
how do you think?

ps. your blog is stunning, like it.
i'm in South Africa now. i don't know if i can find some Chinglish here, but i'll try.

All the best

 
At 10:28 AM, Blogger olr — 纪韶融 wrote ...

Thanks, Michael, for checking it out.

I'd go for "Beauty & Hairdressing Tools" to keep it simple.

Best,

olr.

 
At 8:33 PM, Anonymous Anonymous wrote ...

I suspect whoever designed this sign set the computer to read from right to left and either forgot or simply didn't know to switch it for the second line. That seems like a reasonable mistake to make/miss.

 

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