It wasn't unusual for him to make up to six costume changes a night during the first half of 1973. Now heavily influenced by the dramatic make-up, role-play and costumes of Japanese Kabuki theatre, he'd commissioned a complete new wardrobe from the Japanese designer Kansai Yamamoto

What do these Chinese letters mean!?

In 1999, David was asked if he could recall what the writing on the Japanese cloak said. His reply? "It may well have said, 'Get your potatoes here'."

From the book BowieStyle

LOL!!

Well, I'll answer this question.

In general, these letters symbolize David Bowie's name in Chinese letters.

The details are as follows.

The first letter is read 'da' (/de/), and means 'taking something out'.

The second one is read 'vi' (/bi/), and means 'fire'.

The third one is read 'd' (/do/), and means 'vomiting'.

The fourth one is read 'bow' (/bou/), and means 'violence'.

The last one is read 'ie' (/i/), and means 'threatening'.

This method of utilizing Chinese letters into Japanese language was the traditional way of introducing Chinese letters into Japanese language when Japanese didn't have letters in ancient times. It's called 'manyo gana' and it originally didn't matter if each letter doesn't necessarily mean the named object itself. So it was originally more phonetically concerned which letters should be chosen to express the sounds of vowels and consonants. These letters were used to write poems with.

However, I guess these five letters seem to symbolize Bowie's personality as well.

If I had to manage to translate Bowie's personality expressed in these letters into English, I would say…

'The man who vomits and fires out provocative words threatening violently'

EriWilde