T-shirts with strange English on them have a history in Japan, but Tokyo in the new millenium is
noticeably different from Kyoto ca. 1990. It's now common to see T-shirts with perfect English on
them, with choice phrases like "I hate myself and want to die;" I've also seen three young women
in the last few weeks wearing shirts with very graphic (and in one case very detailed) sexual
statements on them, and I'd wager they had no idea what they said--I guess the designers find it
funny, or perhaps titillating. But the biggest double-take I've had was this morning, when I
turned around after buying a train ticket and saw a woman wearing a T-shirt that said simply
"shakuhachi." In gold-lame letters no less :-).
PH
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