While the Japanese assimilation of parts of the English language is always fascinating, I don't always find the humourous mis-steps that result as "LOL-tastic" as some folks do. What's more interesting is what the words and phrases that are chosen say about the people, companies and purposes that they are connected to.
So probably the majority of Japanese appartment buildings (known as Mansions, which is in itself a nice way of describing a block of flats) are named in English, and are given names that connect, in the Japanese psyche, to concepts of safety, security, luxury and... classiness? Something like that. I've been meaning to do this for a while, and cycling home the other night I figured there was no time like right then! So here is the start of my collection of poignant and eyebrow-raising Japanese mass-dwelling names:
I hope eventually to have a huge flickr book, or possibly a huge coffee table book of these. You'll have to leaf through it and choose the name of the building in which you want to live, and it will tell you a deep and uncomfortable truth about yourself. Dare you gaze into "The Book of Mansion Names"?
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