Japan: Signs

[riontel]

In my travels around Japan I came across quite a few memorable sights most of them impressive and some awe inspiring. But among them stood out those that sent me into quite unseemly fits of laughter and it wasn't just Lena's handling of chopsticks. Japanese signs were so outstanding that I thought they deserved a separate entry. Unfortunately not all of them I was able to capture but those few that I did will still give you an idea, the rest I left to other travelers to marvel at.

First notable sign that I came across was in Yokohama and was an advertisement in a glass store. They were trying to advertise some special blue tinted glass that would work well as a wedding gift and used an old English phrase describing four items that are supposed to bring luck to a bride "Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue." A clever move except in their presentation the third item mysteriously changed to "something barrow", leaving me trying to picture a bride at a wedding in a barrow (лягушонка в коробченке) and chuckling all the way.

Next one shows that Japanese had already started on the reform of the English language and decided to substitute some letters with the appropriate sounds.



Funny enough, Lena actually didn't find anything wrong with this one until I brought it to her attention. Looks a lot like what I do when I try to write something in Russian in a hurry.



Since our grasp of written Japanese was rather tenuous (not that our spoken Japanese was any better, mind) some of the signs we came across had to be interpreted based on the visual aid.

We were provided with a pack of plastic bags in our Kyoto hotel. The purpose of the bags left me puzzled for a bit until the label accompanying them made everything quite clear. It's obviously meant for suffocating children and small animals. Judge for yourself:



This one illustrates what would happen if you were to drink out of this source - you'll turn into a pacman (and spend the rest of your live eating little jewels and running away from some squids).



The pond is infested with piranha, swim at your own risk (although I wasn't able to make out anything more dangerous than some overfed carp, we didn't try to take a dip).



But out of all the amusing things we encountered my favourite was the illustrated instructions on how to use a Japanese-style toilet that I found in the bathroom of the Ryoanji Temple. Some unexpected benefit to drinking too much green tea :)

Comments

[igelcott.livejournal.com]

wow...do they really have toilets like that? Looks like a sled of some sort.
And the suffocating bag is awesome :) One: let the air get into the bag Two: Place the bag over the head of your kid or a racoon. Three: drink green tea and see what happens.

[riontel.livejournal.com]

Yep, they really have toilets like that. It looks a lot like the old style Russian toilet but usually a lot cleaner. So it wasn't much of a culture shock for us, not sure about other Americans. However, most public bathrooms have both types: Western and Japanese, with signs on the doors. For some reason they don't provide soap or towels, however, so you have to carry your own or do without.