I am always amused by Chinese signs that mix traditional and simplified characters together. Obviously, in modern China they should never be mixed, writing should be standardized. There is even a committee to watch out for character irregularities in public spaces. Nevertheless, there are plenty of such examples, I am listing a few of them below.


This is a street sign in Dali, Yunnan province, advertising a family business which is a hotel, a barbershop and a bath. There are number of interesting things on this board, including the characters 館 and 照 both of which are today non-standard character variants. Most of the characters are traditional but 間 and 準 are simplified. In fact, 間 appears in the same row twice, once as fantizi and once as jiantizi.


This is a sign advertising mobile phone cards. You can see that the characters 動, 眾 and 終 are simplified, whereas 國, 無 and 費.


A good luck sign, written in gold on a red background. 進 is simplified but 寶 and 財 are not.


This is a warning that you should use the safety rail on the cable car.


This is just a good wish board.



A store sign for alcohol and tobacco. 煙 and 昇 are traditional, 東 is simplified.


Watch out for hygiene!


A hotel sign mixing fantizi and jiantizi.


A no parking sign.


This is the sign of the celebrated Donglai Shun restaurant in Beijing, famous for its dumplings. I am a little ambivalent about including it here because the simplified characters could simply be considered a calligraphic feature. What do you think?


This is a parking lot sign. Pay attention also to the variant forms of the simplified 點, consisting of a 占 and 大.