This encapsulates my experience of living/traveling in Japan as well. I used to love getting hold of Japanese stickers because they were so often completely divorced, symbol-wise, from any context-specificity that might’ve come with those same symbols in a western country.
English words were often used in the same…art-context–the meaning of the English words used had nothing to to with the thing being labeled or titled. The specific reasons for this are lost to me, but it’s something I noticed as well.
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