Explore everyday life in Japan
From going into a restaurant and seeing Grass Wine or Flesh Juice written on the menu instead of Glass Wine and Fresh Juice to seeing signs in hospitals and buildings that say Labatory instead of Lavatory, spelling mistakes, grammar problems, and strange English phrases are everywhere in Japan. Perhaps, though, the place where they are most prominent is on clothes, especially children’s clothes.
For whatever reason, it is very popular in Japan to have clothing tags, patches, and slogans that have been written in English. Children’s clothes, in particular, often have a bit of embroidery or print on them somewhere with an English phrase or two about being happy and playing outside. While I would say that the situation has drastically improved during the eight years that I have been living in Japan, it is still very obvious that much of the English being printed in Japan hasn’t been written by native English speakers.
Sometimes the results are simply amusing, other times they are a little unsettling.
Not too many years ago, there was an actress on a children’s TV show who had the phrases I love cock, I love pussy, and I love fuck written on her costume. In this case, it’s hard to believe that nobody knew what these phrases meant, but more often than not, a lack of English ability coupled with a readiness to adopt popular western culture, with or without full comprehension of its meaning and insinuations, is most likely to blame for many of these mistakes.
If you come to Japan, in addition to enjoying the food and sights, one thing you can be sure to have fun doing is collecting pictures of the bizarre English that you are guaranteed to find all around you.
This is an ongoing series that will explore various aspects of daily life in Japan. My hope is that this series will not only reveal to its followers, image by image, what Japan looks like, but that it will also inform its followers about unique Japanese items and various cultural and societal practices. If you are interested in getting regular updates about life in Japan, please consider following me at @boxcarblue. If you have any questions about life in Japan, please don’t hesitate to ask. I will do my best to answer all of your questions.