Saturday, July 22, 2006

Orz to Wikipedia for this one!

"Orz" has been showing up in ads and on billboards for a while now so let's take a look at it. "Orz" for the uninitiated is an emoticon but one that many Westerners may be unfamiliar with.

We give blessing to the Wikipedia for the wisdom we are about to receive:
[It illustrates a person facing left and kneeling on the ground: the "o" symbolizes the head, the "r" represents the arms and the body while the "z" shows the legs. Though people use the pictograph to show that they have failed and/or they are in despair, some people, in Taiwan, use it to show that they laugh a lot so that they kneel down.]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emoticon#Posture_emoticons

It achieved notoriety when it appeared in a question on a college entrance exam in the Chinese ability section.
http://www.taiwan.com.au/Scitech/Internet/Trends/20060306.html
China Post (cached)

Personally, I feel it's more of a bow down, or kowtow, before the god thing. Well, anyhow, it surfaced in Japan circa 2004 so it's good to know that Taiwan is only 2 years behind Asia's premiere diffusor of (useless) culture!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

How's it?
There's 'orz' story.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzwjTDmU6-k

Share IslaFormosa on Facebook

Share

Haven't found what you want?

Google

Total Pageviews

RSS Subscribe Now!