Category Archives: vocab

The Road to Meme-dom

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Learned a cool word on Mecha-ike a few weeks ago – キレた. You can see the video for yourself here. Watch for a minute or so from the 6:30 mark.

Clearly it’s the past tense of the verb キレる. I’m not sure where it comes from (切る comes to mind) or why it’s half katakana half hiragana, but the meaning is totally clear from the video – it means that someone has just fuggin lost it, gone ballistic, bonkers, completely mad, etc. We had a case of that in the office this week, and immediately this phrase came to mind.

I made a sort of visual mnemonic to help you all remember the meaning:

キレた

That is the definitive キレた moment in American cinema.

The Dude Never Dies – The Big Lebowski in Japanese

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I wrote for Let’s Go Japan during the summer of 2003. There were five or six of us writing that summer, and we all flew in to Tokyo before heading out in different directions. I went to Kamakura, Yokohama and Nagoya before heading to Shikoku, where I spent most of my two-month itinerary.

At first I was disappointed about being assigned to such a rural place; I’d only been to Japan once before and had only been able to spend a week or so in Tokyo, so I felt like I was missing out. Only later would I know how lucky I was to spend a month traveling around the highly underrated Shikoku, half of that with the refreshing freedom of a car.

While the landscape was breathtaking and the people were friendly, moving from town to town every day or two quickly became lonesome. I called the office a lot, called home a lot, and fortunately a Bulgarian friend in Nagoya hooked me up with some downloads to help me distract myself. He gave me a couple anime series and a movie or two, but I spent most of my time watching The Big Lebowski, which I’d been a fan of since renting it in ’98. Honestly, that summer alone I must’ve watched Lebowski a dozen times at least. I knew all the ins and outs of the film and even felt some 運命ness; there’s a Townes VanZandt version of the song “Dead Flowers” towards the end of the film, and a vinyl record bar I went to in Nagoya played a couple songs from Sticky Fingers.

(Did you know that in the dream sequence when the Dude gets knocked out by Maude’s goons, you can see that Maude was the one who rolled the ball?

)

So, equipped with a Region 2 DVD player, I’ve taken it upon myself to check out the localization of the movie. A couple weekends ago I watched it – twice. Once with the English language track and Japanese subtitles, and then again with the Japanese dubbing. This may not be a surprise to those familiar with Japan’s movie industry, but the dubbed version was notably better.

Not that the translation of the subtitles was poor. Not being a native speaker, I can’t speak for it completely, but in my biased opinion, it was good and caught a lot of the nuances of the film, even getting laughs out of my Japanese roommates.

But the dubbed translation itself was more accurate and creative. For example, when the Big Lebowski grills the Dude for fucking up the bag drop, the Dude says “We (おれたち) did drop the money,” eliciting a “We?” The subtitles are fairly 文字通り, getting close enough to the Dude’s “royal we” excuse, but the dubbed version goes with some creative Japanese: 「おれっち。言うでしょう？地方なんか行くと。」

The dubbed version does have a major advantage – time. As with subtitles in any language, you have to allow time for the viewer to read and comprehend the line, and when you have a movie with quick dialogue, it’s difficult to capture the feel with subtitles alone. Additionally, the fact that much of the dialogue in this movie is simultaneous makes the subtitles especially ineffective. You can hear the Japanese voices trying to speak over each other in the dubbed version, really helping express Walter’s frustration with Donny.

It also helped that the voice acting was absolutely impeccable; the accuracy with which the voice actors arranged their lines over Jeff Bridges’ and John Goodman’s mouthing was nothing short of incredible, and all of the give and take was more accurately portrayed with the dubbing.

But even the dubbed version misses parts of the critical element that really brings the film together – the role of discourse.

In the very first scene at the grocery store, President Bush on the screen drops the line “This aggression will not stand,” which the Dude later recycles when he confronts the Big Lewbowski. (“I do mind. The Dude minds. This will not stand…ya know. This aggression will not stand, man.”) The dubbed version catches this, reusing 侵攻／侵略 and variations of 許さない, but the subtitled version misses it.

Both miss the Dude’s final line of the movie, “The Dude abides.” This line the Dude recycles from when he was confronted by the Big Lebowksi – “I will not abide another toe.” The subtitled version uses ご免 and the dubbed 許さん for the first scene. In the final scene, the subtitled version has the cowboy say 「元気でな。気をつけて。」to which the Dude responds,

Whereas in the dubbed version the Dude responds with a less intrusively translated 「それがヂュードだし」 to 「気軽にやるんだよ。言うまでもないか。」 Neither relays the idea that the Dude has borrowed terminology yet again.

So what’s the point? The point is that The Big Lebowski is a subtly political film that shows the infectious role of discourse in society and how that discourse is often misrepresentation that leads to innocent victims. Unfortunately, the Japanese subtitles and dubbing don’t fully express this underlying theme of discourse, although I did learn the awesome curse word くそ食らえ.

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
 

Discourse

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Well, it’s Election Day back in the States, so I thought we’d look at party names in translation.

The Republican Party – 共和党 (きょうわとう)

Unsure here, but this looks like a direct translation. 共和 is also used in a lot of country names, such as the Republic of Afghanistan (アフガニスタン共和国) and the Republic of Guatemala (グアテマラ共和国). Exciting.

Break it down by kanji and you get the “together-peace party.” Hmm…suspect.

The Democratic Party – 民主党 (みんしゅとう)

Here we have another direct translation. 民主主義 (みんしゅしゅぎ) is democracy, the theory, and looking on ALC for 民主 delivers a horde of political discourse.

Breaking it down by kanji gives us the “people’s-sovereignty party.” (Yes, the 主 is for 主権, sovereignty.) Hmm…suspect.

Honestly, party names themselves have so little meaning, that direct translation is the only way to go. We are so divorced from the moment when they actually meant something that they only seem like rusty, old institutions, starting to creak with age beneath the weight of generations.

Discourse, my friends, is a lie in any language.

号外 – Mr. Shorty Shorts

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Saturday night the booze flowed, and the muse was speaking to me; I thought up an awesome Japanese name for people, such as one of my roommates, who continue to wear shorts into the winter months: 短パンマン.

アンパンマン is a legendary Japanese cartoon character named after a dessert bread stuffed with azuki bean paste.

Actual アンパン:

Actual アンパンマン:

The azuki bean bread (アンパン) easily transforms to shorts (短パン), making a great pun. It received high praise from the other roommates.

You heard it here first. (In the words of John Henson, former host of Talk Soup, "Come on, it’s funny!")

Cool Compound – 連休

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Japan, much like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has many long weekends programmed into its calendar, allowing stress to subside and giving everyone a chance to do traveling, relaxing, or additional boozing that they otherwise wouldn’t be able to do. This upcoming Monday is Culture Day (see Japan Navigator for further details), so there will be no post here. I’ve taken off the last few Monday holidays, so I thought I’d just let you know that I’m not mailing them in – they are actual holidays. And everyone knows I only mail-in the Friday posts.

The word for long vacation in Japanese is easy to remember – 連休 (れんきゅう) means “consecutive holiday/break.” It is most commonly used by itself or with a 3 in front of it – 三連休 (さんれんきゅう) – but I do remember that morning news announcers get excited when the stars align and Golden Week delivers a 4 or 5-day 連休.

Enjoy your day off.

Cool Link – すべらない名無し

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2channel is a Japanese internet forum. You can try browsing it yourself, but it’s massive and seems like it would take a long time to find exactly what you’re looking for. After you click on the main graphic, there is a huge list of topics on the left.

The other day while searching for examples of 差し入れ, I came across a blog that seems to cull the funniest posts from 2channel and post them as blog entries – すべらない名無し. It’s kind of an Overheard in New York for 2channel.

The topics vary but are almost always funny. It proves that Steven Segal provides just as much unintentional comedy in Japan as anywhere else. You can also read about the displeasures of fellatio, the misfortune of setting your 変換, and how to make hilarious manga titles by adding/changing one character. Recommended reading. The comments are generally fun, too.

名無し (ななし) refers to the name, or lack of name, of the posters on 2ch. Almost everyone posts anonymously, and the default anonymous name is 名無し or some funny reworking of 名無し; in the literature section, for example, it is 我輩は名無しである, a pun on a Soseki novel. すべらない you might recognize from Hitoshi Matsumoto’s すべらない話. I’m unsure if it’s related to 滑る, which has the same pronunciation and means “to slip,” but even if it’s not, that’s an easy way to remember what it means – if it slips (すべる), it’s not funny; if it doesn’t slip (すべらない), it’s funny. So basically the title means “Funny No-names.”

Cool Custom – 差し入れ

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Anyone who has worked in Japan in some capacity knows that there are a lot of social functions outside of work that actually semi-count as work. Welcome parties, end of year parties, new year parties, farewell parties. They serve to confirm that you are part of the group, and the free-flowing booze loosens lips, allowing sensitive topics to be discussed in a relaxed atmosphere.

The one problem with these parties is that they are expensive. In the small town where I worked, they cost at least 3000 yen (roughly $30) but were usually 5000 yen ($50). You get a nice dinner and as much beer as you are comfortable with. I went with the junior high school, sometimes the elementary schools, the people at the apartment building where I lived, and the Board of Education. As you can imagine, the cost adds up, especially around the end of the calendar and academic year.

I rarely refused for financial reasons, but I know other teachers who did. I was sometimes unable to go due to scheduling conflicts, but I felt really bad when I couldn’t attend – the parties were fun, and I was in a small enough town (8000 people) that finding a way to socialize was difficult. During the farewell party for the junior high school in my third year, I noticed that the young computer tech guy was carrying a giant bottle of nihonshu. At some point he stood up and announced that the head tech guy, who was not present, had given it as a 差し入れ. That was when it clicked. He couldn’t make it to the party for whatever reason, so he left a present instead. If only I had known that throughout my time in the town.

差し入れ (さしいれ), which literally means “insert,” can be considered a kind of preemptive omiyage of sorts. Often it’s given when you can’t attend an event, and in those cases it’s usually liquor. It’s a fantastic custom! It shows that you really wanted to participate, it probably costs less than the meal, and your coworkers will gush over you once they’re nice and boozed up and finally make it to your bottle.

Nihonshu and shochu are both appropriate 差し入れ for parties, but I recommend shochu since it can be split between more drinks and watered down for people who don’t drink that much. It will also increase your 渋い factor.

差し入れ are appropriate in other situations, too. If you know someone is studying or working overtime, bring them some coffee. It looks like people also give it to contractors doing work on their house, in which case nikuman, warm oshibori, or coffee are all winners.

Everyone knows about omiyage, but I feel like 差し入れ are somewhat uncharted. Hugely useful. Win friends and influence people with this cool custom.

Cool Link – Fssshhhh!

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That subject line is the punch line to the joke, "What do you call a fish with with no eyes?"

Ad Blankestijn (still embarassingly unsure how to pronounce that name) has started a Fish O’ Japan Almanac beginning with aji. Really interesting stuff, and HOLY SHIT am I excited to eat some anko (Blackmouth Angler) this winter. I had no idea those things were edible. The only thing he could do better would be to provide the kanji, although to be honest you don’t have to write the kanji when you order at a sushi restaurant, and often fish names are written in katakana because fish kanji are so obscure, so if you want to bone up on your fish vocab, head over to Japan Navigator.