Apparently it is cool, in Japan, to wear clothing with English words on it. Or American icons. Doesn`t matter what is says, or even if you understand it. If you google other blogs of gaijins living in Japan, you can find many humorous examples. http://www.engrish.com/category_index.php?category=Clothing Lots of awkward Engrish with cutesy words like `smile love is happiness`. But we`ve also seen some horrifying/shocking/embarrassing examples of this:
- All junior and senior high students wear uniforms. The girls` uniform sweaters have small embroidered emblems on the chest. Many choose a dolphin, or the Statue of Liberty, or the Playboy Bunny. Huh!?! Apparently the bunny does not have the same cultural connotations here?
- One American told me he saw a toddler girl dressed in a t-shirt that read "F#$& This" with an arrow pointing down. . . He of course pulled the parents aside and told them what the shirt read. The were shocked and very grateful to know, and covered up the child immediately.
- You know that icon often found on the mudflaps of Confederate trucks? The one of two curvy naked ladies sitting back-to-back? Well, you can buy tracksuits with that icon all over it. One of my teachers wore that to work yesterday, much to my amazement. I indicated my surprise to my English teacher/friend, explaining that that emblem is considered both sexual and sexist in America, and certainly inappropriate for school. Things are different here. . .
- A student wore a t-shirt for a band, or maybe a fake band in the style of concert tees. The band was called "The Mothaf#$%&ing Group" with a list of songs such as `I Will Drill Your Heifer` and worse.
- Perhaps worst of all, there are t-shirts that mix languages and colloquialisms so that even fluent speakers of English might be tricked. We saw a high school girl wearing a shirt that said "Esta puta will give you the shirt off her back for $19.95"
It seems that some t-shirts are designed by well-meaning Japanese designers with limited Engrish skills. And surely, some foreigners are designing shirts to fool and insult. Ouch.
1 comment:
Yikes!
This goes both ways, too--I'm thinking of all the English speaking US'ers walking around with tattoos in Chinese or Japanese characters. I've heard horror stories, of course, of people thinking their tattoo said "peace" or "harmony" or the like, and in reality it said something else nasty.
This causes me to pause at the complexities of cultural appropriation.
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