Category Archives: kanji

Cool Compound – 無濾過

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Today’s compound is most excellent. First of all it has a prefix – 無 (む). 無 negates anything it precedes, as do 非 and 不. I’m embarrassed to say I can’t remember the difference between the three; whatever – just keep that in mind whenever you see one of those three, okay?

濾過 (ろか) gets most of our attention. I had no idea what the first kanji meant, but Mr. Jim Breen tells me it means filter. That makes sense, and it also made me realize what 過 is doing there. Is 通過 (つうか) familiar? 通過 is what happens when you’re standing on a train platform and one of those 通勤特急 trains comes howling by, making you wonder how many people bite it accidentally via train every year. 通 means pass and 過 means through or to exceed/go beyond. To pass through/beyond a point. So 濾過, which is a doozy on the 変換 system apparently, means filter through something or to pass through a filter. Add the 無, and this becomes not being passed through a filter or, in normal English, unfiltered.

What’s isn’t being filtered, you ask? Beer, of course! To be more specific, Kirin’s line of premium beers. They have a pale ale they sell regularly, a white beer that was limited edition I believe, and now the winter limited beer – Beer Chocolat.

It’s definitely dark.

Smells like a lager to me, which is disappointing, but it does have a little roastiness and no, I repeat, NO actual chocolate. It’s not one of those beers, it’s a real chocolate beer because it uses chocolate malt: チョコレート麦芽 (ばくが)一部使用, as it says on the bottle. Chocolate malt, as most respectable drinkers will know, is that malt roasted more than caramel malt and less than black patent malt; roastier flavor than caramel with more sugars intact (not burned away) than black patent.

And like all unfiltered beers, this beer is fresh (expires in 90 days) and has yeasties floating about. Brewer’s yeast is good for you, so drink up.

Cool Kanji – 囮

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Learned a cool kanji at work this past week – 囮 (おとり). It means “decoy.” Unfortunately it seems to be used almost exclusively in hiragana. It’s pretty easy to break down – 化, change, inside of a box: just begging for some kind of mnemonic, but I’ll leave that to you.

When I first saw it, I didn’t process it as a kanji right away. For some reason it looked more like a stamp or icon of some sort. Very cool-looking kanji.

Here’s a list of cool uses:

おとり捜査 (そうさ) – a sting
おとり警察官 (けいさつかん) – undercover officer
おとり広告 (こうこく) – bait and switch advertising
おとりがも – decoy duck
 

Cool Compound – 四捨五入

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I learned a cool age-related compound yesterday. One of my roommates asked me how old I was, and when I answered she said, "Ah, you 四捨五入 to 30." I had to get her to write out the kanji before I could wrap my head around the pronunciation, and then show some actual examples with numbers before I understood the concept. My age rounds up to 30. (Not that this is a new phenomenon; I’ve rounded to thirty for a whole year, now, but I think it was the first time she realized it. It makes us 仲間 somehow, since she rounds down to 30.) 四捨五入 (ししゃごにゅう) seems like a long, complex way to say rounding, but that’s how they do it here, so get used to it.

Eels, Monkeys, and Doves

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With the goal of stirring up even more interest in Murakami between now and mid-October tomorrow!, when the Nobel Prizes are is announced, I will post a small piece of unpublished Murakami translation once a week from now until the announcement. You can see the other entries in this series here: 1, 2, 3, 4. This is, of course, the final entry in this series. Hope you enjoyed it.

夜のくもざる (Yoru no kumozaru, Night of the Spider Monkey) is a collection of 36 超短編小説 – “super short stories.” Each story is only 2-3 pages each, so it’s a great collection when you are first starting to read Japanese prose and are unable to focus for a long time.

Murakami wrote the stories in two sets as a series of advertisements, the first for a line of clothing from 1985 to 1987 and the second for a fountain pen company from 1993 to 1995. Not that they have anything to do with those things, as Murakami himself readily admits in the afterword. One of his friends just asked him to write short pieces, literally on whatever he wanted to write about, and the stories were set next to the ads in several Japanese magazines. Yoru no kumozaru is a collection of all those stories. I’ve translated one story from each set.

The first story is titled “Eel.” It comes from the early set and features May Kasahara at least five years before she would appear as the infamous biker-blindfolder from The Wind-up Bird Chronicle:

Eel

    May Kasahara called my house at three thirty in the morning, and naturally I was fast asleep. I was nestled in the thick, warm, velvety mud of sleep with some eel and a pair of long rubber boots, and although it was only temporary, I was devouring a somewhat effective fruit of happiness. And that’s when the phone rang.
    Ring, ring.
    First the fruit disappeared. Then the eel and the rubber boots. Finally the mud disappeared, leaving only me. Only me – thirty-seven years old, a drunk, and nobody likes me. Who has the right to steal eel and rubber boots from me?
    Ring, ring.
    “Hello?” said May Kasahara. “Hello?”
    “Yes, hello,” I answered.
    “Um, it’s me, May Kasahara. Sorry it’s late, but the ants are out again. They’re making a nest by the column in the kitchen. I chased the bastards out of the bath, but tonight they’ve moved their nest over here. The whole thing! They even brought all their tiny little white babies. I can’t stand it! So bring that spray over again. I’m sorry it’s so late, but I absolutely hate ants. Hey, you understand?”
    I shook my head violently in the darkness. Who the hell is May Kasahara? Who the fuck is this May Kasahara to come and steal eel out of my head?
    So I put that question to her.
    “Oops, I’m sorry. Looks like I made a mistake,” said May Kasahara sincerely. “The ants have me all confused. You see, the ants are moving their nest together. Sorry.”
    May Kasahara hung up the phone first, and I set the receiver down. Somewhere in the world, ants were moving their nest, and May Kasahara was looking for someone’s help.
    I sighed and pulled my futon covers over my head. I closed my eyes and looked for signs of those friendly eel in the mud of sleep again.

Murakami has often mentioned that he starts writing with one word or image in mind, using that as a generative source and following the path of whatever springs into his head from that point. The stories in 夜のくもざる illustrate this technique better than anything else he’s ever written.

The most awkward sentence there is “I was devouring a somewhat effective fruit of happiness.” In Japanese it is: それなりに有効な幸せの果物を貪って（むさぼって）いたのである。Clearly this is kind of an idiom, but you have to keep it somewhat literal because the fruit disappears shortly after. Murakami also uses the kanji for ant – 蟻. Strange considering it’s often written in katakana.

The next story comes from the later set. It is, as far as I know, the only story that Murakami has ever written in 関西弁, the Kansai-accent prevalent in Kyoto, Osaka and Kobe. Murakami grew up speaking it but stopped using it when he moved to Tokyo. There are a million different ways to translate this story, as it could really be translated into any vernacular of any language. I went with the one I’m most familiar with, one that I would call “American preppy thug”:

Proverbs

A monkey, yo. You know, a monkey. And I’m not fuckin around here, there was a real live monkey up in a tree, yo. Surprised the hell out of me, too! Whoa, what the hell, a monkey, I was thinkin, and there it was. Dude’s a monkey, ya know. So then, I just watch the fucker for a while. Thinkin, holy shit, a monkey! So then the dude falls. Straight out of the tree. The fucker slips and falls straaaight out of the tree. And I was starin at it thinkin yo what the hell, what the hell. No lie, bro, a real live monkey fell out of a real live tree. Just straight down, and bam. And don’t they say that shit all the time? Even monkeys fall out of trees. Ya know? Just like the old saying. Couldn’t fuckin believe it. Those old dudes were smart motherfuckers. They said some wise shit. Even monkeys fall out of trees. You don’t come up with shit like that every day. What I’m tryin to say is that a monkey actually fell out of a tree, dude. That shit actually happens. Can’t just laugh at those old sayings. Old motherfuckers were wise, yo. Dudes knew shit, yo. So I was thinking. So that saying, “Even monkeys fall from trees,” ya know…so say a real live monkey falls out of a tree, and he falls out and bam, you couldn’t walk up to the fucker and say, “Yo, dude, you gotta watch out, there’s this old saying ‘Even monkeys fall from trees.’” Yeah, old sayings are supposed to be warnings, yo. But a real live monkey that fell out of a tree, think you could actually go up and say that to him? That’d be some cold shit to say to a monkey. Think you could do it? Know I couldn’t. But that reminded me that old sayings are some wise shit for real. Cuz monkeys do fall from trees, ya know. That’s some smart shit. Surprised the hell out of me. Yo, you ever seen a dove get shot by a bean shooter? I have, for reals. A while back I was watching this dove. I’m not fuckin around, yo. For reals. Wise shit, yo. Surprised the hell out of me. So it gets hit by the bean. And then…

The first ことわざ here translates into English pretty easily, but the second doesn’t. In Japanese it is 鳩（はと）が豆鉄砲（まめでっぽう）を食らったよう. Apparently it refers to the look of surprise on a dove’s face when it gets hit by a bean from a bean-shooter. That I learned from this 慣用句辞典, a most excellent resource. Highly recommended.

I also highly recommend 夜のくもざる. It’s a nice, light collection. All of the stories are strange and funny. I believe the hardback edition is out of print, but you can still find the paperback version new.

Here is one of Mizumaru Anzai’s monkey drawings from the collection:

 

Cool Compound – 波動拳

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At work I came across the cool compound 必殺技 (ひっさつぎ) – special move / super move. Apparently it’s often used in video games. I sent it to a coworker and he sent me back this:

波動拳！

At first I had no clue what it meant, but after looking at it for a few seconds I figured out the meaning and then the pronunciation. Have you figured it out yet? Here’s a hint:

 

Yup, it’s the hadouken from the Street Fighter series. In Japanese literally wave-motion-fist. My first reaction was, damn, everyone’s pronunciation is way off in America. It’s not “ha-doo-ken” it’s “ha-doh-ken.” The shoryuken pronunciation back home, on the other hand, is a lot closer. The kanji for that, which I’m sure a lot of you already know, are 昇竜拳 – rising-dragon-fist.

There’s another compound for the hurricane kick thing, but it’s a pain in the ass to write out, so you can look it up on Wikipedia here.

Cool Kanji – 樽

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This is a great kanji. It’s pronounced たる and means cask or barrel. 樽酒 (たるざけ) is a type of sake aged in cedar barrels, giving it a distinct woody flavor. The kanji has tree on the left and then the first part of 尊敬 (そんけい, respect) on the right. Respect the tree, it makes the cask!

This kanji can also mean keg, as in beer keg. Thankfully, good beer has started to boom in Japan. If you know where to look and have money to spend, there are a number of quality beer locations in Tokyo.

Dry Dock is a cozy little place under the Yamanote Line in Shimbashi. The bartender has a blog he updates just about every day. They have a “guest beer” every week, and if you look here, you can see he calls it a “guest keg.”

Popeye is the godfather of all beer bars in Japan. I don’t know the guy’s name that runs it, but he’s always there socializing with fans of big beer. All of the staff are extremely nice, and you can get free appetizers with certain beers from 5pm-8pm.

Tanakaya is the most impressive beer store I’ve ever been to at home or abroad. Beats the hell out of anything we have in New Orleans. Go to Mejiro Station, exit the station, walk left along the street, and it will be on your left before too long. Beers are kept at cellar temperature. They don’t take orders, but they will ship via takkyubin if you go to the store.

Chris Chuwy keeps track of everything on tap at most respectable bars on his boozelist. It’s an impressive collection of locations.

Bryan Harrell writes Brews News for bento.com. It’s published every two months and is a good list of upcoming events / review of past ones.

Cool Compound – 高温多湿

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This is a phrase you can use to describe Tokyo (or New Orleans) in the summer. It’s a nice, little non-idiomatic four-character compound – high, hot, many, moisture: high temperatures, lots of moisture.

The pronunciation is こうおんたしつ.

The usage is simple. You can attach this onto other words with の, so 高温多湿の場所 or 高温多湿の国. Can’t think of much else you would describe with this phrase.

(Note: This was written before this tease-of-an-autumn "cold" spell. It will be above 30 again later this week.)

Cool Kanji – 冠

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I’d be remiss if I didn’t write something about the Olympics, so you get a cool kanji. Do you recognize it? You might’ve seen it if you watched Kosuke Kitajima take gold in the 100m and 200m breaststroke. In the upper right corner of the screen, most channels had this 「2冠 (にかん)」 Well, he won gold for both of those events in Athens, so you can guess the meaning from context – two in a row.

But the kanji itself has a different meaning. It’s also used in this compound – 王冠 (おうかん). It means crown, so literally he has two crowns in a row. Hmm, now that I think about it, I’m not sure that it has that “in a row” connotation, but it definitely means that he’s won two.

Kitajima’s feats have lead many to consider him perhaps the greatest breaststroker ever. *snicker*

号外 – ♨

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Isaac made a fantastic comment on my facebook feed for this post, so I thought I’d share it with everyone:

"try ゆうびん　to get the 郵便マーク　(〒)
はーと to get ♥ or ♡
おんせん（温泉）to get ♨"

The onsen mark! I’m so jealous I didn’t figure it out myself! It’s such a cool and distinctive mark. I think I’ll blow that shit up:

 

Cool Compound – 以上

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以上 (いじょう) is a very useful phrase. It’s a short phrase you can use to signal that you’ve finished placing your order at a restaurant or that you’ve finished giving a speech or your portion of a presentation. (以上です。) I guess in that case it literally means, “(Everything I want to say or eat) is above.” Something like that. I guess there’s no satisfying 直訳 really. You could say something like, “That’s all.” or “And that concludes what I have to say.” Those are probably closer to the way it feels.

It’s also used to express “greater than or equal to.” So you can say things like 二人以上 (Two or more people), 10分以上 (Ten minutes or more), and other useful numerical expressions.

Recently it’s been used in a new statistic during weather reports that shows just how sick the Tokyo summer is – 30°以上の時間. Normal statistics like temperature and humidity can’t express exactly how miserable it is in this city during the summer, and since they don’t use heat index, they chart exactly how many hours during the day it is 30 degrees Celsius (86 Fahrenheit) or hotter. Today it was 30 degrees by 9am and it didn’t come down until after 5pm. Gross.

The two-shower-a-day policy is in full effect.