Reader Aylwin emails from Canada:
"I spotted this shirt on display last weekend at The Bay (a Canadian department store chain) at Bloor & Yonge in Toronto..."
The character 救 on the upper left corner means "rescue" or "save". According to my Hong Kong native friend Angela, the four characters 有型靚仔 in the Chinese seal (or Japanese hanko) is a Cantonese slang about cool good looking guy. 有型 literally means "[to] have shape" or "shapely", and 靚仔 means "good looking guy". In Mandarin Chinese, 帥哥 is used to describe a good looking guy.
The only conclusion I can draw from the shirt is that "in order to be a cool good looking guy at the Tricky Tiger Saloon, one must rescue a tiger from a white wife-beater tanktop".
JFYI, the entry at Unicode.org for 靚.
ReplyDeleteThe term "靚仔" is used quite commonly in Hong Kong, and while typically means "good looking guy/boy," can also have negative connotations (i.e. "pretty boy") depending on the context.
Glenn,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the Unicode.org link.
Heh. Maybe it means the wearer wants a good-looking guy to save her from the Tricky Tiger, as it looks like a girl's shirt?
ReplyDeleteYou should send this to the management at The Bay, I'm sure they'd love to know what they are selling!
ReplyDelete