Learning from Others

We can learn from others by imitating admirable behavior and avoiding despicable actions.  A Japanese saying puts it concisely: Correct your manners by watching those of others.  

There is a similar saying of Biblical and Mosaic origin, known as the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you (Matthew 7:12, Luke 6:31).  I find this saying puzzling; what I like being done to me may be displeasing or even repulsive to someone else.  This saying, in short, is decisively prescriptive.  

The Golden Rule, also so known, in Confucius’s Analects, while similar, is passive; it states prohibitively: What you do not wish for yourself, do not do to others.  Do and Don’t mark the distinction.  Interestingly, Rabbinic Judaism in the words of Rabbi Hillel, matches Confucius: Do not do to others what you would not have done to you (Tobit 4:16). 

All this had been debated at length through the centuries from Kant to George Bernard Shaw and beyond.  The Japanese saying, significantly, is peculiarly Japanese; it is directive but passively and reflectively.  

All this reflection came about as I remembered how Mother habitually said these words: Correct your manners by watching those of others.  In my rebellious youth, I may have ignored them, but so long as I remember I had them deeply incised in my heart and as I matured I accepted them seriously. Reflecting in old age, I could say proudly that through my life I followed them as best as I could, except, being a contrarian by nature, I often rejected what was considered proper among those I observed and chose my way away from it or against it. 

人の美点、弱点を観察して、他人から学ぶもの多くあります。この観念を簡潔に表現した日本の格言に「人のふり見て我が振り直せ」というのがあります。

これと似た様な表現が英語にもありますね。キリスト教、更に遡ってモーセの掟で、『自分にして欲しいことは、相手にもせよ」（マテオ  7章12節、ルカ 6章31節）。でも、奇妙なのは、自分に気に入ったことが相手には不快なだったり、嫌だったりすることもあるでしょう。つまり、この表現は決定的に行動を規定するものです。

この黄金律といわれるもの、孔子の「論語」にも出てきますけど、逆に禁制を表してます。「己の欲せざるところ、他に施すことなかれ」。つまり、「しろ」と「するな」の違いです。面白いことに、ラビ・ユダヤ教（ダビデの末裔を称したファリサイ派のラビ、ヒルレルの言葉）には、「自分が嫌なことは、ほかのだれにもしてはならない」とあります（『トビト記』4章15節）。

これは、この数世紀、カントからジョージ・バーナード・ショウ、その以降に至るまでいろいろ議論されてきたことですけど、日本の格言は、指示はするけど受動的及び思考的で、その点目立って日本的です。

こういう事を考え始めた動機は、「人のふり見て我がふり直せ」とは母が口癖の様にした言葉でしたのを思い出した事で、これは記憶にある限り胸に刻み込まれてます。反抗期の頃には無視したかもしれませんけど、成人するに従って熟考すようになり、老年になって、一生忘れずにできる限り実行してきたと自慢して言えると思っています。ただし、生まれつき天邪鬼の私のこと、一般に賞賛される物事、行為をしりぞけ、しばしば意識して、そのれから外れた道或いは反対の方向を選んだものでした。

08.26.19

Green Tea Over Rice

The Flavor of Green Tea Over Rice is the title of one film by Ozu Yasujiro, the translation of Ochazuke no Aji. Normally, at meal time, Japanese eat three bowls of rice with okazu, the term inaccurately translated as side dish. Everything other than white rice on the table is okazu, which may be fish or meat (but never both) and vegetables, all seasoned (predominantly with soy sauce). When you have eaten all the okazu and still have some rice left in the third bowl, you pour green tea and maybe have a pickle and finish the rice, slurping it with the rim of the bowl on the lips, though this is considered bad manners. This is ochazuke, literally .  It cleanses the palate as the dessert is designed to do in European dinners.  Sometimes, instead of tea, leftover soup might be poured on the rice. The lower social crust, constrained economically, is not generous with okazu as the upper crust, and this, combined with the slurping, explains the ochazuke as "gauche." Ochazuke is a matter at the familial table; tea is never poured over rice in any formal dinner or at the table with invited guests.  Rice bowl is held in one hand (left) and eaten with chopsticks in the other hand (right); if you are left-handed, you are corrected from the time a child starts using chopsticks.  We learn the word right and left as the chopstick hand and bowl hand.  Noodles are meant to be slurped; it is a fast food of old times, popularized by workers on the run, like firefighters, messengers, construction workers, etc.  So, it is viewed as ridiculous if noodles are not swallowed fast.  Itami Juzo's early film Tanpopo (just before A Taxing Woman has scenes that have to do with the right way of eating noodles.  In a book of essays, he, a gourmet and a great chef himself, talks how Japanese cook spaghetti like udon (far beyond al dente).  I wrote this in response to a friend’s query on the title of the Ozu film. 

06.26.17

七夕 - Tanabata Festival

今日は、七月七日、七夕まつり。今日、お友達がそのことを書いてくる迄、すっかり忘れていました。竹に短冊の飾り付け、浴衣に下駄履きで庭に出て、梅雨明けの夜空に織り姫をさがしたものです。六十年を遡る懐かしい記憶です。

雲空に　　　　

織り姫いずこ

影ばかり　　　　　香織

Janglish Panglish

Every language has imported words in its lexicon. But the golden palm for the most adept and abundant adoption of English words goes to the Japanese language.  This is a distinct linguistic feature of the Japanese, and, as students of the language know from experience, learning Japanized English words can be unusually challenging. The American occupation of Japan after World War II may have something to do with this peculiar tendency; the American domination of the world in the second half of the last century may be a partial explanation. But it is culturally more deeply rooted and has a longer tradition as the following examination of English words in the Japanese lexicon demonstrates.

Open any Japanese magazine or newspaper, you will find plenty of gairaigo (words of foreign derivation), or loan words. They stand out on the printed page because by convention they are written in katakana.

Some of them are derived from German, -- noiro'oze (Neurose, neurosis), te'ema (Thema, theme), enerugisshu (energisch, energetic); from French -- anke'eto (inquête, questionnaire), dessan (dessin, sketch), aramo'odo (a la mode); from Dutch -- chokki (jak, vest), sukoppu (schop, shovel); from Portuguese -- botan (botão, button), biro'odo (veludo, velvet); and there are other derivations.

But foreign words in Japanese are overwhelmingly English. You may see a smattering of them in articles on any subject, words like nyuusu, marason, horumon, konkuri’ito, derike'eto, sense'eshon, chaamingu, shimpuru, and shanpuu, which are easily recognized, and those which are a bit more challenging: ton'neru (tunnel) , sarada (salad), sutoraiki (strike), erebe'etah (elevator), shatsu (shirt), raburetaa (love letter), barubu (bulb or valve), and sekushii (sexy). In writings on fashion, cooking, sports, the arts, and more recently, of course, the computer, English words sometimes overtake the text. Look at something like this, for example, describing a knit top (English words in italics):

Ha'inekku ra'in to chiisana botan ga kyuuto na se'etaa wa romanchikku na rabendaa-iro de bodi zentai wo messhu-nitto de matometa pure'in deza'in ga furesshu sonomono, gazen nao na rukku desu.

Loosely translated, it reads:

The sweater with a high neckline and cute little buttons has the bodice in Romantic lavender color, wholly unified by the mesh knit into a plain design; here is freshness itself, absolutely now in look.

Discounting particles, that is, prepositions and conjunctions, the text contains 19 words, mostly nouns and adjectives, and fourteen of these are English-derived words. 

This is an extreme example, of course, but the invasion is nevertheless real if also farcical. Purists decry, as do critics of franglais, espanglès, and Denglisch, that it is corrupting the language. We must take note, however, that the anglicization is entirely lexical. The syntax remains unmistakably Japanese. That's why the text does not quite make sense to a reader without some knowledge of the Japanese grammar even if she or he could identify the loan words. Consider the reverse situation where the English translation above is infused with Japanese words:

The sweater with a takai eriguri and kawairashii little buttons has the do'obu in Romantic fuji-iro, sukkari unified by the amime-ami into a kazarikenonai design, here is sugasugashisa itself, gazen now in look.

Alarming as it may seem, such an influx of foreign words is not unprecedented. Chinese words flooded the Japanese language in Nara Period, as the Norman invasion of England similarly swamped English with Latin-derived French vocabulary.

Now, a closer examination of this sample text demonstrates that the loan words are basically of two kinds, which I identify as Japanglish and Janglish.

On the one hand, there are words used for effect, words that are meant to give an air of Western stylishness. “Furesshu”sounds more trendy than “sawayaka” and “rabendaa” somehow more fashionable than “fujiiro.”  It is felt that ”kyuuto” is cuter than “kawairashii.” So, fashion writers also speak of “sofuto na ori’ibuguri’in no shiruku burausu” that is to say, “soft olivegreen silk blouse.” They remind us of Miss Piggy who likes to point to herself and coquettishly say “Moi?” Affectation is the name of the game, and the Meiji Japan popularized a word, still in currency, that is affected in the same way in itself and at the same time precisely described this kind of Westernizing modishness. The word is ha'ikara and its etymology was “high collar” of the Western gentleman. 

These are English words, then, that have been deposited in the Japanese text like foreign tourists, fashionable, often faddish, at times freakish. I choose to call these words Japanglish.  English is not quite together with Japanese.

Then, apart from these there are English and other foreign words that have settled in and become assimilated in the language because they had to. These are words for which there exist no Japanese equivalents. They arrived with Western science (ami'ibaa, neon, me'etoru), medicine (korera, insurin, porio), technology (enjin, mo'otaa, pisuton, ke'eburukaa), sports (tenisu, badominton, suki'i), fashion, cuisine, the arts, and other components of the Western cultural baggage (miruku, kisu, sutandaado, shisutemu), unless a substitute Japanese neologism was created such as yakyu for baseball, haino'o for rücksack (though there is also “rikkusakku”), nyuuryoku for input, museifushugi for anarchy, and the older word katsudo'o for moving pictures, and sekken for shabon (from Portuguese sabão, used today only for blown soap bubbles).

So, these were once exotic visitors but in time settled in for good, and I designate them Janglish to distinguish them from Japanglish.  In the sample text, se'etaa, romanchikku, and deza'in are assimilated English words. Even without Japanglish words, fashion writing still needs plenty of Janglish words: kaadigan, pi'itahpan karaa (Peter Pan collar), puriitsu (pleats), suutsu (suits), ribon, berubottomu, sasshu and beruto (belt), etc., and in cooking we cannot avoid fra'ipan (frying pan), renji (gas range), katsuretsu (cutlet, actually Wienerschnitzel), tomatoso'osu, sandoicchi, kyabetsu (cabbage), bataa (butter, not batter), etc.

There was, as in any language, importation through the ages whenever there was an intercultural encounter. So, certain imports, some from pre-Meiji era and others more recent, have become “naturalized” to the extent they sound Japanese.  The undershirt worn with kimono is jiban, and it is from Portuguese gibão; and zubon (trousers) is said to have been derived from the French jupon (underskirt). But this is suspicious because the word, related to jupe (skirt), meant a tunic in the 15^th century, from the Arabic jubbah, which in turn generated gibão. Tabako (tobacco) is from Portuguese (tabaco) but the old-fashioned long-stemmed pipe, kiseru, said to be from Cambodian khsier, sounds indigenous in opposition to paipu (pipe). There is the candy made of crystallized sugar in the shape of the Roman gladiator's spiked ball reduced to pea size; it's called conpeito'o, written in kanji (gold-rice-candy). Its etymology is confetto, a cognate of confectionary; and sugar-coated almonds distributed at weddings in Italy are still known as confetti whereas in America today they refer to paper flakes such as thrown about during carnival in Italy (in place of candies).  Flour for making noodles (udon) is udonko, but the more refined kind for baking is called merikenko, that is, American flour, as the wharf where foreign ships arrived was called meriken-hatoba.  Old workers call pulleys go'ohei after dock workers who christened them thus watching American sailors operating them shout “go ahead.” This is no joke; and it's not folk etymology, either. These words, as Japanese readers will recognize, sound almost native. 

There are certain Japanized import words with slightly or even considerably altered meaning from the original English words. Puuru (pool), for example, is specifically the swimming pool, taoru (towel) is only for terry cloth towels (which is Western) as opposed to plain cotton tenugui.  If you ask for a towel you might be told: “Sorry we don't have a towel but will tenugui do?” We hit a sutoraiku in baseball but walk with a placard in sutoraiki.” Madamu is a madam but only of a bar or saloon. Manshon (mansion) is a multistory housing project. Taitoru is not any title but movie subtitle. Comical examples of these words with modified meanings occur among Japanese tourists in America who ask for a mo'oningu saabisu (breakfast special) at the hotel and are directed to a chapel (morning service) -- “Do they serve breakfast in a chapel at this hotel?” They shop for a tore'enaa (training wear), and are directed to the trainer at the gym -- “Sorry, fellas, trainers are not for sale.” I'd like to think of these twisted words as Panglish. “Oh, the pangs!”

There are Panglish words that are characterized by truncation, retaining only a part of the original word.  Here are my favorites amputees:

paama from paamanento (permanent wave)

ohbah from o'obaako'oto (overcoat)

apaato for apartment house

depaato for department store

suupaa for supermarket (not superintendent)

infure and defure for inflation and deflation

interi for intelligentsia

sutando from standard lamp for floor lamp and also desk lamp

suto for sutoraiki (but not for sutoraiku)

Then, there are coinages that combine English words in new combinations Japanese style; they read like rebus.

sarariiman (salaried man; wage earner, office worker)

o'orudomisu (old miss; old maid, spinster)

bakkumiraa (back mirror; rear view mirror)

o'orubakku (all back; hair combed back straight)

But most befuddling of all is the art of telescoping for abbreviation that may seem arbitrary but is quite in accordance with the Japanese phonetic rules. The most recent is dejikame (digital camera).  But in Taisho Japan there were moga (modangaaru, modern girl, the flapper) and her counterpart mobo (modern boy). Well established by now and prevalent are these examples:

zenesuto from zeneraru sutoraiku (general strike)

masukomi from masu komyunike'eshon (mass communication)

minisuka from miniskaato (miniskirt)

sekohan from sekondo hando (second-hand)

e'akon from e'akondeshonaa (air conditioner)

basukon from ba'asu kontoro'oru (birth control)

waapuro from waado purosessaa (word processor)

pasokon from paasonaru kompyuutaa

These, I claim, are veritable Chanponese. The prize winner among these is sekuhara from sexual harrassment. Though totally inappropriate, it cannot stop making me laugh. Seku is to fret; hara is belly. Chanponese, indeed.

I don't believe anyone can deny that the versatility and virtuosity of the Japanese to absorb and internalize foreign words through the nation's history is short of miraculous. . . well, staggering at any rate. Chanponese only demonstrates what is known as syncretism in Japan's cultural evolution. The new never outstrips the old; it is always another layer on top of earlier layers, all smoothly Japanized, Just consider. How is e'akon adapted to the shōji-screened naturally ventilated Japanese house? 

Transcribed from Champon 07.18.02 with restored typography

Diction defines Character

In any language diction defines the speaker’s character because the speaker has a choice in the way of phrasing what she or he would like to say according to the notion of propriety or appropriateness in the context of the speech uttered, for example:

Let’s go.

Shall we go?

Are we ready to go?

We’d better be going.

We are going.

C’mon, move!

OK, fellas, get going.

For each of these variants we can imagine the situation and to some extent the speaker’s character.  In Japanese the speaker’s diction defines more precisely her or his gender, age and social position as well as the situation, using only lexical variants, that is, without changing the syntax. Consider, for example, this dialogue:

  I’m hungry.  Shall we go for lunch?   Yeah, let’s. I’m starving.

In Japanese one can say it this way:

Hara ga hetta, hirumeshi kuini ikôka.  Un, sô dana, pekopekoda.

   腹が減った、昼飯喰いに行こうか。うん、そうだな、ぺこぺこだ。

Here, the speakers are both clearly men, and the subject (understood) is unmistakably “俺  ore,” though it is unstated, only implied,  Subject pronouns are often omitted in Japanese precisely because the diction makes the pronominal reference clear enough.   

            

Alternatively, the translation of the above sample sentence might be:

Onaka ga suita wa, ohiru tabeni ikimashôka. E’e, sône, onaka pekopeko.

    お腹がすいたわ、お昼食べに行きましょうか。ええ、そうね、お腹ぺこぺこ。

Here, the interlocutors are women, with “atashi あたし” as the understood subject. 

If the relationship between the two women is formal, a more polite form has to be adopted, and the fact of hunger is elided because the mention of hunger is a bit vulgar, as it might be in English as well:

Are you perhaps ready for lunch.  Yes, thank you. 

So, in Japanese:

Soro soro ochûshoku ni mairimashôka.  Ha-a, dômo.

    そろそろお昼食に参りましょうか。はあ、どうも。

Here the speaker is a woman; the respondent is a man; a woman is likely to answer  simply: E-e えぇ。

The greatest hurdle in learning Japanese is the grammatical rule governing the diction differentiated by gender, age, and class. 

Japanese is a language which embodies a complex semiotics of hierarchy.  So, the simple imperative, “Let’s go,” can take these variant forms without modifying the basic meaning:

Ikô. 行こう (standard)

Ikimashô.  行きましょう(polite, feminine)

Mairimashô.  参りましょう(very polite)

 Ikube’e.  行くべえ (rustic)

It gets even more complicated with “Come here” because involves the relative social positions of the interlocutors involved:  

Koko ni kina.  ここに来な。

Kocchi e koi.  こっちへ来い。

Kocchi ni oide.  こっちにおいで。

Koko ni kitamae. ここに来たまえ。

Koko ni kitekure.  ここに来てくれ。

 Koko ni kinasai. ここに来なさい

Kocchi ni kiya’agare. こっちへ来やぁがれ。

Kochira ni irasshai. こちらにいらっしゃい。

Kochirani irasshai na. 　こちらにいらっしゃいな。

Kochira ni oide kudasai. こちらにおいで下さい。

Kochira ni oide kudasaimase. こちらにおいで下さいませ。

Kochira ni okoshi kudasai. こちらにおこしください。 

Kochirani dôzo.  こちらにどうぞ。(This way please)

Each of these expressions defines the character of the speaker, the social relationship of the speakers to each other, and the circumstance in which the statement is made, and this is only a partial list.  The complexity comes naturally to the native speaker of this curious, marvelous language.  

Listening to Japanese dialogues in a play or reading them, and imagining writing lines to give the characters, I became keenly aware of the remarkable pliability we have in Japanese in defining a character by diction. 

Japanese Writers: my list

These are some Japanese writers whose works I read with much affection when I was young together with some others that interested me more recently. 

紫式部　源氏物語 Lady Murasaki - Tale of Genji　

清少納言　枕草子 Seishônagon - The Pillowbook 

鴨長明　方丈記  Kamono Chômei  - A Ten Foot Square Hut

吉田兼好　徒然草 Yoshida Kenko - Tsurezuregusa/Idleness

式亭三馬　浮世風呂 Shiki Sanba - Ukiyoburo

井原西鶴 Ihara Saikaku

松尾芭蕉 Matsuo Basho

近松門左衛門  Chikamatsu Monzaemon 

河竹黙阿弥  Kawatake Moku’ami

小林一茶 Kobayashi Issa

正岡子規 Masaoka Shiki

夏目漱石  Natsume Sôseki

森鴎外  Mori Ogai

幸田露伴 Kôda Rohan

二葉亭四迷 Futabatei Shimei

芥川龍之介  Akutagawa Ryûnosuke

正宗白鳥 Masamune Hakuchô

与謝野晶子 Yosano Akiko

永井荷風  Nagai Kafû

田山花袋 Tayama Katai

島崎藤村 Shimazaki Tôson

泉鏡花  Izumi Kyôka

尾崎紅葉 Ozaki Kôyô

岡本綺堂 Okamoto Kidô

樋口一葉 Higuchi Ichiyô

志賀直哉 Shiga Naoya

武者小路実篤 Mushakôji Sane’atsu

中原中也 Nakahara Chûya

谷川俊太郎 Tanika Shuntarô

久保田万太郎 Kubota Mantarô

江戸川乱歩 Edogawa Ranpo

西条八十 Saijô Yaso

石川淳  Ishikawa Jun

井伏鱒二 Ibuse Masuj

太宰治  Dazai Osamu

谷崎潤一郎  Tanizaki Jin'ichiro 

三島由紀夫  Mishima Yukio

川端康成  Kawabata Yasunari

久保田万太郎 Kubota Mantarô

内田百閒 Ichida Hyakken

堀辰雄  Hori Tatsuo

小林秀雄 Kobayashi Hideo

中原中也 Nakahara Nakaya

伊藤整 Itô Sei

宇野千代  Uno Chiyo

円地文子  Enchi Fumiko

安倍公房 Abe Kôbô

大江健三郎  Oe Kenzaburo

村上春樹 Murakami Haruki

岡田利規 Okada Toshiki

石黒一雄 Ishiguro Kazuo

火鉢と炬燵

日本住宅は、湿度の高い夏の通風に適していて、冬になると障子、ガラス戸を通してすきま風が冷たく、限られた暖房にいつも寒々としてました。炭火の火鉢に手をかざしてあぶり、背中は綿入れを来て寒さに耐えました。火鉢は普通回りに三人か四人囲める大きさの大きな陶器の鉢で、灰で満たし、真ん中に赤くなった炭を置いたもので、しばしばその上に五徳（ごとく）と云って、鉄の枠を置いて、やかんを載せて、いつもお茶を入れるのに適した熱湯をチンチンとわかしてあって、部屋の暖房に僅か乍ら助けにしました。炬燵（こたつ）は、火鉢に覆いをしたようなもので、櫓（やぐら）と云って60cm位の木の枠の中に小さな火鉢を入れて、上にふとんをかぶせ，こうして、手だけでなく、膝から胴の前面を暖める仕掛けです。布団を肩迄掛けるともっと暖かいもので、引っ張ると反対の方に坐ってる人は残るふとんが僅かになって、手先を暖める位で、きょうだいで争い合うことが屢々ありました。上の平面には、足のないお膳を載せて、食べ物を食べたり、書き物をしました。大船の家では、「掘りごたつ」で、畳半畳をはがすと、縁の下が木造の箱で、底は桟（さん）、その下に炭火をいれて、上にはお膳のような枠を載せて布団をかけるのです。「置きごたつ」でしたら膝を折って坐るのですが、「掘りごたつ」では、足を下に下ろして、椅子に坐る具合でずっと暖かいです。それでも背中はいつもひやりとしてました。

The traditional Japanese house is designed for the natural ventilation during the humid summer, and, so, in wintertime the draft coming through the shoji screens and glazed sliding doors was very cold, and with the limited heating we were never free of the winter chill.  We persevered with a padded jacket on our back and the hands over the red charcoal in the hibachi.  This was a large ceramic urn of the size that accommodated two to four persons around it, filled with charcoal ash on top of which was placed burning charcoal; often a trivet was placed over it for a tea kettle that supplied hot water for tea at all times and at the same time added a bit more heat to the room.  Kotatsu was essentially a hibachi inside a wooden frame about two feet square and covered with a quilted bedding, designed to keep the hands and the front part of the lower torso warm.  It is warmer if we pulled up the bedding to cover the shoulders but, then, the person sitting on the opposite side will have only an edge of the cover just enough to warm her fingers; this often resulted in a struggle between siblings.  On its flat top surface we would place a legless table, which permitted us to eat and write without leaving the kotatsu.  In our house at Ofuna, we had a sunken kotatsu.  Under the half-size tatami, which could be removed, a wooden box is built, the bottom of which was a wooden grill, under which was placed a small urn with charcoal, fitted with a wooden frame above the floor level, again covered with a bedding.  This kept us warmer than the floor-top kotatsu.  It allowed us to sit as on a chair with our feet in the pit and kept us a bit warmer.  Still, our back was always cold.