Random bit of fluff...

Found my electronic dictionary today, after a week of not being able to find it -- it was in my car. It's fairly old, now, and the newer ones have a lot more features -- a touch-screen interface, so you can draw kanji rather than look it up by radical and number of strokes (difficulty: writing it in correct stroke order), an English-to-English dictionary, etc. But I don't really need all that. (Maybe the Eng.<->Eng. dictionary...but since it's a learner's dictionary, probably not.)

An old college friend once mentioned to me how amazing it felt to live in a foreign country and suddenly not have to tote around your dictionary any more. It's true, it's a rush when you realize that you can actually communicate (albeit at a very elementary level) without technological crutches.

My latest milestone passed in the quest to understand Japanese was noticing that whoever did the official English translation for the manga "Nodame Cantabile" was not at all versed in Japanese culture, and in some spots showed a very tenuous grasp of the language...

Even the road construction is polite

In Japan, as in most places, most of the heavy road construction is done on the night shift. Even though they aren't inconveniencing all that many people, they try to be exceedingly polite about it. Witness this inflateable light standard, standing at the beginning/end of the construction area:

工事中 --> Construction in progress
ご迷惑おかけします --> We apologize for the inconvenience

The workers were bemused when, on the way back from the convenience store, I asked permission to take this picture.

Random geeky toy photos 4/An attempt at mental re-alignment 3

Whenever we (Doug, Jamie, Me, James, et.al.) went to Tenmonkan, one of us would invariably suggest, "Let's get purikura!" (Seriously, guys, how many of these did we do? Every time I open a box of stuff I sent home, three or four more fall out)

プリクラ is Japanese shorthand for the English phrase "Print Club", and it refers to photo stickers taken at booths in game centers all over Japan. After the requisite mugging for the camera, you scoot around to the other side of the booth and use the touch screen/light pen to decorate your picture. Quite popular amongst the young in Japan. Looked kind of odd with 30-year-old bald me doing it, but whatever.

The male lead of the manga "Love Hina", Urashima Keitaro, had a hobby of collecting purikura whenever he saw a booth. The sad thing was, he was the only one ever in his pictures. In real life, purikura is most popular among girls -- so much so that many game centers had rules preventing males who were alone hanging around the purikura machines (they'd stick their cameraphones under the curtains, trying for upskirt shots...)

It was always fun when I was at work and saw students exchanging these pictures. They were surprised when I started trading with them.


Clockwise from upper left: Me, Doug, Jamie and James; Students from Kamiichiki Junior High; Students from Higashiichiki Junior High; Japanese tutor and a fellow language-classmate from France, more students from Higashiichiki. (Note the fake cigs in the "No Smoking" pic.)


I used my Canon Wordtank as a repository for purikura and any other stickers that students would give me. Left: My Japanese language class from 2003.

I bought the Wordtank when I was in Akihabara during a trip to Tokyo to visit my buddy Jonny in the winter of 2002. At the time, my Japanese was not great, and after about ten minutes of me trying to tell the shopkeeper what I was looking for, I told him I'd be back later w. a friend who spoke Japanese. Imagine the annoyance on the face of the shopkeeper when I showed up with THIS guy:Now imagine the surprise on the shopkeeper's face when Jonny (who grew up in Kyoto and Kobe) started speaking perfect Japanese.

Good times.

(I paid ¥20,000 for that Wordtank, and the shopkeeper threw in an English manual for free. A week later, I saw the exact same model for sale in Kagoshima City for ¥15,000. Ah, well...)

I wanna find this tattoo artist and buy him a drink

Take a look at this picture and caption:

Samurai
While spending some time in Japan, I was lucky enough to get the kanji for "Dragon soul" tattooed on my arm at a studio in Tokyo. The artist helped me translate the phrase into kanji.
(Tokyo, JP)

(Picture from the gallery of kanji tattoos at http://www.bmeink.com/kanji001.html -- some pics may be NSFW)

Now take a closer look at this picture:

Does this say "dragon soul?" Nope. "Dragon soul" would be something like 「竜の魂」(and that's a wild guess; for all I know it could be wildly inaccurate).

One thing that I am sure of is that this tattoo says 外人. "Gaijin." It's the impolite word for "foreigner."

Heh.

While in Japan, I became a fan of the manga/anime/television series Nodame Cantabile. Since it's almost certain that the (live-action) series will never be brought over and localized, I decided to hunt down the DVDs and bring them home with me.

(Yes, I'm aware that there are at least two fan-subbed versions of the show floating around on teh intarwebes.)

SO, one season, 13 one-hour episodes, six discs. How much does a season set of DVDs cost in Japan?

MSRP: ¥23,940 (tax included). That's about $250. The Amazon price is ¥18,151 ($190). (I found it at a used shop, thank goodness.)

I picked up a copy of the Del Rey American version of the manga the other day, flipped to the translator's notes, and was annoyed to find out that a few of the translations are flat out wrong.

[BEGIN pedantic]

1. A harisen is a large paper fan used to smack people for various comedic reasons; the character of Dr. Eto is nicknamed "Harisen" because he uses one on his students. The translator rendered this as "Blowfish" (harisenbo), more commonly "fugu".
2. In the liner notes, the translator explained that the name Koshien refers to an amateur baseball team of which lead character Nodame is a fan. In reality, Koshien is the name of the stadium where the annual high school baseball tournaments are played.
   

[END pedantic]

What I do in my free time

(click for full size)

I've been practicing Japanese calligraphy for a while now. Not sure if I'm getting any better, but it's marvelously relaxing...

｢信じる道｣ roughly translates to something like "The way of trust" or some such.

Culture Shock redux

Even after living in Japan for seven and a half years or so, little things can still surprise me. Sort of a culture aftershock, maybe? These little things are very different from the things that caused culture shock back when I first came, though.

Like spending an hour in conversation (in Japanese) with about ten people in a coffee shop, without a net (i.e. sans dictionary).

And after that, stopping at a bookstore on the way home to pick up the latest issue of アフタヌーン and reading through this month's chapter of ああっ女神さまっ (Ah! My Goddess), again without dictionary. (I'm gonna have to go through it again with the dictionary in hand, just to check, though.)

And, while at the bookstore, seeing at least four different collections of the speeches of Barack Obama, one or two with a CD, one with DVD, made for the purpose of helping people study English. (I've seen at least two or three different translations of "Yes We Can." 私たちは出来る？　我々は出来るはと?)

This isn't the first time all that "sans dictionary" stuff has happened to me before...but it's been a while since I've had opportunity to try, what with working nights and all. I'm pretty glad I can still do it, though I've gotten a little rusty. Alas, time to hit the books again.

Angela Aki: 手紙〜拝啓 十五の君へ〜 (revised)

One of my favorite musicians, Angela Aki, appeared on NHK's Kohaku Uta Gassen for the third time this past New Year's Eve. The song she sang, 手紙〜拝啓 十五の君へ〜　(letter to your 15 year old self), was first released in September of last year, becoming her biggest hit and the theme song to the latest season of みんなのうた, as well as the image song for the 75th Annual Nationwide School Singing Contest, shown on NHK.

I happen to like this song a lot. As some of you may know, last year was...not the easiest for me, and many times I found myself seeking comfort in music.* This song's lyrics seemed rather meaningful, in my opinion.

EDIT: After it was first posted, I ran this translation by my friend Jamie, who's much better at this kind of thing than I am. She very kindly took the time to correct my more egregious errors, and offer a lot of good suggestions. Thanks, Jamie! (You can check out her LiveJournal here.) Anyway, the corrected version follows. Original version will be in the comments. Also, this probably won't be the final revision, either.

My amateurish translation of the song:

To you reading this letter, wherever you are, whatever you're doing
The fifteen-year-old-me has a source of sorrow that I can't tell anyone about
Since I address this letter to the future me
Surely you will understand exactly how I feel

Now I am about to lose, I am close to tears, it seems I am fading away
As I go forward, whose words can I believe in?

I have only one heart, and it's been broken many times over
Living for today is living in pain
Living for today
______

To you, thank you; I have something I want to tell the 15-year-old you
If you ask yourself which way you should turn, you will eventually understand:
The seas of a stormy youth are harsh
But we go forward on a ship of dreams to the shores of tomorrow

Now, don't give up, don't cry, when it seems it's time to fade away
You can believe in your own voice as you go forward

The adult me has also had sleepless nights from pain
Living for today is bitter, yet sweet

Your whole life has meaning, don't be afraid of dreaming big
Keep on believing
_____

I am about to lose, I am close to tears, it seems that I'm fading away
As I go forward, whose words can I believe in?
_____

Ah, don't give up, don't cry, though it seems it's time to fade away
You can believe in your own voice as you go forward

You can't avoid sadness, whatever age you are
So show your smiling face, and go on living for today
Live for today

To you reading this letter
I hope for happy things for you.

(Thanks again to Jamie for the help; any remaining mistakes are mine, of course)

*Other sources of comfort: food, movies, This American Life, A Prairie Home Companion

People should look up more often.

So I went to the big used shop yesterday to look at...stuff. I was browsing the Nintendo DS games. Sometimes they have American games, too -- I don't know where they get them. I hadn't bothered to get any of them until yesterday, when I saw that they had an American copy of Pokemon Diamond for really really cheap. (I have the Japanese version, but still...)

(Yeah, yeah I know, Pokemon?!? It's something to do in my copious amounts of free-time -- and it impresses the elementary schoolers.)

Anyway, I took it up to the front and handed it to the cashier. “これ、お願いします。”*

The clerk, not looking up at me, noticed the stickers on the box proclaiming, “外国版ですから、英語だけありますよ！”** and felt that he had to check with me. “ああ、すみません、これは英語版です。大丈夫ですか。。。？”***

I boggled for a moment, then said “ぼくはアメリカ人だ。日本語版がとても難しい！”**** It was only at this point that he noticed that I wasn't Japanese.

I didn't laugh. His co-workers might have, though.

What?

Oh, right, hang on.

*"This one, please."
**"FOREIGN VERSION! ENGLISH LANGUAGE ONLY!"
***"Ah, excuse me, this is the English version. Is that all right...?"
****"I'm an American. The Japanese-language version is very difficult for me!"

Happy ME day!

Let me just interrupt your grand celebrations of ME day, commemorating my b--what? You aren't actually celebrating....

...well, ANYWAY...

This year for my birthday I picked up THIS:



It's the 5-disc set of the 10-hour-long Shogun miniseries from back in the '80s. I wanted to buy this when it came out four years ago, because I had just finished reading the original James Clavell novel (thanks, Scott!). However, at the time, the price was ¥14,490, or over $120. Insanity.

The MSRP is still ¥14,490, but one of the local electronics shops is having a months-long "I Love TV Life" sale, with almost all TV box sets from 10% to 40% off, and Shogun was one of the 40% off titles. (It was also the first time I'd seen it in a store in over three years.) As it turns out, I could have gotten it from Amazon.jp for 60% off, but I would have lost a bunch in credit card conversion fees.

When this show was first broadcast over 25 years ago, Mom & Dad wouldn't let me watch it for some odd reason. Most of the rest of America tuned in to it, though... I've only watched the first disc and a half so far, and I'm glad to see that the TV series corrected some of the more egregious goofs in the novel -- like an honorable samurai family named "Bunny", or a vassal spy of Toranaga named "Ugly". However there are still some pretty big screw ups included. The bit where Mariko explains how simple the Japanese language is is particularly cringeworthy. Telling different verb tenses using differences in inflection THAT DON'T ACTUALLY EXIST IN JAPANESE...

Oh by the way

I forgot to mention that I received the results of the Japanese Language Proficiency Test last week.

How did I do? Well....



(By the way, if you ever find yourself searching for one of these "FAIL" image macros, be careful. I found one which used a photo from the "Running of the Bulls" that I'd describe for you were it not for the fact that I don't wanna think about it anymore.

A note or two on the Japanese language

Japanese has an amazing number of abbreviated terms and phrases. When words are taken from other languages and incorporated into Japanese, the words are almost always truncated in some way. I would conjecture that it's because the Japanese syllabry makes a lot of foreign words really long.

Take the term "plastic model". Four syllables, right? In Japanese, it's eight. "purasuchikku moderu". Small wonder that it becomes "puramoderu". Mobile Suit Gundam models have their own abbreviation, "gunpla".

They do this with their own language as well. There was a TV program on tonight, where they had a panel trying to guess what the original terms were. At first, they did a lot of "Gairaigo", foreign words rendered in Japanese, but then they started in on the native stuff, and the panel couldn't figure out about half of them.

One that everybody missed was "Konnichiwa," the standard Japanese greeting. When this one popped up, everyone was shocked that it was an abbreviation. However, if you think about it, こんにちは translates to "As for today," which makes no sense.

As it turns out, こんにちは is short for 今日はご機嫌いかがですか？ (Konnichi ha gokigen ikaga desuka?) which translates to "How are you today, honored sir?" (Lit. "As for this day, how is your health, honored sir?") "Konban wa" (Good evening) is similar.

I have a few pet theories as to why there are so many abbreviated phrases in Japanese, but as they are pretty much W.A.Gs, I won't bore you with them here.

Just thinking about thinking

The first time I met Jonny Rasmussen was in college. Although Jonny's an American, he spent a very large portion of his life in Japan, from elementary school all the way through high school. Thus, he's fluent in both English and Japanese. (People who spoke to him by phone in Japanese would often assume he was a native speaker, which would lead to some surprised reactions when he told them his name.)

Once, at lunch, one of us (it might have been me) asked him what at the time seemed to be a perfectly reasonable question. "What language do you think in?"

Now, having spent a decent chunk of time living in a foreign country and doing my best to learn the language, I realize how silly a question that is. One does not consciously choose to think in one language or another; it just happens.

I wonder why it took so long for me to figure that out?

Uh-oh

Gov't to consider Japanese language ability as requirement for long-stay foreigners - Mainichi Daily News

Apropos of nothing, first in a series

Apropos of Nothing: Random stories of little import that I find interesting/amusing.

On our travels around Kyushu, we (the JET gang) once visited a shop called Fukusaya, which specializes in "castella", a kind of sponge cake first brought to Japan by the Portugese way back when. (I think we were in Fukuoka at the time. Airport code for Fukuoka airport: FUK)

Fukusaya (福砂屋) was founded in 1624 in Nagasaki, and has been making castella ever since. They're probably the most famous makers of castella in the country. Naturally, we all bought some to bring back to our various offices/school boards/etc.

When I presented the staff at one of the schools I worked at with some castella, they were very impressed. One of the teachers asked the English teacher if I knew that Fukusaya was famous.

She said, "Of course not."

I fired back from across the room, "YES I DID," in passable Japanese.

I'm not sure, but I think that it was at this point that the rest of the staff began to have a higher opinion of me.

It's the little victories in life that make it worthwhile.

Japanese buildings can be "dangerous" places.

Case in point: The NHK Building in Okayama.

So I went to Okayama yesterday...

...to take the Japanese Language Proficiency Test, Level 2.

I was doing okay through the first two parts, but when I started the reading/grammar section, the first example was an entire article from the Yomiuri Shimbun. Complete with new and unusual kanji combinations.

That's when I knew for sure, that


Oh well. (^_^)

YouTube - 花(すべての人の心に花を)-夏川りみ

...and this is what the song sounds like.

(I'm doing a different arrangement; both the original and this version are way too high for my voice.)

Hana (Flower)

Lyrics check!

This is not a professional translation; far from it, actually. Still, I hope I got the gist of it correct. Or something...

川は流れてどこどこ行くの
人も流れてどこどこ行くの
そんな流れがつくころには
花として　花として
咲かせてあげたい

The river flows, where does it go?
People also flow; where do they go?
That kind of flow at a certain time
will bloom as a flower

*refrain:
泣きなさい、笑いなさい
いつの日か、いつの日か
花を咲かそうよ

Go ahead and cry, go ahead and laugh
for someday, the flower will bloom

涙流れてどこどこ行くの
愛も流れてどこどこ行くの
そんな流れをこのうちに
花として　花として
むかえてあげたい

Tears flow, where do they go?
Love also flows, where does it go?
That kind of flow within you,
In that direction will rise

*Refrain

花は花として笑いも出来る
人は人として涙も流す
それが自然のうたなのさ
心の中に，心の中に
花を咲かそうよ

The flower, for the flower's sake we can laugh
People, for people's sake the tears flow
This is the song of nature
within the heart, within the heart
the flower will bloom

泣きなさい，笑いなさい
いついつまでも、
いついつまでも
花をつかもうよ

go ahead and cry, go ahead and laugh
For forever
we will still use the flower

(Not sure about that last bit)
(Or, in fact, most of of it)

The Japanese Language Proficiency Test is coming

I took a look through some of the many books I've collected to help me study for the 日本語能力試験, and boy, am I in trouble....

The test is in December, and I've got a lot of studying to do. So, posts may be a bit short for a while.