Comments on: Chinese restaurant sign thanks Jews for eating there on Christmas

By: Farah Mendlesohn

Farah Mendlesohn — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 09:38:00 +0000

In some areas there are Kosher Jewish restaurants. Hendon (London) where I work has several, and I ate at one with the Bursteins in the Boston area once.

By: crankycheryl

crankycheryl — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 17:42:00 +0000

There’s also a joke somewhere (we suspect it’s Calvin Trillin’s) about how the act of passage through the wok turns all things from treyf (unclean) to kosher – a la traditional Jewish Christmas shrimp with lobster sauce.

By: Guest

Guest — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 22:32:00 +0000

no, that was him kvetching, complaining, and claiming the moral high ground in someone else’s name, followed by editorial advice.

Not a troll at all.

By: Wreckrob8

Wreckrob8 — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 20:06:00 +0000

Chinese has different scripts. It is true that children learn their characters in strokes – essential for understanding their composition and meaning. But there are also cursive scripts in which individual strokes are run together, exactly as in Latin script, for instance. You would pass onto these as you become more proficient.

By: sam

sam — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 19:12:00 +0000

Oh, did you poll all chinese americans on this topic or do you just claim to know the minds of all chinese americans?

By: JG

JG — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 14:26:00 +0000

Fake, tacky and offensive to most Chinese Americans. Surprised BB would pick-up such a silly item.

By: Yacko

Yacko — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 11:59:00 +0000

No, maybe rarely, but some places mince ingredients so finely you can’t tell what it is in the eggroll. For Jews this is sort of a “out-of-sight – out-of-mind” reality, a self-serving dispensation. In a way a sort of Jewish “Christmas wish” so maybe they peripherally celebrate Christmas anyway.

By: Eric Rucker

Eric Rucker — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 10:30:00 +0000

@boingboing-c4320aef7922b7d8aea30d7237552a24:disqus Wow.

(Also, it appears to be using “Lee” as a keyword on whatever their data source is – it picked up a couple of Lee’s Famous Recipe Chicken (FWIW, the famous recipe includes E. coli as a secret ingredient, or so it seems) locations, which very much are not Chinese food at all.)

By: Dan Zlotnikov

Dan Zlotnikov — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 06:52:00 +0000

It also

By: BombBlastLightingWaltz

BombBlastLightingWaltz — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 04:57:00 +0000

The United Chinese Restaurant Association of America

http://www.ucraa.org/

Read it and weep

You may notice on the website it says, “Find Chinese restaurant near you.”

NOT “Find ‘A’ chinese restaurant near you.”

Find points on english grammatical usage, of which I am sure I fail at.

By: benher

benher — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 03:54:00 +0000

Isn’t this basically the reason Indy almost falls to his death in The Last Crusade?

By: mongo

mongo — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 02:55:00 +0000

You don’t joke with a committee of the Congress of the United States of America!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDXnsZWy_es

By: Roy Trumbull

Roy Trumbull — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 01:44:00 +0000

Joke or no dim sum on Xmas is a tradition for those not hung up on dietary laws. In San Francisco there is Kosher Comedy on Xmas eve served up with a Chinese dinner.

By: Kévin KAN

Kévin KAN — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 00:51:00 +0000

Well, I used “stroke” for lack of a better word. I know quite a few Chinese people (includes very close relatives…) and that’s my feeling about it, surely it’s not science nor absolute.

That said, what I found most striking was that it sounded like a non-Chinese joke. Even if you haven’t invented it, takes a great deal of self-deprecating humour to write that. Which is great. I’d go to that restaurant just for that.

By: penguinchris

penguinchris — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 00:30:00 +0000

I know it’s already been revealed as a joke, but I find your handwriting analysis a little strange. Sure, when writing Chinese characters Chinese handwriting is in strokes, but when writing in English?

I’ve known a few Asian people (actually from Asia, not born in the US to Asian parents) in my time and none of them had particularly stroke-y handwriting. In fact at least one has handwriting very similar to this.

And as zarray said, if this is really on a Chinese restaurant window it’s likely that a young employee wrote it and not the elder owners.

By: Warren_Terra

Warren_Terra — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 00:06:00 +0000

It was obviously a joke (I doubt there is a “Chinese Restaurant Association of the United States”, and if there were such an association it would never risk offense by talking about some group’s god). The grammatical error caused me to hope it was a sincere joke, though, at a real restaurant – because otherwise it looks like someone trying to mimic imperfect English, which is always dangerous territory. You’ll note that the grammatical error is not present in the original at Jay Levitt’s link.

By: Warren_Terra

Warren_Terra — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 00:02:00 +0000

Conceptually related rant, on the lost tradition of Jews enjoying unnaturally empty movie theaters on Christmas day. I rather enjoyed (and certainly empathized with) the rant. Warning: some strong language, if the URL didn't clue you in.

By: Kévin KAN

Kévin KAN — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Nope, it’s the handwriting I was describing, not the quality of the jpeg. And you’re being a little dismissive…

After rereading @openid-117273:disqus’s link more carefully, plus a quick search, turns out this was indeed a joke, originally by David Mamet. So I was taking this too seriously.

By: Antinous / Moderator

Antinous / Moderator — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 23:44:00 +0000

The handwriting is just handwriting. And it’s wobbly because it’s a somewhat degraded jpg.

By: zarray

zarray — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 23:19:00 +0000

They could of had one of the kids write it.

By: Kévin KAN

Kévin KAN — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 23:03:00 +0000

I found that funny, but I’m not sure what to think of this. The writing does not look Chinese at all (Chinese handwriting is all in strokes, this one’s all wobbly), and same for the link Jay Levitt posted. The characters on that one are so obviously mock Chinese.

Am I taking this all too seriously?

By: lecti

lecti — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 23:02:00 +0000

Chinese restaurants are “godsend” for the starving singles across the nation during the holidays.

By: Michael Eisen

Michael Eisen — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 22:59:00 +0000

Too bad the thing starts to the right of the “jcompletely” moves back to the far right of the line, goes till the “jcompletely” then moves down to the 2nd line. It hurts my head

By: ffabian

ffabian — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 22:42:00 +0000

Chinese restaurants use kosher meat in their dishes?

By: jaylevitt

jaylevitt — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 22:05:00 +0000

Here’s the original: http://www.tabletmag.com/scroll/54112/a-very-special-message/

By: BombBlastLightingWaltz

BombBlastLightingWaltz — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 21:59:00 +0000

Here is the sign “Translator’d” into Hebrew.

תודה שלנו לעם היהודי. אנחנו לא jcompletely מבין תזותי שלכם המכס. אנו גאים, מודה אלהיכם מתעקשת אתם אוכלים המזון שלנו בחג המולד.

Here it is translator’d back into english

Our thanks to the Jewish people. We are not jcompletely understand your dietary customs. We are proud, thank your God insists you eat our food supply on Christmas.

Using http://www.freetranslation.com/

Not bad!!

By: Matthew Wong

Matthew Wong — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 21:25:00 +0000

Merry “Chinese Food Day” Cory.