A picture is worth a thousand, let alone a few words. So it is now your turn to play detective for the REAL meaning of these signs on a train in China. One thing for sure, Winston Churchill wouldn’t be happy with the captions, or would he? But hey, if I have to defend my fellow countrymen, we did pretty well for a primarily monolingual country. Pardon me for the quality of the second shot though, it wasn’t “stabling” when I took it.

Santa from Finland? Joy City mall, Xi Dan, Beijing, 20 dec 2008

Where does Santa live? A mall in Beijing seems to imply he is parachuting in from 芬兰 (Finland). In a country with no official religion, what do you think is the driving force behind these signs of Christmas? Happy Holidays anyways.

Et vous, les montréalais, avez-vous envoyé des lettres au père Noël (圣诞老人)? Vous devez être fiers qu”il vit dans votre quartier, témoigné par le code postal - H0H 0H0, même si un affiche à Pékin suggère autrement. Bonne fête!

Fill in the blanks / complétez les champs:

_    l _ v _     C h _ n _ .

as seen in Beijing, one of the residues from the ‘encouraged’ frenzy leading up to the Olympics.

graffiti as seen on 13 Dec 2008 in Beijing

Can reading bring you aroma that trigger your senses? Perhaps the organisers of Lire en fête (Reading Festival) in Beijing had that in mind. C’était une fin de semaine de dégustations, ateliers et conférences, sur les cuisines française et chinoise, sous le thème - des mets et des mots.

A few steps across the street from the gourmand literature discussion at an open market, you could have a small bite of the fruits before you make up your mind, just like Marché Jean-Talon in Montréal.

Quelle est la signification des mots, si ce n’est pas une langue que vous comprenez? La mystère, est-elle plus séduisante?

From logocities.com

Above, some of the Ben’s Restaurant signage, courtesy of the demolition crew; and, the Warshaw sign, courtesy the SDBSL

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Source: logocities.org

This is Aaron Draplin telling a story about an old motel sign in a video clip from an upcoming doc. He’s a graphic designer and very passionate about what he does. Strong language- mostly lots of F words. If you like design stuff you gotta check out his site. draplin.com