Nice. Fire in eye.
http://www.beverage.co.jp/fire/
Fire in mouth.
Who drinks fire?
Thirsty Japanese suits.
Biggest sex offenders?
Thirsty Japanese suits.
In situ?
Yes. Too much sleep, that's what's killing 'em.
To sleep, perchance to dream.
BTW, the don't "have dreams" they "see" dreams...
[Chomsky shakes his head]
What dreams my come?
Cum?
Yes. They don't "cum" they "go" in Japanese...
[Chomsky chuckles]
This accounts for the yellow sign in your neighborhood.
Chikans are always on the "go"!

一件落着！

Killin it. Someone get this r. guy a deal!
Can you do that behind a drumset?

Apparently, he can.

i can. just waitin' for the right offer to come along.

I had always assumed that the eyes stood to represent the piercing gaze of the chikan hunter, red perhaps of the indignation that such crimes could be taking place daily in this quiet corner of the city...
I suppose it's all a matter of interpretation...

i think you watered down your translation a bit. "チカンに注意" is more like "Beware of molesters" or "Beware of perverts" than just "Beware of groping" (URL to dictionary entry above). i saw these signs several times when in Japan, often near elementary and middle schools.

the fact that japan, polite japan, feels the need to post bright "molester warning" signs shows what a massive problem this is...and not a laughing matter either.

~Rebs

I had always assumed that the eyes stood to represent the piercing gaze of the chikan hunter

Could be.

"チカンに注意" is more like "Beware of molesters"

You're probably right. Chikan assumes a lot of meanings other than just "groping."

I also did this entry on the word "chikan" a while back for some reason.

well not to state the obvious, but if Rebs knew marxy like we know marxy knows japanese (the language + the people), then that little semantic 'chikan' slap on the wrist wouldn't have been called for. oh, well! thanks for being such a good sport about all the crit, david!

the fact that japan, polite japan, feels the need to post bright "molester warning" signs shows what a massive problem this is...and not a laughing matter either.

i have to seriously dispute that and say that you guys are again getting carried away into abstracts. not to say that chikan don't exist etc but i'd attribute the signs to the japanese extreme tendency towards (the impression of) safety and i would see the chikan signs as typologicaly similar to the plenty of 'abunai desu kara....' signs and announcments often present in the least dangerous places.

again, not to say chikan don't exist, but really you guys who do travel a lot on tokyo trains, how many real-life chikan have you seen; if it is the 'massive problem' we'd surely be seeing one every day or so huh??.

My girlfriend had her scarf and sweater "petted" on a crowded Inogashira-train recently. It was creepy.

Those signs are only put in places where someone has complained about it. Either someone was actually molested in one way or another or someone suspicious has been seen often in the area. Some citizen called the cops and filed a complaint and so the cops put the sign up. It doesn't necessarily that it happens often in that one location. One incident is enough to get a sign posted.

i had my levis felt up on the train once...but then again, i WAS on the 'girls only' train, so i guess it serves me right...

Since the signs of sleep observed all over Japanese culture indicate, as we learned here yesterday, an absence of sleep in Japan, surely these signs indicate an absence of chikan in the areas they're posted. They're a sort of guarantor to schoolgirls that they're completely safe there. But cunning chikan will do a doublethink, and hide behind the signs, waiting for unsuspecting girls to pass by.

why would any card-carrying chikan hut locales prominently displaying signs which warn the general populace agains his very M.O.? when when, in the above comments, momus offers "surely these signs indicate an absence of chikan in the areas they're posted" he may be more right than he imagines!

why would any card-carrying chikan hunt locales prominently displaying signs which warn the general populace agains his very M.O.?

Don't you see? Right behind the chikan sign is the last place anyone would expect them.

yes, i just saw one in Nakano chuo nichou-me this evening . however being the robust, suit-wearing type, the type featured in the tou-ei campaing the extremeties of his body were poking out all over the place from behind the yellow sign causing causing all the girls to run in panic around the other side of 宝仙寺 temple.

i forgot to mention. causing terrible congestion. this should take us to the next topic. why aren't bck alleys designed to handle this kind of situation

Lived close to Mejiro University's Shinjuku campus (the women's junior college) in Ochiai years back. Every day, beautiful students would trek up and down the steep hill (one of the steepest in Tokyo?) from Nakai stn. At the base of the hill was such a sign (with madder-looking eyes). There was a nut who would cruise around in his car, pull up beside girls and reach out his window to grab their tits.

Disturbingly, this is the mildest of all the things I've heard over the years from female friends. Travis Bickle went off the deep end for less...

>Don't you see? Right behind the chikan sign is the last place anyone would expect them.

so you're saying these signs need to be painted on the obverse as well as the reverse in order to prevent this kind of chicanery?

Since the signs act as holographic entry points for the chikan it would make no difference.

[see Thomas P. Kasulis Shinto: The Way Home]

my last comment while being a continuation of the joke momus initiated is actually serious. the point being that the signs do belong in a historicaly long tradition of semiotics that both in usage and social impact is quite different to the one you know back home.

The arguement could be elaborated much further but sadly lame jokes are often the only way to combat the "beat the japs with the enlightenment/democracy wedge" thing.

to eleborate a bit: surely you can compare the chikan signs to your typical warning signs (don't lean over the precipice etc) or the more sophisticated, self-defeating yet functional speed camera warning signs placed in dangerous parts of roads [i.e. giving away the secret that there is a secret camera/ cancelling the hidden-ness of camera itself for the sake of safety]. etc

i think there is yet another level here though. Brad's point above is most likely true yet if you area-wise statistically compared the number and placement of chikan signs with the number of chikan crimes you'd find a serious imbalance. What you would find rather is something close to an even distribution of these signs. Pretty much every neighbourhood has them regardless of wether it's a densely chikan-populated or chikan-free area. Now what does this have to do with holographic entry points and shinto. As bjork sings the idea behind the holographic entrypoint is that 'Each part reflects the whole'. Now another one main point in shinto is the experience of a sense af 'awe' which can be indeed pleasant or terrifying. from way back shrines and toriis have been erected in places where such pleasant or terrifying awe has been felt (or projected - and this is a point. the terrifying is not only outside but inside). While it would be surely seem absurd to compare the erection of shrines to that of chikan signs and give your local chikan kami status there is a similar logic at work here and it is indeed NOT LOGICAL.