The Lighter Side

Stories, anecdotes and jokes from our readers that illustrate the humorous side of the martial arts.

A Tale Of Two Languages

A well known martial arts friend of mine visited NYC and laughingly told of his recent encounter with the two languages while having dinner in Chinatown at Joe's Shanghai restaurant.

As he was entering the restaurant he noted a handwritten note Scotch taped to the door. In English it said, "Caution wet floor." Beneath this there was also a set of Chinese characters. Knowing a little Japanese (which inherited a Chinese character set) he found that he could also roughly translate this too. It said, "A foolish man slips on the ground."

"It explains a lot about how difficult it is to translate and make sense of some Chinese martial arts texts," explained the friend.

Anonymous