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.