What is it?

http://www.bmeink.com/A80417/high/no4f-poem.jpg

This photo was posted in BME's gallery on April 17, 2008 with caption of "poem".

However, I have no idea what it suppose to be.

Please feel free to comment if you know what it is.

Kosuke "It's Gonna Happen" Fukudome

At a recent baseball game between Chicago Cubs & Milwaukee Brewers, fans of Cub's Kosuke Fukudome (福留 孝介) decided to make some signs to show their support for the Japanese player.


http://as-is.net/blog/archives/001325.html

However the phrase they wanted was mistranslated by machine translator seen here.

The resulting 偶然だぞ is not flattering at all and is actually rather insulting, implying that Fukudome’s successes were merely a result of pure chance and not talent at all.


Related: Cubs pull racist fukudome t-shirt

Spalding's World Class Karate

I saw this ad in my junk mail yesterday for Spalding's World Class Karate.

Upon closer look, there is something not quite right with the logo:



According to its website,

Sensei [Daniel Spalding] was inducted into the U.S.A. Martial Arts Hall of Fame as the "2007 Male Martial Arts Leader Of The Year" and the "American Karate Man Of The Year."

However in United States Martial Arts Hall of Fame website for 2007 inductees, Spalding is not there.

Mr. Sweet & Sour Pork

Meet Daniel S., aka. Mr. Sweet & Sour Pork,



According to Daniel S., this tattoo was intentional & he was "looking for something humorous, yet also an affront to those people who have supposedly 'deep' meanings in Chinese."

Although it is not incorrect, any serious foodie would know, Sweet & Sour Pork is actually written as 咕嚕肉.

A similar dish is called 酢豚 in Japan.

That is no "Courage"

With two previous posts about the same incorrect tattoo, one would get the hint this does not mean "courage":


http://www.bmeink.com/A80401/high/npgc-newest-tattoo.jpg

Yet this young lady got it done at Skin Gallery in Prairie Du Chien, WI & posted a photo in BME's gallery under the impression that 大過 meant "courage".

大過 【たいか】 (n) serious error; gross mistake; big mistake or shortcoming; (punishment in school, etc.) a major demerit.

Don McLeroy & "Crazy Chinese Words"

(photo: tfn.org)

The Texas State Board of Education recently issued a recommended reading list, which has been criticized for lacking diversity: Educators rip book list in English plan.

A draft of the curriculum, released Wednesday, includes more than 150 literary works that Texas public school teachers should consider using for their courses. Only four of them reflect the Hispanic culture, a woefully low figure they fear will limit the exposure of the state's 4.7 million schoolchildren to cultural diversity.

When confronted with criticisms, Board Chair Don McLeroy, who responded by saying:

"What good does it do to put a Chinese story in an English book?" he said. "You learn all these Chinese words, OK. That's not going to help you master... English. So you really don't want Chinese books with a bunch of crazy Chinese words in them. Why should you take a child's time trying to learn a word that they'll never ever use again?"

He added that some words -- such as chow mein -- might be useful.

Not if the child decides to get a tattoo later on, Don. Or the child might become U. S. Secretary of State, quotes what he/she thought was a Chinese proverb, and get his/her's ass laughed at by those "crazy Chinese" as well as late night comedy show host. All because he/she never read "those Chinese books with a bunch of crazy Chinese words in them".

If you would like to add your thoughts & comments about this matter, Mr. McLeroy's contact information is available at Texas State Board of Education website. It might helpful to drop a few "crazy Chinese words" like 閉門造車 in your comments.

Audrina Patridge's Pork Fried Rice

Thanks to OK! magazine, Defamer, WWTDD & many others for bring this to my attention:





Ms. Audrina Patridge has recently got 豬肉油煎的米 tattooed on her forearm. It is unclear if the tattoo is genuine or some kind of publicity stunt.

However the tattooed phrase is not grammatically correct. What has been tattooed is direct translation from English word-per-word to Chinese of "pork; oil fried; rice grain".

If she wanted "pork fried rice", it should be 豬肉炒飯.

Tyler Durden has summed this up:

"...White people need to knock it off with the Chinese lettering tattoos. I'm a big fan of white people and being white is terrific, but we're kind of dumb, and the overwhelming majority of us don't know how to use Chinese... God only knows WTF she thinks it means. It turns out that guy [tattooist] isn’t an expert on Chinese. Shocking, yes?"

Washington

Reader Welton from Brazil sent in a photo of his friend's tattoo. It supposed to be his name "Washington".



However according to Alan, this tattoo is wrong in several levels:

First of all, the name Washington is usually written ワシントン [washinton] rather than ウォシントン [woshinton] as was presumably intended by the tattooist.

Next, someone left out the first ン, leaving only ウォシトン [woshiton]. Then, they used the large オ rather than the small ォ, making the tattoo actually spelled ウオシトン [uoshiton], so I guess it would be pronounced sort of like the English words "Whoa Shit On." That's probably not quite what Mr. Washington wanted when he got his tattoo...

And finally, they left out one stroke in オ, making the character look more like the character 七 but backwards.

It's sort of sad that people don't check these things before getting a huge tattoo that covers their whole arm.

Chino Latino

Minneapolis restaurant Chino Latino (612-824-7878) uses pseudo-Chinese characters as profanity alternatives in billboard ad. (Photo by Beijing Sounds)

If the restaurant wanted to advertise and not get fined by the FCC, why not put some effort into it & do it correctly:

"A 2-hour vacation from the 他媽的 weather"?

What is written on the billboard are repetition of "新仿宋文[体]", which means "new imitated Song typeface".

A better question would be:

"Why did Chino Latino chose its location to be at a 鬼不生蛋的地方?"


* Speaking of bad weather, I was in Quebec City last week & right before my return flight was scheduled to take off from Québec Jean Lesage International Airport (YQB), a Canadian medical plane crash landed after its front landing gear collapsed & slipped off from the runway.





Due to this fiasco, my flight was delayed for two hours, consequentially I missed my connection at Detroit & had to stay there over night. Detroit is a very depressing city. It looks like a nuclear bomb has gone off there.