As much as I like to talk about food, eating, and eating Japanese food, it's a miracle of laziness that I haven't posted this one yet. Especially since this ranks right up there with chopsticks skillz as necessary knowledge for HOW to eat in Japan.
三角食べ さんかくたべ sankaku tabe
Triangle eating is not about McDonald's 三角パイ, nor is it about a food pyramid-style nutritional scheme. 三角食べ is all about the order in which you eat your food. As the pictures show (and the text attests), the correct way to eat a meal is to start with your rice and work your way around bite by bite. One bite of rice, one sip of soup, one bite of your おかずor 飯. A lot of you may know this already, or have heard about this, but it would be a mistake to write it off. It's a big, big part of Japanese culture.
How big, you ask? Well, since the 1970s, Japanese schools have incorporated it into school lunches, like a part of the curriculum. And although expert testimony (W. M. Edgar, D. M. O'Mullane (9 1990). Saliva and oral health. British Dental Journal) from around the world supports the idea that interspersing sips of soup is good for keeping your mouth well salivated and therefore helping the digestion process.
But the reason for eating like this is not a nutritional one. It's part of the Japanese reverence for food that is one of the main reasons I love Japan. "和食をおいしく味わうため," according to wikipedia. Gotta love the classic wikipedia objectivity, especially in lines like this as well: 日本以外ではこのような概念はない。
If you want to try it out for yourself, remember, start with your rice, and try to size your bites so that you finish each portion of your meal at the same time.
しし ふんじん shishi funjin 四字熟語データバンク has a cool feature that I just noticed: a list of the Yo-ji definitions that were accessed most often during the previous month. We've only hit one to our credit, 疑心暗鬼, but there are a few that struck me as pretty cool, so I figured we'd take care of a couple more.
獅子奮迅 functions as a noun. It means, literally, the lion's mad dash, but when you attach it to other nouns, using の, it works like an adjective, turning words like 働き, 勢い, or 挑戦 it makes those words more furious! I've even managed to find examples like 獅子奮迅の検索: furiously looking something up. Let's take a look at the Japanese definition to make sure we get the nuances right.
Definition: 獅子が奮い立って激しく進む意から、物事に対処する際の意気込み、勢いがすさまじく強いことのたとえ。 Translation: 1. As ferocious as a lion. 2. Like mad. 3. Like crazy. 4. Furiously
One of the reasons that I thought that this was a good one was because of the kanji: 獅子. I had never come across kanji for lion before, as most of my students would just say ライオン. But the thing that struck me most about those kanji was the alternate definition: left-handed guardian dog at a Shinto shrine.
I'd heard the word 狛犬 before, and had been told that THAT's what the guardian dogs were called. Maybe they were right-handed ones?
Bonus Shinto Trivia:
唐獅子(からしし；karashishi) Chinese Lion
狛犬 (こまいぬ；komainu) Korean Dog
The 獅子 that you find at some Japanese 神社 are said to be a combination of the Chinese and Korean statues that serve the same purpose in their respective countries, and are thought to have made the crossover during the 7th and 8th centuries, at the same time as Buddhism was being introduced.... even though they're more often associated with Shintoism. They sometimes make appearances at お寺, but 仁王 are the more common guardians there. If you know or can find out any more about them, I'd love to hear it.
Both the 獅子 and the 仁王 are often posed in pairs, one with an open mouth and one with a closed mouth. To learn more about this, lets make Brett do research! Breditt (Edit by Brett): The possible answers to that question are actually listed on the page you linked for 仁王. Since their explanation is concise despite its length, I'm going to go ahead and copy-paste it over here.
"Each is named after a particular cosmic sound. The open-mouthed figure is called "Agyo," who is uttering the sound "ah," meaning birth. His closed-mouth partner is called "Ungyo," who sounds "un" or "om," meaning death. Other explanations for the open/closed mouth include:
Mouth open to scare off demons, closed to shelter/keep in the good spirits
"Ah" is the first sound in the Japanese alphabet, while "N" (pronounced "un" ) is the last, so the combination symbolically represents all possible outcomes (from alpha to omega) in the cosmic dance of existence. "
END QUOTE. Note that they go into a little more detail about the aforementioned sounds as they apply to Sanskrit, but the above is the meat of it as far as Japanese speakers are concerned. 例文：高田選手の獅子奮迅のがんばりを見せたおかげで、チームの雰囲気が盛り上がって、起死回生しました。 Thanks to Takada's fierce effort and example, the team's spirits rose and they were able to pull out a come-from-behind win.
This is an important yoji to know, but for some reason, I thought Jeff had done this one already so I ended up going over a bunch of less pertinent phrases instead.
I, and I suspect many of you, live a fairly urban life, or perhaps sub-urban, lifestyle. I have a place of residence, a place of study/work, commute back and forth, and buy my food and clothing at local stores. I live within an interconnected and increasingly globalized network of production and consumption. Depending on your values, this is a good thing or a bad thing.
The place that you see and hear the phrase 自給自足 most these days is in the context of the "slow lifestyle." I can't claim to be an expert, but my understanding of it is that this mode of living puts a premium on non-industrial, organic, and community-based products and production. Taken further, many people opt to grow all of their own food, and even sometimes make all of their own clothing. Looking at the characters themselves, we see "self," "grant," "self," and "fulfill." I think it's fairly easy to see how this comes together. You might hear about people who retire from their big city jobs and begin farming their own food, or communities that share their resources so they don't have to buy anything from the outside or far away.
A related, and sometimes closely linked, concept is 自給率 じきゅうりつ jikyuuritsu. Literally, 自給率 talks about your "rate of self-sufficiency," or how much of a given resource or commodity (oil, rice, ability to write long-winded posts about uninteresting concep... wait...) you can provide for yourself. This is a word you commonly see used to talk about whole countries, rather than just an individual or group of individuals. It appears that economists (and The Economist) sometimes profess to being driven mad by this, but this is often placed at a premium politically in Japan, especially when talking about things like food and fuel, where so much of it is imported. In this context, as well, 自給自足 is often touted as an ideal.
Which brings us to our
Definition: 自分の生活に必要となるものを作り、その必要を充足すること
Translation: Self-sufficiency
Example Sentence: ここ何年間、都会の生活のせいでストレスためててもう限界だった。仕事を辞めて田舎に帰って、農業でもやりながら自給自足に生きたい。 These last few years, city life has really been stressing me out, and I'm at my limit. I want to quit my job, go home, be a farmer or something, and life a self sufficient life.
This marks the first day that I have cracked my Japanese study books open since I've returned to America. My prolonged LACK of studying is an ANTI-accomplishment that I can only describe with one word: やばい。 I need to get back on my game and FAST, cause otherwise I'm not gonna be ready for the JLPT in December. So today, I'll bring you the next five grammar points, and let my example sentences explain just why I've been so busy.
126) ～については ・ についても Take a good long re-read over grammar point 125 in Brett's Tuesday post, because you'll need it for this one and the next. Got it? Good. This usage of について is only an explanation of how to attach particles to make it fit into different situations. As Brett said について書く or について考える is to write about or talk about. 戦争について本 also works. By attaching は at the end however, you're making your 'about whatever' the subject of the sentence. Does that make sense? 戦争について本 is a sentence about a book. Check this one out: 今、経済について章です。戦争については後で書いてあるのかな？ についてもworks the same way. You're just attaching the idea of "also about:" この本は経済だけではなく、政治についてもいっぱい書いてあります。
127) ～についての Reference the previous point. Anytime you want to use について followed by another noun, you have the option of using it with の. In my book's examples, the nouns that follow are all preceded by honorifics, so I'll assume that this is the way to use について + noun in situations that call for formality.
This is used just like なので. You attach it to a noun that serves as the explanation for the clause that comes next. When should it be used instead of なので? As reader Mark let me know in the comments below, it's a formal expression WRITTEN on SIGNS and BULLETINS. All of my book's examples would fit neatly on a sign, flier, or notice.
129) ～につけ ~ whenever (implies something invariable) The book, in its ultimate wisdom, defines this as の時、いつも。It's used when you want to say When X happens, Y ALWAYS. X provokes the same reactions, feelings, or outcome, invariably. There's another usage as well, which involves doubling up on your につけs. If you want to say "In this case, or in that case, the result will always be Y," you can say: 私が料理すると、味が薄いにつけ、濃いにつけかぞくから文句が出る (book's example.)
Ex. フロリダは一年中暖かいので、フロリダに帰るにつけ、毎日、実家のプールで泳ぎます。
130) ～につけても ~no matter what
This one is almost universally used with 何 or 何事 to form "no matter what." そのものだよ。
Ex. アメリカの生活は忙しくて楽しいよ。だが、プールがどんなに気持ち良さそうでも、Ｋａｌｉちゃんがどんなにかわいくても、日本語の勉強はいくらしないといけなくても、何事につけても、マンガを読む時間が一番大事でしょう？ Yes, I am that much of a geek.
This yo-ji has always had a certain amount of nostalgic value for me, because its the first 四字熟語 that I learned as such. At the time I was thoroughly confused, not the least of which was due to the fact that 主客 can also be read as しゅきゃく, but also because we learned it as the subject of part of a larger argument about why Japan was going down the drain by some sort of disgruntled commentator or another. You could write a book (and many people have) about the genre of writing about Japan's downfall and its place in the larger discourse about Japanese-ness, but it would probably have almost nothing to do with yoji-jukugo, so I won't waste any more of your time on the subject.
This yoji has a variety of uses, all of which fall under the general category of having the wrong priorities. If you look at the characters, you have 1) a host, 2) a guest, 3) turning, and 4) falling over.
Definition: 本来の立場・秩序が逆転しているさま
Translations: 1. Putting the cart before the horse 2. Taking the means as the end 3. Getting your priorities mixed up
Example Sentence: この店のウェーターはいつも不機嫌だから、常に気を使わなければいけない。こっちが客なのに・・・全く、立派な主客転倒だ。 The waiters here are always grouchy, so you have to constantly watch how you treat them, even though you're supposed to be the customer. This is a serious case of mixed-up priorities.
So now you may be wondering where the second yoji comes in. Well, let's start with the reading.
ほんまつてんとう
I can't profess to have a 100% accurate understanding of the difference between 本末転倒 and 主客転倒, but then again, it seems to me that most people don't, either. Though most people I've talked to about it use the two in essentially interchangeable ways, apparently there is a slight difference in the nuances. 主客 has more of a connotation of "host-client;" you will often see it used to complain about the laziness and corruption of government employees, who are supposed to be "public servants," but instead treat citizens as their personal cash cows. The difference with 本末 is that you have two concepts, one of which is supposed to be complementary or even just sort of ornamental to the other. The thing is, for whatever reason, that ornamental thing has become more important. It has less of a connotation of social norms, I think, than of straight out priorities.
Example Sentence: 社員の野球部を作ったのは仕事でたまったストレスを解消するためだったのだが、部員は仕事をさぼるまで試合に夢中になってむしろ周りの人に迷惑をかけてしまった。こう本末転倒しているのでは、会社の野球部をやっている意味がない。 The reason we made the company baseball team was to give everyone an outlet for their stress, but the people on the team have gotten so into it that they're actually putting more stress on their coworkers. With priorities this out of whack, there's no point in having a company team.
Yes, I know, my priorities are out of whack, and I should be studying. But I'm not, so too bad.
I swear, I have never been accused of having these.
Ok, maybe I have.
To be fair, I think that everyone who has reached a certain amount of Japanese proficiency (when you learn how to say こんにちは, for example) has to deal with people over-complimenting their ability. Most of the time, even students of Japanese language are aware of themselves enough to understand when they really are the "bomb-diggity," and when people are just being polite. Sometimes, however, you come across that rare person who just doesn't get it and thinks that he/she is God's gift to the study of Japanese. I'd say that those people are suffering from delusions of grandeur.
Of course, that's not the only source of delusions of grandeur in the world, so feel free to come up with your own examples.
Definition: 大げさに空想し事実と思い込むこと Translation: Delusions of grandeur Example: 田舎で大物だったからって、誇大妄想するなよ。ここはそれとレベルが違うんだから。 Just 'cause you were a big deal out in the boonies, don't go getting any delusions of grandeur. Things here are on a different level.
Ok, this isn't really a 四字熟語 in the classical sense, but I like it, so bear with me. I recently started law school, and this seems particularly fitting for how I've spent my last week or so.
Setting aside the irony of the fact that I am posting now that I actually have other things to do, and barely made any updates during my 2-month period of unemployment, this particular phrase deals with someone who is so busy with studying that they never leave their house.
The big difference between myself and actual 閉戸先生's, of course, is that they actually study out of intellectual curiosity, whereas I study... because I have to (at least, that's what I tell the cool kids).
My first thought when I heard this was of the monk who was so passionate about memorizing scripture he sat at his station until his legs decayed below him. My legs feel asleep way too quickly for me to make it quite that far, but studying has had something of an effect on my social life (coupled with the tropical storm that passed through yesterday, I didn't leave my apartment for something like 36 straight hours this weekend).
Back to the Japanese, being a 閉戸先生 isn't really a good thing; the fact that your door is closed (the 閉戸 part) means that you are ignoring your neighbors, and by extension your human relationships. You're not necessarily a social outcast, but you are more cut off than you should be. As we saw with Jeff's recent explication of the word 縁, human relationships are not something to be taken lightly, so make sure you never go to la... I mean, never become a 閉戸先生.
Example: X教授は優秀な学者だけど、ちょっと閉戸先生で、他人との付き合いがあまり上手じゃない。 Professor X is a talented scholar, but he's something of a bookworm and has problems getting along with people.
PS Don't ever put "bookworm" into google image search at work, at school, or in the presence of children or easily offended people. Take it from someone with experience.
It's been 9 days since I took off from Saga, and I've made it to Nagoya. Once I get to Tokyo, I'm going to try and post (for those of you who are interested) an account of my trip, and if I make it out to Saitama to see The Hopeless Romantic, you MIGHT even get a video. For now, suffice it to say that I have been through 14 prefectures, over 1500 kilometers (over 50 walked), ridden in over 20 cars... been to islands, mountains, waterfalls, shrines. And somehow (自画自賛だけど) I've managed to end up with 2,000 yen MORE then when I started. I'm not done yet, but I wanted to post a few pics, a few vocab words, and a great yojijukugo that I was saving for exactly this occasion.
Definition: お互いに気持ちが通じ合い、一体感を感ずる。互いの気持ち、考えなどがぴったりと一致して親しくなること。 Translation: 1. To hit it off 2. To get along like peas in a pod 3. To discover a kindred spirit
The picture above is of Uno-san and his mother, who picked me up in Okayama and ended up giving me a tour of Okayama prefecture that lasted two days. I had intended to merely pass through Okayama but I'm glad I didn't! They treated me (and were kind enough to say that it felt) like I was family, even going so far as to buy souvenirs for me to take to my girlfriend in Tokyo!
The left picture below is of Azukizawa-san, who took me in the direction of Sakaiminato (Mizuki Shigeru's hometown), and he was by far the person that I had the best conversation with. Which is to say that we talked for hours about American television, our favorite action movies (Die Hard and Batman), and Eyeshield 21 (the only anime series I've ever watched regularly).
On the right are Riko-chan and Ryuunosuke-kun, whose mother gave me a lift on the final stretch to Nicky New-Job's apartment in Nagakute-cho, Nagoya. The kids were adorable, and we watched Thomas the Tank Engine together and ate chicken soup flavored potato chips.
In all of these situations (and more) one word I kept hearing over and over in various incarnations was 縁, which you may remember from 合縁奇縁.
縁 means a relationship, or fate, or the bonds of fate, and is used to talk about chance meetings. I heard people using it with the honorific ご attached to talk about the relationships we formed meeting in this way. There are a lot of other words I learned with similar themes, but for today, let's focus on 縁 for a moment.
By itself you can use it to mean anything from "destiny that binds two people together," to "the chance to meet someone and start a relationship." It encompasses a broad range of meaning involved with connections between people.
Here are some compounds that use it:
類縁 (るいえん;ruien): family relationship
腐れ縁 (くされえん;kusare en): undesirable but unseverable tie
血縁 (けつえん;ketsuen): blood relationship
旧縁 (きゅうえん;kyuuen): old relationship; old acquantaince ( see 竹馬の友)
And as for 意気投合, it's what happens when the chance meeting (縁) goes so well that you become fast friends, specifically when you have the desire and opportunity to see that friendship continue down the line.
Use it with する。
When I first learned this one, again from my Yojijukugo tutor, Otao-san, she gave me the following example: 偶然で会ったけど、意気投合して、友情を育みました. For today's example sentence, I'll use my very simple attempt at applying it, which drew a laugh at the time.
例文：意気投合して、結婚しました. We met, hit it off, and got married.
As I like to work excuses for not posting into the sporadic posts I do make, today's trivia is very much in the spirit of Nirav: it's all about drinking.
All of my 送別会s are taking their toll, and when you add to that all the favorite restaurants and bars I just HAVE to hit one last time (before I leave for three months), I've been drinking almost EVERY night.
無理強い is kind of the opposite of an extremely common phrase that you'll hear Japanese people say a lot, to be polite, "無理しないでください." Since 無理 means "the impossible," or "the unreasonable," 無理しないで is "Don't try to do more than you can, or more than is comfortable for you." People will say this to each other at meals ("Don't feel like you need to eat EVERYTHING,") or at work, ("Don't overwork yourself"). It's a really useful phrase to know.
無理強い is something that you do not want to be on the opposite end of. It's when people who don't have the tact to say 無理しないでください, insist that you join in the fun, whether it be drinking, karaoke-ing, or smoking marijuana which, to be fair, IS what all the cool kids are doing. As you'll notice, it can have harder meanings (extortion?), but if you use it in the right context, like being hung over, drunk, or a few kilos overweight 無理強いされた, will translate as "I was pressured into it."
迎え酒, on the other hand, is just plain old "hair of the dog." For those of you who aren't native English speakers, or who don't know this expression, "Hair of the dog" is alcohol that you drink when you are hungover. Drinking a beer the morning after drinking ten beers, is supposed to make you feel better. 迎える is to greet, meet, or welcome, so 迎え酒 is pretty easy to understand. It's the sake that comes to pick you up.
Why "Hair of the dog?" Brett looked this one up, and found out that it comes from an old expression/superstition: "The hair of the dog that bit you," was held to help heal dog bites. If you were bitten by a dog, if you could retrieve some of that dog's hair, and put it in the wound, not only would you heal faster, but it was also supposed to prevent infection or disease, like rabies.
Summer vacation is an interesting time to be a teacher in Japan since you get stuck in a weird working purgatory. Teachers still have to come in (or they're supposed to come in, a difference which the staffroom picture at right will help clarify), but their duties are either reduced or nonexistent. Point in case, I am being serenaded right this moment by the rhythmic snoring of my slumbering vice principal, who has been passed out on the couch with a newspaper over his face for the past hour. Many other teachers take catnaps on their desks, a trend which I have learned to do a bit of myself, and nobody sees a problem with it. That we're permitted this much latitude is the only thing that makes summer bearable when you have nothing to do...
Nothing, that is, except talk about summer vacation in 5 grammar points.
91) ～としたら ・ ～とすれば If ~, In the case that ~, Since ~,
This is one you'll hear quite a bit in normal speech, and it's not surprising why. The text even lists this point alongside old fallbacks like "なら、ば、と、and もし～たら" without any points on what separates it from them. The one usage point - it is tacked between clauses after sentences using dictionary form, or な adjectives + noun + だ. Piece of cake.
Ex. 教頭先生が居眠りするとしたら、他の教師は帰っていいかな。
92) ～として ・ ～としたは (As) for~, When it comes to ~,
Again, pretty self-explanatory, with the only condition that you can only use this after a noun.
Ex. 教師になることの悪いところとして、生徒達がいなくても僕らは来なければならない。差別！
93) ～としても Even in the case that ~, Even if ~,
Again, an easy one that harks back to the days of 3級. The usage here is the same as any "~っても" construction.
Ex. でもいいところもあるよ。夏休みだったら朝の十時に学校に着くとしても、全然大丈夫だね。
94) ～とともに Together with ~, Along with ~, In time with ~,
This one is a little trickier than the other ones this week. The first time I was introduced to it was the song 島唄, where you go to cross the sea 鳥とともに on the 島唄の風. Just remember that it might mean together with, but it's for intangibles, and if one thing changes, the other will, too. If you're going somewhere with a friend, then use more standard grammar. However, if you're planning an amazing cross-Japan trip in Spring where you'll ride motorcycles from Kyushu north "in time with" the 桜全線, then とともに is your best friend.
Ex. 夏の初めて学校へ行く日が近くなるとともに、起きる時間は次第に早くする。
95) ～ないことには ~ without ~when you don't have... ~ unless you do...
This one goes like this: Without A, you can't do B. You attach ないことには to a verb, adjective, or noun and it becomes something that is necessary to the second clause. My book example lists "Without knowing the address, there's no way to contact so-and-so, でしょう?"
Short and sweet post today. Know anybody with a cold or do you have one yourself?
I got a little bit sick and started to hear this one from close friends. Make sure you use it with people who know that you're only teasing, because here's what it means:
Definition: 誤解から、一般に、夏風邪を引く者は愚か者であるということ。 Translation: Literal - Idiots catch cold in the summer 1. Only a fool...
On a short cultural note, I thought I'd bring up a point that I will argue endlessly with Japanese people. I'm curious to know what all y'all think.
How much of a factor does temperature play in catching a cold?
Are you more likely to catch cold if the air conditioner is on?
Do you believe it's possible to get sick BECAUSE of air conditioning?
I always believed that colds are caused by germs, and nothing else. While cold temperatures might lower your body's resistance and make it easier to catch a cold, I refuse to believe that you're going to get sick just because the air conditioner is running. I can also understand that Japanese air conditioning systems dry the air out, which can cause your lungs, throat, and nasal cavity to get all 風邪気味.
However, the Japanese belief that air conditioning is a direct cause of sickness is a little bit too close to the Korean belief in fan death...
Brett sent this one off to a friend of his on a list of kanji that might make a good tattoo, and I have to applaud his judgment. As far as elemental power goes, this is about as awesome as it gets.
Definition: 時期や情勢に応じ適切な行動をとること。 Translation: 1. As fast as the wind, as quiet as the forest, as daring as fire, and as immovable as the mountains
This is a phrase that gets used a lot in conjunction with samurai and battles, as it expresses the versatility to be able to respond appropriately to any situation or opportunity. It can also be used to refer to your business or your personal life as well. It's another one of those that's an abstract concept that works best on its own as a proverb, but if you want to work it into a sentence it often takes 心構え, just like 悪木盗泉.
例文：ビジネスにも風林火山の心構えが必要だ。 In business too, you need a heart that's ready to be as fast as the wind, as quiet as the forest, as daring as fire, and as immovable as the mountains.
This saying is not one that's very easy to fit into a framing sentence, but it's excellent to use as a stand alone proverb or expression. It works as a warning or an admonition to people who are considering doing the wrong things for the wrong reasons, but it works even better when those people are considering doing the wrong things for the right reasons.
Definition: どんなに困っていても、悪事に手を染めてはならないという戒め。悪事に近づいて人に疑われるようなことをしてはいけないという意味もある。 Translations: 1. The righteous never stray from the path 2. The ends don't justify the means
The kanji read as follows: bad tree steal spring (spring as in water, not the season) and when I read it I thought maybe it meant that "The bad tree steals the water from the spring," implying some kind of inverse lesson about how we should strive to not be like the "bad tree," but as I've learned the hard way, these kinds of speculative inferences about why something means what it does in Japanese are RARELY accurate. A little bit of web-research yielded the true origins.
This site, despite being one big visual headache, actual contains quite a bit of useful information about Japanese expressions. In fact, it might contain all of it. It says, if you can track down the section on 悪木盗泉, that it's a warning. No matter how hot it is, one should never sit in the shade of the bad trees; No matter how thirsty you are, there is no cause to drink from the stolen spring. It seems more poetic that way, doesn't it?
There are even some other similar expressions that make use of the bad tree imagery: 「熱しても悪木の陰に休まず」 or just ｢悪僕之陰」will do the trick.
I guess, conceptually, we have some similar sayings in English. "The road to hell is paved with good intentions," springs to mind. And with the Japanese cultural emphasis on ideas of karma (因果応報), you can imagine how an evil deed performed by a good man might negate his goodness, or how a noble deed accomplished by immoral means can't really be counted as a noble deed.
I've found some other examples of uses of 悪木盗泉 that prescribe a がんばって、ガマンして code of living, like on this site, SomeGirls_blog, run by a guy who seems to be very 男ポイ. He seems to be lamenting a female friends impending divorce (or horrible marriage), but here's what he says the 悪木盗泉の心構え male is responsible for:
男なら、どんなにプレッシャーが掛かっても前に進まないとね。 A man must press on, no matter how much pressure he is subjected to. 男なら、どんな困難があろうと目の前の人を幸せにしないとね。 A man must work to make the people in his life happy, no matter what difficulties this may entail. 男なら、道を踏み外さないよう自分に厳しくしないとね。 A man must be strict and relentless in his own discipline so that he never makes any missteps, never strays from the path. 男なら、たった一人で正義を貫かないとね。 A man is responsible for himself, and even if he is all alone, he must make sure that all of his actions are just.
Sounds a bit like a martyr-complex to me. I wonder what a woman's work consists of?
例文：社長が不正なやり方で仕事をしているので、僕の首になっても悪木盗泉の心構えで、皆に公表します。
The company president is up to some shady dealings, and even if it means my neck, I'm gonna keep on the righteous path and go public with it.
A while ago, I read the English translation of a book called「 蛇にピアス」 ("Snakes with Piercings," or "Pierced Snakes" might have been a better title than Snakes and Earrings, which it was published as). It's about a young girl who gets involved with some guys who are into body modification and sado-masochism and possibly murder? I didn't think it was anything really special, but it looks like it's sensationalist enough to warrant a movie! You can check out the trailer at the bottom of this post.
Anyway, I mention it because the main character gets a mural tattoo on her back of a Kirin, the mythical Japanese (er... Chinese) beast most famous in the west for being a brand of beer. I can't remember if she specifies it, or the tattoo artist advises it, but she ends up deciding not to have the Kirin's pupils drawn in. This is because of an ancient Japanese (er... Chinese) legend, which also gives us today's yoji, which means something along the lines of "Adding the eyes on the painted dragon."
Definition: 最後に大切な部分に手を加えて仕上げをすること。 Translations: 1. The finishing touches. 2. The final strokes.
Look at our English equivalents. We use the painting metaphor, or the work of art metaphor to talk about finishing anything from a project at work, to an essay, to a meal, but why does the Japanese version specifically name a dragon? And honestly, if you were going to draw a dragon, or any animal-like thing, would you really draw the eyes last? Here's the legend that answers these's questions for you:
During the Northern and Southern Dynasties Period, (China, 1336-1392), there was a famous painter of the Southern Dynasty by the name of Yo. During this time, he received a commission and painted a mural of four white dragons on the wall of the Anraku Temple in Nanjing. The dragons he painted were positioned in such a way, and imbued with such lifelike vigor, that they looked as though they might burst through the wall and soar off into the sky (ascend into heaven) at any given moment. The effect was such that anyone who looked upon it couldn't help but draw a deep breath (swallow their breath, as though in awe... or fear). But the truly strange thing about the mural was that in all of the eyes of all of the dragons, Yo had not painted in the pupils. Somewhat perplexed, the people asked Yo for the reason he had not done so, and he answered simply "If I were to give them pupils, they'd take off into the sky and be gone." But of course, the people couldn't believe this, and demanded that he complete the mural by painting the eyes, without fail.
Having no recourse, Yo began to comply. He painted the eyes on the first dragon, and was putting the finishing touches on the second when all at once a bolt of lighting struck, shattering a portion of the wall, freeing the two completed dragons who hopped onto the nearest cloud and rode it away into the sky. After that, it seemed like a good idea after all to leave the remaining two white dragons without any eyes.
This is not the only incident in Japanese culture where the painting of the eyes garners significance though. Do you know about the still practiced tradition of painting eyes on Daruma? They even have Darumas that you can buy in toy vending machines, along with a sticker set to use for the eyes, like a cheaper, spiritual version of a Mister Potato Head.
Last note, but it's important to talk about the usage of 画竜点睛. While it can be used to refer to simply the fact that something is finally done (the all important Google image search reveals that it's used for things like business openings, building projects, those models of anime characters that hobbyists assemble themselves, or in mischevious references to a particular practice of omission common in manga: NSFW), it's mostly used like this:
画竜点睛を欠く, which means "lacking some final important detail without which, all the other work is useless."
Let's keep our example sentence in China as well.
例文：一生懸命作ったのに、ちゃんと英語ができる人に確認しなかったので、僕が作った看板の訳書は 画竜点睛を欠いています。 I worked as hard as I could on this, but because I didn't check my translation with someone who can speak English, this translated sign is worthless due to my inability to finish it off properly.
I think that today's trivia paints a really funny picture in a way that our English equivalents don't quite capture.
箱入り娘 はこ いり むすめ hako iri musume
My girlfriend is an only-daughter (she has three brothers), and in a culture that's big on filial obligation, especially on the part of women, you can imagine how 大事 her family considers her.
This term is used a lot for only-daughters, and where we might translate it as "daddy's little princess," or merely "over-protected" or "sheltered" it literally means "the daughter who gets put in a box."
You can use this in a friendly manner to tease a girl who's an only child, or if you are "daddy's little girl," you can refer to yourself as such. I'm gonna try it out next time I hang out with my girlfriend's family, because whenever I see them we always end up having a long 感動する conversation about how great and special she is.
Side note: I wonder if you can mix-and-match this phrase with 玉手箱 (たまてばこ; tamatebako) or 宝箱 (たからばこ;takarabako), which both mean, treasured box or treasure chest? A 宝物 (treasured item) goes in a 宝箱, so would a 宝箱入り娘 make sense? I'd worry about the fact that 玉手箱 has other connotations. Pandora's box is called a 玉手箱, as is the box that contains Urashima Taro's lost years... This one might be better confined to the pages of Jokes that Japanese People Might Not Get.
I'm officially out of my old house (no more moving gripes mixed in with the yojis) and crashing at Brett's apartment for a few weeks. I can't promise that this means I'll be more productive because, as I've realized, my ability to write the yoji with regularity was largely related to the fact that I had a job, or, that is to say, on the the fact that I was obligated to sit at a desk for long periods of empty, empty time. Now that I'm out, even when I'm not busy, I have a million other things that I can do. Walk around Saga Castle, play Smash Brothers, go swimming, boost my ego by walking through crowds of JK at Youme Town (a mall chain in Japan) and draw pitying looks from my girlfriend, who knows exactly how NOT カッコいい I am.
Sounds nice, right? But then, I'm not getting as much studying done as I used to. Maybe I was better off working at Kawa Chuu after all?
Just kidding. I just wanted a way to segue into today's ことわざ. Definition: 自分の手に持っているものより、他の人が持っているもの方がよく見えること。また、以前持っていたもの方がよかったと思っている場合もある。 Translation: Literal - The neighbor's lawn looks bluer (greener). 1. The grass is always greener on the other side.
Good one to know, as apparently, it expresses a universal tenet, true of humanity no matter where you go.
Also good to know that even though 緑 (みどり; midori) means green in Japanese, in a lot of instances (traffic lights and newbies for example) are referred to as 青い (あおい；aoi), blue. This is not because of a different concept of color categorization, but actually because of a linguistic phenomenon common in a number of languages that aren't English, one that has no real bearing on today's post but is fascinating, so I will link it here: grue.
Again, in the spirit of trying to be nice to you guys, this expression is used commonly and will be instantly recognized, requiring no long-winded explanation on your part (which, I usually screw up so badly that any hopes of being perceived as knowledgeable in the ways of 日本語 go right out the window).
Lemme know if you find any situations to try it out in!
例文： A-san: 大学生時代のことを思い出すと、楽しかったと思います。毎日パーティ、ナンパばっかり、ドンだけ飲んでも、2日よいにならなかった。今の社会人の生活と比べたら、｢良かったなー｣と思います。 Thinking back on my old college days... man, that was fun. Partying all the time, hitting on all the girls in sight, and no matter how much I drank, I NEVER seemed to get hungover. Comparing that to my life as a working man... I can't help but think how much better it was then. B-san: だが、現実的に思い出せば、当時はきつかったよ！毎日カップラーメンをくい、お金ぜんぜんない、周りの人にタバコを借りないと吸えない、週二回ぐらい、母親にお金のことでおこられ。。。大変だった。お前、今の楽な生活の方がいいじゃないか。「隣の芝が青く見える」ってことでしょう。 But if you remember it realistically, it was pretty rough! Eating instant ramen every day, having no money at all, if you didn't borrow a cigarette you couldn't smoke, and your mom was on your case about money like twice a week! It was terrible! Isn't your comfortable life now better than that? Sounds like a case of "The grass is always greener..." to me.
A great man, whom we shall refer to simply as "Nirav," once told me that the great thing about learning Japanese (especially kanji) is that the more you learn, the easier the learning process gets. You process faster, acquire faster, and retain more. I'm feeling like he was right, cause we're hitting the 80s grammar-wise, and recently, they've been seeming simpler and simpler to me.
Or maybe it's just that today's grammar points happen to be easy ones.
Either way, we're gonna breeze through them so I can get back to moving.
81) ～というものだ ~ is. DEFINITIVELY.
I remember a conversation I had when I first got here: someone kept talking about their friend's こと. It was ｢友達のこと」 this and ｢友達のこと」 that, and I had NO IDEA what a こと was. I was like "Who is this friend, and what are they doing with this こと thing?" 「こと」のことが分からなかった。In reality こと just means "the thing about..." and is just used to highlight the concept you're talking about. 「彼のこと」 is "the thing about him." Or even simpler, ｢彼のことが好き」 is "I like him." こと just draws a neat little box around the idea of "him" and doing this is EXTREMELY common in Japanese.
～というものだ works kind of the same way, except that you use it in situations to express your own very strong opinion (often oppositional) about what is the DEFINING characteristic of whatever you're talking about. For example, this is what my girlfriend's dad had to say when he found out that I do the bulk of the cooking:
Ex: 掃除と料理してくれることは女性というものだ。
He was joking... kind of.
82) ～というものではない ・ ～というものでもない ~ is NOT (necessarily/always) the case.
Kind of like the opposite of the above, but used in the same way that you can use わけではない. Also used to stress a strong (often oppositional opinion). You could tell a rich dude, 「Settling every problem with money というものではない. 」
We often talk about differing attitudes about 飲み放題 (all you can drink) bars or restaurants. Americans might say you pay your money, then try to drink as much as you can to maximize your value. Japanese people might say:
Ex. 安く飲めるからといって、死ぬほど飲むといはない。
83) ～というより ~ rather than ~more than
Used, again to express a sense of disagreement, though not necessarily as strong as the preceeding two.
(This example reminds of something I always want to try (see below), but in Japanese. The problem is that the person I was talking to would probably just be like, "Yup, just as I suspected.)
85) ～とおり（に） ・ ～どおり（に） ~ just as ~ exactly like
You'll hear this one a lot or read it in the 字幕 at movies as 「そのとおり」translates as "Exactly." The trick with this one is that you can only use it to compare reality with a prediction or expression of that reality. Follow? You can't say "Your cat looks just like my childhood cat" using とおり. You can only say things like: This movie is just as bad as the review. It rained, exactly like the forecast said it was. When someone says, "You think Japanese is hard, huh?" you can say ｢そのとおり」 because what they've guessed about you is exactly true (if it happens to be true, that is).
Brett and I are gonna try and be extra nice to you guys this week because, to be honest, we've been kind of phoning them in lately. 言い訳をしますが, I've got all these boxes to pack, all these people to say goodbye to and, well... Brett is STILL in America.
But you'll be happy to know that studying pays off. Today I've got two new conversation friendly yoji for you. No insane levels of obscurity today. While we usually present yoji together if they have some meaning or characters in common, today I'm giving you two that I learned simultaneously. The first is something I am actively involved with, and the second... well, let's take a look.
自画自賛 じが じさん jiga jisan
Definition: 自分のことをほめること。自慢すること。 Translations: 1. Self-satisfaction. 2. Singing one's own praises/ tooting one's own horn. 3. Self admiration.
一心同体 いっしん どうたい isshin doutai
Definition: 二人以上の人間の心が一致し、同じ体、すなわち一人の人間であるような強い結びつきをすること。 Translations: 1. Two hearts beating as one. 2. Working/Being together as though inhabiting one body 3. United, body and soul.
The kanji for 一心同体 are basic enough, (one heart, same body) but it marks a milestone for me. Remember how excited I got the first time I was able to guess the meaning of a yoji just by looking at it?
This time, when I heard this one for the first time, I was able to identify it as a yoji (yoji that begin with 一心 or 一身 are common), understand the meaning, and correctly guess all the kanji. All by myself! And that was how I learned 自画自賛... by bragging about it too much.
You can use 一心同体, as you might expect, in relation to love, but it's also applied in other senses as well. You can see how the idea of 一心同体 might resound powerfully in the Japanese consciousness. Try using it in some of the same contexts that you would use 一致団結.
例文：去年、わが野球部は全員一心同体となってがんばったため、甲子園で優勝しました。しかし、今年は自画自賛ばかりしているので、彼らしか今年も勝つと":思っていないみたいです。 Last year our baseball team, working together as one, did their best and won Koshien. But this year, they're spending all their time singing their own praises; it looks like they're the only ones who think they're gonna repeat.
This one is fun to discuss with Japanese people because even though our metaphors are wildly different, we have the same expression in English.
Definition: 口出しする者が多いと、物事がとんでもない方向にすすむ。 Translation: Literal - Too many boatmen will bring a boat up a mountain. 1. Too many cooks in the kitchen will spoil the soup.
例文：友達たちと皆で自分たちのビジネスを始めることは楽しいイメージがする、けど、現実的に考えれば、やはり、一人の方が楽だ。船頭多くして船山に上るから。 Starting a business with all of your friends sounds like a fun idea, but when you think about it realistically, doing it on your own is more comfortable. Having too many cooks in the kitchen cause problems, after all.
"She was looking back to see if I was looking back to see if she was looking back at me," is one of those cheesy things that my dad says from time to time... though I can't really remember why, or in what circumstances.
Today we're gonna talk about looking back:
見返り美人 みかえりびじん mikaeribijin
見返る by itself, means to look back, and it can be used to mean looking back at one's life, or to look behind yourself. A 見返り美人 is not, as you might expect, a woman so beautiful that she's worth a second look. It's even better. It's a beautiful woman who's looking back at you.
Notes:
The painting above (on the left) is an extremely famous Japanese work of art (considered an epitome of early ukiyo-e, by Hishikawa Moronobu); Something about the concept of the 見返り美人 seems to capture a very Japanese sense of beauty. It's coy, it's demure, and it's fleeting...
美人 is not necessarily gendered; it's cool to use this for a hot guy looking back at you as well.
For some reason, lots and lots and lots of Japanese bloggers use this to tag pictures of their pets. Gotta love the blog-o-sphere.
We have tons of Japanese grammar and idiomatic expressions, as well as proverbs and trivia in our archived posts. Please check them out! For an explanation of the kinds of posting we're doing these days, see this post.
Living and working in Saga-ken, Kyushuu, dedicated to one day passing the 1-kyuu JLPT, and therefore being able to start on some other languages as well. Check out his Youtube Channel by clicking the picture!
Brett Staebell (Defendership)
While questing in the Rocky Mountains - only hours away from Denver, his birthplace and home - Brett discovered a magical talisman that whisked him halfway around the world to the remote island of Kyushu. Now hellbent on either finding a way home or a time machine that'll let him go back in time hundreds of years to hang out with samurai, he hones his language skills by posting on the Daily Yoji and sharpens his combat skills by pummeling the elementary school children he teaches.
Nirav Mehta (sqrtlsqd)
Nirav's only here because he's a friend. He's not really that good at Japanese, but go easy on him. He's sensitive.
