Since the earthquake Japan has been awash with slogans of maintaining spirits, doing one's best, persevering cheerfully in adversity. "ganbarou" "genki ni"
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| Ganbarou Nippon - perserve / do your best Japan! |
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| Never mind the fine print ... English is just a decoration anyway... |
A pachinko parlour I went past in Tobu Nerima the other day has
maintained the message - with a twist... A rising sun on the door with a cheering message:
Let's invigorate Japan through pachinko!!
4 comments:
This was the perfect way to start a day: with a chuckle. ^^
PS: Actually, ne, that "play for Japan" is incredibly clever. Word play, r/l play, poking fun at holy cows. Or was it unintentional? You never know! That makes it even funnier!
I puzzled about the play pray. The expression "praying for Japan" doesn't really seem to come from a Buddhist / Shinto tradition.
I'm not sure if it was intentional or not. At first I thought it was a mistake, then thought it might have been an advertisement for a soccer game or something( rising sun - soccer ball - same same... ) and then I just decided on the default - English as decoration :)
Not as bad as the carton when I was in China labelled in clear English MILK. I bought (at reasonable expense) and used to make chocolate milk for students (with precious chocolate brought from Aus).... It was drinking yoghurt!! The students couldn't drink it at all... very disappointed...
"Pray for Japan" was a common meme after the big quake. Not sure of its origin, but probably Western? So "play for Japan" could be poking fun at ... ah ... I dunno. Perhaps I'm over-interpreting.
When I was fresh off the boat, I accidentally bought Meiji Bulgarian Drinking Yoghurt because it looked just like the milk carton. Poured it into my coffee with abandon, took a sip and ... eww! So your story made me laugh and brought back a few funny memories! ^^
I wonder if it was western or if it was foreigners in Japan, I doubt it was Japanese - several people I know put it on their facebook.
I wondered if was a joke too - but thought I was over-estimating people's potential to be cynically humorous relative to the possibility of there being an English mistake.
I guess you have seen the twitter maps of the earthquake?
http://www.maproomblog.com/2011/06/twitter-mapping_the_japanese_earthquake.php
Quite amazing - particularly the number going to NZ - huge relative to its size.
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