The latest t-shirt design, inspired by an Economist cover (pictured below):
“Putin” in Chinese is 普京. 知道 means “to know.” If you think it doesn’t make sense, you’re thinking too much. It’s just a t-shirt.
The black t-shirt looks better, but the white t-shirt is a lot cheaper. Blame CafePress.
I’ve been busy writing papers lately, so I haven’t been working on t-shirts much, but there are others in the Sinosplice Shop, of course. Thanks for your support!
That’s just….. scary. I think you’re going to need a Russian version, too, though. That would be something like “Putin znaet”, I think, but it’s been 10 or 11 years since I studied Russian. I’ll see if I can put that in Cyrillic when I’ve had my breakfast… Ah, here we go: Путин знает. But I hope somebody comes along and corrects my Russian before you go putting that on any t-shirts.
August 29th, 2007 at 9:09 amIf you do a Russian version he’ll kill you.
August 29th, 2007 at 11:44 amActually, I think the most appropriate Putin shirt would be no shirt at all.
Make money, John! :)
August 29th, 2007 at 1:31 pmThe article you based it on was a waste of ink. The t-shirt however…I want one. No. I need one.
August 29th, 2007 at 2:44 pmАффтар жжот!
August 29th, 2007 at 3:10 pmDo you really earn any considerable amount of money selling those t-shirts or you only sell them to pay your hosting?
August 29th, 2007 at 4:13 pmKind of like “Bo Knows” back in the day, only…more ominous…
August 29th, 2007 at 4:32 pmchriswaugh,
Nah, I want to keep it in Chinese to preserve the “WTF” factor (or the “subtle link,” however you want to look at it). This website is still pretty consistently China-focused.
August 29th, 2007 at 4:41 pmkmm,
Yeah, there’s a reason it’s not blatantly negative… :)
August 29th, 2007 at 4:42 pmCarl,
I didn’t actually read the article yet… but glad you like the shirt!
August 29th, 2007 at 4:43 pmDmitry,
благодарю!
As for your question… neither. I just do it because I enjoy it. CafePress premium hosting isn’t free, and at the moment I’m covering that (my profit margins per shirt are also quite low). I do it because I enjoy it, and I’m satisfied with the results for now.
August 29th, 2007 at 4:44 pmYou should make one with a cat on the front that says: 猫都知道
Or a shirt with Deng Xiaoping carrying grocery bags that says: Done Shopping!
August 29th, 2007 at 5:10 pmJohn, I love your t-shirts… Can’t help but laugh out loud whenever i click on your cafe press shop.
August 31st, 2007 at 9:25 amHuh, can I give some unsolicited advice?
First, as a Chinese resident it’s hard to get things off Cafepress. I’m 99% sure I’ve seen Chinese versions of cafepress - maybe it’s worth putting your shirts up on there?
Also, if there’s going to be a lot of these shirt designs, maybe instead of being posted on “life,” there should be a separate “shirts” heading, next to home china language photos life
August 31st, 2007 at 10:38 amhow about 如果不被允许, 我就不能转世
September 3rd, 2007 at 11:36 amYou will know you are successful when you start to see pirated versions of your T-shirts for sale at local grocery stores.
September 5th, 2007 at 10:51 pmHey John, what about a T-shirt with the slogan “对不起，你被和谐了！“ perhaps with a borg face or cubus as the picture?
Cheers
September 9th, 2007 at 10:10 amups that Chinese doesn’t look nice.
September 9th, 2007 at 10:11 amLike the T-shirt Zola was wearing at barCamp on Saturday: 操GFW 下载TOR
September 10th, 2007 at 5:14 amhehe
I once got a 普京知道 as an equivalent to “Who knows?!” in a sms conversation. After the shock/laughter it had me wondering if there was anything to it. I think not. But the joke is definitely Chinese!
September 11th, 2007 at 2:21 pm