08 March 2010

Language on Clothes


This woman is a Kelabit, living in the village of Pa' Ukat in the Bario region, and she is pounding rice in the traditional method. (Actually, they have machinery in the village to do this, but maybe she prefers the traditional method; or perhaps it is too expensive to use the machinery.)

She speaks no English, and I am pretty sure she does not know what Planet Hollywood is; but that doesn't stop her wearing Planet Hollywood clothing. It seems that English is getting everywhere.

On the other hand, maybe it is no different from Westeners wearing t-shirts with Chinese characters on them, even though they often have no idea about the meaning of the characters. We seem to love to adorn our clothing with writing, and sometimes not knowing what it means seems to add to the charm!