By Vurdlak on July 28, 2009, with 110 Comments
Chinese Sign Optical Illusion
As I have promised yesterday, new day – new optical illusion! Can you read this Chinese sign on your left? Sure you can! A little self-confidence and some flexing of the muscles in your neck, should do the trick. No additional hints further!
I took some time and added “Symbol” tag to some previous optical illusions that in their nature are similar to this one. If you follow the link, you may find few more “Chinese” illusions there. This should help you further identify the optical illusion used in this sample.
If you didn’t notice, the title of this post contains “Part II” – You guessed, there is Part I as well.
BTW I’ve heard some positive suggestions from you guys. For example: how I should disable the picture from showing its filename, or disable the tags below each post (sometimes they spoil the puzzle). As eager I may be to do that, I’m still not sure if this would be possible. Sure, its easy to remove the tags or simply name the image “xgzgf” or something, but all these tags are necessary for SEO (Google search engine). Seems I’ll have to find another way of masking those…
(33 votes)
For everyone who is wondering what the actual characters are, it says “zhong guo” or China (literally “middle country”)
I’m Chinese and the words are pronounced zhong(1) guo(2), which means “China”, but literally meaning “centre country”. It was a little weird because this word “国” doesn’t have the letter “N”. Good effort though.
My neighbor/Friend Japanese and has some knowledge of Chinese she says it wrote badly on purpose to accommodate for C H I N A been seen in English, Is this true?
cool it’s 中国 or middle country, cuz they in the middle of their world.
oh, it’s mandarin chinese word for china.
dudes who think tht’s not a chinese character:
it is!!! it’s china, in madarin…oh and if u think the guo is rong…tht’s cuz its simplified! nobody uses traditional anymore(well, actually lots of ppl still do…let’s just say i’m rite!)
who cant read that you just tilt your head to the left and it says china
lame
thats cool you just tilt your haed to the left
and it says China
poke Anonymous A.: traditional Chinese FTW~!!!!!!!!! traditional is so much prettier and meaningful~~ I refuse to be assimilated! HK + Taiwan still uses traditional =)
I’m genetically Chinese, born + raised in Hong Kong, then went to a church filled with people from mainland China who use simplified Chinese… I can attest that, read vertically right side up, that is in fact simplified Chinese saying “China”, with a funny squiggle on top of the 2nd character to accommodate for the N =)
took me so long to see this one because I thought it was just “artistic” Chinese =P But nicely done ^___^
like Emma said and very right, reads in both ways China, top character Zhong(centre) and the bottom one guo(country)but not really sure if it’s that correct and that translates to China..
keep up!! :D
Geez, this is chinese. Seriously. it says china up and down as well as side to side
turn your head it side ways it says china in chinese and english
got it lol
@ duhh
You are right, that is how to write “china” in Mandarin, but when you look at your comment sideways, (to the left) you see something similar to the picture. The illusion is modified so it would say “china” sideways, as well. Everyone who says It’s Mandarin for “china” is right…
@ Sam, yes that is true.
China .
if u dont see it-see a doctor
The cool thing is, it’s China in English, and in Mandarin!
There is no way that this album says China. You don’t tilt your head, nor do you read the white part, you have to adjust your eyes to see the black part, the white parts are the spaces as in when you write bubble letters, theres always blank spots. If you squint your eyes it is easier. Took me 1.5 minutes to see the word. It says: Oceansize
Nice, it reads China and 中国 (China)
CHINA!
It makes so much sense after you tilt your head to the left!
no duh
ookay…i don’t get it. all i can see is hina. …wait…CHINA?
It indeed says 中 国 so it literally easier to learn chinese <:)
China Lol
I like it! Oh and even though almost everyone else said it it says China it may be hard at first but it is eeasy after a while.
Just tilt your head 90 degrees and you can read CHINA
That’s creepy. Zhong(1) guo(2) means China and when you tilt ur head ninety degrees to the left you can read China. I’m living in HK so I know a few things about Chinese characters. Awesome!!
I learn the traditional chareacters in Hong Kong because they still use them. But at school they teach us both simplified and traditional. Confusing…