Saturday, September 20, 2008

What did the magical palm of Buddha say to the face?


I love this shirt. I bought it back in 2006 on the advice of Feifei, though I refused to wear it until she could tell me what it means. In Traditional Chinese (the language it's supposed to be read in) the red characters say "The Magical Palm of Buddha" and the characters at the bottom say "Kung fu." In Simplified Chinese, however, the characters read something to the effect of "Become an ascended spirit." I think both of those meanings are pretty cool, and the fact that it means two things at the same time is even cooler. Last night I was at a house party with a bunch of international students and a Japanese girl told me my shirt said something rather funny. Evidently, in Japanese the red characters read, "Bow to the divine, wild feminine." and the characters at the bottom read, "Smart husband/man." It's not unlike the time freshman year when I found out that one of my favorite shirts with the Chinese character for peace on it reads as "loose" in Japanese. Makes you wonder how entertaining it must be for Japanese tourists in China when they read all the street signs and billboards.

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