Monday, July 26, 2010

Street Scenes IX: Signs & Symbols Quiz

My blogger friend Jo-Anna put up a terrific post a few days ago: Korean Signs You Should Recognize: Quiz! She took pictures of business signs you will commonly see in Korea, written in hangeul, and posted them as a quiz. Go take her quiz now, then come back here.

This is such a cool idea, I couldn't help stealing it from her! But with a little twist--my signs are all symbols, not usually words, that you will see in Seoul or Korea--but not elsewhere. The toilet symbol, the Metro symbol--things like that are pretty universal, the ones below are largely unique to Korea.

1:

2:

3:

4:

5:

6:

7:

8:

9:

10:

11:

12:


While you ruminate, listen to a little appropriate music, from the Five Man Electric Band:


Answers are on the comments page.

11 comments:

Tuttle said...

1: Seoul city government logo
2: Police department
3: fallout shelter
4: Korean Postal Service
5: Korea Express
6: T-Money, the public transit system card--wherever you see this sign, you can recharge your card, or use it as a debit card
7: T world--SK's retail phone arm
8: Shoe repair--little sheds where your shoes are polished or repaired
9: A string of colored balls, horizontal or vertical, signifies a billiard hall on the premises
10: Hyundai, the car people
11: E-Mart, the department store
12: The lotus flower symbolizes that some entity has certified this as an excellent restaurant

Chris said...

i made 100% on joanna's quiz, but only 80% on yours!

Chris in South Korea said...

Definitely a bit harder - 10/12. Nice post - perhaps I'll do better at the second round (hint hint)

Andrew Lasher said...

Not to nitpick, but #5 isn't just Korea Express. It is a whole group of companies, including Asiana Airlines. I don't know exactly what it is but I have seen it used for construction companies also.

Andrew Lasher said...

It's the Kumho Asiana group.

Tuttle said...

Thanks to all players so far who have commented. The Stumbler--80% of 12 is 9.6 correct answers, should we round up? CISK, thanks for the suggestion--we'll see, eh? And, well-done! Drew, it is so nitpicking, since the symbol represents Korea Express--check out www.korex.co.kr. But to be fair, any quiz-taker who put "Kumho Asiana group", you can now mark that response correct. (I cannot change previously published comments, including my own.) Happy?

So, Drew, you never told us your score...

Anonymous said...

Steve,
It's in English.

Tuttle said...

Hi, Anon:

No idea what you mean, there. More info, please.

조안나 said...

Nice one. I didn't get 1, 3 or 8. I know I've seen that number 3 around but never gave much thought to it! Good to know... juuussst in case....

I'm gona work on one or two more quizzes just for fun :-)

Andrew Lasher said...

Since you complain about my nitpicking, allow me to further nitpick. Picture one isn't Seoul city goverment. The Seoul city government logo is the blue man looking thing with the red dot head (see here: http://www.connectedurbandevelopment.org/cities/seoul).

The image you got is the Gangseo Ward Government logo.

Tuttle said...

Andrew, late entries are not accepted, sorry.

Also, I have noticed that where I always see this logo, 서울 always seems to be followed by 강서구. Still, I believe it is a Seoul city logo, since GSG is in Seoul. There are dozens of city logos, from Hi Seoul, to the blue arm-waving guy to various transportation logos, etc.

Have I mentioned how much I hate you lately?