Translation As Language Study

I spent some time this morning attempting a translation of this short passage, a caption from an ecological book about wolves (オオカミと野生のイヌ, published by X-Knowledge), beneath a photo of an Arctic Wolf.

The original Japanese:

北極圏に生息するハイイロオオカミの亜種で、体毛は白い。アルビノや白変種など白色の個体は、さまざまな種でみられるが、季節にかかわらず種や亜種に属するすべての個体の体毛が常に白い肉食哺乳類は、シロクマと並んで極めて珍しい。

My translation:

A subspecies of Grey Wolf with white fur that inhabits the Arctic Circle. Individuals with white coloration due to albinism and leucism can be seen in a variety of species. However, along with the polar bear, it is extremely rare for all individuals within a species or subspecies of carnivorous mammals to have white fur year-round, regardless of season.

Translating is a great way to study language. Even in translating a short passage such as this, there is so much to chew on.

I find that in translating, as opposed to simply reading, I’m forced to check my own comprehension of the language. In translating, by actually transcribing the words into English, you are forced to choose and explicitly state the meaning of each word, phrase, or passage. And each time I’ve translated a piece now, especially these harder passages, I discover that, when I take this critical, close look, I have actually assumed some meaning that was not correct. I was close enough to understand generally, but I was not understanding specifically, perfectly. And ultimately, we do want to understand exactly what is being said. Translating forces you to take it word by word, to break it down and confirm your understanding.

For example, in the above passage, there is the word 個体. When I first read this passage, several times, I assumed 個体 to be another word that I have seen, 固体. They are similar, and have the same reading (kotai). In my initial reading of the passage, I misread this word. They are close in appearance and pronounced exactly the same, but 固体 means “solid”, and 個体 means “individual” or “specimen”. In reading the passage and misreading this word, I understood the meaning to be “the physical body” (of the wolf). My interpretation of meaning did work somewhat in my reading, but it was not correct. First of all, my understanding of 固体 was not accurate, as it really just means “solid”, and then, I was reading the wrong word anyway, because in the passage the word was 個体, and these are totally different words. However, I only truly realized this when I started to break the passage down for translation.

I also initially translated 北極圏 as “North Pole”. I caught this mistake later, when checking my accuracy, as I realized that it isn’t exactly North Pole. “North Pole” is, precisely, 北極. I wasn’t paying mind to the 圏 part, but it is there for a reason. 北極圏 is actually “Arctic Circle”. I think I just saw the 北極 part of 北極圏 and immediately thought, “North Pole”, and that is close – but not precise. It’s a subtle difference, and for general understanding, not lethal. But ultimately, 北極 and 北極圏 are fundamentally different words and concepts, and for translation purposes, “North Pole” is not precise enough, and is incorrect.

A few days ago, I had ChatGPT check a previous translation I did (a passage from the same book), and I found it caught mistakes I had made that I hadn’t even considered. I had made assumptions and was confident about some words/phrases, or I had completely misread them, and was ultimately wrong in the translation. In most cases, close, but wrong. It was startling to see that what I had assumed to be true was wrong, and how sneakily I had been misled. Because of this experience, I’m now checking even the Japanese that I think I know. And, for example, in the above passage, when I first read the line, “シロクマと並んで極めて珍しい”, I took it to mean, literally, “incredibly rare to see wolves standing together with polar bears”. In my reading of the passage, that did somewhat make sense, and is a plausible statement. However, in taking the passage line by line, I realized that was not what was meant. Having a better grasp of the passage, I saw that 並ぶ was not being used literally, but figuratively. So again, looking at this example, my initial comprehension was wrong, and that was revealed only after the close examination required in translating.

In these dense, academic passages, there is a lot of information conveyed in a short span. It’s really crucial to have an accurate understanding of every word, vocabulary and grammar, because even a slight misunderstanding can change your entire interpretation of the meaning. It’s interesting that our brains are so good at making meaning and filling in gaps in understanding, and so you can really think you understood something, or come up with a plausible interpretation. You can form a narrative that feels right, and yet you didn’t understand at all – or not perfectly. I read completely the wrong word, 固体, with a separate meaning, and yet I was able to integrate it into a plausible meaning in my interpretation of the passage.

In today’s translation exercise, I felt very clearly the value of translation as a tool for language study.

The Weasel’s Last Fart

It is episode 32 of Dragon Ball Z. Vegeta has gone full monkey mode, creating an enormous shining star of energy to trigger his transformation into a giant beast monkey, which increases his power by 10x (10倍), and he’s got Goku on the ropes. He’s crushed Goku’s legs, rendering them useless, and now, he’s going for the final kill, with a single finger, moving to squash Goku like a bug, and it looks very dire for Goku. But suddenly, as monkey Vegeta brings his finger of doom down, Goku throws up an arm and fires off a powerful laser blast, shooting it straight into Vegeta’s giant red eye, his right eye, and blowing it up. Vegeta screams, immediately recoils, holds his face and cries out in agonizing pain. And there is a shot of Goku, laying there with his broken legs, chuckling, and he says – 「イタチの最後っ屁ってやつで」

That is, itachi no saigo ppe yatsu de.

Now, this was totally unexpected. We thought that, we all thought that it was over for Goku. Vegeta definitely thought this was the end of Goku, but Goku had one last gasp. And me, who is listening so intently, I am completely stumped by Goku’s line. I rewind, I listen three times. I hear “itachi”, so it seems, and I hear “no saigo”, and then whatever is at the end… but, itachi means “weasel”, and saigo means “final”. Surely, Goku is not talking about a weasel, and “the weasel’s final”? That doesn’t even make sense.

I turn on the English subtitles for guidance, relying on translators past, and I see this incredible English:

“That’s what you call the weasel’s last fart.”

So, the truth is that our hero Goku was actually saying “weasel”. The weasel’s last fart. Now, I had to Google this, because, what the hell are we talking about here? Is there truly a known Japanese phrase, in common usage, that is, the weasel’s last fart?

Well people. Yes there is. The phrase is exactly what Goku said here:

イタチ → Weasel

の最後 → ‘s last

屁 → fart

That is, イタチの最後っ屁. This is a known phrase used by the Japanese. We can easily infer from the context that we are talking about “a last ditch effort” or “last gasp”. My favorite dictionary, Jisho.org, chooses not to give a literal translation. As you can see, they say “final emergency measure” or “final defence when one is cornered”. It is basically “a last ditch effort.” And this makes you wonder, if you didn’t know already, do weasels fart in self-defence? Surely they must. Like a skunk?

Some brief research confirms that this is true.

The English subtitle translations are very trustworthy. As we can see from this example, and across the board, the translation team often stays very close to the original Japanese, which makes the subtitles especially useful for language study. In this case, they didn’t just preserve the meaning, but the imagery itself. Choosing “the weasel’s last fart” was probably a deliberate decision, even knowing it might sound strange or confusing to English speakers. Rather than choosing something familiar like “last-ditch effort,” they let the original metaphor stand. That’s a confident choice, and you have to respect that. It suggests the translators wanted viewers to know exactly what Goku said, regardless of it being received as quirky or strange.

It is interesting to hear the Japanese and then see what the translators ended up translating it as. For example, after Tenshinhan has blasted Nappa with his final, most powerful move, and Nappa survives with barely a scratch, there is a shot of Krillin and Piccolo who are both shocked and horrified, and Piccolo says, 「まさか！やつ不死身か！」”Masaka! Yatsu fujimi ka!” The second part of this line, やつ不死身か, is relatively straightforward. やつ→He/This guy (Nappa), and 不死身(ふじみ), is a great word to have in the bank, meaning immortal/undying/invincible. In this case I would choose invincible as the closest meaning. But the first word, まさか, is one of those Japanese words that is flexible, used in various scenarios, and pretty “Japanese”, so you could translate it in quite a few ways. (Jisho offers 5 different situations and usages with many offered definitions.)

I would translate Piccolo’s line as: “No way! He’s immortal??” or “You’re kidding me! He’s invincible!” You could also say “Unbelieveable!” or “I can’t believe it!” All of these would be fine choices here.

The DBZ subtitling team went with this as their translation: “Don’t tell me he’s immortal!” I think that also captures the meaning accurately and is a good translation.

Your Mom Has An Outie: Learning Japanese From Dragon Ball Z

After a bout with the flu, being down for five days, I have discovered the world of anime. And after doing some exploring, I’ve landed on a classic: Dragon Ball Z.

I can see why this is considered to be one of the best. The art is amazing, the characters are memorable, the dialogue is interesting, the story is unique and creative, the comedy is top-tier, and the music is awesome. The opening theme, the closing theme, and all of the audio in-between is outstanding.

I feel that the Japanese I’m learning through the show is really sticking with me, and when I look in my notebook and see what I’ve written down, I can remember almost every scene and voice from what was said. I can remember who said it, the context, and how they said it. The words and phrases are really alive. That helps a lot with learning words.

There was a scene where Gohan (5 years old), is finally getting really pissed off and ready to fight. This is after Nappa has killed three of his friends already, and has almost killed Piccolo. He’s finally had enough, and Nappa sees that he’s getting angry, and Gohan is about to say something possibly offensive, and finally talk some smack. Gohan is grunting for a minute, building up his courage and finding the words, before he unleashes this devastating line:「おまえの母ちゃんでべそー！！」

This was so shocking for Nappa to hear that the screen changed colors and became crazy (see image below). Nappa breaks out into a sweat, and says, shocked, 「“何???」(Nani?? What??) He is completely startled. He was completely unprepared for such a line from this five year old. I had to know what Gohan said that got Nappa so riled up. I knew Gohan was saying 母さん, “mom”, but after that? Nappa’s mom is what?? I replayed the audio twice, then turned on the subtitles for guidance, and I saw it. Gohan says, “Omae no kaachan debeso!!!!” meaning, “Your mom has an outie!!” And this was apparently an incredible dig, because that line sent Nappa into a frenzy.

The exact moment Gohan tells Nappa his mom has *debeso*

From this scene, we learn something about でべそ – if you are fighting Japanese-speaking aliens, and you really want to piss them off, tell them their mom has an outie.

Piccolo has some really great lines. He’s cool, he’s tough, he’s sassy. I feel like every time he speaks, I want to know what he said. He doesn’t waste words.

When Gohan was turning into a raging monkey and going on a rampage, Piccolo realized that Gohan was transforming because of the full moon, and without hesitation, Piccolo destroys the moon. In one blast, he obliterated the moon. That’s badass. And afterwards, when Gohan has changed back into a regular five-year old human, Piccolo looks back up at the sky and says, 「月を飛ばすのは正解のようだ。」　”Tsuki wo tobasu nowa seikai noyouda.” Meaning, “It seems that it was right to destroy the moon.”

Yep, you had no choice, did you Piccolo? Sorry, moon. Had to stop Gohan from going on a rampage.

Piccolo leaves Gohan in the wilderness, to survive on his own for six months. Gohan is crying, and before he leaves, Piccolo says, before he flies away,「恨むなら、自分の運命を恨むんだな。この俺のように。」

“Uramunara, jibun no unmei wo uramundana. Kono ore no you ni.”
“If you have to blame anyone, blame your own destiny. Just like I do.”

How badass is that? (Gohan’s destiny is to be a secret weapon and hope against fighting the super-powerful aliens who plan to eradicate humanity.)

In the fight with Radditz, Piccolo loses his arm. I thought, “Well, he’s lost an arm. I wonder if he will get it back?” Just having a feeling that he would. And after the fight, and Radditz is defeated, Piccolo takes a moment, to start screaming, and to the shock and awe of all, regenerate his arm. What incredible power.

While fighting Nappa, Piccolo drops a line that I had to rewind about five times, because he says so much so quickly. And finally, after about five replays, I caught the whole thing. Here was the line:

「奴を攻撃に移るわずかな一瞬に隙ができる。その時を狙うんだ。」
“Yatsu wo kougeki ni itsuru wazuka na isshun ni suki ga dekiru. Sono toki wo neraunda.”

Which means, “When he [Nappa] goes to attack, there is a very small window for us to strike. We will aim for that.”

If we break this sentence down:

奴を攻撃にいつる → He goes to attack
わずかな一瞬に → Very briefly
隙ができる → A window/opening presents itself / There is a window (for striking)
その時を狙うんだ → We aim for that time

This is a great sentence, and very Japanese. Especially the word 隙 (suki), represents more than a just single word. It is a concept, which is, in this instance, an opening in the armor, or a window of opportunity for striking.

Some other good lines from Piccolo:「いずれにしても、全員殺すつもりだ。」“In any case, they plan to kill everyone.” And, 「お前のような臆病者はいらん！」“We have no need for a coward like you!”

Deep in the fight with Nappa, and they have tried multiple methods of defeating Nappa, Krillin says to Piccolo, 「ピッコロ、どうする？何が手立てはあるか？」(“Piccolo, dou suru? Nani ga tedate wa aru ka? “Piccolo, what should we do now? Is there some other way we can defeat him?”)

And Piccolo simply replies,「ない。」

Nai.

Meaning: “No.”

Nope. There’s no other way.

“Rest Day” // Japanese Pokemon

The Celebration That Wasn’t

Yesterday was supposed to be a rest day, and it kind of was. But I “worked”. I dog sat. It wasn’t a full rest day.

Today I woke up and felt like, yes, today needs to be a rest day. And today is actually becoming a rest day. Even me writing this, we’ll call it a restful thing, because I’m just having fun with it. There’s no expectation. This is purely for enjoyment. There’s a big difference, between having to do something out of obligation or requirement, versus just for fun. And this writing here is just for fun.

Two days ago I finished the first draft of a story idea that I had hatched. I carried it all the way to completion and that took about ten days. Ten days of tenacity, of sticking to it, of staying on it, and not letting it escape me, but getting through the whole thing, through the ups and downs, the struggle and joy. When I finished the draft two days ago, I felt euphoric, and yet, lost. It had consumed me and stayed in my mind for ten whole days. I couldn’t believe that much time had actually passed. For ten days I contemplated the story and worked on it, held it in my mind, stayed tethered to that fantasy world. And when I was done, I felt strange. It was over. Except, it wasn’t over, and it’s not over. That was just the first part. But that’s probably the hardest part, I feel. Who knows. I’m new to all of this.

It’s the longest story I’ve ever written, possibly ever. Probably ever. And I still haven’t recovered from the writing of it yet, I think.

I knew that the first thing I had to do upon finishing was celebrate. I couldn’t move on to anything else without celebrating the accomplishment. Even from a work perspective, if you are trying to accomplish more, you have to celebrate. It’s part of the job, it’s a necessary thing.

I racked my brain on what to do for my celebration. I tried to walk through the great suburban desert of East Nashville to go to Woodland Wine Merchant and buy a bottle of wine, to crack open with my lads tonight, but I only made it halfway through the great suburban desert before dying in the sun and throwing in the towel. I thought about going to Waffle House or getting some donuts at East Park Donut, but I didn’t really to spend money on that. I wanted to have an experience, and I knew that I had wanted to go swimming. I keep thinking about surfing. I guess I miss surfing, and I miss swimming, and I really want to do it again. So, I decided I would go swimming, even though it meant work, because I had to figure out where I would go, and drive there, which I really didn’t want to do. But I had to celebrate, and it was all I could think of.

I found that Percy Priest Lake seemed to be the closest place to me that I could swim in the wild. In freshwater. I had to drive on the highway…. blah blah blah. Long story short, the highway was a nightmare, the “beach” was a strip of grass next to the highway, covered in trash, there was a homeless guy there with swollen, rotting elephantitis ankles, the water was scummy, and made my eyes sting, and yet I did enjoying frolicking in the water like an otter. It was exactly the feeling I was looking for. Then I returned on the nightmare highway, and had angry visions of bombing everyone on the highway, and of having a giant plow affixed to the front of my car that would allow me to drive through the highway unimpeded and plow everyone out of my way. I was stuck in bumper to bumper traffic in the 90 degree July sun and moved 0.2 miles in 10 minutes. Not a good feeling.

Climbing Conquest

So, I still haven’t recovered, and still need to rest, before entering work mode again. I did go climbing at the gym, and if you had read my recent post “Perseverance”, I talk about my “nemesis” climb, the V1-3 that was stopping me from becoming a V2-4 man. Well, I walked into the gym yesterday with Parker, and I had actually forgotten about that climb for a minute, as I was really just there to have fun, and chill, but my man Ryan, a #1 One Piece fan, and a chill high school kid, he told me when I walked in, “Bro you gotta get that climb today, they’re taking it down soon!” And I was like.. Oh, god dammit. The pressure is on. Great. I was supposed to be here for fun.

You know what happened? I was fully charged, and I was strong, and I did some warmups, and then Ryan came out from the behind the counter, and Parker said, “Well, are you gonna do it now? Ryan’s here to watch.” And I said okay. And I walked up to the wall, and I screamed, “THIS ONE’S FOR RYAN!!!!!” And I took that sucker down. It was euphoric. I laid on the ground after the conquest, not moving, eyes closed, basking in the glow of victory. Parker gave me knucks, and Ryan clapped, and then he said, “Now you have to find another project-” But I cut him off, and said, “CHILL. Ryan, chill!!!!” I had just beaten this climb. I didn’t need another project (new challenging climb to be working on) just yet. Chill, bro. Let me savor this.

Well, today, it’s a million degrees, and I was not going to try and go swimming again. Nope. I’m not going anywhere, and not driving on the Nashville highway ever again in my life if I can help it. So.. what else could I do for my rest day?

When I was back in Ozu Machi, way back when, in the depths of the pandemic, when we were all bound to the home and desperate for things to do… I bought a 3DS and got Ultra Moon, in Japanese, and played through the whole thing. I hadn’t played Pokemon for like, ten years, so I had no idea what they had been cooking up, but I knew they had been cooking. I remember that time fondly, exploring the new world of Pokemon, and learning so much Japanese I thought my head would explode. These days, I’ve been feeling a pull to Japanese again, and I’ve been thinking about that playthrough, and so as a treat, and for my rest days, I thought I would try to recreate the magic.

After debating on which new Pokemon game I would buy, I ended up settling on Pokemon Violet, for the Switch, an open world Pokemon game from 2022. And now, if you can stand it, here’s what I want to share with you.

Return To Japanese

Note: I think that even if you are not a Japanese language learner you might just be interested to see some of my notes, and a breakdown of some recent Japanese study. If you are not, this part might not be so interesting for you.

I played for about three hours between yesterday and today, and I haven’t even made it to the first town. Parker was watching my slow, crawling progress, as I sat there with my notebook, scribbling my 20th Japanese study note, and he said, “People would love to see this.” I think I had played for over an hour before I even caught my first Pokemon, which is something you can do, if you skip the dialouge and get straight to business, in about ten minutes.

When it comes to studying language, Pokemon is a great mix of everything. Right out of the gate, we had the sensei speaking in keigo (honorific, polite Japanese), especially when talking with the main character’s mom (called in game, ママ, Mama), modeling a real conversation between a Mama-san and her daughter’s school’s sensei.. you have the kids jabbering casually, and then you have the instructive Japanese of the in-game instructions. Between game prompts, in-game signboards, character dialogue, etc… there’s a lot of variety in the Japanese being used. There’s a wide range of characters of all ages and backgrounds as well, and they all have different styles of speaking, so you can see what language is used by an old fisherman, an honorable sensei, a Mama-san, or a young bug catcher child, or an insolent breakdancer gangster lackey, a mob boss, a scientific genius..

Here are some of the snippets of Japanese I wrote down in my notebook today. Let’s break them down. Just for fun.

ご近所同士仲良くしよう！

The word I was wondering about was 同士, and in the context of 近所同士, which is something like neighborhood companion. This is probably a phrase that Japanese use, and is used for members of the neighborhood. Your neighbor friend was saying this to you in the game.

凄腕トレーナーなんですよ

This word is すごうで. I thought it was a more polite way to use 凄い, and actually it’s using the same kanji 凄腕、凄い.. So I was on to something there. 腕 is arm. So it’s saying “great arm”, literally. The dictionary says that 凄腕 means “1. remarkable ability, brilliant technique or 2.virtuoso, resourceful person”. It’s a compliment to someone’s ability. I like this word.

交流を深めてください

交流を深める seems to be a set phrase. It’s saying something like, “deepen our exchange” or “grow together in our relationship”.. Kind of a thing.

ポケモン勝負より放題

I wrote this down because I couldn’t remember at the time what 放題 was. It’s houdai, unlimited, as much as possible. Like 飲み放題, “all you can drink”. So this is “Let’s battle as much as possible.” I might need the whole sentence to perfectly translate it or to graph the entire meaning because I am a little confused about the より here, which seems to be in this case saying “less than”.

実りある勝負をしよう！

I had never seen the 実りある part here. Not hard to guess what this means. I take this to mean “fruitful”, so, “Let’s have a fruitful battle!” 実 is fruit.

勝負をしかける。

Noting that しかける is a verb used with 勝負. This sentence just means “To start a battle.”

Well.. what I have taken on here is unfeasable. I have about forty more notes in book, just from today.

I’ll do a few more. It’s good review for me, at least…!

へえー！きみやるね！

I was just suprised at this sentence. It’s so basic. The girl I had just beaten in a battle said this, which basically just means “you can do it!” as in, “You can fight!” That’s what I took it to mean. Natural English translation of this sentence might be: “Damn girl! You can really fight!”

Hermoine, Crookshanks, And Katakana

I was mysteriously drawn to choosing a young black girl as my protagonist in the game. I named my girl Hermione, trying to write that in Katakana (this took me about five minutes of debating and saying aloud how I thought a Japanese person would write it), and settled with ハーマィオニ. This turned out to be very close to correct, but not quite. The official Japanese translation of Hermione is ハーマイオ二ー。And then after naming my character ハーマィオニ, one of the starter Pokemon was a cat, and extremely cute, so I had to pick that.. because Crookshanks. (Hermione’s cat in Harry Potter world.) I couldn’t name my cat Pokemon Crookshanks though, because I was limited to 6 Japanese characters when naming in the game, which pissed me off. What the hell? 6 characters??????

Crookshanks in Katakana is a nightmare. I have to attempt writing it now, for you. For the blog.

クルックシャンクス.

I guess that wasn’t so bad.

But was it right?

Internet says: クルックシャンクス

Yatta!!!!!!!!

I do not know how much you are enjoying reading me thinking about Japanese and getting an insight into my Japanese study world, or if you are just confused. I imagine it would be interesting just to see some snippets of Japanese and look into the world of Japanese language. Japanese is really a fun and interesting language. (Profound statement.)

Chat GPT Sensei

疲れておいでですよ

This was interesting because of the おいで part, which seemed to me a kind of grammar conjugation going off of 疲れておく (spoiler: not true, it’s actually a form of 来る), but I don’t think I’ve ever encountered it. The おいで, and then adding です at the end, which is a formal sentence finisher. This sentence is keigo (honorific Japanese) I think, which has interesting and lengthier conjugations. That’s my guess here.

This one actually is a puzzler. So let’s ask our master translator, Chat GPT.

(For all y’all who don’t already know about the power of Chat GPT.. you’re about to see it. I’m bouncing around here in this post. It’s my rest day, alright? Stream of consciousness. Below I have pasted the entire result of me asking: “Can you help with this sentence? I’m wondering about the conjugation.” to Chat GPT.)

(Chat GPT answer)

Yes, I can help with that! The sentence: 疲れておいでですよ is a polite and somewhat gentle expression in Japanese, but the conjugation is slightly unusual and worth unpacking.

Breakdown:

疲れて = the て-form of 疲れる (to be tired)
おいで = an honorific or polite imperative form of 来る (to come), but in this context, it is functioning differently
です = polite copula
よ = sentence-ending particle for emphasis or assertion

What’s going on here?

This is a respectful/polite way of saying “You look tired” or “You are tired,” using a classical or regional (often Kyoto-style or older) construction. It’s a softened, polite version, especially common in service industry or among people showing concern in a gentle way.

Key point:

おいでです is a polite respectful form of いらっしゃる, which itself is an honorific verb meaning “to be,” “to go,” or “to come,” depending on context.

So:

疲れておいでですよ

really means:

You are tired, or more literally, You are in a state of being tired, said politely and with care.

More “standard” equivalent:

お疲れですね (You’re tired, aren’t you?)
お疲れのようですね (It seems like you’re tired)

In summary:

The conjugation おいでですよ is a respectful and slightly old-fashioned or regional way to say “you are…”
It comes from おいでになる, a polite form of いらっしゃる
It’s perfectly natural in certain contexts, especially when someone wants to express gentle concern

(End Chat GPT answer.)

How incredible. Chat GPT just gave us a detailed explanation on the meaning of 疲れておいでです. This phrase seemed strange to me is because.. well, it is strange. It’s a set phrase, it’s keigo, and it looks like it comes from older Japanese, so the grammar is funky. It seems to be an older and more polite way of saying お疲れですよね！

That was an interesting one. Yes indeed…

興奮しやっって　ついつい…

しやっって is an interesting conjugation.. I didn’t even notice that so much when I wrote it down because I was thinking about the ついつい, and I understood it. I think it is another way to say しちゃって.. combining しちゃう and って. Now I can’t even remember exactly what って is used for in Japanese, in this context at least… But that gets used all the time. The ついつい seems to be “accidentally” or “unintentionally”.

Yeah.. we can stop here. Let’s wrap up this brain dump.

Reflecting on this morning’s session, I was thinking: I already know so much Japanese, and yet there is so much Japanese I don’t know. It’s crazy. There’s just so much language out there. So many words. It’s wild how much we all really know.

Slippers

Some writing from my Japan days.

This is a Frankenstein post.

It has been stitched together out of several sessions of writing and over the course of several days.

Last night I slept in a tent. In my own apartment. It’s right behind me. I will sleep there again tonight. I am doing this because I am at war. I have been at war now for some time, and the war I have won. I am at war with mosquitoes. They have my apartment. They will never have my blood.

I’ve sold my car. Last week or two weeks ago. Just in time for the rainy season. This morning I woke up at my usual time of around 5:30, to my usual serenading by Tamanaga san’s rooster. That rooster does his job well. Too well. He cock-a-doodle-doos for about two hours longer than he needs to. He just has nothing better to do. He’s crowing for his harem, perhaps. His diminishing harem. I was picking berries with the Tamanaga children and the eldest, Riku, told me about his recent experience beheading one of the chickens. His younger brother didn’t want to hear any of this story. He’s a tough kid; he described to me the chopping and the boiling and the spurting of blood and he might as well have been describing to me how ice cream was made. This rooster though, I noticed some months ago, whenever I would wake up in the middle of the night to take a squizz, I would open my bathroom door, and he would let out a wild cock-a-doodle-doo! (Which is kokkigokko in Japanese, by the way). Every single time, he would do this, and he still does. And I think, does this man not sleep? Is he really ready to flex all 24 hours of the day? He must have incredible hearing, to be able to hear that door. My window doesn’t fully close, it just kind of closes, as it’s covered with a series of slanted glass plates, that I can open or shut, but it’s not airtight. Still it’s quite far from him. I told Tamanaga san about this recently, and Tamanaga san said, “Oh, he thinks it’s another rooster.” The squeak of my bathroom door does not have, to me, even one-tenth of the vigor of that rooster’s kokkigokko; but he will tolerate not even a peep of challenge.

While I’m talking about my bathroom….

Let me ask you this – have you ever wanted to watch yourself pee? Have you ever had the desire to stare yourself down while you took a nice tinkle? At some point before me, a vain tenant, a well-meaning landlord, I don’t know who, but someone had this desire, and they affixed a small, square mirror, at eye level, above the toilet. Every time I go into the bathroom to pee, I have to make the choice to either look myself in the eyes when I let my stream loose, or look somewhere else. They put it right in front of my eyes, so it is more effort to look away, and it is also instinctive to want to make eye contact, and so if I go into that bathroom not wanting to stare myself down when I pee, and I don’t, I have to find somewhere else to look. It irritated me to the point that I finally tried to take it down, and I found that whoever put it up was so confident in their decision that this was a good idea, that they had it welded to the wall. The mirror stays. Do you think that’s ridiculous? Is it just me? I think that’s ridiculous. I don’t need to watch myself when I use the bathroom. I don’t need to watch myself at all. I think mirrors might be making us narcissists. Phone selfie cams most definitely are. I already think about myself enough. Don’t put a mirror in my bathroom. That’s like putting a mirror above your bed. I don’t need my first thought in the morning to be a reminder of how crusty I am.

I will tell you about selling my car. There is a reason why I brought up the car. I woke up this morning, to the crowing of Tamanaga’s rooster, at my usual time, 5:30, to grey skies. The skies are only ever grey now, and will be that way for a month or two. I like rain, so I don’t mind this time. Today was a day at my special needs school. That meant two hours of biking today – one in the morning, one in the afternoon. I leave at 7:20. Somewhere in between that window, the torrents begin. I sat on my couch, eyeing the downpour, and played with the idea of just calling in and saying, hey, uhh.. not today. This was the first time I’ve biked in such a rain, and it went as expected. Halfway through I was soaked. Not from the rain, but from my own sweat, as the amagappa (rainsuit) is so good at what it does, that no water enters, and no water leaves. I sat on the bench, in front of the changing station, the one that does not exist in American establishments, perhaps in no other country’s establishments than in Japan’s, the outdoor-shoes-for-indoor-shoes, or vice versa, changing station. Do you know about this? At the entrance of every Japanese household there is a space, called a genkan, where you change out of your outdoor shoes, and into your indoor shoes, which are typically a pair of slippers. You can walk around in socks, if it’s a house. That’s fine. When you get the bathroom, then, you change out of your indoor slippers, and into the bathroom slippers. In some bathrooms, such as bathrooms that are inside of a building where you can walk around in your outdoor shoes, there are slippers for your shoes. These are the best kind. You just slide your shoe right in. I think for this reason, ease of transition, the act of getting into and out of a shoe, is of great consideration to the Japanese. They choose their shoes with the fact that they will be performing this act daily in mind. I think they also just have some innate talent for getting into and out of shoes quickly – for anywhere we go, if I am with Japanese people, and we have to do the shoe to slipper swap (or just take the shoes off, which is common at restaurants that have elevated seating, where you all sit around a table lotus-style, criss-cross applesauce, I like this), if it comes to any shoe business, I am always the last one finished, as there will usually be some staggering around involved, perhaps a sitting or squatting down, to struggle through laces, to jerk a resistant shoe off, and by the time I stand back up again, I am alone. Only Austin, the Ozu yakuba Kansas boy, has got me beat. One time he took so long to put on his boots, that even I ran out of witty comments to make, and the restaurant hostess and I were both resigned to watching him struggle through his shoes in silence. I got a good kick out of seeing a thousand parents, at Ozu High’s graduation ceremony, dressed in their best suits and dresses, from head to ankle – because after the ankle were the slippers, and it seems that either no one has yet capitalized on the formal slipper market, or no one cares enough to want formal slippers, for the footwear for this occasion was an anything goes slipper bonanza, and it was all there. Linen beach slippers, fuzzy pink slippers, slippers of a more athletic bent. It was like Ozu’s graduation ceremony had a theme every year, like how we have 80’s themed or Halloween themed parties, and the theme for this year was slippers. And of course, they didn’t come there in the slippers, or else they couldn’t be wearing them in the auditorium, and so every person was supplied with a large plastic bag, that they carry their outdoor shoes in, while they were slippered up. I’m writing about the slippers because up until today, I have had to wear a pair at Kuroishibaru, my special needs school, and it was terrible. I only go this school twice a month, and so I had always made due with the guest slippers they gave me. The guest slippers are the lowest tier of slipper. You wouldn’t think this would be so, given the Japanese’s exacting standards of hospitality. It may just be that guest slippers in the Kumamoto school system are the lowest tier of slipper; but at the three schools that I’ve been to where I had to change into guest slippers, my experience has been the same with all three pairs – too dang small.

We’re pivoting again here.

Last night was a strange night for me.

I felt like I was in the Twilight Zone. I’ve never been in the Twilight Zone, I haven’t even seen the show, but I imagine that what happens in the Twilight Zone is what was happening to me last night. There were just too many odd occurrences happening in such a short period of time that I couldn’t help but feel that I entered an alternate reality. The feeling was exacerbated by the fact that it was in the middle of night, where all sense of time vanishes, and I was only vaguely conscious. I was woken up by something. It could have been stomach pain, the buzz of a mosquito, a need to urinate. These things all did plague me in that Twilight Zone of last night.

I can’t say what it was, but I woke up last night, having not even a guess as to how long I’d been asleep. I was hot. It’s been hot here, and humid. The rainy season is here. I know this because it’s raining every day. And when you check the Apple weather app, and see rain forecasted seven days in a row, you get it. Rainy season is here. It will be raining almost every day for the next two months. It will also be incredibly humid. This is torture for some people – for me, it’s alright. I don’t mind a little sweat. Probably because I’m Swedish. I’m quite hairless. It is an annoyance, to be streaming sweat, to be moistening in your crevices, from the act of simply sitting – but some people have it much worse than I do. I’d take sweating over frostbite and dry skin any day. The real torture of this season is the mosquitoes. Evil, evil creatures. It probably started two weeks ago, that was the start of the real hell season, mosquito season. One night, as I slept peacefully, I was awakened by a high-pitched whining in my ear, like the whirring of an incredibly tiny, powerful drill. That was the beginning of mosquito season. I am now assailed by mosquitoes on most nights. Last night was one of those nights. I say mosquitoes, but I think it is always just one. That’s my feeling anyway, that just one of these hellions manages to sneak into my apartment every few nights, and engages in a dangerous game with me, trying to sneak that precious lifeblood out of me. The mosquitoes are winning. You can see that by the number of large red welts that mark my left forearm and right bicep. We are not prey for any other animal on this earth, not consistently, except for mosquitoes. They still devour us. I wonder how many hundreds, how many thousands of gallons of human blood are sucked up by mosquitoes daily. That would be a powerful statistic to use in any good destroy-all-mosquitoes campaign. They just released genetically modified mosquitoes in the US for the first time, this week, I read, in Florida. There are something like seventy-three species of mosquitoes and not all of them feed on humans, so we don’t need all of them to go extinct. Just the ones that stab and drink us like we’re big monkey juice boxes.

Anyways, last night I was plagued with diarrhea. I’m sorry if you’re eating anything right now, like chili. This is the second night I’ve woken up with such extreme gastrointestinal discomfort. I know the source. I have a bean problem. The problem is that I eat too many beans. I think we’re going to have to go our separate ways. This is very sad for me, because that means I have to find another source of protein, and I don’t know if I can find something as cheap or convenient as black beans. I was cooking up half a kilogram in dry weight of those babies every Sunday, in what I called the “death pot”, would freeze them all, and secure a week’s worth of daily bean rations, to utilize in my quest to become a mukimuki man. That has been one of my recent genius, is picking up the adventure again, in the quest to become a mukimuki man. I’m working out at the Ozu school gym with the soccer players. They think that I am the strongest man alive. It’s incredible, going from my local gym in Indiana, being at the near bottom of the totem pole of muscular men, to being number one, the king, without having to have really done anything at all except fly across the world. It’s all relative. Surrounded by hulking American men, I am weak – surrounded by puny Japanese high school soccer players, I am Hulk. They’re not puny, I’m just kidding – especially in the leg department, many of those guys are stronger than me. But weightlifting culture is not big in Japan. It’s fledgling, I would say, although that implies that it will be growing, and I’m not sure if it will be any time soon. When they first started coming to the gym, they would see me lift my weights, and it would just blow their minds. They would huddle around me, and make exclamations, “Wow! Wow!” “Oh my god!” “Very, very strong!” and cheer me on. It’s been a great ego booster. Recently in class, they asked me if I’d be in the gym that day, and they were excited to tell me they would be too, and they asked me what my max bench press was. The time before, they had asked me if I could bench 50 kilograms, and I actually laughed, and they said, “5 times,” and I was like, they’re gonna like this. (For the Standard Measurement users, you know who you are, (Americans) one kilogram is 2.2 pounds). That’s about 125 pounds or so. Even for me that is laughable. I laid out on that bench and just started pounding them out. I may as well have been lifting a barbell with stuffed animals on the sides. And with each rep, they’re realizing my true power, realizing why I laughed at 50, and they told me at fifteen, “Ok, ok.” So in class, when they asked me what my max bench was, I said, “I don’t know, maybe 200.” You should have seen their faces. It blew their minds. And these kids really think I am so strong, that they believed it. That’s 200 kilograms, almost 450 pounds. Obviously that is impossible for me. But I’m truly flattered you guys think I can do it. Really, imagine that you go to the gym and struggle to pound out your six or seven pull ups. You’re probably following in the wake of some lean mean pullup machine who just cranked out fifty for a warmup. You step up, and you’re doing okay, until you get to the fourth, or the fifth, and now it hurts, and your form is falling apart. The sixth destroys you, and you fall to the floor with flaming arms. The imagine of the lean mean pullup machine is fresh in your mind. You do not feel strong. Now, go to my gym at Ozu high. Ask if you can do some pullups. You may have seen a group of young bucks standing around it, eyeing it cautiously, perhaps one of two of them with courage having just given it a go, struggling through a few, probably with terrible form, doing the fish-flopping thing, where you buck your legs to give you extra momentum to lift yourself up. You now step up to struggle through your measly six or seven reps. On only the first rep, you’ve caught the attention of anyone watching. On the second or third, they are now openly commenting on your pullup strength, turning more heads. Sugoi, sugoi. By the fifth, they’re all in, cheering you on, many oh my gods have been exclaimed, someone has probably started counting for you. On your final pullup, they are enthralled, they will beg for one more, and you will fight for it, and you will fall to the ground; and this time, you fall down as a hero, a champion, to the cheers and celebrations of onlookers, who are thrilled to have just born witness to such a remarkable feat of physical strength. This is what it is like to workout at this Ozu school gym. When I sit down at the lat pulldown machine, I move the peg from somewhere around 20 kilograms, to double that. The soccer players see this, and their eyes immediately widen. It’s really incredible.

It has been a great way to get closer to them. Some of these guys have excellent English, and some of them don’t even speak enough English to use the escape card, “I don’t speak English.” when I start talking to them. It’s bad enough that I have to try and gauge the level of the student before I approach them, because it might be that to whatever I say, they will have absolutely no response at all. But it’s easier to bond in the weight room. Sports have that power. Last fall I played in a little Japanese-Vietnamese-American (me representing America) international soccer scrum. Those Vietnamese guys spoke almost no English and close to zero Japanese, and we left good friends.

Typing “believe” makes me want to share something I spoke with a friend about yesterday. We were acknowledging the nightmare that is spelling in the English language. That is one aspect in which Japanese has English thoroughly beat. Japanese is consistent, and the only problem I have with Japanese spelling is whether there is a small つ　or an extra う。For the Japanese it’s obvious, but for non-native speakers, it’s not. English speakers learning Japanese have it much easier than Japanese learning English. They have to struggle to discern even between letters of the alphabet. It is nearly impossible for a large percentage of my students to tell whether I am telling them to write b or v. When you make a v sound, if you do it right now, you’ll notice that you do a little buzz with your bottom lip. It’s fun. Try it. The Japanese don’t have this, and so they can’t pronounce v, and if they can’t pronounce it, it’s very hard for them to hear it. The same is true for the th and l sounds, among others. So, that is already a hurdle, and then put the fact that English has all kinds of nonsensical and inconsistent spellings, that it is pretty torturous for the Japanese to learn to spell anything. I showed you before how many different ways they could incorrectly spell frog. (Like, a million different ways.) Blue and vegetable are two other ones that frequently devastate my students (and the greater Japanese community, for at many restaurants, where they have their menu written on a chalkboard, which is a popular thing to do, if they’ve written “vegetables”, 98% of the time it’s spelled wrong). I am sympathetic to all of this. I think English speakers all recognize that English is a bastard sometimes. Look at tomb and bomb – it took me less than five seconds to think of such an example. Another one – close. How did you pronounce that? Close can be pronounced two ways, two words with entirely separate meaning. Japanese is at least consistent. But anyways, my friend, while we were bonding over the horror that is English spelling, asked me if I had any problems with spelling, and I am proud to say that at this point in my life, I’ve worked out almost all of the kinks (one that was kinking me for a long time was restaurant, and when I spell this word I now actually pronounce it incorrectly in my head to confirm that I have it right, as in, I pronounce the staur as you would the saur in dinosaur) but there is one that still kinks me, and that is the dreaded ie vs. ei debauchery. What reminded me of all this just now was that I typed believe, and I actually typed it wrong the first time, perhaps because my core has now been shaken and I am now subconsciously evaluating every ie ei word that I use. I think you all probably know what I’m talking about – is it theif or thief? It’s thief, but I often want to spell it theif. That one is a fifty-fifty for me, but the worst, is receive. I have made the mistake of writing recieve and correcting it so many times that I fear it is now engrained in my muscle memory – for me, writing the word receive is an act of writing receive and then thinking, “Is that right? That doesn’t look right.” And then rewriting it correctly. And it’s a bastard because you have relieve and believe, achieve, sieve, basically everything receive, conceive.. I know, it’s “I before e, except after c.” I know. I just hate it. I’m just pissed about it. But I guess that does solve our thief problem. I before e except after c.

Here are all of the ways that I have seen blue misspelled by my students: bleu (common), bool (only once), belu (common), brue (surprisingly uncommon), blu (uncommon), bloo (uncommon), and blow (only once). And I think this illustrates exactly why English spelling is so evil. To an English speaker, three of these would be pronounced nearly identically with blue: bleu, blu, and bloo. They’ve never written it, but there’s another, blew. You could also write blueue, couldn’t you, if you queue is a word? Bastard language. To the average Japanese who does not attempt to model true English pronunciation when they speak, beru and brue are also correct spellings of blue, in that it models how they hear the word.

On the beans.. I am not sure if I’ve adapted. I am sure that I’ve had to eat less of them, and to tell you the truth, I don’t want to eat them at all. I’ve come to even be afraid of them. It is a certain fact that if I consume any amount of black beans, I will have stinky farts the next day. But I have a dream, a dream that I will be a muscular, mukimuki man, and if I have to make such sacrifices, I will. The protein is too high, for too good of a price, and the convenience is hard to beat. I can whip up half a kilogram in dry bean weight, what I have called the “death pot”, and freeze it all, and now have a week’s worth of daily bean rations. My main protein sources are, along with the beans, soba, tofu, soy milk, peanuts, and a small fish called いりこ (iriko). I think they’re sardines. I eat soba every day, and I often tell this to Japanese people, when they ask me what my favorite food is, or what I usually eat. Soba is a perfect food. It is a perfect noodle. It has outmuscled every other food because it is simple, it is healthy, it is easy to make, and it has an incredible base flavor and texture. Direx has all but lost my business because they don’t carry it. I stopped at Direx this last week on the way home from Ozu High, to pick up some soy milk, which is ten yen more expensive at Direx than Trial (Direx losing on all fronts), and I checked, with very low expectations, as to whether there was yet any soba on the shelf, and there was none, and I left disgusted. Goto sensei, my old tantosha, who I really miss, gave me an amazing 図鑑 (zukan) (kind of a picture encyclopedia), meant for elementary school students and detailing all of the most fundamental aspects of Japanese culture, and it was actually thrilling to me to find that there were two pages devoted to soba, and the making of soba. How soba was made was something that had been sitting in the back of my mind for a long time, like many things, that I’m curious about, and would really like to know about, but just not so much that I’ll sit down and look into it on my own. This came to me, finally, and in the form of a beautiful, detailed, meant-for-children picture book, perfectly matching the level of my interest with the level of the explanation. Because you know, there are so many degrees of knowing something, as I could say, “Yeah, I know how soba’s made!” But if you asked me to make it, obviously, I can’t, so do I really know how soba’s made? Don’t push me on it. What I can tell you, which is what the zukan told me, is that the secret of soba’s power, being full of magnesium, and fiber, and protein, mainly comes from the ground up fruit of the soba plant. They take the fruit, which looks like (based on the zukan illustration) some tough ass raisins, grind ’em up, take off the shell, mix them in with a paste made of flour and yamaimo, a kind of root vegetable, roll it out, and chop it up into noodles. And viola, you have Japan’s greatest noodle.