As seen in 帽儿胡同 Mao’er Hutong, near 南锣鼓巷 Nanluoguxiang.
This sign for a bookstore/tea house represents what I like best about Beijing’s–and China as a whole–burgeoning interest in design and language, the way that it cleverly takes both Chinese characters and the English alphabet to create something new.
In the Traditional character for book 書 (书 for those of you following at home in Simplified), the English word “book” replaces the bottom half of the character, while in the second character for tea 茶, the word “tea” fills in. As a language nerd, I find this so very charming and playful.