Tuesday, October 14, 2008   2:31 AM

Die Uni mit der Maus

Dokkyo University Ad, Yoyogi

No German university would be caught dead using a Japanese mascot character to advertise themselves (exception: "Die Hello Kitty Universität Hinter den Sieben Bergen"), but that doesn't stop Dokkyo University using the mouse from the popular German children's TV programme "Die Sendung mit der Maus" (warning: Flash-intensive site which caused the fans on my laptop to rev up) on this permanent advertising panel at Yoyogi Station.

The connection is not entirely random: the first line of text on the billboard says "ドッキョウのドは、ドイツのド" - "the 'do' in 'Dokkyo' is the same as the 'do' in 'Doitsu'", "Doitsu" being the Japanese rendition of "Deutschland", aka Germany. (Note to kanji afficionados: "獨" is the historical form of "独").

Which is a roundabout way of indicating I am heading mousewards later today, so don't expect any CTSNBN score updates for a couple of weeks.


Posted in Life in Japan
Comments
Didn't know about 獨, and I'm a geeky lad, so I enjoyed that, thanks. Went through a period where I studied kanji etymology pretty intensely (started one day when it hit me that 空, sky, is 穴, hole, with a carpenter's square, which I found quite silly and alarming. Makes sense now but...), though I haven't kept up with it so much.

Anyway, good luck with your mouse-related activities.
Posted by: john turningpin | 2008-10-14 02:12
When I google haikuhito, your site comes up. Doshite? Suma
Posted by: Suma | 2008-10-23 01:44
It is because you put the word "haikuhito" in a comment which you made (which had no relation to the post you commented on), and as "haikuhito" is quite a rare combination of letters and my site emits pheremones which attract the GoogleBot in a rage of hormonal frenzy, that should be no surprise.
Posted by: ThePenguin | 2008-10-23 07:09