Having to explain that a certain infamous "Chinese alphabet" font¹ (favoured by tattoo joints everywhere) is not how you write in Chinese. There is a shocking number of people who have somehow managed to grow up not just to adulthood but to senior citizen levels who think that foreign languages are just English with a funky spelling; that grammar rules are otherwise the same, and that words translate one for one (and sometimes, in extreme cases, like the gibberish font, letter for letter).

¹ https://hanzismatter.blogspot.com/2006/08/gibberish-asian-font-mystery-solved.html

[–] tiramichu@lemm.ee 22 points 3 days ago (1 children)

山尺工卞工几呂　勹丹尸丹几ヨ己ヨ　工己　ヨ丹己と!

I saw a brand a while back, can't remember exactly what, something like coffee or chocolate, and they were using this fake Japanese for all their product names and merchandise labels.

It was certainly the most surefire way to instantly demonstrate to me they have no actual understanding of, or connection with, Japan or Japanese culture at all.

[–] NostraDavid@programming.dev 2 points 1 day ago

Literal cultural appropriation.