青天白日

せいてん　はくじつ
seiten hakujitsu

To put kind of a cap on the theme that Brett and I accidentally developed last week, comes a yo-ji that's been languishing on our unpublished draft roster for about half a year. 純情可憐 and 清廉潔白 both deal with people of unassailable character. 青天白日 might be what happens when someone who's character is unassailable gets assailed anyway.

All the kanji in here are about the weather, but don't expect it to be used literally all the time. The feeling and the sense of a bright blue sky and broad daylight are used to express something else.

Definition:
青空に輝く太陽。転じて、心の中が明白で、少しも隠しごとや疑われることがない状態。また、うたがいや無実の罪がはれること。
Translations:
1. Being transparent, beyond even the slightest doubt or suspiscion.
2. Having doubts, or false charges against you cleared away.
3. Being acquitted of all charges.
4. Being secure in the knowledge that your own actions were just; feeling no guilt.

The Yo-ji Databank falls kind of short on this one, providing a cop out 用例: 私はいつも晴天白日だ, but I can see why they went with that. Internet searches reveal tons of results for 青天白日 but most of them are stand alone cases.

It also gets used literally to describe the flag of the Chinese Nationalist Party. This is what a 青天白日旗 looks like.

If we had been formally grouping these 四字s thematically, 正々堂々 would have made a good addition to this run.

例文：刑期が満了した彼は青天白日の身となり、司直を訴えることになりました。
Having been cleared of all charges AFTER his prison sentence had been concluded, he has decided to sue the judicial authorities.

清廉潔白

せいれん　けっぱく
seiren keppaku


It's that time of year again - graduation! Whereas the school year finishes around May or June in America for most schools, Japan's school system marks March as the big month. Point in case, my third year junior high school kids will say farewell to our school this Friday(gasp!). My elementary schools are wrapping up next week, but since I'm only asked to come for normal classes (of which they have none due to graduation prep-work) I'm finishing up with them this week. It's always an awkward time because I never know if or when I'll see them again. Which schools I go to and when is up to my employer, so it's impossible for me to wholly disabuse the other teachers of the idea that I'll be gone come April when I honestly don't know if they'll see me again.

The bottom line: most of my elementary kids have been told I'm going back to America next month, even though my job (let alone my residency) ends in August. This will be the third time that they go out of their way to make heartfelt going-away presents, wish me luck back in America, tell me how sad they are that I'll be gone, and then wonder what the hell is going on when I drop in a month later. Always a good time, especially if I throw a blanket over my head and haunt them as the ghost of 英語 past!

The presents are nice, of course, and made doubly so by virtue of the 四字熟語 I found amidst the farewell cards. Yes, dear readers - it is the very yoji you see before you today!

Definition:
「清廉」「清浄」は、心が清く正しいこと。また自分の利欲に心が動かされないこと。「廉」は、清く正しい。「潔白」は、心や行為の清く正しいこと。
Translation:
1. Incorruptible
2. Pure-hearted
3. A straightshooter (since Rikai-chan's definition is kind of klunky)

In a theme that I've accidentally continued since Monday (will the trend go on until Friday?! Stay tuned to find out!), here is another word that can be applied to someone who would not knowingly do any wrong. There are a few huge differences, however. First off, 純情可憐 seems to be exclusively reserved for young women. Or, as I'll slur at them after a few rounds at the bar,
"sweet young thangs". 清廉潔白 enjoys a much wider versatility, and does not discriminate based on age or gender. Who is the pure one NOW, four-character idiomatic expressions?!

Behind this is the idea that 清廉潔白な人々 are aware of greed and corruption, and likely have been directly tempted by it - but pointedly refuse such shady dealings again and again. 純情可憐な女性, however, are compassionate and pure...but perhaps only to a point, since the expression seems to have a cut-off at a certain age.

In honor of this yoji, a treat: the most 清廉潔白な人 I know.


例文：オバマ大統領はなかなかいい人ですね。しかし、伝説の清廉潔白なワシントン大統領みたいなリーダになれる可能性があるか知らない。
President Obama is a pretty good guy. But I don't know if it's possible for him to become like the legendary "never tells a lie" Washington.

純情可憐

じゅんじょう　かれん
jyunjyou karen

日本の方へのメッセージ：
ＮＳＦＷという略語は「ＮＯＴ　ＳＡＦＥ　ＦＯＲ　ＷＯＲＫ」という意味で、人前で（得に同僚や子供）クリックしない方がいいリンクのことです。

It's rare that we get the chance to post a yoji that doesn't lend itself to pictures of scantily clad women in one way or another, but today is one of those days. These kanji don't allow it.

純 is one that I first learned in 純粋 (じゅんすい；jyunsui), meaning "pure." It has connotations of "unadulterated" but working in the school system I've heard it used to refer to the innoncence of youth. When it's used in the first compound of today's yo-ji, 純情, it becomes "purity of heart," or "naivete."

可 gets used in all kinds of compounds but think of it here like you would think of it in 可愛い. 可愛い has always perplexed me because of it's incredible descriptive range, which Google Image search will help me demonstrate: Can you think of another word that you could use to describe both THIS , THIS ,and THIS[NSFW]?

And if that's not enough, I've never been sure about the connection between 可愛い and 可愛そう. For me "cute" and "pitiful" are two very different things (BIG MISTAKE in this bit. Check the comments to see us getting owned by reader Pazu) , but in Japanese they seem conceptually linked somehow. Even the second part of today's yo-ji, 可憐, can be defined as either "sweet" or "poor," as in "poor baby."

Luckily　純情可憐 doesn't have the same ambiguity. As the definition will tell you, it's actually got a pretty narrow window of applicability.

Definition:
おもに若い女性の清らかで愛らしいさま。
Translation:
1. Beautiful and pure.
2. Sweet.

I like this one because I've had trouble figuring out how to describe a girl in Japanese who, in English, I would refer to as "sweet." Using 八方美人 is risky for reasons we've already discussed, and in a small town where you stand out, it's hard enough to say something nice about a woman without setting off an 井戸端会議 about your romantic intentions.

The one time I tried to explain the ways in which English speakers apply their version of "甘い" to people the conversation became confusing quickly: I didn't know that 甘い could be used to mean generous or indulgent at the time. To compare, think of how quickly 和英 or 英和　conversations can get sketchy when a Japanese person wants to talk about a 優しい女, but doesn't know whether or not to translate 優しい as "kind" or "easy."

純情可憐 resolves these problems for me. It encapsulates what I think of as the epitome of "sweet," and its chastity cuts out any potential for inappropriate interpretation. It is mainly used to refer to women who are below the "Christmas Cake" cut-off, so I might still have trouble applying it to older women, but it's still a lucky find.

It reminds me of 箱入り娘, for obvious reasons.

例文：新人タレントは、テレビドラマで純情可憐な少女の役をみごとに演じきった。
The up-and-coming actress gave a magnificent performance in her latest television drama role, playing a sweet, innocent young girl.