Due to popular demand, the puzzle lives again! This time on Mondays. We’ll see how long I can keep this up.

I’m currently sharing an apartment with 5-6 other people (things are in…flux). We live in a 5DK apartment above a chicken butcher, so they affectionately call the apartment 鳥ハウス. It’s a short walk from a station that is only two stops from where I work. Living with young Japanese people has been the highlight of my move to Tokyo, and I’m not quite sure what I did to deserve a place this great. (I found the room on roomshare.jp, which I highly recommend to anyone looking for a place to live.)

Shortly after I moved in, I discovered the following sign somewhere in the apartment:

When I first saw it I was extremely confused. I knew what it meant because of the placement of the sign, but what was up with that question mark? After looking at it for a while, I had that なるほど moment and finally realized what it meant.

The puzzle this week is to tell me 1) where in the apartment I found it and 2) what was actually written.

The prize if you win? One can of 100% barley malt beer – e.g. Ebisu, Suntory Malts, Asahi Premium. (New rule: you must physically track me down and demand your beer to redeem it.)

Please do not post your answer in the comments. Send it to me via email or facebook. My email address is るぱんさんせい (romanized) at-mark gmail dot com.

A  boy named Mike, that’s who. The English is Mike, and the Japanese is 三毛 (みけ) – a tortoiseshell cat or perhaps calico in the US. They’re pronounced differently but have the same romanization. In Japanese it literally means three-hairs, referring to the three colors on the cat – black, brown and orange…although don’t some of those cats have white, too?

Beers to Robin and Thomas for continued participation.

The Friday Puzzle takes a summer vacation starting this week, inspired again by Car Talk. They’ve been on a summer break for the past three weeks and have been airing classic episodes. If you don’t listen, I highly recommend trying to get a hold of the episodes. They’ve been solid. If you subscribe in iTunes, it should let you download the past few weeks’ episodes.

A reminder that the puzzle from last week is still open. Have you found my cat yet?

This week I’m channeling my inner Will Shortz.

Today’s puzzle is all about the romanization. There is a type of Japanese cat such that when you romanize the Japanese word, you get a common boy’s name in English. What is the cat and what is the boy’s name?

The prize if you win? One can of 100% barley malt beer – e.g. Ebisu, Suntory Malts, Asahi Premium.

Please do not post your answer in the comments. Send it to me via email or facebook. My email address is るぱんさんせい (romanized) at-mark gmail dot com.

Well, I was right. It was an easy puzzle. Probably easier than I initially imagined. I tried to get clever and talk about radicals (awesome! bodacious!), but four people flooded me with correct possibilities – 手、頭、目、髪、耳、お尻、鼻、指、足、口、顎、爪先、首。Hell, all of them, basically!

Which got me thinking, why is that the case? Sure, 月 is often associated with body parts, but it isn’t used in any of the main ones. The reason is, I believe, because many of the other body parts are so useful in the kind of basic explanation required in pictograms, that they themselves become radicals.

手　The hand, manipulator of things, is used all over the place. Of course it gets in on the finger character (指), but it also grasps (握る), points (指す), holds (持つ), picks up (拾う), and digs (掘る).

口  The mouth, drinker of booze and consumer of grilled chicken parts, is another one you’ll see all over. It eats (喰う), yells (叫ぶ), beeps (鳴る), and cries (鳴く).

I could go on for a while, but I’ll save that for another post when I have more time. Matt from no-sword emailed me with a link to one of his archives where he talks further about the 月 radical. First of all, read the link – a great classic no-sword post. He explains that the body part radical is actually 肉 which eventually became the same as 月. It makes sense if you think about it. The characters that have the 月 radical all are internal organy type parts – 腸、腹、心臓、肝臓, etc. Much more purely fleshy than our external sensory organs.

The winner by random number generation (everything is officially on the Internets, hooray) is Jens. Congrats.

This fortnight’s puzzle is somewhat easy. I’ve wanted to do a kanji puzzle for a while, but couldn’t think up a good way to do one until now.

Everyone knows that radicals are a fundamental part of kanji. Your job this week is to provide me with the kanji for a body part that doesn’t use the radical 月, the radical that is used in many of the body part kanji.

The prize if you win? One can of 100% barley malt beer – e.g. Ebisu, Suntory Malts, Asahi Premium.

Please do not post your answer in the comments. Send it to me via email or facebook. My email address is るぱんさんせい (romanized) at-mark gmail dot com.
 

Yes, it’s a pun. 用がない or 用なし (ようなし) and 洋梨 (ようなし) or pear. And puns are funny.

Before kids enter the staff room, they have to stand at the door and say, 「X年生のYです。Z先生に用があってきました。」(Or at least that’s what it sounds like to me. Correct me if I’m wrong.) In English, "I’m Y from the X Grade. I need to see Z-sensei."

I’ve translated it as "need to see Z-sensei," but it’s actually the word 用 (よう), which means reason – so it’s almost like "I have a certain need/reason to see Z-sensei." It’s also used in the very similar 用事 but not in 予定. Watch your long vowels.

(In the original puzzle I translated it as "and I’m here to see Z-sensei," which I think is even more natural in the English.)

Aleisha and Robin both provided correct answers, and the winner by coin flip is Aleisha.

On Monday, a little second grader marched into the teacher’s office, announcing, “I’m Tatsuyoshi from second grade and I’m here to see Chika-sensei. May I come in.” After a few moments it was clear he was just bored, and two teachers had the following conversation:

「本当に用ないでしょう」
「ようなし」

which prompted a round of laughter. Your goal is to explain why it’s funny.

The prize if you win? One can of 100% barley malt beer – e.g. Ebisu, Suntory Malts, Asahi Premium.

Please do not post your answer in the comments. Send it to me via email or facebook. My email address is るぱんさんせい (romanized) at-mark gmail dot com.

I had a record number of entries (6!) for this weeks puzzle! Lots of interesting ideas. I’ll go through them.

Robyn suggested “Serving suggestion,” which he said was from Australia. I like the efficiency (it was the shortest answer), but it sounds more like a recommended amount of food (e.g. one cup, two doughnuts, 27 Miller Lites) than a warning about possible misrepresentation.

Brian suggested “Enlarged to show texture,” which is so awesome and sensuous (mmm…texture) and sounds very familiar to me, but the “enlarged” part takes more license than I would like.

Kiyoe offered the excellent “This is an artistic representation of the product,” which may have been the sole winner had she submitted it as “Artistic Representation, but…

The winner for serious answers goes to Aleisha, Kiyoe and Randall, who all suggested slight variations on the traditional, “Actual product may vary.” I’m feeling generous, so instead of random selection, I’ll give a beer to everyone. This phrase is, if you think about it hard enough, just as strange as 「写真は、イメージです」 Seriously, how much will this product actually vary? And in what way will it vary? I hope not too much.

I was disappointed with everyone’s attempts at humor. Thomas’ “Your Mileage May Vary” came closest, so he gets a can of 発泡酒 (or Miller Lite, whichever he prefers).

I leave you with a bunch of “proz” discussing this term. (Strangely enough, another Morales raised the question!) If you ask me, they’re all just a bunch of toolz. You guys did much better.

Just a reminder that the puzzle from last week continues. I’ve had a large number of responses and will be giving away two beers next Friday.