Cosmic Buddha's Moblog

Halves

OK this is Japanese Translation humor, so it may not be of interest to 99.999% of the world, but I have 100Mbps FTTH so here we go:

Setting: Terminal for high-speed ferryboat (hydrofoil, to be exact) in Sumoto City, Awaji Island. (The ferry shuttles between my island and Kansai International Airport and the terminal is a 10 minute walk from my front door. 45 minute ride to KIX. Convenient as hell.)

Photo is of a button on a vending machine for buying a ferry ticket for children. The kanji characters are pronounced "kobito", literally, "small person". It's more commonly used for "dwarf" than it is for "child", which is the first reason I think this is funny. Can you imagine a ticket machine with a button for "midgets"?

Secondly, whatever Einstein decided on the kanji also decided to make a stab at the English labeling. Instead of "child", he decides on "HALVES"? Hmm...

Just in case you were wondering, the smaller kanji in the greps reads "katamichi", meaning "one-way". However, the "HALVES" probably does not refer to "half of a round-trip ticket", because on the button above this one it says "ADULTS" in the same location. Posted by J@keitai at April 22, 2004 12:58 PM | TrackBack