Hidden Econopocalypse Admonition in Chinatown Sign

This sign for a real estate and insurance company in San Francisco's Chinatown seems to be a fitting description of what real estate and insurance companies are trying to do right now. Truth squad: I'm guessing that "Hang On" means something entirely different in Chinese. Image link. (photo by Domini Anne)

• [Anonymous]

  There is a bus route in Hong Kong with the same name. Funny to see those words in the little sign on the front of a big double-decker bus.

• [Anonymous]

  Could be the owner(s) name(s)….

• [Anonymous]

  Heh, there’s another place in SF called Wang Insurance. I might be 12 for giggling like a maniac over it, but it sure is amusing.

• [Deidzoeb]

  I was relieved to see that “EXIT REALTY” was a franchise, not a statement about everyone fleeing my rustbelt community. They’ve been saying for years, “Last person out of Detroit, turn off the lights.” Now it’s said about lots of towns, or even “Last one out of Michigan.”

  …oh puke, I just looked it up and discovered that “EXIT REALTY IS GROWING” so quickly because NO, it is not a multi-level marketing system.

  Can I sell you my house and you sell me your house and we’ll both charge each other closing fees? Wheeee!

• [Dedalus]

  home is wherever you hang ur wang on – peace

  *breakdances in the thread*

• [Anonymous]

  no; it isn’t a chinese personal name. it’s a kind of name that because lucky shows up in names of businesses

• [Yamazakikun]

  I think “constant peace” is closer… so the English is the action and the Chinese is the goal.

• [webmacher]

  When I started working at my job in Pacific Heights, I noticed that sign as I was riding the bus back downtown. I actually wrote about it a while back on my blog, which covers such oddities. (I spotted a sign that was almost as good as this one yesterday.)

• [Tian]

  “Hang On” is Cantonese-to-English transliteration of 恆安 (pronounced as “Heng An” in Mandarin).

  For those who are interested, here are characters’ references:

  http://www.unicode.org/cgi-bin/GetUnihanData.pl?codepoint=6046

  http://www.unicode.org/cgi-bin/GetUnihanData.pl?codepoint=5b89

  Good thing Dan Brown did not spot this first and put into one of his books:

  http://www.hanzismatter.com/2009/03/painful-excerpt-from-dan-browns-digital.html

• [Crystal]

  That “Hang On” is just the translation of the company name by the pronouciation.

• [Adam Stanhope]

  Yes – eternal peace.

  The “An” is the same “An” in TianANmen Square.

• [Kay the Complainer]

  There’s a realtor in Toronto called “Mike Costapile”. Seriously.

• [JBaudhuin]

  Hang On (or Heng An in pinyin) means eternal peace, if I recall correctly.

  • [Xeni Jardin]

    Oh, thanks for that translation.

• [minamisan]

  I guess that means a Chinese-speaker who climbs on a rodeo bull and gets told to “Hang on” is in for a rude shock.

• [wirx]

  It’s nice words.Both in chinese and english!

• [wirx]

  after i share this article in our chinese blog here：
  http://jandan.net/2009/04/04/janen-hang-on.html
  one of my reader says：有些公司还是翻译得很有意思的，比如那个Go Believe（狗不理）

  “狗不理”(gou bu le) is a famous chinese food bland,means dog won’t touch it.Its pronouciation is same as the words “go believe”