Yes, these pictures are real. No, I didn’t manipulate them in Photoshop. There is absolutely NO NEED to make any of this up, and plenty of mangled english to go around. I shoot, I crop, I shrink, I post, I comment. That’s about it. Please don’t steal the pics. And if you want to license some for publication, well, all you need to do is ask. Back to the show.
The amateur of writer.
It is also confusing for me. See: Pronouns.
from a can of Chinese Raid. This IS formulated killing, you know.
“Mr. Chambers! Don’t get on that ship! The rest of the book, “To Serve Guangdong from Hong Kong”, it’s… it’s a cookbook!”
(okay, if anyone gets that, please, we need to hang out. I’m guessing I’ll hit about 3% of you with that one.)
Is it really that hard? This stuff reads like they’re inventing English, not learning it. We need a massive airlift of retrofitted Speak N Spells dropped over Asia. And for what it’s worth, the former World Scrabble Champion is Thai and doesn’t speak English. Talk amongst yourselves.
I lightened the bottom in PhotoShop. I’m still trying to figure out what the 16th world is. Southern Botswana? Mali in winter? Fresno?
How about oneself study English? please?
Please, I haven’t spanned since, wow, it’s got to be like ten years now.
So is it LuBan or Sluban? and what’s with the quotes? Please, you’re destroying my intelligence potential.
If this is anything like the show I saw during Spring Break, I’ll get that medium well.
21 responses so far ↓
1 Zama // Mar 8, 2006 at 1:05 pm
“To Serve Man” was truly a fantastic Twilight Zone episode — one of my favorites. I’m glad to have met one of the few dozen people on the planet who has actually seen it!
2 Phil Crissman // Mar 8, 2006 at 5:57 pm
Doh! I never saw the Twilight Zone episode, but I did read the short story by Damon Knight. If you can ever find the story, it’s worth seeking out.
3 Monkey // Mar 9, 2006 at 10:41 am
The Kanamits took over 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in 2000.
4 Heather // Mar 9, 2006 at 11:11 am
I’ll add myself to the 3% who knew it was TZ. Just got a link to you because of the menu - I might have choked a little. Good stuff.
5 BeckoningChasm // Mar 10, 2006 at 7:36 am
Man, I thought that Twilight Zone episode was great. Richard Kiel is so strange-looking anyway, making him an alien makes sense.
Here’s an additional nerd fact about that show: based on a story by Damon Knight, who coined the phrase “idiot plot.” “The plot only works if everyone acts like an idiot.”
He also defined Science Fiction as, “Science Fiction is what I’m pointing at when I say, ‘This is science fiction.’”
Geek points for me!
6 Anonymous // Mar 10, 2006 at 11:55 am
Add me to the list which bump that percentage just above 3%!
7 Keith // Mar 10, 2006 at 12:42 pm
I really need a book that says “To Serve Man” on the cover, just to carry around.
8 Anonymous // Mar 10, 2006 at 1:35 pm
Count me too! I knew the TZ reference immediately!
Love the site, btw. As a former language/linguistics grad student, stuff like this is manna for me.
-Lililegs
(and if you can figure out the reference in that screen name, we have GOT to talk! [g])
9 LifeTrek // Mar 11, 2006 at 2:34 am
One of my favorite episodes as well! Saw it in repeat when I was a child and have remembered it ever since.
DKK
10 Fox1 // Mar 13, 2006 at 4:20 pm
I think you’d be surprised how many people recognize that. That was one of maybe 2 TZ episodes I ever saw, I saw it when I was like 4, and I remember it vividly to this day. It’s also a great semi-inside joke; as good or better than “soylent green is people,” but for a more rarified audience.
11 Anonymous // Mar 14, 2006 at 6:18 pm
I get that one too. And didn’t they make a Simpsons parody of that joke at some point?
12 Anonymous // Mar 16, 2006 at 5:18 pm
I’m from Hong Kong and I’ve never paid attention to all those English in signs and descriptions. They really cracked me up! I totally understands how they came up with these stuff. When I began to learn English, I translates word for word from Chinese to English. I think that’s what they’re doing. Opening up one of those electronic dictionaries, type in the Chinese word, and use the first returned English word for it. Place it in the same order as it was in Chinese (i.e. no grammar).
btw, that description about the 16th World XXX. I think it meant The 16th World (famous) Model’s Appointed Makeup and Hair Stylist.
That “LuBan or Sluban”, LuBan is the inventor from ancent times, Sluban is the brand’s name (those Chinese chars mean young LuBan) I thought this is quite understandable.
13 Metz // Mar 23, 2006 at 2:18 pm
Wonderful! Not many people realize how subversive the “Twilight Zone” was during its time, and slipping the “Taiwan Donkey Steak” episode past the censors in the 60’s was a real feather in Serling’s cap. “To Serve Man” was pretty good too (though not necessarily as incendiary as some other episodes).
Anyway, a friend forwarded this site to me a couple days ago, and my productivity is down somewhere in the neighborhood of 840%. Thanks. If this keeps up, I’ll join the Hooverville at my local Knott’s Berry Farm (whatever the hell that is. Judging from this site, it might be Chinese).
BUT, I’m happy to report that these pages have given me the courage to mangle Japanese/Mandarin/Cantonese when I go to Japan & Hong Kong in a few months. I initially planned on miming my way through these places, but now I’m going to carry around a pocket full of randomly chosen scraps of words and phrases, and launch them at the unsuspecting populace. I’ll take care not to be vulgar (are donkeys inherently vulgar, I wonder? That might have to be a game time decision), but I expect to be the source of high comedy for the waitstaffs of bars and restaurants across East Asia. I figure they deserve a laugh too, eh?
14 molly // Apr 15, 2006 at 6:22 pm
Fantastic editiorial as always. Shame I’ve never gotten to see “Twilight Zone”…oh well, there’s always the sci-fi channel.
15 Maven // Apr 25, 2006 at 11:11 am
I loved the TZ episode too, but I could have sworn it was Ted Cassidy (Lurch) rather than Richard Kiel (Jaws from James Bond). A quick Google proves me wrong…funny how the mind plays tricks, huh?
16 Anonymous // Apr 25, 2006 at 12:29 pm
have you seen the simpsons spoof of to serve man? they keep uncovering new words as people board the ship
“how to cook humans”
no, it’s “how to cook for humans”
no, it’s “how to cook forty humans”
no, it’s “how to cook for forty humans”
17 Jessi // Jun 10, 2007 at 4:53 pm
I’m part of that 3%. I OWN that episode of TZ. -Jessi
18 hjh // Sep 12, 2007 at 2:45 am
if possible, could you translate those chinese words rightly?
19 cfd // Dec 14, 2007 at 5:50 pm
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20 Mae // Mar 18, 2008 at 6:39 pm
haha seen that twilight zone episode, don’t you love the part when the giant alien is riding a smallish bike! hilarious!
21 Ghille // May 2, 2008 at 1:17 pm
I know that episode of Twilight Zone Too! Great stuff here!
I have two nephews who live in Taiwan and teach english there…they will LOVE this!
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