Hundreds and hundreds of years ago, China was an economic powerhouse that was entirely self-sufficient. They produced their own food, took care of all their citizens, and depended on no one but themselves. Of course, Britain wanted a piece of the action, and forced them into the  triangle trade, and suddenly everyone was an opium junkie. Shortly after, Mao communism took over, and currently, China is part of a large economic boom, subject to a lot of investment from giant American and EU multinationals. And who wouldn't be interested in investing in China - they are a highly lucrative market, with 1 billion people of purchasing power.  In addition to this large amount of investment, China has a bustling garment making industry.  You can go there, and buy 20 pairs of underwear for the equivalent of $5 Canadian.  A lot of large clothing and shoe companies like the Gap and New Balance have their goods made there.  However, there is one thing that is holding them back from being the economic powerhouse that they once were. And that is bad spelling and grammar.  

Can you recall when you were looking for your first job/when you were in high school English class, when your guidance counselor/your English teacher were like, "If you have ANYTHING spelled wrong on your résumé/essay, you won't get the job/you won't get the grade!"  Similarly, this is what happens with people wearing clothes that have bad grammar or spelling.  It's tragic, because you know how everyone says you should always judge people by who they are inside - but that is totally not the case.  Badly spelled clothing ALWAYS elicits some kind of laughter, anything from a sympathetic snort to a mocking belly laugh.  It's almost as embarrassing as getting an atomic wedgie from Drew Gardner between classes.  In effect, these people inadvertently fall victim to their misspelled clothing.  

Our first stop in the dissection of badly spelled clothing from China: Shenzhen.  Shenzhen is the port into China closest to Hong Kong.  It is a UN designated FTZ (free trade zone), and due to this, there is a lot of sketchy activity going on here.  Lots of drugs, especially e, being smuggled into Hong Kong via people's sneakers, or in most cases, in people's purses.  The lack of security here is mindblowing.  fake or real? i don't know either.

Also, due to China's lack of intellectual property rights, Shenzhen is also the capital of counterfeit designer products, especially monogram Louis Vuitton bags.  With it's close proximity to Hong Kong, it's a nice weekend jaunt for any Hong Kong brand whore. 
Specimen 1. AELLO FRIENDB Which brings us to Specimen 1.  The nightgown pictured at left was purchased in Shenzhen as a last resort due to an unforeseen cold winter evening in early 2001.  It was highly warm, and served me well during my stay in China.  

While the nightgown was selling in Hong Kong with the words "HELLO FRIENDS" written on it, this same nightgown purchased 30 kilometres away in Shenzhen, had the phrase "AELLO FRIENDB" printed on it, as seen at left. 

What happened?  Why were there these discrepancies in spelling?  my philosophy is twofold -  a) something went awry at the factory where it was made, or  b)  they were trying to avoid copyright infringement laws.  Examining both possibilities, I would suspect that the former is the more likely of the two, since the latter is non-existent in China.  Maybe it was a hastily scrawled note with the phrase to be printed on the nightgown.  I mean, H, if written messily enough with the top slanting inwards, could look like an A.  And S, also written messily with the tails tucking inwards, could look like a B.  So AELLO FRIENDB it is.  

A second example that I found was on a crowded public bus in Canton.   There was a woman who appeared to be going home from work, and she was wearing track pants that had the phrase "QUICK MOTIDN" printed on them.  I can assure you, that she was going nowhere fast with those. 

One upping the spelling mistakes, are the Excessive Insubstantial Adjective Users.  These people are more sophisticated because they use proper spelling.  On the other hand, they seem to have a strange fascination with large quantities of adjectives.  At one store, called Lanyu Jeans, the jeans label had the following printed on their back pocket: LANYU JEANS: a special issue international official united trade corporation enterprise.  Now, not only are LANYU jeans special issue(?), they are also international, official, united, a trade corporation AND an enterprise.  Strangely enough, I didn't see them trading on the NASDAQ or the TSX.....  

Then, there are also the people that combine the two, using excessive adjectives and large numbers of spelling mistakes.  I call these the hybrids.  Such is the case with Mailiang, a well known clothing brand from Shanghai.  If you went to their website to check out their Fall line in their Flash movie, you would be thoroughly impressed, considering that 2 years ago, the people of China were still using bricks as cell phones.  The movie is well designed, fairly hip in Chinese terms, and have a really catchy background loop.  However, it all ends when you look closely at the English text.  If you read into the phrases scrolling across the screen in the movie, you'd find the following flowery stories, shown in the following specimens:

Specimen 2.  "City Wear Look"  In the morning, I appointed a couple friends to meet together at the subway station, wandering to share the wanders of the city with them.  To my surprise, we all happened to be in Mailiang.  We are aware of the shinning days beginning with Mailiang since it is our favorite casual garment and it gathers the power of the young, in addition to overcoming all the young who admire youth."  

Keetologue's suggested replacement: "Me and my homies slept in and linked up at the metro in the afternoon.  We were all wearing Mailiang.  Damn, we hot."  

Specimen 3.  "Casual Wear Look"  While walking on the street, our outstanding makes us attractive other people's sight.  The beautiful streets seems to be more charming because of us.  Undoubtedly, it is Mailiang that realizes this.  The days with Mailiang: Rambling in the Heaven of Dreams, roaming in the flourishing city, to show the everlasting youth among the crowds.  

Keetologue's suggested replacement text: Me and my homies were burning up the streets with Mailiang.  Damn, we hot.  

Specimen 4.  "Party Wear Look"  In the evening, Xubin told us a lot of legends about dreams in the drinkery.  So we ran towards there to seek those legends.  We stayed there, drinking, singing, recalling, and thinking freely about the future.  The lights showered on everybody like dreams.  Mailiang infiltrated a great deal amiable smiles and appreciative vision, which brewed the crusted wine.  Come on, cheers up!  For our dreams.  Young Mailiang flies with dreams."  

Keetologue's suggested replacement text: Xubin was spreading shit about me and my homies at the bar.  But, it didn't matter because damn, we hot.   

Specimen 5.  "We are interested in anything  t-shirt for the young."   

Keetologue's suggested replacement text:  uhhhhh.... damn, we hot?  

I suppose I am being too hard on the Chinese garment industry.  After all, English is not the first language of the country, it's Mandarin.  Also, it would probably cost a fortune to implement an English Grammar/Spellchecker at each garment factory.  However, if they are to re-gain their former pre-triangle trade status, they must work on this crisis - it is pretty hard to be taken seriously (but then again, look at Dubya).  Meanwhile,  we should sit down and have a glass of crusted wine.  Come, friendbs, cheers up!