hey everybody
Ok, heres the deal! I have this tshirt that Ive worn for about a year now, that has some kind of Asian charachters on it. With my limited knowledge of Japanese hirigana and katakana, my skills arent enough to work out what it says.

However, it is only now that Im going to Japan soon that I need to know what it says! e.g if it says I hate Japan, kill all Japanese needless to say I wont be wearing it over there!

Anyway, heres the image :

http://www.daveyheats.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/tshirt.JPG

any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks again!

Superficially it's completely innocuous, by which I mean that the Chinese characters translate as:

Five, six, seven, nine (then five in a circle); water, gold, male, female.

Over to Florence or one of the other Japan experts for whether there are hidden overtones for the Japanese, but I'd say this is probably simply an ad for the brand of clothing for men and women (called Mizu-something?) Are the characters on the label similar?

Peter N-H
http://members.axion.net/~pnh/China.html

Bonjour Davey,

I tend to agree with Peter. However, I can tell you from experience that it's better not to wear anything with Japaneses character, as it will elicit comments of "baka gaijin" (stupid foreigner), especially with the children (but you can always scare them away by asking "why do you say that" - "sonna koto, doshite ?&quot.

You can however wear almost anything in English or French, and be ready to be quite surprised by some of the shirts you'll see people wearing (like a 30something lady with a baby in a pram proudly wearing "F...k housework!&quot

Hi Davey,
I agree with Peter NH. The kanjis on your T-shirt are exactly as he described(5,6,7?c). Nothing offensive. I would not hesitate to wear it in Japan. Actually it looks a pretty cool T-shirt to me, with apparently meaningless combination of characters though. However, as he rightly said, there may be some hidden meaning, pun or publicity related that a Japanese away from his home country since years doesn?ft see. I have sent the urls to a couple of friends in Tokyo for fun. I will post again if I receive any enlightening comment.

OK, here's a VERY far stretch - "nine" is pronounced the same as "dog" in Cantonese, and "Dog(gish) man and woman" means an indecent couple in Chinese.

The T-shirt probably doesn't intend to mean the above, but the above is what *might* come into people's minds if you weat the T-shirt in Hong Kong. I wouldn't say it's offensive though, as people are likely to just think of it as a fun T-shirt. (But I tend to think the same as what Florence has described.)

Bonjour Kite,

One thing you have to be cautious when dealing with an apparently innocent combination of characters is that the Japanese will often use them for their pronunciation or their pun value.

For example, a shop owner will try to get a phone number with "lucky", and avoiding "unlucky" (4, 9), numbers in a combination that will sound like name of the business when read in a certain way.

Less innocent arrangements can easily be imagined ;->

OK, I got two replies from Japanese friends in Tokyo. Both see nothing offensive nor any hidden meaning. Looks like you will have no problem wearing this shirt in Japan.

Katkat, interesting point, strech maybe but from a Chinese point of view. I still suspect there is some hidden meaning (or not hidden at all for the Chinese) in this conbination of characters which is not understood in Japanese.

Florence, as I hinted "..that a Japanese away from his home country since years doesn't see..", maybe not clearly enough, I am a Japanese and from the point of view of a Japanese, there is nothing wrong with what's printed on this T shirt;-)

Kite,

shame on me ... ;-)

Florence I meant no offence, just in case.

Davey, please do wear this shirt in Japan and report if anybody shouted or laughed at you. We would be very curious to know if you get any funny experinece because of this T-shirt. I sort of hope you will.

Hi again,

Being curious, I asked to a Chinese friend from Shanghai.

He says the same;literally meaning the same as in Japanese and he finds no more than that nor he sees why this combination of characters. I aleady tried to read it horizontally(5,6,7,9.. why there is no 8 ?) or vertically (5 waters, 6 golds, 7 men, 9 women, somehow sounds meaningful) but found no connections within. Must be absolute non-sense (OR I'm not clever enough to see the hidden meanings).

Anyway it seems like you could wear it even in China without offending local people.