Japan and English

In Japan I often see signs written in English, and although it is helpful to me as a foreigner, I think the intended audience are the many Japanese people who see these signs on a daily basis. In case you can’t read the text in the following pictures, I’ve included transcriptions below them.


photo by author, 31 Dec 2008
"Pasco Special Selection; PASCO’s special selection will make all people who are thinkining of their health, happy with the most delicious taste."


photo by author, 2 Jan 2009
"Welcome to Sakazen Ikebukuro B1F POWER SALE"


photo by author, 13 Jan 2009
"190m To Summit Observatio Deck"

These uses of English aren't really wrong, but they aren't exactly right either. They are functional, but peculiarity and errors like these are very common. For some reason using natural sounding or correct English just doesn’t seem to be important. This perplexed me, so I talked to a Japanese friend recently and she explained it – English is just fashionable.

This idea seemed strange to me at first, but it corresponds well to a common trend in America. Consider the artistic use of Chinese or Japanese words on product labels, advertisements, and even tattoos. There is an urban myth among young people in America about a man who gets what he thinks are the Chinese characters for “inner strength” tattooed on his arm, only to find out later from a friend who can read Chinese that the actual meaning is entirely different.

So although seeing these signs for the first time made me laugh out loud in public, now I understand their strangeness better than many other cultural differences between Japan and America.