Hungry for Words: Mostly Japanese

In Japan, if you can't speak English, you're a loser in life

A few weeks ago, a language school in Shinjuku, Tokyo with the rather dramatic name of Fortress Japan got into trouble when they were caught, amongst other things, 1. harvesting snail and email addresses under false pretenses (in the guise of conducting surveys), and 2. threatening people to sign up for their English conversation classes by trying to scare them. The specific phrase they used was "If you don't know how to speak English, you will be a -

人生の敗北者　じんせいのはいぼくしゃ　jinsei no haibokusha

This literally means a loser in life. The amazing thing to me is that this actually worked on more than a few people, who gave their money over to these people.

I live in Zürich, a multicultural and multi-lingual city where there are lots of ads for language schools. But that doesn't even begin to compare with the number of language-school ads that you see in trains, on billboards and other places in Japan. About 1 in 4 ads seem to be for language schools, and the no. 1 language to be learned (though Chinese seems to be creeping up in popularity) is still English.

What is sad is that by the time they have finished high school, most Japanese people have had at least six years of mandatory English classes, if not more. There are English 'juku' (cram schools, after-school classes) for kids as young as kindergarten age. The widely acknowledged problem with English education in Japan is that it's still oriented towards rote learning of grammar rules and spelling, rather than actually learning how to speak and understand the language - because it's easier to test kids on grammar and such than on if they can conduct a simple conversation.

There have been many attempts made to improve the way in which English is taught in Japan, but still, many people labor to speak it.

I am lucky enough to have learned to speak English when I was very young. It's not even my second language anymore - in terms of ease of use, it may even be my first. Whenever I am in Japan and it comes out that I speak English, the reactions I get are rather interesting. Mostly I just hear "羨ましい　(うらやましい　urayamashii) - (I'm) envious". But on the negative side, there is a mix of envy, fear, disdain and dismissal. (I've heard other bilingual Japanese people talk about getting this kind of reaction. Kikoku shijo (帰国子女　きこくしじょ）, or kids who return to Japan after some time spent in another country, were and may still be regular targets for bullying in Japanese schools.) I think that my English fluency, more than my many years of living outside of Japan, make me an 'other' to a lot of Japanese people. I've even been told, in some off moments by people who were either drunk or just out to be snarky, that I was a 'gaijin' - a foreigner, and that I didn't count as a true Japanese person. Not very nice. I've learned to keep my English-speaking-self under wraps for the most part, since I am not fond of unnecessary conflict.

Still, from now on if I run into such people, I can tell them that they are a loser in life. Or, at least think it silently. ^_^

Zen, mangled in the west

As I've written previously, there are plenty of imported words used in Japan that have very different meanings from the original. This happens to a lesser extent in the opposite direction, but it does indeed happen. One notoriously mangled word is 禅 - Zen.

In Japanese 禅 refers to a branch of Buddhism (仏教　ぶっきょう　bukkyou). Certain rituals connected with Zen Buddhism have been embraced by non-Zen Buddhists, such as the practice of meditation while in 座禅　ざぜん(zazen) pose, or the refined vegetarian cuisine developed by some Zen Buddhist monks called　精進料理　しょうじんりょうり　(sho-jin ryouri). But the word Zen seems to have taken a life of its own in the west, specifically in English, to mean anything from simple and uncluttered or vaguely 'enlightened', to anything remotely Asian or 'Oriental'.

In Japanese, the word Zen is never used in this way. So, if you would try to say something like あなたの部屋はとても禅ですね　あなたのへやは　とてもぜんですね　(your room is very Zen), most likely you'll get a puzzled look in return.

Personally, when I hear the word Zen bandied about so trivially it annoys me a bit because it smacks of pop-Zen. But then, I'm rather easily annoyed. I must achieve a Zen State or acquire Zen Habits or something, I suppose.

See also: Kaizen, or ooh, those inscrutable Japanese.

Ganbatte! vs. Good Luck! vs...

Let's say your friend tells you they are about to take a driving test, go up to talk to a cute girl/boy at a bar, go to hospital for an operation, or climb up a cliff face. What do you say to them?

In English, most people automatically say "Good luck!"

In French you probably say "Bonne chance!" which means the same thing; in German it's "Viel Glück" (same again), or "Mach's Gut!" (make good!)

In Japanese the standard no-thinking-about-it phrase is 頑張って！　がんばって！　ganbatte! (or gambatte!) (alternatives: 頑張れ！　頑張れよ！頑張ってね！　頑張って下さい！）

In the west (at least in the languages I'm familiar with) you wish the person to have luck, which is a something that is bestowed upon them by the random forces of the cosmos. I have a feeling, though I may be off on this, that wishing someone luck evolved from the religious equivalents "May God be with you!" "My prayers are with you!"

Of course there are ways to say Good Luck in Japanese, but when you wish someone luck you are consciously choosing to say so. For instance you might say to someone who's bought a lottery ticket, ご幸運をお祈りします - ごこううんをおいのりします gokouun o oinorishimasu. I wish you (pray for your) good luck.

But the phrase that is automatically said in most situations has nothing to do with luck. The base form of the Japanese phrase is 頑張る　がんばる　ganbaru (gambaru) which means to strive, to try ones best. So 頑張って　means 'Go and try your best!' The onus is put on the efforts of the person or persons involved in the endeavor, rather than random forces or a higher entity.

A subtle yes interesting difference, no?

(The German Mach's Gut might be closer in intent to 頑張って. Not sure about the theatrical Break a leg! - does that mean that the actor tries so hard that he's supposed to break a leg, or just reserve-luckology, the equivalent of wishing someone bad luck?)

The Disappearance of Father Christmas

Most of the English television programming I get to watch here is from the UK. I spend a few of my childhood years in England. Back then I remember that white-bearded guy who allegedly brings you presents for Christmas as always being called Father Christmas. Our strict-yet-nice headmistress, who gave me a great big Christmas anthology book when we moved away, would correct us if we called the old man Santa Claus.

Words of the year 2007: fake, w00t, and death tourism

It's that time of the year when various organizations around the world drum up a bit of PR for themselves by selecting a Word Of The Year, which is then picked up by news outlets looking for filler.

Let's do a short hop around the world. This year's kanji character of the year in Japan, as selected by the Japan Kanji Aptitude Testing Foundation in Kyoto, is the one pictured here. Read as Gi or (with an additional hiragana character appended) Itswari, it means "fake" or "lie". It was a year of fakery and lying in Japan, lead by several incidents of food companies using out-of-date ingredients and faking labels, embezzlement scandals, faked up reports on TV, and the like. Not a very positive kind of word to be the One for the year. Last year's word was Life, and 2005's was Love, so I guess you can mark Japan as Mood: Down in 2007. (Japanese news link)

A buck and a quarter

An elderly man approaches the counter in a drugstore in midtown Manhattan. He seems to be Greek, or something Middle Eastern, or in any case not American. His clothes look a bit too old fashioned to be an American, and he is too uncertain of himself to be a world-weary New Yorker.

The store is fairly empty at this time of day, sometime in mid-afternoon on a weekday. There is only one bored cashier. The man is clutching a toothbrush.

"Excuse me Miss, how much?" he says, ever so politely, holding out the plastic packet. The bored girl takes it from him and scans the barcode.

"It's a buck and a quarter" she say, shifting the gum in her mouth. "You wanna buy it?"  A look of confusion crosses his face as he looks at her inquisitively.

She does not do a good job in suppressing a sigh of impatience, though she has no other customer to serve. She points wordlessly to the display on the cash register. His face clears. He understands now. He purchases the toothbrush, takes it and the receipt, thanks her to the back of her head, and shuffles out.

And the point is...?

Idioms are very hard to understand for non-native speakers. People who aren't used to communicating with different people don't get this, and English speakers are, from what I've seen, the worst. They aren't trying to be inconsiderate, but the result is a confused listener. It doesn't take any more effort to say "a dollar twenty-five", or even "one twenty five", which is far easier to understand.