Early in Oct. of 2005 when I first arrived in Australia I noticed lots of sigh English, some of which looked strange to me, although my career in English had passed three decades plus. Occasionally, I made some notes and tried to probe into their meaning. When we came back to China, Beijing began to get prepared for the 29th Summer Olympic Games, which would be held in 2008. People began to correct the incorrect English signs everywhere of Beijing. Shanghai would hold the World Expo in 2010, where varieties of wrong English signs began to be diminished. I got the idea that the English signs everywhere in China should be corrected with the quick pace of opening to the outside world. Large areas and different trades would make the job quite difficult. Sign English is a kind of applied English, having its own idioms and patterns. Those who know some English are not sure to translate them, very likely to make mistakes. Therefore, I was determined to take advantage of having chances to go abroad to English-speaking countries, gathering original English labels and classifying them, in hopes of forming a tool book for the users to look up.
Book of Sign English
On May 18, of 2008, Meilan Zhang and I entered the Australian land for the second time and spend one year there, looking after our grandson, Wuyang Song (Peter Song). I began to collect English sigs by copying, taking photos and searching online and tried classifying them.
We came back to China in May of 2009 and I found some documents on sign English issued by some provinces and municipal cities. I got touch with Editor Mr. Shunjia Lei of China Water Publishing House(CWPH), who used to work in the High Education Press (HEP). We have known each other for years, but never seen each other. He had considerable interest in this subject and was willing to help to publish it. On 25th, Nov. of 2009, the Publishing House signed a note about writing this book to me. I decided beforehand that I would complete the book after I collected sign English in the US. Accordingly, I asked the House to require me to finish writing the script by the end of June of 2010. In order to gather more samples of sign English I decided to travel to Canada so that I could compare the samples of sign English collected from three major English speaking countries. When we got the visa from the American Consulate we applied for visa of Canada. The Canadian Embassy approved our visa very quickly.
On 25, April of 2010, we left Xuzhou for Beijing and took off in an airplane of United Airline, which flew 11,005 km, 900 km per hour, with the height 10,668 m. The outside lowest temperature is minus 580 C. When the plane passed the Bering Strait, we saw white plain of glaciers. Alaska appeared a lot of snow mountains and the plain had pieces of white color, which should be iced lakes. We arrived at O’hare Airport of Chicago 5 pm of April 25 CST (Central Standard Time) of America and began to live with Liangliang and Leilei for four months.
In order to finish collecting American and Canadian samples of sign English we began our journey to the east of America and Canada. May 15, 2010, we first arrived at Buffalo and stayed in a town close to Niagara Fall, which comes from Lake Erie and falls directly to the Ontario River, which flows to Ontario Lake. The Fall is on the American side and across the Ontario River is the Fall City of Canada. That evening we stood very close to the Fall and experienced its grand appearance.
The second day (namely 16th, Sunday), we crossed the border and got to Canada. We entered the cruise boat of “the maid of the mist”, which was driven into the below of the Fall. The Niagara Fall produced large amount of water gases, which rose very high in the sky. The sound of the Fall made you deaf and it was so powerful that we could not speak to each other. At noon, we got to the famous city of Toronto, and climbed up to the top of the National TV Tower, called No. One Tower in the world, where we saw the whole city in our eyes. In the afternoon we saw Xin Wang and Shasha in one of China Towns of Toronto. Xin Wang used to be a young teacher of Xuzhou Financial School, studied in Australia and then immigrated here.
The third day morning (17th of May, Monday), we started off for the capital city, Ottawa, where we saw Parliament Hill. 9.00 a.m. we cruised, getting to the east end of Lake Ontario, St. Lawrence river, where there were a lot of isles, called thousands of isles. The charming beauty of the landscape attracted us. That afternoon we arrived at the City of Montreal and slept in Quebec at night.
Parliament Hill of Canada
Thousands of isles on St. Lawrence River
On the fourth day (May 18th, Tuesday), we visited The Royal 22e Régiment museum and then advanced toward the US, arriving at Boston in the evening. After supper in a small Chinese Restaurant, we met Hui Liu in the hotel, who used to be a young female English teacher in Pengda and came to America, accompanying her husband studying in the State of Wisconsin, which had been narrated in Section 44. Now her family were living in Boston and she was employed in a local college. It was 19 years ago that we saw in Xuzhou in my home, which had an important influence on the development of Liangliang Song, who began to study in the senior grade in Xuzhou First Middle School. Hui Liu didn’t leave the hotel until late in the night, talking with us about various items.
The fifth day (May 19th, Wednesday) saw us riding on a cruise ship, looking around the Boston Gulf. It was pity that the weather didn’t help. It was foggy and we could not see very far. That afternoon we arrived in New York and the next day we toured also in a cruise ship around the island of Manhattan, looking at the charm of the Statue of Liberty. We climbed the 102-floor Empire State Buiding and arrived at the 85th floor. We saw a lot of high buildings just like forests.
s
a lot of high buildings
While the tour bus was moving in the street, we saw the site of the World Trade Center destroyed in 2001 during the September 11 attacks. We came to United Nations headquarters, got off the bus and took photos in its front. The tour bus passed the Wall Street, but we were not allowed to get off. That evening we lived in Danville Inn of Pennsylvania and the next day (May 21, Friday) we started off at 8 am and arrived in Chicago in the evening.
There were 40 days left before I had to contribute the script of Sigh English to the publishing house. During our journey in the eastern America and Canada I wrote down or took photos of sign English in addition to enjoying the beautiful views. Even in the bus I paid attention to the index tags standing on both sides of the road, trying to find some particular label. I was very busy, neatening, classifying, writing and seeking an appropriate form or model for each chapter. The end of June was drawing and I was not sure that I could finish it on time, so that I wrote to Shunjia Lei, the editor, asking to give me some more days. Finally, I sent all the scripts on July 5th.
Completely relaxed, I began to review our journey, coordinate and deal with our photos.
Calling back the moment when we visited the earthshaking Niagara Falls, we saw a place just like a photo studio before entering the cruise boat. All of us were asked to take a photo with a smile on face. We were bewildered and didn’t know why it happened to us. When we came back from the cruise boat “maid of the mist” and about to go out, we discovered the secret. A white girl asked us to see a photo of us with the Falls as background. “Transplanting a flower to a tree”, we finally understood. The photo was somewhat attracting and its price was 25 dollars and bargain was not allowed. We resisted the temptation and it occurred to me that I could also do the transplanting job. So I took photos of beautiful buildings and mountains and waters and got ready to transplant our images to make them as the background.
I asked Liangliang what kind of program could be used to transplant images onto other photos, and he told me it should be “Photoshop”. He copied the program from Lei’s computer and installed it in mine. I had an initial feeling of using the lasso tool to cut out the images, which was not an easy job. The tool was not obedient and I was busy dealing with sign English. The lessons online could not operate smoothly so I stopped learning.
After July 5, I had a lot of time and tried to search for an appropriate version of Photoshop and found corresponding lessons online. The version was Photoshop CS4 and I had to find the use of the lasso tool and designed appropriate parameters. Finally, I succeeded cutting out our images and pasted on the photos of the landscapes taken during our journey in the eastern America and Canada. I had a sense of accomplishment. Look at them below:
Niagara Falls
United Nations Building
Lake Ontario, St. Lawrence river
Love Island of Thousands of Isles
Empire State Building in New York
The background of the last one was 102-floor Empire State Building in New York. We climbed to the 86th floor and overlooked skyscrapers like forests. The photo was downloaded from online and I transplanted our image onto it.
Jan. 25 of 2012 in Chicago
Proofreading on May 8 in Xuzhou
Second proofreading on Jan 3 2019 in Fenghuayuan
Uploading on Aug. 8 2023 in Xuzhou
