JapanNewbie

Hiroshima Dialect Japan Election Puns

Posted on 22. Aug, 2009 @ 12:19 pm by harvey in Language, Society Views: 554

A revolutionary election is coming up in Japan August 30th and all kinds of advertisements are posted around the town. This advertisement I found in Hiroshima is a bit tricky to understand! See if you can get the joke.

I don’t really know Hiroshima-ben at all, but here is what my friends and I figured it probably means.

The text is 「選挙にキンサイ！」

選挙 (senkyo) is “election.”

に is the particle which shows direction, meaning “to” in this case.

キンサイ is confusing.

キン might be 金 which means “gold” and can refer to this gold yellow color.

サイ might be さい、for “rhino.”

キンサイ is probably an alteration of 来なさい(kinasai) which means “please come (more of a command form).” We think this part is specifically Hiroshima dialect.

So it means “come to the elections!” and is a pun referring to a golden rhino… Why a golden rhino? Why not?

What do you think? Is this Japanese dialect pun detection quest a success?

Apologies for the terrible resolution – this was a quick cell phone photo while running out of Hiroshima University to catch a bus after a meeting!

- Harvey