I’ve stumbled upon this blog of an American living in Turkey. She goes to the Bazaar’s semi-frequently and often finds funny/inappropriate things written on clothing.
One of my favorites is the “United States of Earth” shirt. I didn’t realize America owned the entire planet
Heh…“Benign Girl”.
I still have a lovely t-shirt I got in Japan that says, and this is a direct quote, all errors (sic):
What’s more, it’s in a real op art kind of font, so the looks on people’s faces as they try to decipher it is truly priceless!
How creepy and strange! I wonder, who makes these clothes? It seems like someone who doesn’t speak English just takes random words and images and makes the designs for the clothes.
I thought you meant like the 12-13 year old I saw in the airport with “Juicy” across her ass.
Either that, or they’re taking the words from spam messages. The example posted by Mama Tiger looks very spammish to me.
There’s a website all about Japanese mis-use of English. (see www.engrish.com) Some very funny stuff.
So, basically, it’s just their culture’s equivalent of the way Americans like to get tattooed with Chinese symbols (that often turn out to be gibberish or have totally different meanings than what the tattooed person intended)
Also from Japan… some of my favorites-
“Fuck you heroes!”
“Pig Frog” with the cover of Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here” behind it.
“War is Overwork”
“But Grab”… yes BUT grab.
“Attack! I’m boring.”
I have to find a way to get that balloondogs shirt!
That’s deep, man.
Actually, my t-shirt really predates the prevalence of spam; when I got the shirt, over ten years ago now, there just wasn’t much spam emal. Maybe it gave someone ideas later down the road? But in any case, we picked up a whole bunch of great shirts. That was the best, but there was also others like:
We also have a friend who teaches English in Japan, who used to have to gently take some of his students aside and explain to them just WHY they shouldn’t go around with the words they had on their clothing. Apparently they had some dillies.
In the interest of cosmic balance, I bring you Hanzi Smatter, devoted to the misuse of Chinese and Japanese characters in Western culture (often, as the author notes, in tattoos). Most of them are just generally nonsensical, but there are some genuine lulus in there. I think my favorite is the sterling silver pendant with what was reputedly the Japanese character for “geisha”. Nope–the character they chose was more accurately translated as “prostitute”. :eek: 
Poor countries like the Dominican Republic (where I live) and Haiti (where I’ve worked) receive a lot of donated used clothing from the US which are given to poor people or sold in local markets. As a result, you see lots of strange choices, like young men wearing ‘World’s No 1 grandma’ t shirts, or small boys wearing ‘I love boys’ t-shirts. In the same vein, I saw a young woman with ‘we’re here, we’re queer’ on her t-shirt the other day. It could have been deliberate, but somehow I doubt it.
The current junior hooker look for little girls gives rise to all sorts of inappropriate slogans - all those toddler and pre-teen t-shirts with slogans like ‘porn star’, ‘hot’ and ‘sexy thing’ give me the creeps. ‘I love boys’ too, for that matter.
My older sister has a T-shirt which reads: “Lucky Happy Girl. I will change together with a season and will go.” Mine simply says “Bright Charm. Flutter around” with a butterfly on the front. On the back, of course, it says “Terminal” Both were bought in Japan.
Hey Xan, thanks for the link-- if you guys like the Turklish, there’s more where that came from here. I do a bazaar post every Thursday come rain or shine.
8-year old boy in Japan said "alcoholic’
Actually, that one isn’t all that new (although I don’t know when you saw it).
When I was just starting middle school (think 1975ish), there was a girl in our class who moved into our school for a while, then moved out again within the same year. She was probably 12-13, her family was obviously welfare-poor, and I don’t know if very many people even talked to her while she was there (I know, not cool of us, but I was in the throes of puberty and thus unavoidably shy around girls; I won’t defend anyone else).
She frequently wore a t-shirt that said “JUICY” in very juicy dripping letters.
The shirt fit, so “JUICY” as a caption on 12-13 year old girls’ clothes has been around for decades, at least.
I saw a 13-year-old girl in Japan with a shirt that said “white baddy powder.” She looked about as far from a cokehead as one can look, obviously.
From my wife’s travel journal when we were in China:
Lots of my students wear shirts with baffling messages. From my own shopping experiences, I can tell that they’re usually made in China. I like to write down the funniest signs but I don’t have my notebook on me at the moment, sadly. Not clothing, but here’s an example of what I’m talking about: one of my kids has a notebook with a picture of a collie sitting in the snow. The caption reads:
“Too snowy for…everything”
Okay!