Marijuana leaf

The marijuana leaf has caused me similar puzzlement in Japan as the Playboy logo. Concerning Japan’s strict rules against drugs, it is more than confusing to see people wearing clothes sporting one of the most famous symbol for drugs there is. The reason why people wear this logo seems to be the same as with many other logos and symbols: its design is appealing and it represents something foreign and “cool”.

Picture taken from "engrish.com"

Use of unfamiliar symbols causes no particular harm when the people around know as little of it as you do, but things change when one goes for example abroad. Japanese baseball player Yu Darvish realized this soon after landing in Texas (location of his new team) when he was suddenly attacked in the airport by a bunch of reporters asking questions about his shirt (which had a picture of something that held striking resemblance to a marijuana leaf).

Picture taken from "japanprobe.com"

   Darvish seemed very puzzled about it and explained that he simply likes shirts with English writing and had no idea that it represented anything in particular (“Far Out”).  There have also been speculations about the picture actually being a Japanese maple leaf and therefore has nothing to do with drugs. Admittedly, the two plants do look alike:

                                          You be the judge.

Works Cited

-Yahoo sports- Big League Stew. Far out: Was that a marijuana leaf t-shirt that Yu Darvish was sporting today in Texas? January 20th 2012. <http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/mlb-big-league-stew/far-yu-darvish-arrives-america-wearing-shirt-marijuana-022449449.html>