'Engrish' As A Second Language

In most cases, the use of English writing here in the Japanese countryside is as effective as a newscaster with a debilitating speech impediment. Clarity is definitely lacking. If I had a nickel for every time that the Japanese misused the English written language, and I put all of those nickels in a bag, I’d have a fairly substantial bag of nickels; at least enough to buy an English dictionary for every shop owner in my town who took the initiative to defecate their building with splatterings of ‘Engrish’.

Now, please forgive me for seeming like an ignorant foreigner. I do not want to emit the impression that I expect Japanese people to be competent in English, for, as you probably gathered from my last letter, I am definitely lacking in ability when it comes to theirs. I would never expect someone to conform to my standards. However, the reason that I criticize their bastardization of written English is that they do it often, and with a care-free disregard for using the language correctly.

In the Ibaraki countryside where I live, the strangest things are written in English, despite the obvious absence of English speakers. In my town, for whatever reason, many of the signs, which stand at the entrance of grungy storefronts and hang on the faded, wood-paneled sides of dilapidated restaurants, are printed in English. In some cases, giant letters of the English alphabet have been crafted out of rough steel and spiked into the outer walls of businesses; the grammar and spelling almost invariably wrong.

Why these business owners would feel the need to advertise their product in English to a town full of Japanese speaking farmers may seem peculiar. Perhaps the easiest explanation is that they have done it all for my benefit. Even before I arrived, were they already thinking of me? The barber shops, which stand on nearly every street corner in my town, desperately want me to know their going rates for a perm and cut. The fishmonger, who can be found on any day of the week in his dimly lit shop, standing in a pool of blood, water and fish guts, and wearing a crimson-stained rubber apron, doesn’t want my lack of Kanji recognition to prevent me from buying fresh eel heads or Dogtooth tuna-fish bellies. And the Iseki tractor salesman, hoping that I will choose to invest my ‘not-so-hard-earned’ money in a rototiller, has laid out his own cash in an expensive, misspelled English sign which advertises his farming wares. I haven’t yet sprung for the rototiller, but I’ve got a brand new plastic mulch layer hooked onto the back of my Nissan. What can I say, that salesman is a smooth talker. Now I just need something to mulch.

No, as much as I would like to believe that the friendly shop-owners of this drowsy little town are bending over backwards to accommodate me, they aren’t advertising in English for my benefit. Not to come off as self-absorbed, but if they’re not doing it for me, then for whom are they doing it? Seeing as I am the only native English speaker in the town, and one of perhaps a total of 10 people who has an English vocabulary over 100 words, why bother writing in English at all? And incorrect English at that.

The answer has little to do with language comprehension and more to do with marketing. Spraying nonsensical English words on your business or product, as hard as this is to imagine for a native English speaker, actually impresses Japanese people with little or no English capability. The English language, not only in Japan, but in most non-English speaking countries, is eye-catching and authoritative. It serves as somewhat of a status symbol. Japanese business owners assume that if they throw some random English lettering on the side of their store, a passerby will stop and say to himself, “Looky here! This guy’s got it going on. I’ll buy my porn comics from him!” Strangely enough, the shop-owner’s assumptions are probably correct.

Consequently, ‘Engrish’ is used everywhere in Japan; not only in small farming towns, but in booming cities. Not only on country storefronts, but on towering Tokyo structures. Every piece of tacky memorabilia and article of gaudy, fluorescent clothing fathomable is stained with the unintelligible mutterings that are ‘Engrish.’ Shirts adorned with slogans such as “Let’s Happy Enjoy!” or “Cutie! Please Call It A Lovely Person!” Pencil cases marked with catchy ‘Engrish’ phrases such as “A Heart is Giving You From Me”. And, ‘Hello Kitty’ products (a multi-million dollar corporation, mind you) with the following inspirational words: “I only wish to provide you feel tired and depressed with some strength and aspiration when you in life.” Those last words taken directly from the mouth of Kitty.

The previous examples aren’t of small ‘mom and pop’ stores in the middle of nowhere, but of successful businesses based in Japan’s biggest cities; businesses that are catering to millions of people. Surely their annual budgets could accommodate a ‘$25 dollar an hour’ native English speaker to proof-read some of the crappy goods that they spew like warm vomit onto the store-shelves of Japan. But, they’re fully aware that the grammar and spelling found on the t-shirts and school supplies being sported by the masses doesn’t matter in the least. The use of ‘Engrish’ is meant to be eye-catching, not logical. It is not meant to provide enlightenment, only to draw in easily-mesmerized consumers who drool at the sight of the A, B, C’s.

Personally, if I was a Japanese business owner looking to invest $2000 in a flashy neon sign with exotic looking English lettering, I would first get someone to proof-read it- and not just the local sake-slurping rice cultivator, but someone with at least a basic sense of the language. Out here in Ibaraki however, anything goes. It doesn’t matter if there are spelling mistakes- few people can understand it anyway. And the examples are endless. One shop, in a town near my own, has the word ‘boutique’ spelled on two different places on the outer wall- two expensive looking signs, one spelled correctly, the other, not; the shop-owner, I assume, figured that if he used two different spellings, the chances of one of them being correct would be greater. My schools, despite having the presence of several English teachers, manage to misuse the English language with amazing consistency- adding the slogan ‘Jump to shining future’ to the culture festival, and printing sport festival t-shirts with ‘1th Annual” written on the sleeves. Even in Shinjuku, the main business district of Tokyo, where high-rollers spend money faster than Madonna gravitates toward new ways to attract attention to herself (one can never go too far to stay relevant), I recently saw a sign for a restaurant offering ‘drinks and fooding.’ Now, they are either promoting their tasty cuisine or offering to let you drink sake in a lounge submerged in several feet of water. With the abundance of delicious food at every turn in Tokyo, I might opt for the flood. Just to mix things up a bit.

There are some companies in the Japanese business world that have managed to perfect their use of the English language; primarily, all of those who sell to a Western market. Car companies, technology giants, appliance manufacturers- these are companies that can’t afford the luxury of butchering our mother tongue. If the Honda car company had a slogan that read “make fun happy times Honda now!” and ran that ad in every English speaking country on the globe, what would that say about their attention to detail in the machine shop? English speakers would equate their vehicles with coloured steel trash bins on wheels. Fortunately, these companies had the clever foresight to hire a few English speakers to take care of their English marketing division, ultimately allowing them to escape any possible instances of advertising their cars as ‘super super speedy fast’.

It may seem peculiar, but in Japan, companies such as Toyota, Sony, Fuji, and Subaru write their names in the English alphabet rather than in one of their own numerous writing systems. This would be the equivalent of ‘Black and Decker’ writing their name in Arabic and trying to sell it to Americans. It just doesn’t seem to make sense. But here in Japan, English is marketable, and any company with aspirations of success will stamp those eye-pleasing A, B, C’s on their product. After all, a wise man once told me that every problem is a marketing problem. Every problem, that is, except for a urinary tract infection. You can’t really put a positive spin on that, now can you doctor?

Until Japanese tech-men perfect the electronic dictionaries, which manage to spit out translations more awkward than a six-foot-three female gymnast, one can expect to continue to see ‘Engrish’ fastened to the back-bone of Japanese life for many years to come. If nothing else, at least it provides some much needed comic relief. Happy happy super enjoy!

A heart is giving you from me,
Eric