Square Inch Anthropology

These restroom signs I spotted in rural Chongqing municipality made me pause. Reflect for a moment upon what it takes to be a man or a woman in your context, and how that varies between other contexts. True to form, a few questions to start us off: 

On the man: Why the shades? Why the frown? Why the absurdly thick neck? Are these standards locally-grown, or imported? Finally, why could this not be a woman? Is he meant to be foreign?

On the woman: Why the light-colored hair (is she meant to be foreign)? Why could this not be a man?

For both: Could these signs be redrawn to base gender solely on neck size? How would this type of sign look in your context?

Finaly, consider the Chinese character for man: the ideograph for "field" (as in, a field of rice) above the one for "strength". Would those standards still apply today in your context for a man's defining gender characteristics? While they might still apply in some parts of China for some demographics, looking around and talking with people makes me think that cultural standards for manliness have undergone a sea change in the People's Republic in the past few decades. 

Keeping such change in mind, what would a re-drawn character for "man" look like? What two (or three, or four) ideographs would constitute the "new man"? Would "strength" stay in? Would "field" be cut?

A word-for-word translation of "fire extinguisher" in Burmese.

The introduction of a new system which is still evidently unfamiliar/unnatural to visitors, who would be understandably reluctant to push an unmarked button on the gate of this clearly upper-class house with its prominent barrier. The question remains, however, why the message is written in English. The Burmese language has a word for "bell" - is this a suggestion of the cachet of the visitors to the house - "If you can't read the sign and are trying to inquire about occupancy the conventional way, you have no right to be here")? A marker of the high level of education (and English language knowledge) of the owner? A marker of the cultural inspiration for the installation of this bell? 

Street-level ropes connected to bells located within higher-floor apartments ("ring-ropes") fill this role for urban residents, and most village residents in this type of house install metal bells on their gates if the space between their wall and the house is perceived to be greater than the distance that human voice can carry. Unlike the pictured solutions, both of these solutions get around the issue of unreliable electricity.