[teshigahara]

I find it hard to believe that they copied the word for workshop (presumably 工房) convincingly enough that it wasn't obviously written by someone without any understanding of how to actually write the language. It's extremely obvious when someone tries to copy Chinese characters without any understanding of stroke order, stroke pressure, etc. The way that someone would show how a character looks to someone without any knowledge (ie textbook form) and how they would naturally write such a sign is also different. You would be able to tell instantly that a non-native prisoner wrote it.

Actually, signs were also written right-to-left horizontally during that period but it's likely that someone showing them how to write on a piece of paper would have written vertically, so they would probably not even have the knowledge to know the correct order of the text.

[iaseiadit]

If all signs in the prison camp were written right-to-left instead of vertically, they probably would have noted that before creating the sign. Especially considering their lives depended on it.

[teshigahara]

If you can't read the signs how would you know it's right-to-left? You are only seeing two unknown characters, you don't know which comes first. It's not about vertical vs horizontal. It's that someone who speaks English would assume that all of these signs they can't read are written left-to-right, and write the vertical characters they are copying in the wrong order.

[sidewndr46]

It's a prisoner of war camp. All the signs are made by prisoners.

[teshigahara]

It would be much easier for a random Japanese soldier who actually knows the language to just write on the few necessary signs than trying to direct a prisoner to do so, who will probably end up making mistakes and make it almost illegible. This just sounds like a nice explanation but it's unlikely to be the case.

[OJFord]

> obviously written by someone without any understanding of how to actually write the language. It's extremely obvious when someone tries to copy Chinese characters without any understanding of stroke order, stroke pressure, etc.

Or someone who is not a professional wooden sign carver, perhaps? I'm natively familiar with English writing, but if I carved 'workshop' I'm not sure it would look any better than someone imitating me, nor obviously like I'd used correct 'stroke' order.

> You would be able to tell instantly that a non-native prisoner wrote it.

And that might not be suspicious at all anyway?

[simonh]

For handwriting sure, but print characters as for a sign would be easier.

[brazzy]

How would they print a sign?

[eszed]

And yet it worked....

Your knowledge of Japanese orthography gives you an interesting perspective. I'd be fascinated to know, given the obstacles you note, how exactly the prisoners overcame them. Did they have someone in the camp with basic knowledge of Chinese orthography? Did someone know enough to note carefully the way in which the characters were written? Did they keep the paper with the characters on it, and then hand-reproduce the precise structure? Were the guards generally illiterate, and therefore not notice the errors? All of those would be spurs to further research, which your reflexive dismissal of the premise would preclude. An open-minded approach to historical texts usually generates more-interesting questions and answers than a closed one.

[icambron]

An alternative possibility is that many other the signs around the camp were made by prisoners over the normal course of their labor and thus this one did not need to hide its authorship. The deception is in acting like it was always there and was supposed to be, not in pretending its was physically written by an official.

[nxicvyvy]

Or do the guards just not want to speak out of line or question their superiors. Or do the guards all know but don't care because things are being fixed up around the place. Or are all the signs in the camp created by prisoners?

So much is unknown about the situation to make the claims made above.

[bobthepanda]

The camp in this article is located in Changi, in Singapore. Singapore has always had a large Chinese population (it actually was originally in Malaysia upon that country's independence but got kicked out for being too Chinese). It would be surprising if not a single one was familiar with some Chinese writing.

[brazzy]

Did they have someone in the camp with basic knowledge of Chinese orthography?

This is definitely a possibility, but even then...

> Did someone know enough to note carefully the way in which the characters were written? Did they keep the paper with the characters on it, and then hand-reproduce the precise structure?

This would be unlikely to work, because the characters would be written on paper using a pen or pencil, which produces quite different strokes that a brush, which is what you would have to use for a sign. Even if you know how brush strokes should look like, I can't really say how difficult it would be to produce brushwork that credibly looks like what someone would produce who has been doing it all their adult life, if you lack the experience.

[brazzy]

I had the same thought, but as the other responses note, there are many possible explanations.

Yet another one: maybe some of the prisoners actually knew basic Japanese? It would be a very useful skill in their situation, and learning the basics of how to write kanji is not that hard. It wouldn't be calligraphy, but it just needs to look good enough that it might just be sloppy writing.

[solidsnack9000]

What if most of the signs in the camp were already made by the prisoners?