Intro to Engrish

It was 2001. I was standing in a new $1 Store at the local mall when I discovered the world of Engrish. The first item that inspired a W*T*C moment was a tin pencil case that had a picture of two crazy looking cartoon faces and some stars, and it said: Mon thester, be don't of scared me... Hello!? (I will try to include a photo of this later.)

For those of you who are not yet familiar with "Engrish", it is a term for items with phrases written in the English language, but translated (usually very roughly) from another language- most commonly Japanese. The results are phenomenal.

Often, the phrases have words like "happy", "love", "friends" and "joy" in them - almost always very upbeat and intoxicatingly optimistic. There's another category of Engrish items that are obviously made by actual English-speaking people who must think they're so funny because they put "Bastard" or "Retard" on a shirt and some unsuspecting Asian is out there wearing it. This is not AS appealing or funny to me, although there are a few funny examples that I have found.
So why do they put English on their advertisements/apparel if they don't know how to translate it correctly? I have been told that it is very popular/modern/fashionable to wear clothes with English phrases in Asian countries- even when they don't know what it says. (I suppose we can equate that to all the Americans who get Chinese character tattoos- many of them not entirely sure what the real translation is.)

Anyway, all I can say is that after I stepped into the $1 Store that day, my life was changed forever. I love to collect Engrish items wherever I find them. Unfortunately, not too many people shared my love for Engrish, and that $1 Store was removed from the mall in less than a year. That has forced me to venture to Philly's and NYC's Chinatowns in search of these gems. We also have a local ASSI grocery store where I can find something exciting if I look hard enough. I will share more of my personal collection later, but today I want to share my favorite Engrish t-shirts, found on the amazing site Engrish.com (check it out- it will blow your mind!)

^My personal favorite! That extra "smell" there at the end is a nice touch.

Well, most people probably find this kind of humor pretty dumb. But we can't really be friends if that's the case. This is more about me, anyway. But I do hope I touched someone's life today.