Upside Down Dictionary by W. Eberhard

I saw this book in Barnes & Noble's foreign language section.

The author calls it a “dictionary”; I would call it a “Chinese Gibberish Complication Guide for Idiots”. The only Chinese character on its cover is “book” (書，or simplified version: 书) is indeed upside down! This is a truly pathetic attempt by the pubisher to squeeze another $27.95 from the dumb and stupid. Now I know where the tattoo artists get their “hanzi” (汉字) from.

Note: Wolfram Eberhard was one of the early greats of China scholarship...was, as in he died in 1989. The author of 35 books who ended his career with a nearly three-decade run on the faculty of U Cal-Berkeley, A DICTIONARY OF CHINESE SYMBOLS was his last work. (thanks to an Anonymous, aka Chengdude, comment posted here)

The Beginning

I have been a fan of the website, Engrish, for years. To my surprise, there is virtually no website existent for pointing out the faults in Westerners’ interest of Eastern culture, especially the usage of Hanzi (漢字), Chinese characters.

As a Chinese-American（美籍华人）, I felt it was necessary to educate the public about the misusage of Chinese characters, Hanzi（漢字）.

The idea came to me after I went to Gallup, New Mexico with my friend Matt in June 2004. During our road trip, we came across a Mitsubishi（三菱）Mirage with Hanzi stickers on it.

It was nothing new, since most owners of Japanese modified cars like to put on some decorative stickers on their vehicles. What was interesting is that the owner of this particular "Mirage（海市蜃楼）" has put on stickers of “Prelude（披露）” on his Mitsubishi（三菱）, yet Prelude was made by Honda (本田） Motors.

(thanks to Vaara to point out the correct spelling of "Gallup", instead of "Gallop" which I originally had.)

Please feel free to email me with your Hanzi findings.