不言実行

ふげん　じっこう
fugen jikkou

Now that I know about the 四字熟語 personality test that Brett introduced on 表裏一体, I'm gonna keep this one handy in case anyone ever asks me what's the first yoji that comes to my mind. Yeah, of course that's cheating, but hey, if there was ever a yoji that I would want to represent my ideal (imaginary) self, it's this one.

If you look at 不言 and 実行 as separate words and try to translate directly, you get "Silent execution," where execution means the performance or realization of some task (not killing someone). The literal translation alone had me at "Hello."

Definition:
あれこれ言わずに、黙って実際に行動すること。
Translations:
1. (doing things in accordance with the philosophy)Actions speak louder than words
2. Not bothering with useless talk, simply acting
3. Shutting up and getting sh*t done

It's really difficult to come up with further translation that doesn't include the word ｢頑張る」 which I have no good English equivalent for.

I imagine that there's power in being a 不言実行する人; your peers recognize it as an admirable quality in you. There are elements of martyrdom, heroism, and reliability all rolled up in there. And I've always thought that there was power in silence as well: He who says, doesn't know; he who knows, doesn't say and all that. All of my favorite movie characters are the quiet ones who get overlooked until there's trouble, and suddenly they're the only ones who have it all together. And they know martial arts.



In real life, I'm too loud and too whiny to pull off 不言実行, but I guess that's something to 頑張る towards. In fact, I could stop talking about how I want to be perceived and just start being.

例文：
A-san: 私は、不言実行の努力家タイプです。
I guess if I had to say which I was, I'd say I was the strong, silent type.
B-san: 確実に違うでしょう？「一匹狼」と同じように、自分のことがそう呼ばれている人はきっと見かけているよね。。
But that couldn't be further from the truth, huh? Just like "lone wolf," people who have to say those things about themselves are clearly just pretenders.

Japanese Language Trivia of the Day:

I meant for this to be a short and sweet post based on something that once happened to me, but as it turns out, it didn't mean quite what I thought I did.

I once heard someone say that the problem with learning by immersion is misapplication. It's easy to pick up a new word, but a lot of times, since you've only noticed the word in one context, you haven't really understood the nuance of it. I learned the phrase 「はっきり言って」 by hearing it repeatedly from other English teachers, and was told that it meant "speak clearly." But when I tried to use it as "Speak up" or "Don't garble your words," I found out that it actually means more like "Say what you mean; Express yourself plainly."

Brett learned 衣替え as "change of clothing," which is technically accurate, but if you were to ask someone to bring a 衣替え、in case we decide to go swimming or stay the night, they'd be pretty confused.

So, I had today's trivia applied to me when I asked someone to pass me a piece of pizza, despite the fact that there was another plate of pizza right next to me. The out-of-reach pizza, however, was from Costco in Fukuoka, while the pizza at my side looked like this.

いいとこ取り
いいとこどり
ii toko dori

I got all kinds of confused at first, because I thought they said itoko-douri, which translates as "cousin road." And that's just weird. But the way it actually breaks down is "Good place picker-upper."

This happened last year, and I've spent all of my time, until today, believing that the full purpose of いいとこどり was to refer to those who swipe the best bits, in a very concrete, food related way. Not so.

いいとこどり is more of a general philosophical outlook, describing someone who looks for the good in things and ignores the bad. An optimist. A silver-lining seeker.

Check out this book about how to live an いいとこどり life (Step 1: Get a hybrid car).

So in the spirit of this bit of trivia, I choose not to reflect on the fact that I haven't really understood this phrase and have probably been using it awkwardly for a long time, but I'll focus on the fact that today's 表現 and trivia are perfect complements. Anyone who says "渡る世間に鬼はない" is definetly　いいとこどりしている.

Feel free to use it in the food sense as well, but don't be surprised if the Japanese people you use it with are impressed at your ability to craft high concept jokes.

Also, enjoy Colin, who comments on The Yoji sometimes and has a funny song related to optimism, as well as this one anthemic song about his time in Japan: tell me you don't hear an desperate attempt at いいとこどり reasoning in the chorus.

表裏一体

ひょうり　いったい
hyouri ittai

Whereas I happened upon previous yojis by happy circumstance or through random J-kaiwa, this one I actually acquired through blunt force (ie, asking a friend "What are your favorite yoji?"). In Japan, this can be seen as a kind of personality test. First, ask somebody what the first 四字熟語 that pops into their mind is. Anything is fair game. Next, ask them what their favorite yoji is, with the distinction that it should probably be different than the first (though it doesn't have to be. Their first reply is supposed to reveal their perspective on life, and their second is supposed to reveal their perspective on love.

I was first subjected to this two-step personality quiz by my girlfriend, who despaired in the answers my limited knowledge of such phrases yielded: 四面楚歌 and 中途半端. So in life I feel like I'm surrounded by enemies, and my affections are half-assed. It took some fancy footwork to convince her that the test was bogus outside the realm of native speakers (hell, I still think 凸凹 is the best kanji EVER), but if you don't want to suffer the same fate, you'd best keep comin` back.

Hmm - 凸凹 (でこぼこ) is actually a pretty good segue here...

Definition:
一つのものの表と裏のように切り離せない関係にあること。
Translations:
1. Two sides of the same coin
2. Two parts of the same thing that are inexorably linked with one another.
3. You can't have one without the other.

I still haven't completely pinned down the usages of this one, but they are wide-reaching and can be applied to a lot of interesting situations. Computer hardware and software, for instance, came up a few times in my research. Just having the hardware or the software is meaningless - you have to have both. In this way, the yoji works for two things that define eachother's utility.

But beyond that, you can also apply it to situations where the two 'sides' are conflicting instead of complementary. For instance, being a professional football (AMERICAN, that is) player might seem like a glamorous proposition. But the other side of that coin is a ton of hard work, sometimes unwanted attention, and risking your body and career every game you play.

An even subtler usage is provided in an example from my 電子辞書:親切とおせっかいは表裏一体だ. Kindness and meddling are two sides of the same coin. Even if you are just trying to help someone out, that assistance can be misconstrued as condescension or downright interference. "The road to hell..." and all that.

My challenge for you all is to try and use this word in a creative way in daily conversation, and to post your results here. To make it harder, you can't use it in any of your many conversations concerning Newtonian Physics, because that would just be cheating.

例文：バットマンの"Twoface"という敵が表裏一体という表現の具代価だ。スーツから傷された顔まで、彼は歩いている矛盾だ。後生だから、ツーフェースは本当に擦れたコインでも持っているぞ！
Batman's enemy "Twoface" is the very embodiment of the phrase "two sides of the same coin." From his suit to his scarred face, he is a walking contradiction. He even has a scratched up coin, for Christ's sake!

Fun, 表裏一体　links!

• 表裏一体トランプ！
• 表裏一体　SEXISM!

犬猿の仲: Part Two (There are 3 Kinds of People, and They All Have Cuckoos)

For anyone who's learning a foreign language, and who's doing so by immersion, you know that the route to learning is by no means a straight-forward one. You learn by meandering down long, weird side roads, and what you started looking for is not necessarily what you get. With that in mind, please forgive me a lengthy post. I hope that, like me, you find it full of interesting information, must-know phrases, and, as always, impress-your-friends-and-family trivia.

So, remember when we looked at the phrase　犬猿の仲？At the time, I couldn't find any explanations that rang true enough to satisfy me (nor have I yet; this post will not provide that satisfaction). Why are dogs and monkeys so hostile towards each other? Despite having already posted it up on the site, I kept bringing it up to Japanese people: kokugo-senseis, eikawa-students, taxi drivers, anyone who might know something. And one guy (a taxi driver) told me that he heard that the phrase originated from the rivalry between two important figures in Japanese history: Akechi Mitsuhide and Toyotomi Hideyoshi.　According to the taxi driver, Akechi's nickname was 犬 and Hideyoshi's was サル; according to others, 犬猿の仲 predates these two in history, and they were nicknamed BECAUSE of the phrase.

Akechi Mitsuhide is famous for being 三日天下： the three day king. While this qualifies as a yo-ji-juku-go, it's not really used except to refer to him. He was a general under Oda Nobunaga, but because of various political intrigues that involved the murder of Mitsuhide's mother, Mitsuhide betrayed Nobunaga, forcing him to commit seppuku at Honno-ji in 1582.

Oda Nobunaga had been a very famous daimyo, leading campaign after campaign until he had conquered and unified over one third of Japan. He inspired fierce loyalty in many of his followers, namely the aforementioned Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Tokugawa Ieyasu (yes, THE Tokugawa), who raced to avenge Nobunaga's death. Toyotomi was the one to defeat Akechi at the Battle of Yamazaki. Akechi had retained military power for only three days.

Toyotomi went on to unify the rest of Japan, but upon his death the nation split into warring factions once more.

Japan only finally unified after Tokugawa Ieyasu won the battle of Sekigahara in 1600, was declared shogun by Emperor Go-Yozei in 1603, and established the Tokugawa shogunate, which essentially ruled Japan for 250 years.

If you're reading this blog, it's safe to assume that you have some interest in things Japanese, and therefore probably knew most of that, or at least have heard the names. What was new to me was the fact that Japanese people have a system of classifying personalities based on these figures. I was told that this is the kind of thing that Japanese learners "really should know."

According to the system, everyone is one of 3 types of people: Oda type, Toyotomi type, or Tokugawa type. You can tell which one you are by how you would relate to birds, specifically, the cuckoo, or ホトトギス.

Oda Type: 鳴くぬなら、殺してしまう.
If the cuckoo doesn't sing, let's kill it.

Toyotomi Type: 鳴くぬなら、鳴かせてみよう。
If the cuckoo doesn't sing, let's MAKE it sing.

Tokugawa Type: 鳴くぬなら、鳴くまで待とう。
If the cuckoo doesn't sing, let's wait until it does.

So the Oda type is brash and aggressive, and acts hastily. It's important to note that the Toyotomi type is not seen as forceful or demanding, but rather as someone who takes on challenges, a problem solver. And the Tokugawa type is patient. Which one are you? If you've made it all the way through this post, you just might be the Tokugawa type...

Post script: 鳴くぬなら、is the way the phrase is said. It's means the same as 鳴かないなら, it's just an archaic form. Don't use it to grammar anything else. Yes, I just used 'grammar' as a verb.