Awesome Things I Saw Written Around Shenyang, Part II

 Over the course of three years, I had the delight of seeing strange English writings around Shenyang. For the first installment, see my post from 2019; this will be the second installment, and there will also be a third (because I have that many pictures). 

First off, there was this menu. I have no idea how to eat "Drawing the doctrine". 

Something else we noticed upon occasion is that any sort of Roman lettering was already interesting. It didn't matter if it didn't mean anything--just as long as it was Roman lettering, it was cool:

Then there was this typo at the Great Wall at Shanhaiguan:

This next one was at a Nike store in the Wanda Plaza about twenty minutes from my apartment. If you look closely, you can see that they switched two of the letters around (although I really can't blame them because they're similar letters): 

Like the Nike sign, the absolutely most hilarious stuff was usually the western-based brands' interpretations of... whatever. For about a month, McDonald's had something called a "sunshine latte", which was a basic latte with a piece of spun sugar colored to look like a sunny-side up egg--so it looked like you had an egg in your morning coffee. That's neither an American thing nor a Chinese thing (my students who had lived in China their entire lives were just as confused). But none of that held a candle to this:

Now, this one actually isn't dumb. Cheese and egg yolk are two of the ingredients for custard--it's custard-flavored ice cream. But for some reason, that didn't make its way to the McDonald's in Shenyang!

Then there was this lovely bookstore:

First off, I don't think "propaganda" means what they think it means--I don't know of any English speakers who would put that word in a flourish like that. I'm guessing that was a mis-translation. Secondly, what is the "greener good" and what does it have to do with a book-coffee-shop?

This next one has me convinced that there's a troll on TaoBao selling t-shirts with dumb sayings on them. The Chinese people can't read them, but those who can read English get freaked out:

I'm willing to be there's a Chinese person selling t-shirts with this saying in Chinese on Amazon somewhere, too. 

This next one makes perfect sense:

Then there was this wine. First off, the label I peeled off came from Capetian, a French wine company that I don't think made this particular brand of wine. False advertising, methinks. But then, look at the label I didn't peel off...

Then there was this sign I saw around Christmas. The speech bubble on the far left says, "Wanda makes fun of life". I know what they were going for, but that's not what that means...

This next one was on the floor at a store called "Happiness". The first glance will make you gasp, and I'm convinced they don't have a clue what it comes from. I can't imagine the local government would be happy, if they knew:

The other reason I'm confident they don't understand this is in this next picture. Look at what happens in the third line from the bottom, and then again in the fourth line from the top:

Right next to the base of that metal stand that's in the middle of the words.

This next one also has to be a lost-in-translation, but I have no idea how it could have happened. What do peaches have to do with charcoal? 

This next one is a little hard to tell. The lit-up English words are fine, but look at what's behind them:

This next one... took me a second, but if you think about it, it makes perfect sense:

The next one comes from the Kunming Zoo. My friend who grew up in Kunming told me that, while the animals are great, the Chinglish signs are just as much of an attraction. Unfortunately, they appear to have hired an English editor since my friend was a kid, but there was still this great sign:

This next picture is HILARIOUS because of the story behind it. My friend is a great bat lover so when I saw the bat on the car, I had to stop and take a picture for her. 

As I was adding that picture into a message, I suddenly read the car brand for the first time. I'd seen that car brand around before, but I'd never noticed the brand itself is misspelled! 

I now can't help calling that car brand "Leopa-ard".

This next one must be a straight translation of two Chinese words into the English words, and it also makes sense:

Then this next one (which I can't figure out how to rotate). Underneath the gold swirls, it calls this tissue paper, "Flexible comfortable life paper". As hard as I laughed at that, I can't argue! 

And I have no explanation for this next one:

Chinese New Year - Happy Year of the Ox!

 I don't think anyone is missing the Year of the Rat.

This was my second Chinese New Year in China, and I thought it was even better than last year's. People always have super creative and colorful lights in their apartment windows, and when you live in the midst of 60-odd highrises, it's especially colorful. 

For context, here is what my apartment complex looks like without all the lights (this was about 3 weeks ago):

And here is what it looked like just a few nights ago, from the same angle:

Some of the windows up close:

Chinese New Year day was a Thursday, and this was probably one of my favorite things about it:

The ordering screen on the app

Here's the still picture. 

Anyway, that evening, a bunch of our friends came over and played Jackbox TV. We toasted the new year, ate some yummy food (and brownies!), and then enjoyed the fireworks display that exploded right next to our patio window. 

After everyone left, I went out walking (like I did last year) to enjoy the fireworks display. I'll try not to spam you with too many repetitious pictures, but I got about 70, and I love most of them. It super beautiful yesterday. 

I can see my window in this picture!

Now, last year (and the year before that), our school had China Week the week before Chinese New Year break, and part of that included everyone dressing up in Chinese clothes. We didn't do that this year (because we're back in online schooling again, ugh), which means I don't have a Chinese New Year picture this year. In lieu of that, I'll just post this picture from October:

Yes, this is me.

If you want the story behind that picture, you'll have to keep up with my Travel Blog!

Anyway, happy Chinese new year, everybody! Hopefully everything gets back to normal soon.

The Typhoons

Funny story. When I first went back to Seattle for the summer, I was a little salty about Shenyang because when I left, the weather had been so extreme, alternating between thunderstorms (which I didn't mind in the slightest) and sandstorms. Having said all that, I was fully expecting to get back to a boiling hot but calm Shenyang in August. 

Oh wow, was I wrong. 

Two giant typhoons, Lekima and Krosa, were cruising north up the coast of Asia in early August. We didn't get slammed by the wind (probably the only time I will ever say that about Shenyang), but wow, oh, wow did we get the rain. Essentially, we got all the moisture that got kicked out of the storm by the winds. 

The rain from Lekima first hit on Saturday, August 10. I remember this very well, because I was on my way to visit Maggie, my friend who owns the tea shop. When I got into the DiDi (Chinese Uber), the sky was ominously dark but the roads were completely dry. About ten minutes in, a wall of rain hit. In the space of half an hour, it went from bone dry to water up to my knees. Fortunately, that cleared up quickly enough and let me get home, but it still took half an hour to get a DiDi home. 

We had threatening, rainy weather for that week (so bad that they pushed the start of school back another day), but that was probably the worst of Lekima. 

Krosa was worse. 

On Friday, August 16, I was planning to go to French Corner, a place where we could practice speaking French, after the first day of school. First, I went back home to change out of my work shoes and get dinner. I went to my favorite Chinese place in my apartment complex, and right when I was about to get the bill, the rain hit again.

Same story - less than one hour, the rain went up to my knees. 

This happened in about half an hour.

This, however, was considerably worse because the rain did not stop. It being a Friday night, and Shenyang being a city that loves to have fun, everyone and their cousin was out doing something. Then the rain came, and the streets absolutely flooded. Half of the teachers were still at school, meeting with friends, or out getting pampered, and they were stuck. People sat in cars for something like five hours just trying to get home. I was probably the luckiest of the ones that went out. 

That video is only my video, but it was far from the craziest one I've seen. The worst one was a video of water - rain water - washing over the hoods of cars. (But that was taken by my friend, and it's not really a good idea to share videos that aren't yours.)

You know the funniest part of all of this? I've lived in Seattle my whole life, except for college and China. Seattle is famous for raining all the time. And yet, I have never seen a flood before. (I was even caught in a typhoon before, but never a flood!)

Well, now I have. 

Beautiful Shenyang Skies

When I left Shenyang, I was (more than) a little salty about the city because when I left, the weather was alternating between heavy thunderstorms and mini sandstorms. I did a lot of sweeping sand out of my windowsills (and I'm on the 33rd floor!).

But then I got back here, and after the two typhoons passed (oh yes), I had a chance to enjoy the beautiful Shenyang sky.

Shenyang, like Montana, doesn't have many trees but does have gorgeous views of the sunset and the wide open sky. Here are just a few of the pictures I've collected:

This was in June, at approximately 4:30 in the morning. I woke up thinking it was 4:30 in the afternoon.

Lovely thundercloud skies

I love how there's sunlight on the ground but clouds in the air. 

This is from my apartment complex. 

Also from my apartment complex. 

From out and about - different night than the other one. 

Overall, I enjoy living in Shenyang.

Awesome Things I've Seen Written Around Here

How have I only made one post about living in China before? It's not as though there isn't much to talk about...

Have you ever seen those memes about someone getting a Chinese tattoo on their arm, thinking it said something deeply profound, and someone else saying it means something like, "Chicken dinner"? I've seen enough of those to be scared of getting tattoos at all.

The thing is that Chinese people do the same thing with English words. Apparently, as long as the lettering is Roman lettering, it's cool. Here are some of my favorites.

First, I've seen one lady wearing a t-shirt that says: "SICK: New York". (Accurate.)

I've seen this bumper sticker around quite a few times:

Last weekend I saw a t-shirt that had the word "Fnvention." I assume that F was supposed to be an I.

Then, when I went fabric shopping, I saw this printed on some fabric:

That's not very epic. 

This is definitely one of those things that people all over the world do - they see something in a foreign language, think it's cool, and show it off, when in reality is just commonplace writing. Oh,good times.

It makes me smile to see that people are essentially the same in America and China.