what to write on clothing?

[roddy]

Writing? Nah, you just need a carefully-chosen image (I'm only half-joking, I can't think of anything else more guaranteed to get Chinese people coming up to you.)

[edelweis]

thanks for the suggestion Roddy. Am I mistaken or is that book bound the "wrong" way?

[edelweis]

Now that I think about it, a photo of Dashan would have the added advantage of meaning nothing to the uninitiated i.e. only Chinese people and Chinese learners would understand the reference.

I am wondering, would some Chinese characters that do not look like Chinese characters serve the same purpose?

for instance 囧, which has been mentioned on this board several times, and which I encountered recently in episode 2 of 大学生士兵的故事.

[roddy]

Any Chinese characters, or anything distinctively Chinese, is equally likely to get noticed, I think. At that point I guess a few people might take the initiative and actually chat to you, but more often I think you'd need to notice them noticing and smile or say hi or something. You could maybe choose something that will make an ice-breaker - 'Oh, the PKU t-shirt? I've never been, it was a present, but I'd love to . . .'

Not sure how much more efficient an explicit 'talk to me' t-shirt would be - and it might make it harder to get rid of the boring ones ;-)

[Hofmann]

How about something like this?

[edelweis]

@Hoffman: is this long necked sheep well known in China? it's the first time I see it.

[renzhe]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grass_mud_horse

[edelweis]

ah thanks Renzhe.

[jbradfor]

You could do something like this (except change the wording a bit.....)

[i actually have a lot of trouble reading that -- I guess this is one case in which Japanese is too different than Chinese. Or maybe it's just me.]

[xiaocai]

It is quite different. 彼氏 does not mean boyfriend in Chinese (It may work in Taiwan, though). I think the idea has been brought up by many previous replies, anyway.

[daofeishi]

Pretty much anything that relates to well known internet memes should be a good conversation starter. Maybe something like

墙外也很黄，很暴力

哥讲的不是英语，而是寂寞

国外没有打酱油的

我保证，我爸不是李刚

还是中国给力

是三鹿让我变成这样的

[edelweis]

@jbradfor, xiaocai: even if it was already brought up it's still funny to see that the Japanese have their own version of that T-shirt

@daofeishi: thank for these suggestions