Tuesday, December 07, 2004

Botched Female, Dog, Tiger



From reader "Jan I.":

"The picture is just a random encounter during a shopping afternoon - a cap with some random looking letters .. I wonder if they carry any meaning at all? Cheers."

The first character looks like a botched "female".

= female, woman, girl; feminine

The second one can be either "dog" or "to protect" depends on it is a dot or stroke in the center.

= eleventh sign of Chinese zodiac (The Dog, 7pm-9pm, west-northwest, September)

= defend borders, guard frontiers

The last one is correct and it means "tiger"

= third sign of Chinese zodiac (The Tiger, 3am-5am, east-northeast, January); to respect, reverence; respectfully

5 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I always wonder what the characters on the random choinoiserie/japonesque items I buy mean. I've decided that they should say "stupid american buy this!" or something to that effect. Unfortunately they are most likely nothing at all *sigh*.

2:41 PM  
Blogger adland said...

I actually had a t-shirt once that a japanese friend (whom I trust) bought for me. He was happy to inform me that he got it in new york and that it read "I am a stupid gajin". I wore it with pride. ;)

3:52 PM  
Blogger tian said...

馬鹿外人?

sweet.

馬 = horse
鹿 = deer
外 = outside, foreign
人 = person

4:37 PM  
Blogger Terry Tolleson said...

I have been enjoying this site for some time now and felt I could possibly lend a comment to this particular "design".

Perhaps it is trying to say, "Bitch Kitty".

A female dog is a bitch. Nothing crazy there. Perhaps there is an actual kanji for Bitch, but I wouldn't know what it is. As for the "Kitty" part, that's a bit of a stretch from Tiger, but a tiger is a cat and almost all female cats are referred to as kitties. There are a lot of uses for Bitch Kitty from band names, car decals, cartoon characters, etc. Just a thought.

1:44 PM  
Anonymous G. Val Hart said...

Probably tried to say "Tiger Bitch"

...though, admittedly, I have no idea why...

9:39 AM  

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