Back today with something different: some stickers spotted near JR Shinjuku Station. The top one reads #戦争と家父長制を憎む.
戦争 [せんそう] means war.
家父長制 [かふちょうせい] means patriarchy. - To break down a big word, sometimes it's best to start with a suffix. 制 (which is new to this blog) means system, law, or rule. It is always read セイ. - Next, the first character, 家, means one's home or family. The second, 父, means father. Combine them and you get 家父 [かふ], meaning one's father (not commonly used in speech). - Finally, 長 can mean chief, leader, or head. Combine it with 家父 to get 家父長 [かふちょう], meaning patriarch. - Putting it all together, 家父長制 means a system of patriarchy, or a system run by the father/men.
憎む [にく.む] is the verb to hate or detest.
How best to translate the whole statement is pretty context dependent. "[I] hate war and the patriarchy" is faithful, but decidedly milquetoast wording for an act of protest. I think we can say that the spirit of the statement is more along the lines of "Fuck war and the patriarchy." (And "fuck ___" doesn't really translate directly, so that may have been what they had in mind anyway...?)
The other sticker shows a 招き猫 maneki-neko (beckoning cat or lucky cat) beneath a Palestinian flag, whose stripes read "Ceasefire now / Save lives / Free Palestine!"
The cat's right paw is drawn to look like a raised human fist. On his left side, there's a dove holding an olive branch perched on his shoulder and he has a peace sign in his paw. He's wearing a collar with a keffiyeh pattern and its tag(?? I think) is a watermelon.
(Also, the colors of the sticker perfectly match the bus driving by in the background, which is very pleasing to me. Even the cat's eyes are accounted for!)
