Wait, the sun actually does that out there? I always just thought it was pro-Japanese propaganda in the cartoons when they showed the sun with the rays shining out like that. Awesome.
Ha! Actually, they still have the occasional "Empire of the Sun" flags around. I saw one on that very same beach! But despite all of this obvious stuff, I still thought their word for Japan, "Nihon," meant "two books." I guess homonyms don't fly with kanji. ;)
I learned an interesting bit of Japanese wordplay just recently. Okami, the awesome PS2 game where you play the Shinto sun goddess Ameterasu in the form of a great white wolf, is full of it.
The word "Okami" means wolf. But "kami" means nature spirit/god, so the homonym "O Kami" means great god. Also, the characters used to make the word Okami are also used to make Ameterasu's full name. Of course, none of this matters at all in English. But still, it was kind of a cool bit of wordplay.
Wait, the sun actually does that out there? I always just thought it was pro-Japanese propaganda in the cartoons when they showed the sun with the rays shining out like that. Awesome.
ReplyDeleteHa! Actually, they still have the occasional "Empire of the Sun" flags around. I saw one on that very same beach! But despite all of this obvious stuff, I still thought their word for Japan, "Nihon," meant "two books." I guess homonyms don't fly with kanji. ;)
ReplyDeleteI learned an interesting bit of Japanese wordplay just recently. Okami, the awesome PS2 game where you play the Shinto sun goddess Ameterasu in the form of a great white wolf, is full of it.
ReplyDeleteThe word "Okami" means wolf. But "kami" means nature spirit/god, so the homonym "O Kami" means great god. Also, the characters used to make the word Okami are also used to make Ameterasu's full name. Of course, none of this matters at all in English. But still, it was kind of a cool bit of wordplay.