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The great brothel ad embarrassment
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Suppose you're designing the cover of a well-respected science journal and the feature story is on China. Seems only logical to turn to the ageless mystery and beauty of traditional Chinese characters, right?
Naturally. Provided, of course, you actually know what those characters say. Not knowing can lead to some serious embarrassment, as Germany's Max Planck Institute recently found out.
When they used the image above they thought they were using a classical poem. They were actually using the text from a brothel ad, promising "hot housewives," among other things.
The full story is available from The Independent.
Makes for a good time to revisit Hanzi Smatter as well, to bask in things like the guy who got a "Sesame Chicken" tattoo.
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