Chinese Characters on Pakistani Transport

Posted on January 19, 2007
Filed Under >Owais Mughal, Education, Humor, Photo of the Day, Society, Travel
25 Comments
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Owais Mughal

Clicking on the photos in this article will take you to their enlarged images

Over the past few years, Chinese and Japanese characters have increasingly appeared on Pakistani public transport as decorations. On my recent visits to Pakistan, I’ve been constantly amused by these decorations and took some photos. I’ve been fortunate to have a Chinese language expert at home as my wife so we enjoy reading a lot of these decorative instructuction markings, which at times do not even make sense. Few examples are given below:

(1) I took following photo on Jan 10, 2007 in Federal-B-Area, Karachi. It shows a school van and I am very happy to announce that Japanese characters on the front also say the same. Somebody did the research beofore buying this sticker. It roughly means ‘Automobile for School’.

(2) Following photo is from Marston Road, Karachi and was taken in June of 2005. The Chinese characters used as decorations on this van do not make a meaningful sentence. The characters from left to right mean;

Green Color, Certain time of the year or day, Tea, Korea and Come Inside.

Looks like somebody has selected some characters from a Chinese text purely on the basis of what they liked and then mass-marketed all across Pakistan as decorative stickers. Put together the characters do not make sense. Also note the stickers on van’s pillars are the same as the one on the body except in different size and orientation.

(3) Following photo was taken on Lahore-Islamabad motorway in May 2005. Please note that the Chinese characters in this photo are exactly the same as shown on a Karachi van above.

Some of the more hilarious writings that we have observed, and unfortunately couldn’t take photos, included Chinese characters instructing the public to ‘use the back door’ when there was no back door on the vehicle. Another sticker called for ‘contact a lawyer immediately’ written on front door of a van.

I beleive things like such makes life in Pakistan so colorful, entertaining and lively.

25 responses to “Chinese Characters on Pakistani Transport”

  1. Owais Mughal says:

    Mushtaq, thanks for filling up the gaps in my translation. We could read Chinese characters but not the Japanese ones.

  2. mushtaq says:

    Turab,I am just kidding about dozukh.May Allah send all of us to Jannat.Please don’t go to girls site and you’ll be fine.I can teach you but how?here?but the organizer of this site would become angry.By the way,I don’t live in Pakistan.

  3. mushtaq says:

    Turab,I don’t know if there are Japanese language schools in big cities like Karachi?!It is a very beautiful language but there are so many words in Japanese which sound ‘galian’ bad language in our language.The best way is to learn it by listening first to some beautiful songs of Ayumi,X-Japan,Hikaru etc.,my favorites.Any particular sentence you want to say to your girfriend.Say’Ai shite masu’which means I love you.Or ‘Anata wa totemo kirei desu’you are beautiful.Instead of watching stupid Bollywood and violent Hollywood,you can watch free movies at http://www.gyao.jp,listen to beautiful music and watch onna女(girls)too.See you in dozukh(hell).There I would teach you Japanese too.

  4. TURAB says:

    mushtaq can u teach me japanese please?

    also i think the writings make the drivers of these vehicles feel INTERNATIONAL! my 0.02!

  5. mushtaq says:

    Baber Bhai.The last chinese character meaning school(Gakkou学校)is spelled wrong.校is wrong.Sticking mistake or Printing mistake in Pakistan.Printing Man,Fix that yar.And a Public Warning for people who tatoo their bodies with chinese character:make sure it is written in right order and a right meaning too.Stickers can be fixed but not tatoos execpt painful operations.Consult with me before you make a any big mistake.I love Pakistani Trucks,beautifully decorated.Best in the world.Khudah Hafiz

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