The Japanese are very visual people. It has been said that one reason for this is their writing system, which has almost 5,000 characters, some of which have over 20 brush (or pen) strokes. Whatever the reason, no self-respecting Japanese city would feel happy without their own symbol and Kobe is no exception. As you can see below, to make their symbol the city elders took the basic KH3 mark, removed the beer glass, beer bottle and running shoes and came up with this city mark. Amazingly the KH3 receives no royalty payments at all for this.