Concerning Engrish

No, I didn't misspell "English." To those in the know, I think you know where I'm headed with this one, but for everyone else, allow me a brief explanation: Engrish is a general term used to refer to English that has been Japanized, Chinafied, etc. The end result usually being subtle but humorous aberrations of the English language, it is most often displayed on t-shirts, signs, and television commercials.

Before I get into the bulk of this story, I need to give a disclaimer; I am not one to criticize another person for attempting to speak a foreign language. Far from it, in fact. I personally think that anyone who puts in the effort to speak or write in a foreign language should be rewarded with nothing but praise and, if need be, constructive criticism.

That said, my reason for the post is two-fold. First, during my travels in the Japanese countryside I encountered the following bewildering, yet strangely symbolic, example of Engrish in it's purest form. The prosecution hereby submits exhibit A:

Now, usually, I can enjoy simple mistakes, laugh a little, and ultimately realize that if I were to try to write something for publication in any form in Japanese it would most assuredly contain some small errors that Japanese people would catch, possibly even take a chuckle from. But this, however, is a whole new level. It literally strikes me as though someone opened a dictionary, pulled out ten entirely random words and threw them on the card.

To be fair, I actually did laugh quite hard when I found this gem, but soon afterwards I realized that this is precisely the reason that the Japanese Government has brought us JETs here. It is our job to instill a basic enough understanding of English at a young age that things like this never get to see the light of day. A form of Engrish Police, if you will.

Now if only the Japanese would send people to America to educate the ever increasing population of people who want to get a "sweet Kanji tattoo" and end up with gibberish like "complete lack of restriciton (無制限)" or "eternal meat power (永遠肉力)," both of which I saw personally the last time I was in Portland. Seriously. Eternal meat power??