Signese

You know where this place is, don't you?

When I first saw this tram I was quite surprised as the Chinese name was right on the first car. It took me a few attempts to take this picture, as I guess there is only one like this and I am not the kind who has a camera in hand ready to take pictures all the time. As far as I know there are different Chinese versions of the city's name. But if this name is good enough for the city it is good enough for me. (But I can't explain why I feel differently about Seoul's Chinese name.)

An irrelevant question - why do Asian (Japanese, Hong Kong, Taiwan) young people (or younger people) like to take pictures of the food they order with sophisticated big cameras in restaurants? Is it just to show off their cameras?

A fine bit of marketing blarney.

1) What two things would an Irishman not joke about?

2) What two things does the company want to bring to the young of Taiwan?

and, er,

3) Which former US Vice-President am I emulating?

I went by train to recce a place where I will have to go to later, and on my way back I stopped at my university to take a look. These are the pictures I took during the journey. Nothing particularly interesting. I like that window slogan (that is the spirit of an ideal man haha) and the plants behind the banner. And don't you find all those rules at the pond amusing?

This is not relevant to the pictures. I could not find my university when I arrived at the University train station. I saw a bus terminus, a Hyatt hotel next to a brand new building but I could not see Chung Chi College or the New Asia and United water towers. Of course soon I found out that I had exited on the other side of the station. I had not been there for over a decade and I no longer know the place. Sigh.

Which of these services might you expect to get a Mickey Mouse service from? And where (you might need to strain the eyes a bit) might you expect them to get a lot of their customers from?

Transcribe, translate and explain, as you see fit. Brooh-ha-ha

There were two words here I hadn't seen before. What were they.

And in case I forget to come back and tell you, they were . . .

Apologies, as usual, for the quality.

I took these last weekend. That triangle sign, I just don't understand why we need it, and would appreciate it if someone could explain it to me. And the red sign reminded me of a poem of 李白. Which one do you think it was? The last one is the name of a ruin up on a hill.

Enjoy.

This is a notice on a tree. What has happened to it? What will happen to it? And what after that?

1) Roughly, (or as accurately as you can translate it) what was consumed?

2) What does the establishment request you do not do in order to avoid disorder?

3) I'm not even sure this is possible, but - find a picture of the restaurant and perhaps even dishes . . .

Sorry for not posting any Signese lately. 乐不思蜀.

Sorry also for the quality of this one - mobile phone photo taken through the sliding doors of a subway. Should be legible, although I'll help you out with the last character - it's the traditional version of 价.

Your question - what brand is being advertised?

I spent last weekend in Bangkok and took these pictures. The one with the bottles is a gem, though the other two are not very interesting, but at least they are new. Enjoy.

From the inside of a Hong Kong minibus - can you, in order of amounts of money referred to, list and explain the various notices. No prizes for the No Smoking one, except perhaps a consolation 'we know you're trying' star sticker.

What crime has been committed? Who is looking for him (or her) and what's in it for the stool pigeon?

Just what is going on here?

Thanks to Joel for the photo . . .

What is broken?

Quick and should be fairly easy one for you today - what issue kept me from my morning coffee and grocery shopping?

A set of photos from the Guangzhou subway, with thanks to xuefang. A lot have English on so I won't propose any questions - but feel free to print them out and recreate that genuine Chinese subway feeling at home.

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.

The sun and rain recently is aging these adverts nicely.

1) What's for sale

2) Where do they come from?

3) What price are they for sale at?

4) Where should you go to make a purchase? Not sure I would have got this one easily without knowing the area.

Realia collected on a recent evening out.

1) What film did we watch? Summarize the plot and explain for those of us who got confused.

2) Were these full price tickets?

3) Using a subway map and www.bjbus.com, plan a route home to the east gate of Tsinghua University.

Apologies for the lack of Signese-love recently, I have been doing other things. Not sure what though.

Here's a hand-scribbled ad stuck up on a window near my local breakfast emporium (ok, McDonald's. Best value coffee in Beijing, I maintain). Rather than just ask you a bunch of questions though, I'm hereby challenging you to transcribe or translate the entire ad. If you can't do it all just do the bits you can.

I went to the Hong Kong Museum of Art today and took this picture at the entrance of an exhibition of Wu Guanzhong's paintings. I like Wu's paintings very much, but he passed away in June this year. Before his death he donated many of his works to the museum, thus the exhibition.

See if you can understand what's in the photo.

Here is a 2004 thread on the artist -> Controversial and Billionaire painter

1) What is the sign on?

2) What should you not do?

3) What is there a danger of if you do?

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?

Been meaning to snap this for ages - it's almost out of season now.

1) What has been imported?

2) From where?

3) What price are they available at?

4) What aspect of said items is singled out for praise?

5) What are we wished to be every day?

6) Where's the pun?

7) For extra credit (not sure it's even possible) what is the text at bottom left that I cut off?