Day 173: Pleasure...

...Will Get You Everywhere.

No, I'm not being flirtatious with you (well, maybe some of you!) but this is what I saw on the t-shirt of one of my Grade 5 students today!!! I totally did a double take when I saw it and had to read it like three times just to make sure. I also had to suppress my laughter everytime I looked at her! The funniest thing about it is that the student who was wearing it, Nicole, is a rather polite, shy, and quiet girl. Not the kind of trollup-in-training (like some of my other students) that I'd expect that from!

The truth is I honestly think that sweet lil Nicole really had no idea what the words on her shirt meant. Yes, she can read (quite well actually, she's an advanced student) but she would definitely not know the sexual connotation that message carries (quite direct actually, if you ask me!)

Koreans are *obsessed* with wearing clothing that contains English words on it. It's the hot trend these days here in Korea - shirts, hats, pants, purses, belts, just about anything really fashionable these days has some form of English on it. The strange thing is that in most cases the words are either mis-spelled or don't make any grammatical sense - at all! Hell, half the time they just seem to be random English words strewn together in hap-hazard manner all over the piece of clothing. Even jeans has words written all up and down the sides - there's no escape! This proves to be quite hilarious for us weguks who can actually read *and* understand what the words say! I get quite a giggle from walking through Seoul crowds and checking out all the random English all over the place.

And this just doesn't apply to clothes, but stationary, signage, store brand names, company slogans, billboard advertisements...you name it...it's got English on/in it here in Korea. English is hot and sexy and popular in Korea, and a powerful selling agent, even if people have no idea what the words mean. Here's a few funny examples:

-Pocari Sweat - a popular brand of sports drink very similar to Gatorade

-Man And Woman Love Bakery - this is not far from where I live

-I'm 13! - the name of the English school located across the street from POLY

-the garbage can in my bathroom says "Fine. This can be used for varoius purposes." (Thanks for the clarification! I wasn't sure what to do with it!)

-Are You Type 1? - a popular slogan I've seen on shirts lately (just what the hell is Type 1?)

-ESL brand milk - I'm glad to know that it's not just foreigners here in Korea that are busy teaching English to Koreans!

-I don't remember the name but there's a brand of ice cream that uses a big fat pig as it's mascot - not a great choice of imagery - 'Eat this ice cream and you'll turn into a pig!'

-2% - a tasty watery-peach juice drink whose slogan is "Drenching Body & Heart" (and just what, exactly, is it 2% of? Real fruit juice? Sugar? The percentage of people who drink this beverage that actually understand our slogan and therefore think it's funny?)

-Baby Hunt - a popular chain of stores that sell baby clothes - personally I'd be kinda scared to take my baby there!

-Run Around Naked - another popular slogan I've seen on t-shirts lately? (Seriously? Do you *really* wanna see me naked running around these streets? No? Then don't tell me to do it!)

haha....

Anyways there's tons more but those are just a few that came off the top of my head. I should start a list of all the funny English that I see here in Korea (unofficially this is actually called Konglish!) I think this list would be all too hilarious! :-)