Here’s something I saw at last week’s bazaar but forgot to mention— I’m not familiar with any of these kanji, so I can’t comment on whether the message on these briefs makes any sense… can one of our Japanese-speaking friends fill us in, please?
I’ve been seeing these shirts a lot over the past few weeks— again, I’m not sure if the kanji matches what the English says… and can anyone tell us anything about this team (assuming it’s a team), the Nagoya Dragons?
June 26th, 2007 at 11:15 am
As a Japanese, I’ll try to decode these Turkanese.
戌寅丙亥庚…they are part oriental zodiacal signs to tell time, direction and year in old way.
戌 = Dog, 寅 = Tiger, 丙 = Fire, 亥 = Boar, and 庚 = Metal
To be honest I don’t know why the guy picked those ones.
Nagoya Dragons: There is baseball team called Chunichi Dragons in Japan, and their hometown is Nagoya.
About the Kanji at left top isn’t in Japanese word. Combination of 魚 + left part of 腹 means nothing, but funny.
June 26th, 2007 at 18:52 pm
戌寅丙亥庚
These are parts of the 干支
申:saru as monkey
酉:tori as bird
戌:inu as dog
亥:i as wild boar
子:ne as mouse
丑:usi as cow
寅:tora as tiger
卯:u as rabbit
辰:tatu as dragon
巳:mi as snake
午:uma as horse
未:hituji as sheep
http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/干支
June 28th, 2007 at 18:43 pm
@pfujiki: yeah, it seems odd that the guy picked those to put on underwear that says “Tokyo” at the top.
I thought that Nagoya Dragons kanji might be nonsense, good to know that I was right! Thanks for your translation help.
June 28th, 2007 at 18:44 pm
@Kate: holy cow, do you read Japanese? I didn’t know that about you. Thanks for sending the wiki link; I learned quite a few things from that.
June 30th, 2007 at 12:41 pm
[...] I found another t-shirt in the same style as the Nagoya Dragons one, but this one was from a different vendor, and supports a different team. Is this kanji as nonsensical as the one from last week? And does that team exist? I’ll rely on our friends in Japan to help us out here. [...]
August 9th, 2007 at 17:02 pm
[...] These first two items are of course in the same faux-sports-team series as the previously featured Hanshin Tigers and Nagoya Dragons. The guy who sells these seems to have no end of them— every time I look at his stock he’s got different cities and towns available. Of course, this particular shirt is a bit different in that Nippon is just another word for the country of Japan itself, not any particular city. But what are those kanji about? I know the first one on its own is “fish,” but I don’t know what it means in combination with the other one, and once again I have no idea what any of this has to do with any sport, unless it’s the national fish-wrestling team. [...]
October 19th, 2007 at 08:20 am
Hi,
I love the white Nagoya Dragons kanji t-shirt. Do you know what website I could purchase one?
thanks in advance for any help,
Ray
October 23rd, 2007 at 11:08 am
@Ray - I don’t know a web site, but I’d be happy to look for one at the bazaar on Thursday if you give me an idea of what size you are.