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Traveler's Phrase Book T-shirt

by Justin Glow (RSS feed) on Jul 5th 2007 at 1:12PM


This company is selling an overpriced t-shirt designed to be worn by travelers who are in a country whose inhabitants don't speak their native tongue. The idea is that instead of attempting to communicate with someone who knows where the bathroom is, for instance, you annoyingly point to the international symbol for bathroom on your shirt. Other symbols include hospital, airplane, bedding (for hotel), telephone, restaurant, money exchange, and Internet cafe (or post office, whatever those things are).

This can surely make life on the road in a foreign country easier -- but is that what we want? It seems a bit disrespectful and caveman-like (no offense, Geico guys) to walk around in a foreign country pointing to things on your shirt when you want something instead of taking a few minutes of your time to learn these common phrases in your host's language. [via]

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