Japanese Cultural Trivia of the Day:

These are words that I considered tossing into a 教科書に載っていない post, but then I figured it be more fun to do them like this.

裏
うら
ura


表
おもて
omote

裏, not to be confused with the homonymous 浦 from 津々浦々, has tons of meanings, but the common thread that they share: you can't see the 裏 from the front.

表, which you can find in 表面, 表現, and 代表, has an equal abundance of interpretation and represents the opposite of 裏. It's the visible surface.

You might remember both of these from 表裏一体.

They work really well for talking about buildings and locations (駐車場は裏にあります) and I hear them a lot at work, where 表 is the part of the bakery that the customers frequent, and 裏 is where the baking gets done (「表の掃除終わりましたか。」とか「裏から鉄板持ってきて。」).

But where you can hear it and use it most often is in today's cultural trivia:

裏か表！

裏か (うらか;uraka) as it gets abbreviated in speech, is a system of dividing people into two groups. I want to call it a kid's game, but then... it's not a game, though it often precedes games, and much like じゃん拳　(じゃんけん；janken), everyone in Japan does it, regardless of their age.

Whenever you have a situation where you need two groups, or two teams, you can find people doing 裏か表, which works like this: 裏, as it's meaning implies, refers to 手の平, the part of your hand that can't be seen from the front, so... your palm. 表 in this case is　手の甲, the back of your hand. Everyone stands in a circle, puts a hand in, and then everyone (or at least SOMEONE) in the group chants 「裏か表！」 while shaking/flipping their hand back and forth between the two states of hand-existence.

On the final chanted syllable, everyone picks a side and thrusts their hand out, showing either 裏 or　表. If the numbers of people who chose each are approximately even, then 裏s form one group, 表ｓ form the other. And if the numbers are way off, the process is repeated. Just like じゃんけん has あいこでしょう,　when you have to do it again, there's a different chant. What that chant is, however, is subject for disagreement. The kids that I learned it from always said 「手、手、のって！」 Yuri says simply 「っせ！」 There are even little kid versions that get longer and ridiculous, 「裏かオモ、てんぷら、ハンバーガー。。。」　and on into あほ臭い territory. Have people in other parts of Japan heard other versions?

裏 and 表 can also be linked to ideas of 本音 and 建前, as well as martial arts, but those are subjects for other posts.

Japanese Language Trivia of the Day:

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.

亭主関白

ていしゅ　かんぱく
teishu kanpaku

Before I get started with this one, I'd like to say both thanks and sorry to the people who have still been checking on the website daily despite our truancy. As an admitted internet-abuser, I know what it's like to come time and time again to a site that advertises fresh-baked grammar every day and only produces moldy vocabulary croissants from last week. In our defense, Jeff is pretty much a vagabond right now and I've been trying to fend off a pair of squatters for the past month. Are these two things related? Undoubtedly so. But it's still little excuse for us to let the site go to waste, especially when the summer crawl meant zero classes for me. So again, sorry for the delay, and without further ado...

The way I stumbled upon this one was actually when discussing some regional 表現 with the aforementioned ne'er-do-wells and my girlfriend. The evening's topic : 九州男児 (きゅうしゅう　だんじ). Defining this phrase is a bit tricky, and my attempts to get a more exact definition via the internet have only made it more of a challenge. The very first time I was exposed to the term was when I first arrived in Tokyo and went to a bar with some of my future administration. One of them chose to order some shouchu, which is pretty much the strongest native Japanese drink. His colleagues were quick to jokingly call him a "Kyushu Danji", and seeing as that's where I was going to live, I tried to investigate the meaning a little. My Japanese two years ago, however, was a bit stumbly, and all I discerned from the conversation was that Kyushu Danjis love to drink. Given the reputation of many JETs, this seemed like a useful word to know.

But it turns out that being a heavy drinker isn't enough to qualify you for K. Danji-ship. To be honest, I can't entirely say where the next bit of my tutelage came from, but I remember soon learning that the stereotype associated with 九州男児 includes a variety of attributes common to the men of Kyushu. After the drinking, there is also what I can only describe as swarthiness. This is a natural side-effect of living in the most Southern island of Japan (ie. more sun year-round) and also living in what is largely regarded as a rural area (ie. more farms = more time in the sun). The next piece, and arguably the biggest, is the personality. And that's where today's yoji comes in.

Definition:
家庭の中で夫が妻に支配者のように威張っていること。
Translations:
1. A man who acts like the king of his house.
2. A chauvanistic and/or domineering husband.

This phrase is closely linked with the 九州男児 image, in which the husband lords over his wife. It's important to note that nowhere has the term "abusive" been mentioned, as it's actually quite difficult to become 亭主関白 without a partner who is subservient by nature (so I'm led to believe). Someone described with this yoji is likely to assume that all the cooking/cleaning is women's work, and they should not need to be reminded of that.

Jumping back to 九州男児, please keep in mind that a regional expression like this will get all kinds of different mileage in different areas and company. In searching for a definition, I found a gay Japanese blogger who defined the phrase simply as "very manly," and in an entirely positive light. I've even met girls here who say 九州男児's are more desirable, labeling their Tokyo counterparts as too effeminate in dress, appearance, and even speech. Whether or not being described this way is good or bad will depend entirely on the speaker.
例文：
僕は九州男児と言われるのための必要条件をほとんど満たせる。男らしい胸毛は？チェック！洗濯と料理が女性の義務の考えは？チェック！飲兵衛？ダブルチェック！一つ問題なところは日焼けが少し足りない。。。時々外に出たほうがいいかな。。。
I think I can nearly fulfill the requirements of being called a Kyushu Danji. Excessive chest hair? Check! The belief that laundry and cooking are women's work? Check! A veritable drunkard? DOUBLE check! The only problem is that my skin's not quite dark enough...maybe I should get out more often?

Note: I actually don't believe that business about a woman's place in the world - except in circumstances where it's comedic gold, or even comedic silver. I am even known to settle for comedic pewter.

Note the Second: Like Jeff said, I'm going to try to give a grammar post every Tuesday AND Thursday starting from this Tuesday. Also like I said before, any suggestions for the topics of said posts is hugely welcome. See you soon!

Note the THIRD: Jeff posted a comment saying how one of the keys of Kyushu Danji is that they do all of the above...without saying a word. They aren't mute, but if you have to vocalize your commands or desires, you are no Kyushu danji.

Japanese Cultural Trivia:

Surprise!

You get a bonus third post today and a bit of Japanese Cultural trivia that includes some history, some culinary customs, some vocabulary, and some awesome.

Monday, as you know, was 海の日(umi no hi), but did you know that today is 土用の丑の日 (doyou no ushi no hi)?

I bet that you did not.

In it's most common usage, and according to Rikai-chan, 土用 means "midsummer" or "the dog days of summer," but actually, EVERY season has it's 土用。As this site explains, each season has an official starting day (you can find it on most calendars) and the 土用 period comprises the 18 days before the official start of the next season. For example, the first day of Autumn usually falls on or near August 8th, and the 18 days before that (where we are now) is considered 夏の土用.

(Traditionally, 夏の土用 is the most important of all the 土用s because it's an extremely busy time for agriculture, which is why most people only use it to refer to the summer.)

Now, 丑の日 or the day of the ox, is borrowed from Chinese astrology, and before I spend nine hours on the internet trying to find out what makes 丑の日 different from the other 11 kinds of days, I'm just going to acknowledge the fact that it's not THAT important to this post. The point is that since the Chinese astrological cycle of days repeats every 12 days, and there are 18 days in 土用, you're guaranteed at least one 土用の丑の日.

土用の丑の日 traditionally represents the hottest, most humid, nastiest summer day (not in terms of actual temperature records or humidity indexes, but just... in general) and it's a day when you might be particularly susceptible to today's bonus word:

夏バテ
なつばて
natsubate

夏バテ is a term that might also be misleading, depending on your dictionary. I've seen it listed as "adaptation to the summer heat," which sounds to me like getting used to/dealing with it. In actual usage, 夏バテ is closer to "heat stroke." It's a term for exhaustion, fatigue, general malaise and physical misery that you suffer during the nearly unbearable summer months.

But don't worry. There is a trick to beating 夏バテ that every person living in Japan should know, and I'm going to reveal it to. You might even have noticed it yourself at restaurants, or supermarkets, or in advertisements for either of the above. Today, all across Japan, Japanese people will be consuming massive quantities of うなぎ、fresh-water eel.

If you've ever tried unagi, basted in a mildly sweet barbecue sauce (think 繊細） served over steamed rice (even better when the rice and eel are steamed together) with sliced tamago yaki and crisp toasted nori, maybe with some daikon sukemono on the side, good lord... if you've had that, you should know that you don't NEED a reason to eat うなぎ.


But as for it's value as a weapon against the dreaded 夏バテ, consult the nutritional advice of... this lady:

ウナギには、ビタミンＡが豊富に含まれています。
他にもタンパク質、脂質、ビタミンＢ群、ビタミンＤ、Ｅ、カルシウム、鉄など
豊富な栄養素が含まれている栄養満点な食品です。

Chock-full of vitamin-A, plus proper quantities of protein, lipids, vitamins B, D, E, calcium, and iron, うなぎ is just the ticket for a highly nourishing meal.

But for those of you who, like me, aren't satisfied with surface explanations of why things are the way they are, it gets even better. Nutritious and delicious though it may be, how did the entire country of Japan start a tradition of eating eel on 土用の丑の日?

Back in the Edo Period, there was a renaissance man by the name of 平賀源内 (Hiraga Gennai). He studied it all, and did it all. He was a painter, a physician, a scientist, an avid follower of Western studies, an inventor (his エレキテル;electrostatic generator has earned him immortality in Japanese anime, often as an eccentric or even MAD scientist), and an author, writing novels, satire, and articles about nature or science. He was considered an expert on all matter of subjects, and rendered his intellectual services to those who needed them.

So when the Edo Period うなぎ vendors had a problem, they knew exactly who to turn to. How to ensure strong うなぎ sales in summer? Hiraga Gennai had the answer. Create an advertising campaign ensuring the masses that eating eel was a great way to beat the heat. True story. The 土用の丑の日 tradition started because うなぎ vendors and restaurants once asked Hiraga Gennai to help them recover from a sales slump.

It's possible then, that Hiraga Gennai was the first person to become a celebrity endorser in Japanese history, and at the very least he must rank as the most successful. The entire country still buys into the advertising, and Gennai is responsible for billions and billions of yen in うなぎ sales, hundreds of years after his death.

(If that's not enough to make you question his moral integrity, here's a slight footnote: He was also passionate about performing experiments on ore. So much so that his anger at being unable to open new mines and procure more samples drove him into a fit that led to the death of one of his students. He died in a Japanese prison.)

So... enjoy your bonus post, eat some eel today (I will), and stay out of the heat!

Hope everybody's having a great summer!