A Myriad Gods

I learnt a new word teaching a Business English class today. The topic of discussion was culture and we were talking specifically about how religion affects a culture. Most Japanese these days are not so religious but the Shinto and Buddhist religions have certainly helped to create the culture that they live in. Mr. Ohta then said to me, "In Japan, we don't have only one God, and we don't think just one God is important. We have many many Gods." And he taught me this word:

八百万の神 - やおよろずのかみ　= (according to my dictionary
) the multitudinous Shinto deities.

八　＝　８
百　＝　１００
万　＝　１０，０００
神　＝　gods

So literally 8000,000 gods but this number doesn't have a literal or specific meaning, it signifies a myriad, or a number beyond count. I asked why 8 million signifies a myriad and not 6 or 7. It's the shape of the kanji 八 my students said. "It spreads wide towards the base like a mountain," said Mr. Yokoyama, "So for Japanese 八 means something growing wider...". Anyway, said Mr. Ohta smiling, "For Japanese, Christ or Buddha are just another pair of Gods in 八百万の神. So when we have a festival it is at a Shinto shrine, and when we die our funeral is Buddhist, and when we get married, it's in a church." And then we all laughed.

It's a bit rough...

I bumped into a former student at Shichijo Station yesterday. Making small talk we naturally asked each other where we were headed. "Neyagawashi" she said and pointed it out on the train line map. It was a small town I had never heard of, somewhere between Kyoto and Osaka City proper. "What's that like?" I asked her.

"ちあんがわるい." she said. "There are too many yankees".

"Yankees" in Japan are basically bad boys, young toughs and trouble-makers, so I guessed that "chian ga warui" meant that the place was a little dangerous. Having guessed that, I tried to guess the kanji for ちあん. Could it be that CHI was 地 meaning place and AN was 安 meaning safety? Almost, but not quite. I was right about the second kanji, but the first is actually...

治 - JI / CHI - osa・meru / osa・maru /nao・ru /nao・su - to govern or to cure

Combined with 安 it means public peace and order. So 治安がいい means safe and 治安が悪い means dangerous. It's rough out in the sticks.

Tiles - 瓦

Just a short one today. A new kanji I've learned that looks very much like what it represents:

瓦　- GA/GE - kawara guramu - tile or gram

I found this while reading about Kyoto's Cafe Kocsi in 京都のカフェランチ (らくたび文庫 No. 17). Apparently from the windows you can see many tiled rooftops or 瓦屋根【かわらやね】: a typical Kyoto scene. Here are some more words using this kanji:

瓦家　- かわらや　-　a tile-roofed house
瓦屋 - かわらや　-　a tile-maker or a tiler
瓦礫　- がれき - debris, rubble, wreckage
瓦解　- がかい　-　a debacle, a downfall, a collapse

院

Over the last couple of days I have looked at the first two kanji in the word 孤児院 (kojiin) or orphanage. Today we will focus on 院.

院　- IN - institution

Let's look at the elements that make the kanji. On the left we have a radical that means hill (it looks a lot like a flag fluttering on a hilltop), and on the right 完 (kan) meaning completion. To remember it let's imagine the institution was completed on the hilltop.

Here are some common compunds containing 院：

病院 - byouin - hospital
医院 - iin - clinic
入院する - nyuuin suru - enter hospital
退院 - taiin - leave hospital
大学院 - daigakuin - graduate school
美容院 - biyouin - beauty parlor, hairdresser's
参議院 - sangiin - Upper House of Councilors
衆議院 - shuugiin - Lower House of Representatives
修道院 - shuudouin - monastery, convent

Incidentally, if you are at all interested in donating to the 孤児院 Intyatyambo please visit their website at the highlighted link. They would be very grateful.

児

Yesterday, inspired by my visit to the Intyatyambo orphanage in South Africa, I introduced the word 孤児院 meaning orphange and looked at the first kanji 孤. Today let's take a look at 児.

児　－　JI / NI - ko - child or infant

Not so difficult to remember this one. Small children have very large heads in proportion with the rest of their body so just imagine this kanji as representing one large head with a hungry mouth in it balanced precariously on a pair of tottering legs.

Here are some kanji compounds with 児：

幼児　- youji - an infant, a little child
園児　- enji - a kindergarten child
児童　- jidou - children, pupils
小児科 - shounika - pediatrics
小児語 - shounigo - baby talk
胎児 - taiji - embryo
風雲児 - fuunji - a bold opportunist in troubled times (!)
稚児 - chigo (special reading) - a child in a festival procession

孤

This week I have been telling my students about the Intyatyambo orphanage I visited on a recent trip to South Africa and thus inadvertently learnt the following words:

孤児　－　こじ　－ orphan　
孤児院　－　こじいん　－ orphanage

The meaning of the kanji are as follows: solitary + child + institution. Sad little words, aren't they?

I think it's worth taking a look at each kanji individually so today let's focus on 孤 and first of all its component parts. The left part of the kanji is 子 (SHI - ko) meaning child. The component on the right is 瓜 which is usually red as URI and means melon, gourd or cucurbit. うり bears more than a passing resemblance to 爪 (TSUME) meaning nail or claw. Just remember that URI has an extra nail on the bottom there and TSUME (meaning nail) does not. Or as my kanji dictionary says: 「うり（瓜）につめあり、つめ（爪）につめなし」。Now, why child + gourd should denote solitude, I have no idea, but just imagine a poor solitary bairn with only one single solitary gourd to play with and the kanji should stick in your mind.

Incidentally, 瓜 has some interesting idioms attached to it:

うりのつるになすびはならぬ。

Literally: gourd vines won't make eggplants, or as we might say "You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear."

And 瓜二つである is equivalent to as alike as two peas in a pod.

Getting back to 孤 (KO), be sure not to confuse it with super similar 弧 (KO) which has a a bow component on the left and thus describes an arc. Here are some words containing 孤:

孤独 - kodoku - solitude (there's a very nice shochu called 百年の孤独 - one hundred years of solitude).
孤島 - kotou - a remote or desert island
孤立 - koritsu - isloation
孤高 - kokou - aloof
孤城 - kojou - an isolated or besieged castle

Tomorrow we will look at 児.

淀屋橋

If you live in Japan then you can learn a lot just from studying the things that surround you each and every day. Every week on Tuesday and Thursday evenings I go to Osaka to teach salarymen English. Specifically I go to Yodoyabashi. I see the kanji for the place name twice a week but until now it has never occurred to me to spend a moment studying it!

淀屋橋 - The "ya" and "bashi" parts I'm familiar with. What does "yodo" mean? The first three strokes on the left denote "water" and the component parts on the right form the kanji below:

定　-　TEI - sada・meru, sada・maru - to fix, decide or settle.

Put them back together and you get:

淀 - TEN / DEN - yodo, yodo・mi, yodo・mu - pool, eddy...

The verb よどむ can mean to stagnate or to settle (in the form of sediment) or to stammer or falter in one's speech.

The noun よどみ can mean stagnation, sediment, a backwater, a pool or faltering speech.

よどみなくはなす　－　means to speak fluently without hesitation.

Presumably, Yodoyabashi was named in part after a standing body of water... But now when I go there and see the kanji I shall always remember how I too wish to よどみなくはなす when I speak Japanese.

魚 #1

The Japanese consume an incredibly wide variety of fish. There are many kinds of fish I've had here that I have never tried anywhere else. In fact I'm often more familiar with the Japanese names for fish than I am the English. Time to rectify that. Here are a few varieties I ate just last night!

秋刀魚　- SANMA - saury. Note the kanji "Autumn/Blade/Fish". This fish is typically eaten in the autumn.

鱧　- HAMO - sea eel not to be confused with 鰻 (eel) though both are typically eaten in the summer. If you break up the kanji for 鱧 into its component parts you get さかな + ゆたか (豊) which means abundant or rich. The component parts for うなぎ (eel) are さかな +　まん / ばん / ながい (曼) which can mean wide or beautiful. This kanji is often found in Buddhist words such as 曼陀羅 - mandala.

鮪 - MAGURO - fine cuts of tuna. The kanji components here are さかな + ゆう / あ・る - to have or possess.

This next one I didn't eat last night but it has a curious idiom attached to it so I shall include it anyway:

鯖 - SABA - mackerel. Kanji components: さかな + あお - blue.

鯖を読む - SABA WO YOMU - to cheat or to lie. For example:

彼女は年を教えるのに鯖を読んだ。　~ She lied about her age.

Now I wonder how that idiom came about?