Dramatic Engrish 101

I thought the pictures below deserved their own entry and a little explanation to familiarize you with "Engrish". Engrish is a term that applies to English phrases and expressions found in Japan on all manner of signs, commercial products, T-shirts, etc. that are either grammatically incorrect, grammatically correct but inappropriate for the given subject, or that just make no sense whatsoever. This could be intentional or accidental, sometimes it's hard to tell. But my take on it is that it just doesn't matter to Japanese people because the fact that it's in English at all makes the item "cool". Kind of like Americans getting kanji characters tattooed on their bodies (sometimes to begrudgingly find out later that the characters are either upside-down, or don't mean what they thought they did!). The term "Engrish" in itself is kind of derogatory in that it pokes fun at Asian peoples' difficulty in distinguishing between "L" and "R" sounds (see the movie "Lost In Translation", or the final scene in "A Christmas Story"). So next time you're in a department store looking for a toaster oven, you might check to see which floor the "erectric goods" are on!

And hey, it works both ways - it's almost impossible for American people to correctly pronounce "ryo" or "ryu". Hell, I still hear people butcher "Tokyo" and "Kyoto" (most people incorrectly pronounce them as "To - Key - Yo" or "Key - Yo - To"), and my personal pet peeve, "Karaoke". It's pronounced just like it looks, NOT "Carry - Oki". That's retarded, and if you pronounce it like that, well then you need to be riding the short bus. And I won't even get into "banzai" (the exclamation for good fortune) versus "bonsai" (the miniature pine tree)!

The photos below were taken from three public ash trays in a designated smoking area outside of Saitama Super Arena. They almost tell a little story or poem, like haiku, and the illustrations are very detailed. Just one of the many, many examples of Engrish I see every single day. If you want to see more, check out www.engrish.com. It's hilarious, and you can buy a lot of goods with Engrish expressions taken directly from Japanese products and signboards.