A VERY intimidating sign (guffaw, guffaw)
I went to the video store to rent a DVD yesterday - at the main entrance of the store there was a box for DVD returns (this particular store does not carry videos, only DVDs). This sign was posted on the box. It says, "SECOM - !!WORNING!!! Secunity System is Now Working" The sign loses all effectiveness because of those silly typos. You would think such a well-known company could afford some English proofreaders. Maybe I should call them and offer my services. Ha ha. If you don't already know, SECOM is the Japanese equivalent to ADT here. What really miffs me is that there are only THREE kanji (Chinese characters used in Japanese), which gives this sign the subtle implication that an English-reading foreigner is more likely to commit DVD theft??? It is true that foreigner-committed crime is on the rise but there is no reason to target them unjustly. Koreans and Chinese immigrants have a bad rap here because of the crime statistics. This doesn't help the genius Chinese researcher who comes here to do decent work and research. Nor does it help people like me, Chinese-North Americans. By the way, I found out the 3 characters mean, "surveillance in progress" - so perhaps it has the same nuance as what is written in English but just more succint. Maybe it's not as prejudiced as I thought...

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