Now 83, he is the only Japanese pitcher to have won 400 games. One who does care is former pro baseball pitcher Masaichi Kaneda. In 1999, drivers who care about such things won the privilege of choosing their own numbers. A survey done in September showed 38% for, 47% against. Wasn’t it time Yokosuka graduated to its own plates? Strangely enough, residents were cool to the idea. It’s in Kanagawa Prefecture, near Yokohama, whose designation its plates bear. As of September, Koto cars will bear Koto plates. Residents of Tokyo’s upscale Koto Ward have plates marked Adachi – a wide geographical designation, parts of which are not, economically speaking, upwardly mobile. Hei (へ) is similarly shunned, for its uncomfortable association with the homophonous kanji 屁 (fart).

Hiragana characters lack the suggestiveness of kanji, but still, shi (し) is taboo – “death” again.

42 – shi-ni, can mean, when written死に, “to death.” 49 – shi-ku can mean “death and suffering” ((死苦).Īnd yet the number 4219 you might well find, though one of its Japanese readings, shi-ni-i-ku, can mean “going towards death” (死に行く).Ī Japanese license plate bears a locality and a small number topping a hiragana character and up to four large digits below. Its Japanese reading, shi, is homophonous with the character shi (死), meaning “death.” But try spotting, just for fun, the next time you’re caught in traffic, a plate whose last two digits are 42 or 49. It’s a wonder the number 4 appears on license plates. If license plates could only talk! The tales they’d tell would beguile many a helpless, fuming paralysis in traffic jams such as the New Year ones just past.Īctually, says Shukan Post (Jan 1-5), they do tell tales, though interpreting them takes some skill, a little background information, and maybe a lot of imagination.

What crossed license plate japan mean