Kawaii! – Crimes Against English – Roadsigns – Things We Don’t Do In England – Parlez Vous Francais?
Kawaii!
Is the Japanese for “cute”. Everything has to have a cartoon logo, in a very particular Japanese style. The sign below is on Japan Fisheries’ centre in Utoro which does commercial fishing and also pleasure trips, as you can tell.
There is also a definite but possibly not articulated colour palette for buildings which is maybe echoed in the cartoons above. I am hoping to get a better picture than this one, but it is trying to show you that there are three roof colours (green, pink and blue) and two wall colours (white and cream).
Crimes Against English
This category needs to tread a delicate line, because the concept of “hilarious mistranslation” has perhaps been completely covered. However here is our first entry.
Roadsigns
Japan is very, very safety-conscious. The bend here was maybe 45′, but seems to deserve a Big Scary Bend Sign – bigger in fact than the car underneath it which was soon going to accept the challenge of negotiating the obstacle.
More significant bends also have a small sign showing the radius of the bend, which would be useful if we had brought the Ford Country Squire but is a bit superfluous in the Mini.
Things We Don’t Do In England
I need a better title for this category, as it could cover pretty well everything here, including the very revolting requirement to keep wearing other people’s slippers. But this performing monkey (who looked very very p*ssed off by the whole business) reminded me that we don’t have performing monkeys any more.
Oh, and by way of contrast, Things We Don’t Do In Japan: There are no litter bins here. Not in public places, not outside shops, not in hotel receptions. Society’s view is that you brought it, you must take it away. Every restaurant is tidy-up-yourself, and everyone shares the responsibility for keeping the place nice. Which is splendid.
Parlez-Vous Francais?
One thing I was utterly unprepared for here was to find any French words. But “Sweet Fromage” headlines a cheesecake, “Espoir” is the name of the awful lake ferry boat this evening, and our petrol station attendant today said, we both heard it, “Tout va bien”. Mes dieux, as we say in Shinto-land.