Emergency Exit

If you study Japanese and you live in Japan, the world is your textbook. Just pay attention to the stuff around you - it might save your life! Take this sign on my balcony for example:



非常の際はここを破って
隣戸に避難して下さい
この付近を置かないでください

非常　hijou - emergency
際 sai - when, in case of
破る yaburu - break, destroy
隣戸 rinko - nextdoor
避難する hinan suru - take refuge, shelter, escape...
下さい kudasai - please
付近 fukin - vicinity
置く oku - put

I wasn't sure how to read 隣戸 (tonarito? rinto? rinko?) or if it meant the nearest exit or the house nextdoor. So I asked my Japanese friends and they helped me out.

In case of emergency break here.
Please escape to the neighboring house.
Please do not place anything in this vicinity.

Essential resources:

Kodansha's Kanji Learner's Dictionary
CANON wordtank G55
& Japanese friends Masayoshi & Tamachan.

Poor Man's Guts

I went out for a very fine meal in a very fine restaurant the other night and was immediately afterwards stricken with a very bad case of the trots. My girlfriend said this was a case of 貧乏腹 - binboubara or poor man's guts.

貧乏 - binbou = poor
腹 - hara = stomach

Poor people she said, aren't used to eating rich food so if they suddenly eat some their stomachs can't handle it. Likewise, I've gotten into the lazy habit of eating rubbish food when I'm alone at home because it's quick and easy and I can't be bothered cooking. So the sudden onslaught of fine wine, hors d'oeuvres, potage, fondu, lobster and cake proved too much for me. My girlfriend thought this very amusing. I less so. However, tonight I have no worries. She's coming round to bake me a pie. I think my stomach can handle that.

Lend us a paw!

At school now we are getting the students to prepare an end of term presentation of "great inventions". To get them thinking about it I gave them some pictures from the chindogu website and had them try to name and describe the invention in their own words. This particular picture elicited a Japanese expression I was unfamiliar with.

猫の手も借りたい　
neko no te mo karitai
wanting to borrow a cat's paw

Apparently this is used when really really busy so for example 猫の手も借りたいほど忙しい actually means "...so busy I need all the help I can get...". But why a cat in particular is singled out as the source of a helping hand (or paw) in times of need remains a mystery. I wouldn't be surprised if this expression was the inspiration behind these ingenious duster slippers for cats though.

Whitewash!

The school I teach at is Buddhist and each month the religious studies department chooses a message to be put up in every classroom. It's called 今月の言葉. This month's message runs as follows:

人の幸せをよろこぶ人は
幸せである

人 - hito = person/people
幸せ- shiawase = happiness, joy
よろこぶ - yorokobu = to be pleased, to be delighted

So literally this means "People who are pleased at the happiness of people have happiness". Literal translations make hard reading though. More naturally we might say:

Happiness is sharing in another person's joy.

Not exactly a deep message but because of the simple vocabulary it is very easy to understand and remember. Which is why in a whimsical mood last night I recited it to my girlfriend and asked her what she thought of it. She didn't like it. "People are not so pure and simple," she said. "I hate 奇麗事."

きれいごと. Here was a word I didn't know. So I looked it up.

奇麗　(kirei - "clean","tidy") ＋　事　(koto - "stuff") ＝
奇麗事 - kireigoto = whitewashing, saying the expected, avoiding complications, glossing over etc...

She has a point. That message does have a note of the Hallmark about it. I like that word though 奇麗事. Here's an example from my dictionary:

きれいごとだけで世の中を渡ることはできない。

世の中 - yo no naka = the world, life
渡る - wataru = cross

You can't get through life trying to keep everyone happy.

Or more simply "You can't make an omlette without breaking eggs".

Living on Mist

Here's another one I found in Kyoto Journal. Genevieve Wood, writing of her meeting in the Philippines with paper making master and innovator Shimura Asao, describes how he has given up the ordinary but secure path of the salaryman to research his craft and to help people. "His means are meager..." she writes, "...in Japanese it's described as 霞を食べて ("kasumi wo tabete"), living on mist". That's a beautiful phrase. I had to look it up.

My 広辞苑 dictionary has this:

（仙人が霞を食べて生きるといわれることから）俗世間に煩わされず生きる。
（Because mountain hermits were said to live on mist) to live free from the trouble of the workaday world.

I really like this expression, it describes perfectly and with a gentle humour the kind of simple wonder one might express at the idealist who has deliberately stepped outside of conventional society. How does that person survive? What does he eat? Mist?

Here's some vocabulary notes for you:

仙人 - sennin = hermit; either one of those crazy old mystics living in the mountains of chinese legend or someone who has distanced themselves from worldy concerns.
霞 - kasumi = mist (there's a lot of it in the mountains)
食べて生きる = to eat + to live = to live on _____
俗世間 - zokuseken - the workaday or secular world
煩わされず - wazurawasarezu = to not be troubled by something (the negative form of 煩わせる - remember that kanji from yesterday?)
生きる - ikiru - to live