I was talking with some (asian) people at school today. We were discussing interests and so forth. Some of them were Japanese language majors, and I asked them if they had ever heard of a website called Engrish.com. They sighed and basically stated they they thought websites like that were Very Bad Things, that they reinforce stereotypes against Asians (even the word ‘Engrish’ which supposedly makes fun of the fact that Japanese have trouble pronouncing the english ‘L’). They believed that the website was an example of ‘cultural imperialism’ and felt it was just one of many ways the West denegrades the East.
I was a little wooshed about all that. Personally I thought the website was lighthearted and just a bit of consumer-related humor. Right now I’m studying Editing and Technical Writing, and so things like mistranslations to me feel more like humorous examples rather than ‘insults’.
I tried to explain to them that it goes both ways, that there are plenty of things mistranslated into Japanese that are probably humorous to them (heck, I wouldn’t be surprised if they have their own counterparts to engrish.com somewhere out there!). According to them, THAT is all right, and its not hypocritical because english is so widespread as opposed to Japanese.
From what my brother has told me (he was a JET instructor in Osaka for three years), the Japanese think very highly of their language, and feel that they are the only ones who can properly speak it. He got really frustrated when he’d speak perfectly acceptable Japanese, but the other person would insist on speaking (sometimes very bad) English to him. I don’t know what the attitudes are like now. There may be a chip on the shoulder somewhere, perhaps because while English is the de facto international language, Japanese technology is also widespread, but without the accompanying language. It might also be a reaction to our current activities in the Middle East.
Personally, I dont’ have a problem with it. (I even have a couple of Engrish T-shirts) but from what my Japanese penapl has told me, the Japanese are very insecure about their status, especially aroudn foreigners. And they’re very sensitive to being made fun of. (which might be a natural reation if you look at the horrible stereotypes perpetuated in the 50’s) They have a long history of a love/hate kind of relationship with America. So, I don’t think you’re undersendetive but I can see where they’re coming from…
If they can’t discredit this claim, and provide evidence for their own, then they are in the wrong. You might also consider the fact that we often make fun of ourselves in an identical manner, e.g. Jay Leno reading funny headlines & stuff.
You mix nationalism/culturalism with pointing out someone’s mistakes and it’s a good bet they’re gonna be mad.
I know a Chinese woman who likes looking at the offerings of tatoo parlors, curiosity stores, T-shirt shops etc. for items with Chinese writing on them. She’s constantly surprised at what people are buying. The characters are either backwards or totally different than what is advertised. The thing is, the people selling them probably aren’t being malicious or trying to trick anybody, it’s just that they speak english and don’t know any better. The Chinese character is just an art element in our American eyes, and what it actually says won’t matter to the majority of people who see it. It just looks cool.
But you take that spiffy tatoo you just got to Hong Kong people might look at you and snicker. Could be the glyphs you chose at at the parlor to mean “Good Fortune” actually reads something like “monkey orange paperclip.”
That’s what “engrish” is all about. They’re using english letters and words as design elements. People in Japan don’t know and don’t care if the spelling or meaning is correct when they make their products. It just looks cool… That is, until it winds up on the internet where English speakers can get a look at it.
Is it worth getting offended for? I don’t think so… But then in my opinion a lot of people everywhere in the road need to lighten up!
A friend of mine was in the Navy and was stationed in Osaka. He noticed a particular bit of Japanese writing that appeared frequently on t-shirts and other items being marketed to tourists. He asked several of the venders what the writing meant, and got a different answer every time. Finally he showed it to one of his buddies who spoke and read Japanese fluently. The guy told him that it translated to “stupid round-eye buys anything.”
Definitely oversensitive. I’d like to be there when they first arrive in Japan and get told (by an real, honest-to-gosh oppressed Japanese person) that they’re obviously never going to understand how anything works because they’re just kikokushijo returnees.
Incidentally, the tattoo in angelicate’s article reads (in phonetic characters) “yellow cab”, which doesn’t mean prostitute so much as slut (i.e., she’ll give anyone a ride). Oddly, there’s a talent agency in Tokyo called Yellow Cab, which specializes mainly in women whose only talent is managing to support a pair of D-cups with a 90lb body.
And as I’ve written in my sig, I personally prefer the term ‘Janglish’ over ‘Engrish’ (and very much so over ‘Japlish’), as it combines Japanese with English, avoids most negative connotations, and onomotopoetically captures the feeling one gets when first reading a sample.
One of my favourite Japanese treasures is an old cartoon book called Gaijin!
It’s 75 pages of single-panel comics portraying a hapless universal gaijin doing the things those clueless gaijin do, like wearing bathroom slippers around the house, etc., with a short description of each behavior, religiously followed by the ejaculation “Gaijin!”
If it’s okay for them to make fun of us, but not okay the other way around, they’re hypocrites, plain and simple. It doesn’t matter how widespread the language is; that’s a rationalization that soothes the guilt they feel over their double standard.
Well, I hope your friend didn’t take this person’s translation at face value! It was a joke. Seriously, most t-shirts sold in airport souvenir shops say things like: “number one”.
And count me in with those who think they were being overly-sensitive, though sometimes I think engrish.com tries a bit too hard. “Chelsea”? What’s so funny about candy called “Chelsea”?
I showed engrish.com to friends a few times and no one was ever insulted by it. Sometimes a bit embarassed, but not insulted. No one thought it was funny either, but that’s just because few people speak good enough English to understand what’s hilarious about “Eric Crapton”. It should be worth noting that a lot of those friends laughed their heads off at pictures of funny Japanese taken in Korea.
It’s always interesting to me how people from cultures not known at all for their sensitivity to others arrive in the West and immediately seize upon their rights not to be offended ever by the slightest “cultural insensitivity.” The Japanese have plenty of Sambo-themed products and, if memory serves me right (as Chairman Kaga would put it), it was either them or the Chinese who had a concentration-camp themed restaurant and some other product with Hitler’s picture on it.
Talk to a Spaniard about what the Cubans have done to Castillian, or to an upper class Mexican about the Puerto Rican work ethic.
Conversations with my Hong Kong-born ex-girlfriend were an endless narrative of observations about the supposed traits (i.e., shortcomings) of Koreans, Taiwanese, Vietnamese, Nihongo, and yes, “Chinamen” (mainlanders). Forget about the gwailo and hak gwai (blacks), who were utterly beyond the pale.
There’s an irony, somewhere, in the fact that the only cultures I’m aware of in which the uber-sensitive “language police” approach is even widely attempted (if sometimes honored in the breach) are ones established/run by the big bad white male patriarchy.
When I was having this debate, they frequently used the word ‘cultural imperialism’. Their belief was that English and American culture is so ‘dominant’ over Japanese, to make fun of Japanese attempting to say something in English is somehow ‘racist’.
I’ve lived in Japan for 7+ years and am fluent in the language.
The Japanese are the culturally insensitive ones when it comes to foreign languages, and the punishment that Engrish.com dishes out is mild compared to what they deserve.
To the Japanese, a foreign language is not something to be taken seriously; it’s just a joke to fool around with. They don’t seem to have any problem with putting English-garbage on all manner of products and signs, because who gives a damn about the “gaijin” whom it will visually disturb.
(I mean, it’s my language; it automatically catches my eye, and it’s just some gibberish. Very annoying.)
The Japanese have a long way to go up the cultural maturity scale. So do your “colleagues,” apparently.
Not exactly fair to blame the Japanese for something you aren’t even sure about attributing to them.
You’re right, of course. I stand by our right to make fun of the Japanese for screwing up English every bit as much as I stand by the right of tattoo artists to put “cliche” on my shoulder instead of “dragon” if I ever lobotomise myself and decide to go get something like that done.
That said, if anyone knows a tattoo artist who reads and writes Arabic, let me know.
I’d have much more sympathy for the complaint about Engrish.com reinforcing old stereotypes about Japanese speakers, if it weren’t for one thing. Everyone I’ve ever known who found that site was a Japanophile of some sort or another - it’s not the sort of site that the average bigot is going to find, let alone find interesting. And, let’s face it, when you’re talking about people wearing t-shirts that would risk arrest here in the states for what they say, it’s hard not to be bemused reading about ‘Shaved Beaver’ on the chest of a teen girl.
Secondly, for Japanese persons to be complaining about cultural insensitivity is a bit of the pot calling the kettle black. Please, don’t get me wrong - there is a lot about japanese culture that I appreciate, enjoy, and some of it I do admire. This doesn’t mean that I’m blind to the aspects of the same culture that would drive me nuts if I tried to live there for more than a year. In many regards Japanese culture is still incredibly insular, making one forget, almost, that Chauvin was a frenchman. Japanese culture is changing, and incredibly rapidly - but in many regards the average American is more culturally sensitive. As a test case: Ask your Japanese friends about Korean culture sometime, and see if you can get them to compare it to Japanese culture.
