Signese

It's all been a bit too easy for you lately, I think. Lets throw some handwriting at you . . .

1) What kind of housing is offered - apartment, villa, etc . . ?

2) Which famous Beijing building is it near?

3) What form of heating is available?

4) If you decide to take the place, how much money will you need to hand to the landlord in the first instance?

Here's one from the entrance to my building.

1) What has happened to the writer of the note?

2) What are readers asked to do?

3) What job do you think the writer does?

4) What's happening at the end of the second line, I can't figure it out?

5) What information did I crop from the bottom?

It's often hard to entertain yourself while hanging around in a police station. So why not see what plausible explanations you can come up with (using your no doubt extensive knowledge of Classical Chinese) for the four idioms,four character phrases, or whatever you want to interpret them as, we can invent here:

1)人物说办

2)要要话事

3)精整和公

4)神洁气道

Allow me to start:

Or perhaps you can think of something better.

Easy questions today, as you're going to be busy figuring out the handscrawling I suspect.

1) What did I have for lunch?

2) What kind of restaurant was this?

3) You'll need to resort to the Internet for this one, but can anyone name the restaurant?

Everyone who gets it right receives pictures of the meal to print out and keep.

Parsing this one could be tricky as there's no indication where one dodgy service ends and the next starts. Not that this will scare you off, oh intrepid ones.

So, what various types of assistance will the gentlemen on the other end of the phone provide?

Technically it's not a sign, but it was taped on the wall in the hallway near my neighbor's door.

The story goes something like this: Neighbor A wrote Neighbor B a note and taped it on their door . . .

1. What is Neighbor A asking Neighbor B to do?

2. What is Neighbor A and his/her family doing at the time the note was written?

This one wasn't even taken in China! Who or what are these markers for?

Now enjoying my 1 month break back to where I grew up, there are some pictures that I would like to share. Many things have changed, but sadly, some of those which need changes desperately may have not. I was surprised to see signs like what I took in the first picture (file 001.jpg) through out my trip. Hopefully I will see much less of this kind in the future. Well, question time:

1: What kind of message the first sign is trying to convey?

2: Can you think of one 成语 or 四字俗语 which is related to this sign?

To relax a bit after the somewhat heavy topic, please take a look at the second sign (file 002.jpg), and try to answer these simple questions:

1: I can think of at least two ways to interpret the sign, how about you?

2: There is a joke related to this sign, can you find it?

Lets present this one as a quiz (although if it's too easy for you let someone else have a go first):

1) Which two popular activities are referred to?

2) Which character is wrong, and what should it be? (at least I hope it is. Going to look a bit daft otherwise)

New York Chinatown sidewalk signage - this one is particularly busy. But what sort of foods are available on this street?

Now I know you've all been looking forward to this supermarket advert, recently featured on seat backs on the 113 bus during the month of June. Unfortunately the promotions advertised have now ended, so don't go rushing down to Carrefour demanding your goodies - but no need to be disappointed, we're going to have just as much fun as cheap toilet paper right here:

1) How many measure words can you find

2) Match each measure word up to a noun. Or object. Or something. You know what I mean.

3) You need to buy ballast for your hot air balloon. Which is cheaper, yogurt or toilet paper.

Anyone who can think of better questions can add them in the comments.

Quick snap from some random alley somewhere. Who is the product in question suitable for?

Yet another toilet one, but this time we can all blame Brendan as he took it. I'm very tired, so let's keep this short and sweet - what are the rules?

1) What's on sale?

2) Who's selling it?

3) What will it cost?

4) Where can you go to find out more?

5) Wouldn't one sign have done?

Here‘s a fun old one from 2005, which I was about to say I took on Xinjiekou, although closer inspection shows that it was actually passed on to me by good old Brendan. I'm sure he won't mind me recycling it. I think this was from a batch taken in Chengdu, but I'm less sure about that.

1) What is the boss called, and what state of mind is he in?

2) What is the store's haggling policy?

3) What emotions are being aroused among staff by the prices offered?

4) Why might the store need to shift stock quickly?

At Kunming airport yesterday, hanging on the wall behind the western-style toilet in one of the stalls. 

China loves "government by slogan" 口号治国。But still, why is such an admonition needed here? 

A couple of uncommon characters for you today, although you never know when you might need them - and if you happen to have the chance to casually show off your knowledge to amazed friends sometime, all the better.

This one could be a little tricky to track down, but can anyone figure out what they might find if they were to lift up this manhole cover from inside the Forbidden City?

And while we're at it, which character in the second photo might your teacher instruct you to correct?

You can use the spoiler tags

[spoiler] text here [/spoiler]

to hide your answers if you want.

This is the ticket of the film I saw on Boxing Day last year.

1) What movie did I see?

2) Who sold me the ticket?

3) Where was the cinema?

I quite like this poster for the sheer enthusiasm of it, but couldn't really come up with any questions. Except perhaps for 'Is there absolutely definitely a sale on?', to which the correct answer would be 'Oh yes, there's no doubt that there's a sale on and it shall be ending shortly so buy now!'

So your task here is to navigate the cursive, deal with the changes of direction, and don't get too frustrated with the crossings-out in order to provide us with a complete transcription of the bright yellow poster and its smaller friend.

It seems that I keep posting pictures about trees.

Here is another one that I took today. What has happened to this tree?

On the other side of the tree there was the same notice but in English. And I learnt from the English notice that what had affected the tree was not what I had thought as I had misunderstood the relevant Chinese word. Guess what it is?

Alright, these questions can be quite hard I think, but everyone is welcome to attempt.

1. Where (PLACE NAME, better make it clear first this time) do you think this picture was taken at?

2. What is written on the sign? (I do NOT have answer to this question, because I have no idea what it means, either. Maybe it is just not Chinese altogether. It will be much appreciated if anyone can identify the message and share it with me and other forum member.)

One fairly random photo of Chinese characters in action, per week, until sometime in 2018. And perhaps longer if I'm encouraged. Those who want to contribute their own random photos of Chinese characters are welcome, just get in touch and I'll add you to the contributor list so you can post directly, from computer or phone.

What's your least appetising thing on the menu?

This is the back door to a restaurant (to the kitchen specifically) in Mianyang.

If you have a ____________ you can go to ____________ and when you buy any one of _____________, ________________, or ______________ (good luck translating those) you get a _______________ for the price of a _____________ .

There's a couple of company names in there - plug one into Google and you should find the English name easy enough, the other you can translate easy enough. Skip the drinks names if you like.

My first reaction to this sign (which is on a machine that lets you put money on your Seoul subway card, no transfer of electricity is involved) is that it was a mistranslation. But then I thought maybe it's a normal usage that I don't know about, perhaps in Japanese?

Investigate!