Sign

Sign Jokes

Me: *reading a sign* "Children are a gift from god" Me: "No, they are a gift from the underworld"

Mother: "Yeah I picked you up at the giftshop on my way out" Mother: "You are a spawn of Satan"

Nasruddin Hodja was tilling his patch of land when a hunter came riding up.

“Hey, you!" said the man. “Did you see a boar run past?"

“Yes," replied Hodja.

“Which way did it go?" demanded the man.

Hodja pointed in the direction in which the boar had gone.

The man rode away without a word of thanks but he was back within minutes.

“No sign of it!" he said. “Are you sure it went that way?"

“I am certain," replied Hodja. “It went that way. Two years ago."

For centuries, Japan’s feudal dictators, called Shoguns, enforced strict laws that kept people from leaving or entering the country. This practice isolated Japan from the rest of the world. By the middle of the 19th century, Japan’s isolationism was creating problems for the United States’ whaling industry whose ships needed coal, food, and water available in Japanese ports. And sailors who were shipwrecked on the coast of Japan needed protection from mistreatment. In November 1852, President Millard Fillmore sent an expedition to Japan to solve these problems. Led by Commodore Matthew C. Perry, the the expedition had both steam-powered and sail-powered warships and several hundred men. Perry’s task was to persuade the Japanese to sign a treaty with the United States that would open Japanese ports and protect shipwrecked sailors. On July 8, 1853, the Perry expedition sailed into Edo Bay about thirty miles from the city of Edo (modern Tokyo). During talks with the Shogun’s representatives, the idea of a treaty was repeatedly rejected. But Perry didn’t give up. Finally, in February 1854, the Japanese agreed to negotiate a treaty. The Treaty of Kanagawa established peace between the two countries, opened two ports to U.S. shipping, and protected shipwrecked sailors. It was signed on March 31, 1854. Perry’s expedition also opened Japan to the rest of the world. Within two years, Japan signed similar treaties with Russia, Holland, and Britain.