For Sale In Japan: Interesting Shirts
As we’ve said before on this blog, American things, and the English language, are cool to young people in Japan. It’s often been asked: “Do Japanese kids get tattoos of random English words without actually knowing what they mean, just like American kids do with Japanese characters?” The short answer is “kind of.” They don’t get tattoos, but you’ll often see items of clothing with random English phrases and references on them, and a lot of the time the wearer of the item of clothing either has no idea what the phrases mean, or thinks they are normal and grammatically correct when they’re way off.
Back in 2017, when I was visiting Japan for the first time in a long while, I asked my future wife to take me to a place where I could buy a shirt with funny mistaken English on it. These sorts of shirts were everywhere back when I lived here in 2007-2008, so I thought it would be easy, but after looking in several shops in Americamura, I learned to my dismay that there aren’t as many as there used to be.
However, after a bit of digging, we found some gold. I’m hesitant to say where we went because I don’t want to get anyone in trouble, but it was a fashionable clothing store in Osaka.
While perusing the racks for something in my size, I came upon the following sweatshirt:
Don’t get mad at me. I just took the picture.
I elected not to make a purchase of this item, a choice I regret.
Some may find this shirt to be amusing. If you do not think it’s funny, and instead consider it to be offensive, well then…. check out this next one:
I don’t think my commentary would add much to this experience.
I also elected not to purchase this one, because I try to avoid getting murdered when possible.
I will say, though, it’s nice to know that Japanese T-shirt designers are keeping up with the news.
Ultimately, I went with this fun Niels Bohr shirt, which shouldn’t offend anyone except people who expect me to know a lot about Niels Bohr:
I understand all of this text completely.
Pretty cool, right? Nobody’s gonna get mad at me for wearing this one!
