Engrish in Japan
by Japan: land of ninjas, green tea, karaoke and kimonos. Where white-gloved grandfathers politely shove salarymen onto packed trains and where the English language becomes the stuff of comedy gold. I’ll share with you six personal favorite indignities against my mothertongue.
Engrish – What is Engrish?
Engrish is the strange, funny, inappropriate, or otherwise curious use of the English language in Japan. Some Engrish arises from unfortunately poor translation via public signs, instruction manuals, or menus (fried lice–tasty!). Most of it, however, comes from the peculiar aesthetic tastesof Japanese consumers. For them, English just looks cool, and no one really cares what it says. Like the guy in your gym whose Chinese tattoo means “fervent diarrhea.” Companies plaster random English buzzwords all over their products without regard to linguistic sense. Good news for us, because we love cheap laughs.
It’s Everywhere! or: What came out can’t be helped.
Lovery day
If this doesn’t give you warm fuzzies, what will?
Small Face Mask
From the world of wacky beauty products: sometimes your face just isn’t small enough.
For Public Use
Save it for the restroom.. ’cause no one wants to see it on the train.
Piss
What came out can’t be helped indeed.
Foot Pee
Not quite a peel–who knows what Easy & Surprise will result?
And my personal favorite, straight from the supermarket to your computer screen:
Porn for the Whole Family
It does not mean what you think it means.
More Engrish Fun
If you’re looking for more Engrish on the web, look no further than Engrish.com, a huge aggregation of user-submitted Engrish from all over Japan–and the world. If you find some fun Engrish of your own and are interested in seeing it in a future article, feel free to send a picture to wackyjapan@gmail.com.
Have a lovery day!
Liked it
