Learn Some Japanese

Let's talk about Japanese for a second.
Looking at it, yes, it's intimidating.

A literary labyrinth

 And I am functionally illiterate, so I'm right there with you (although I know enough to know when I've taken the train to the wrong station). 

There are some things I've found that fascinate me:

    1. "Clean" and "Beautiful/Pretty" is the same word. 
            Right-o. What word do you use to describe the cherry blossoms this time of        year? きれい！Kirei! How do you react when you see the wedding dress your friend picked out? "Kireiiiii!" How's the floor looking? "Aaaa, kirei janai.." (not so clean). The association between clean and beautiful is an interesting one. It's a linguistic pattern that reflects Japan's perception of beauty. Have you ever seen a traditional Japanese hotel? 

It looks like that. (They're called "ryokan".) Notice it's not only lovely, but IMPECCABLY CLEAN. "Kirei naa!!" (So pretty/clean/lovely).

     2. "Wrong" and "Different" are often the same word.

     You: "Kinou no yoru wa tabeta nan ka oboetenai." (I don't remember what I ate last night)

     Your friend: "Yakisoba tabeta?" (Did you eat yakisoba?)

     You: "Hahaha chigau yo!" (No, that's not it.)

     Your friend: " Nihongo no 'kawaii' to Eigo no 'pretty' ni ataru ka?" (Does the Japanese word 'kawaii' correspond to the English word 'pretty'?)

     You: "Eeto....imi wa chotto chigau." (No, the meanings are a little bit different). 

     

The verb "to be wrong" is also expressed by "machigau", but in conversation, "chigau" is used A LOT. (Also by me, because my vocabulary is ridiculously small still. Another linguistic evolution that resembles Japanese culture. Of course now, Japan is known for its clever oddities, but the language still maintains traces of earlier times. 

     3. One adjective means A THOUSAND things, but one verb is one verb.

     I'll admit. At first, this kind of bugged me. The same adjective is used to mean a lot of synonyms, so it seems like everyone is describing things the same way. I wanted to express something as being adorable, not cute! But alas, you still say "kawaii." I wanted to say something was stunning, or scrumptious. I still used "kirei" and "oishii." In English, it's common to go overboard with the adjectives, but then I began to realize something else.

There are a million frigging verbs in Japanese.

Where we use "turn" to describe "turning a corner," "turning into something," "turning a phrase," or "turning a steering wheel," in Japanese: those are ALL DIFFERENT VERBS. The distinction happens in the action. I'm not quite sure what the linguistic reasoning behind this is, but I'd be interested in finding out. 

    4. "One book" is not "one book". "Two rabbits" are not "two rabbits." 
      In Japanese, there's something called a "counter", which is a syllable that's placed at the end of a number to reflect WHAT you are counting. For example, one thing is "hitotsu." "Hito" is used for the number one when "tsu", the counter for things, is used. So two things is "futa-tsu." Three? "Mi-tsu." 

    

     But then it gets cray. 

    

    "One book" is "ichi-satsu". (Book in Japanese is "hon".)

    "One small animal" is "ip-piki." (Animal is "doubutsu)

    "One house" is "hito-mune." (house is "ie")

    "Three election terms" is "san-zen" (I don't feel like looking this one up).

    "Two angles" is "ni-kaku".  (This either). 

   

See?? The counters don't match the nouns they're representing. 

    You can click HERE if you want to see just what I am talking about. And even Japanese people don't have them all memorized. I've sat around and listened to grown women borderline argue over whether the correct syllable is "mai" or "me". And then give counter-examples. Thankfully, being descriptive about these things isn't too common. Everyone just says there's either a lot or a little. 

     5. India gets cut a bit short. 

    The Japanese word for "Hindi" (the language) is "Indo-go", or "India's language". 

    It makes sense, yes, but there are over six hundred languages spoken in India. 

   Just thought it was interesting that Hindi is THE Indian language, and all the rest are based off of the English pronunciation. (Tamil would be Tamiru-go, Urdu would be Urudu-go etc). 

That's your tidbit of Japanese for today. Come back next week when I teach you the dirty words.*

*Disclaimer: I don't really know any. 

My Life In Japan

 

When I Try To Formulate A Sentence

'When I Know I Said Something Wrong

When My Teacher Makes Me Translate Something Out Loud

When My Host Dad Tells Me To Pick Ramen or Pizza

When I'm Shopping

When Something I Said Actually Made Sense

What I Do While Someone Is Talking To Me

Whenever I Have To Eat Something Weird

As I'm Going Out For A Walk

When Someone Speaks English but My Host Family Can't Understand

When It's My Turn To Take A Bath

Asking For A Ride To The ATM

When Someone Comes Near Me

When My Host Family Watches TV and I Don't Get It

Party! Kind of!

As of today, I've been living with the Migita family for two months. Honestly, it feels like two weeks. After dinner, we had a little celebration, so like a perfect American, I busted out my camera and took several pictures of the same thing.

The festivities

The tiramisu my host mum and I made. I should

note that we used every shortcut in the book, so

what you're seeing is basically little fingerling 

donuts, some mascarpone with sugar whipped

together, and cocoa powder. Oh, and instant coffee.

but SHUSHHHH!  I'm really a gourmet at heart.

 f

White chocolate mmmmmmm

The flowers I bought for my host family. I went 

to this little back-alley florist with plants hanging

from the ceiling that was run by a hunched over

elderly woman. She was a sweetheart.

The cake my host brother made me us

The aftermath

In icing, it reads "Sofia ni-kagetsu banzai" or

"Happy 2 Months, Sofia!"

Word of The Day

ヤンキー
Yankii
Yankee - Redneck

That's right. The Japanese word for "redneck" is literally Yankee. I was explaining goose hunting to my host mother (forgive me, ya'll) and I wanted to use the word "redneck" but it wasn't in my dictionary. I realize that this is a rather harsh term, but please remember that my vocabulary is limited and often I still use monosyllabic grunts and Sofia Sign Language to communicate so I was just going with what I know, OK? 

Anyway, I made this roundabout explanation to get Yukako-san to tell me how to say redneck in Japanese. "What do you call the people who live in the mountains?" "Poor." "No, no, no....not that. Like...the people who use ora instead of boku." (These are pronouns for "I". They change depending on social class, age, and gender. Ora is a hillbilly way of saying "I".) Finally, she said "Oh! You mean "Yankee"!" 

Say what.

Yankee is seriously what Japanese people call Japanese rednecks. Fisherman? "Yankees." Obnoxious classmates? "Yankees." People who live in the mountains? "Yankees."

I did my best to explain that that word is a really old word from the days of America's infancy. Basically, that's the impression we gave the Japanese during WW2. We're all booze chugging, sea-shanty singing rednecks. (Sea shanties are more European, but it paints the picture I want you to envision). 

Good Ol' Uncle Sam. Passing on the good stuff.

And that, ladies and gentlefriends, is your Japanese word of the day.

Japanese Yogurt

Never again.

First Things (Not) First

"I'M NOT DEAD." - P!nk

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I'm not. I'm in Neyagawa-shi in my OCD-clean room, wearing a towel on my head, mismatched socks and typing in the dark while listening to some 70's punk. (No Time To Be 21 by The Adverts for those who like recommendations). Thus is the reality of my life right now. Slightly chaotic, slightly intriguing. Mostly weird. 

Before we go any further, I'm going to clear up some myths about Japan that I've found either ARE or AREN'T true. If later on I find my observations were incorrect, I'll come back and change them, but for simplicity's sake, let's assume I know what I'm talking about.

QUERY #1:
Japanese people are really polite.
As a general rule, this is true. Elderly people are treated very well, respect speech is used, people who work in the food industry and retail are RIDICULOUSLY helpful, and if you're lost on the train, strangers will go out of their way to make sure you get to where you're going. One woman actually rode home with me when I was hopelessly lost. However, students disrespect their teachers, people litter in botanical gardens, women in train stations will get past you by any means necessary etc. In other words, it's like America. Except the girls at MacDonald's are perky and don't glare at you for buying their stuff.

QUERY #2:
Japan is safer than America.
Without a doubt, Japan is safer than America. I could walk down Higashikoriencho naked and not worry about someone wearing a hockey mask jumping out of the bushes. There are also no crimes by handgun here, or virtually none. If there are, the rate is like 15 per year or something like that. 

QUERY #3:
Japan has some interesting..................tastes........
We're not talking about food here, darlings. Yes, it's true. There's a bit of a schoolgirl fetish here. Japan can seem pretty sexist at times. For example, this morning I was watching a show where six guys sat around talking about what they thought was cute that girls did, and each of them showed what kind of fashions they liked for girls, which was modeled by a very attractive young woman who posed for the camera in various styles. One was filmed in a kid's bedroom with her dressed as the Mad Hatter. Um...what. So, yes, it would be difficult to be a feminist here because things like that are so engrained in the culture. But it's not impossible to be a strong Latina like me. Aherm. Sike, I'm kidding. But not about what I said about Japan.

QUERY #4:
Japanese food has a lot of salt in it.
GURL. LET. ME. TELL. YOU. There is so much salt in Japanese food. When I eat ramen, I go through about three glasses of water. Part of this is because it's customary to drink the soup broth after you've noshed on whatever's in the bowl, so my tiny veins are just coursing with salt and cholesterol and my heart starts beating like the hooves of a racehorse. That's not to say that Japanese food (especially ramen) is not delicious, because it is. (I'm going to go through yakisoba withdrawal when I get home). It's just that I'm also going to have to have quadruple bypass surgery.

Some notes on home life:
-I take a bath in the ofuro every night. There's a ritual to it and it's relaxing.
-The dogs, Yon and Supi, are constantly shedding and sleeping on my bed and stealing my slippers.
-My host mum calls me Sofeetch.
-My host dad and I have serious talks about things like religion, college, Japanese opinions of different races, and why students here don't learn about WW2 (hint, it has to do with Pearl Harbor). Needless to say, we have fun, but our dynamic is quite serious.
-My host sister and I play music together (usually her on violin and me on mandolin, unless we decide to switch).
-I make snacks and my host brother eats them.
-The neighbor has declared herself my third mother (after Ummi*, and Yukako-san)
-The TV is always on, and the house is full of Kiki's Delivery Service tchatchkies.
-The floors are impeccably clean.
-Rice is served with dinner every night, but breakfast usually includes toast.
-Everyone's up by 9, and in bed by 1am 
-There seems to be a slight obsession with mayonnaise for some reason.

If you have questions, or want to correct my observations, please - by all means - let me know! I'll try to keep this thread going as I go along.
*Ummi is Arabic for my mother, which is what I call my mother. Logical.

A Brief Apology

I should explain myself before I start posting again.

I want to apologize, because from what my parents have told me, people were actually reading this blog while I was posting. It's kind of funny because I always saw this blog in the same way I see my Twitter account: just something to do, throwing pieces of my life and experiences out there, in case anyone finds them interesting.

I should note that no one, except Nate Christian, and maybe Abbey Holcomb, reads my Tweets. Naturally, I was sure my blog was just an afterthought.

So here I am, ready to put aside my procrastination and actually write some things about Japan (surprise!)

Are you ready? Things are about to get krunk.