IT was in the early 80s that a certain Afolabi Adesanya, fresh from the United States of America, arrived the media terrain armed with cinematic and photographic knowledge. He went around Lagos and environs taking photographs of signs written in localised English. The sign writers produced the words the way the words sounded to their native ears. Those were the days when road side shops sold “meat pile” and Fuckanizers helped mend tyres.
The Column then was aptly labeled as Sign-Righting.
Now, fast forward to 2022, the attraction to reading signs on shop windows in Europe has returned but with a different objective. What, for instance, is the significance of humorously naming a fashion store in Vienna as fat face? However close to the Victoria Coach Station a restaurant is named Happy Face and it goes on to share an excerpt from a Guardian (UK) columnist, Grace Dent.
As you well know, the meaning of a word in one culture is bound to have a very different meaning in another. Take the case of Ole & Steen as a name of a store in Lagos. The question will be who is the thief? The owner or the potential buyer?
There are times when the owners of the shops simply play on words. Therefore, you have an art shop as Amazing Glaze. That should not be difficult to understand where it is coming from. At the Mallorca Airport, there is a place to eat with the name Air Food One, which is definitely a play on America’s Air Force One.
Apart from playing on words, one gets to meet names that are familiar. A little outside Bonn, Germany, there is a building with AWO written in red. Their Awo is not our own sage of Ikenne but what the building stands for appears coterminous with what late Obafemi Awolowo stood for while in life but the agenda of the agency in Germany mirrors that of Obafemi Awolowo…. “In 27 AWO local associations in Bonn and in the Rhein-Sieg district, volunteers work for the social concerns and needs of the local people,” says their website.
When you see Flying Horse on a shop, you are left to wonder what products are on offer. I can offer you what they sell for free if you promise to send me interesting signs in your neck of the wood.
While you are at that take a look at the sign on Beer. At Abegi – the artists parliament in Lagos, the saying was get your ‘Beering Right’. In Vienna the sign says Don’t worry, be Beer happy…..
The Chinese say every journey starts with a step but this store instead enjoins travelers that every good journey begins with good coffee. What a bias? I would vote for a good cup of tea instead.
Finally, in Vienna, Austria someone recreated an AsoRock Cafe Bar lounge. It is located at Rennweg 18, 1030 Vienna, Austria. If in Nigeria, Aso Rock connotes power, in Vienna it is watering hole where the hungry and thirsty go to be reinvigorated.
As you view the signs, make sure you think of what Afolabi Adesanya did many years ago. He brought into our consciousness how the postcolonial subjects struggled with the language of power and status.
Instead of poking fun at language, these photographs point attention to the issues of naming. Why do shop owners choose names like “Fat Face” or “Happy Face” to represent their commercial activities? I understand why a Nigerian in faraway Vienna will feel nostalgic by naming a restaurant Aso Rock, that location of power, politics and …….(dear readers please fill in the gap)
