Thursday, May 19, 2011

Hey baby, what's your sign?

The messages are there, if you know where and what to look for. These pictures were taken in the course of a single afternoon (yesterday, to be precise) in the central city of T'áichūng 臺中. With one exception, all of these signs refer to restaurants, which shows the extent to which Japanese cuisine has penetrated Taiwanese culture (even if the food is often prepared in ways that ensure maximum blandness and a minimum of flavor):



This establishment proudly proclaims they are particular about (or is that obsessed with?) creative Japanese-style meals.


This poster in the underground passage near the Sogō Department Store 崇光百貨 is promoting a "Huālien 花蓮 - T'áitūng 台東 Valley Food Festival" at the Splendor Hotel. It took some checking on the Japanese Google and Wikipedia sites to work out that かとうじゅうこく, Katōjūkoku, refers to the East Rift Valley, 花東縦谷 in Japanese and Huātūng tsùngkǔ 花東縱谷 in Chinese.


These words on the window of a restaurant extol the virtues of a company called Fans Food Service ファンズフードサービス and its commitment to Wagyū beef 和牛.


This establishment boasted of specializing 専門店 in rāmen noodles ラーメン and fried rice omelets オムライス. That's "boasted" in the past tense of the word, as the restaurant appeared to be closed for good.


This boutique is the exception to the above restaurants. At first glance, there's no obvious 日本語 connection, unless you know that the word for apple in Japanese is ringo リンゴ. P'íngkuǒ 蘋果 just doesn't have same appeal.

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