One thing you can’t avoid in Japan, the public transport system. And there really is no need to; it’s punctual, omnipresent and can be cheap if you plan your trips well.
When using public transport in Japan, there are several things you should pay attention to:
Destination – Know it beforehand, don’t board a train because you have a hunch it’s going in the right direction. It’s a dumb move elsewhere, but in Japan, it doesn’t end with just dumb.
Money – Always bring more money than you think you need to get you to your destination – in case you want to get out on a station farther than the one you originally wanted to, you won’t be able to get out at the gates/off the bus/tram.
Route – Don’t just go in the geographic direction towards your goal, make sure you check the stations you need to change trains at as well as the lines you need to take to get to the goal. It’s not as intuitive as “this train goes north and I wanna go north so it’s okay”.
Types of public transport I have encountered:
The railway model
Buy a ticket and use it to enter the boarding area. From here on you can board any train stopping at that station(except some faster lines and shinkansen which have separate boarding gates).
Keep your ticket, you’ll need it to exit the station once you get off the train.
When you get off the train, you need to pass the exit gates. These work the same way as the boarding gates except they don’t return tickets(seriously, how stupid would that be?).
If you forget to get off and go too far:
If you want to exit the station, you might have to pay extra depending on the line/station at the fare adjustment machines. You can also ask the officers to adjust the fare for you if you don’t like machines. The officers are very helpful and polite, but you can’t always count on their English proficiency. I was lucky to know enough Japanese to ask for what I needed, but I’ve witnessed a few troubled tourists. Though most of the time you will be understood even in English, their pronounciation is generally bad so wash your ears before going out.
If you want to return to the station you originally wanted to exit, you can do that too, free of charge. Just find the line going in the opposite direction and voilà, you’re back. Note: You don’t have to pass the exit gates to get to the opposite train/subway line(obviously, because then you’d have to pay the extra fee. Twice.).
If you want to get off earlier, sure, you can do that too, but I’m not really sure you can get the unspent money back from an ordinary ticket.
Payment methods:
Ordinary paper ticket – buy at the vending machine before entering the boarding area. This way of payment may require fare adjustment if you go too far from your original destination.
Prepaid card(I used ICOCA) – the awesome way to pay. It’s fast and you don’t have to worry about fare adjustment since the amount needed will just be subtracted from your card when you exit.
Special pass – usually city passes for unlimited use such as Osaka pass(more about it later). There is a danger with these though, because they may not always cover all the lines, and will be of no use if you get out of their designated area.
This model relates to subway as well.
The bus model
Board a bus. Not hard, eh? The fun starts here.
Getting off the bus(at any station):
If you have a free pass of any kind, show it to the driver.
If not, get some coins ready, the exact amount if possible, because you don’t get anything back. The way it works, you put your coins in a funnel-like thingy which counts them. As simple as that, but for the sake of other people who want to get out, make sure you have the right amount.
This model is used in trams in Nagasaki as well(not sure about trams elsewhere).
Some tips and manners to respect when using public transport:
mind others around you and make sure not to discomfort them
don’t listen to music so others can hear it; get decent headphones or lower your volume a bit
don’t shout or talk loudly if you’re with someone(it’s still okay to talk)
don’t answer the phone and set it to vibe only(it’s good manners, do it) – messages are okay
let your seat to people who have a hard time standing
listen to the announcer and catch the Japanese pronounciation of place names – even if you don’t know any Japanese, you may need them later
read everything – all the signs have English equivalents so if you practice some good logic and read along the way, you will minimize your chances of getting lost
Btw, I didn’t get lost even once. Hell yeah.
(I did wander around the goal before finding it on foot and by bike on a few occations.)
I came back from Japan the other day and I really didn’t want to go back just yet. But oh well, can’t help it at this time. Anyway, since I have over 10 years worth of memories, I decided to write about them in a series.
Before traveling to Japan(and anywhere else), there are some things one needs to do.
check out the wheather conditions – Japan has four distinct seasons, so the clothes you might need vary greatly.
study the immigration procedure
check to see if you need a visa and get one if you do (I didn’t need one, and if you have no intention of getting a job or staying longer than 90 days, there is a good chance you don’t need one either.)
make sure you’re not trying to bring into the country things you shouldn’t
these are pretty much obvious stuff like weapons or 20 brand new iPods you intend to sell
drugs – If you intend to bring them, you’re a moron not the smartest person around and I kindly ask you to die stop reading my blog. Oh, and, there is a 99% chance that you’ll get caught by dogs.
check the conditions of your visa and make sure you remember them
practical preparations
Make sure you have jpy(Japanese yen) either before you land or check where you can buy them(and for which currency) after you land. If you intend to exchange money in Japan, either do it right at the airport or bring either dollars or euros(you won’t be able to use them, but they’re easier to exchange).
Check any electrical appliances you’ll be bringing with you and make sure you have the right plug adapters. Also check the input voltages on each device or else you’ll be sorry to have plugged them in.
remember all the data on all your airplane tickets
study the plans of all connecting airports(if any) and find your entrances/exits
If you do all this, there’s a chance something unexpected will happen and fuck up your perfect little plan, but that’s life for you. I was lucky, it all went well. On to my personal experience.
I didn’t buy my own ticket, the Institute took care of that, but there are plenty of free web flight search services around to help you with that. The only tip I have is, think at least 6 months ahead.
My flight was planned out with one connecting airport, Frankfurt. I throughly checked and memorized the map of terminal 1, because both my arrival and departure were on that terminal. I left Zagreb around 9 am on a Croatia Airlines operated flight. The flight was short and pleasant, I have only nice things to say about Croatia Airlines. Same goes for Lufthansa, their flight to Kansai international airport taking a bit over 11 hours. The economy class seats were comfortable enough to get some sleep, but not comfortable enough to let you rest well. Being used to such travel, I had no problems. When I landed in Kansai, I had to go through the standard immigration procedure. Being one of the very few foreigners at that time, it took less than 5 minutes to get the whole thing done. The officer was friendly, but rather relieved when I spoke to him in Japanese(no matter how bad it was). I guess he’s not much of an English speaker. Might be wrong impression though. I proceded to the baggage claim area where several officers patrolled with drug dogs. They througly but discretely checked everything and I didn’t notice any bias towards checking foreign passengers. I felt welcome. From there on, I officially entered Japan.
As my flight date approaches, I look back at the many travel-related words I’ve learned so far, only to figure that they may not be enough! Oh my! Facing the difficult choice of “to panic or not to panic”, I chose the latter and decided to compose a list of words I might need, so here it is.
旅行（りょこう） – The general word for travel, trip, as seen in:
8月30日旅行に行く。（8月30日りょこうにいく。） – I’m going on a trip on August 30th.
旅（たび） – The epic word for travel, as spoken by a young samurai:
荷物（にもつ） – Luggage, whatever you carry with you(even emotional luggage), as in:
荷物を詰める（にもつをつめる） – To pack one’s bags.
航空券（こうくうけん） – Airplane ticket. Guess you’ll hardly avoid these when traveling to Japan. They can be either
片道（かたみち） – One-way, when prefixed like this:
片道航空券（かたみちこうくうけん） – An impressive string of kanji right? Well, all impressive strings of kanji are actually more words glued together, so they’re not as impressive as they look.
or
往復（おうふく） – Round trip, also acting as a prefix just like in the above example.
These can be prefixed to 切符（きっぷ） to mean either one-way or round trip ticket in general.
I’ve heard the term 油を売る（あぶらをうる） way before I knew what 油 meant, and so did you, my dear reader, if you think of アニメ as a valuable language resource (and you better do think so or else!..). Anyway, a few days ago, I finally snapped and searched the term to figure out what it’s made of, which led me to another similar idiomatic expression which I kinda liked. But first things first:
油（あぶら） is a really simple kanji meaning oil. But, to make it not-so-simple, there is another greasy kanji with the exact same reading:
脂（あぶら）, meaning fat, lard, grease, basically things you don’t want on your ass.
When spoken, you obviously don’t have to worry about kanji and the meaning should be clear from the context unless there’s a really disgusting pun going on or something similar, but a good way to know which is which in written form is the moon/organ radical（月）. If you don’t know that radical, now’s a good chance to pick it up – it appears in every organ kanji I’ve learned so far(I don’t know them all so don’t take my word for it, check it yourself!). The one with the organ radical is the one on your organs – as simple as that.
Oh, for all of you anime fans, I have a perfect way of never forgetting this kanji, especially if you’re fans of Naruto:
But that alone is quite straightforward and boring. What I liked about 油 is how OMGWTF the following two(yes, only two, but quite handy imho) idioms are.
油を売る（あぶらをうる） – Literally translated, it would mean “sell oil”. I’ve read something further about it, making connections to 油売り which was the term for oil sellers in the olden days, but is also a synonym for lazy slacking bums. Guess selling oil wasn’t popular in Japan. And really, it all makes sense, the idiomatic meaning is something along the lines of “to slack at work” in a sense of not doing it(as opposed to doing it poorly). You’ll hear this a lot in anime, mostly used by bossy characters as 油売ってんじゃねぇ. Notice the lack of a particle and a slangy sentence ending.
油を絞る（あぶらをしぼる） – Literally translating this one, we get “squeeze oil (out of)”. Well, if someone squeezes oil out of you in Japanese, that means you’re getting lectured big time. Examples work best, so:
社長に油を絞られた。（しゃちょうにあぶらをしぼられた） – The manager chewed me out.
バイトで失敗して後で親父にも油を絞られた。（バイトでしっぱいしてあとでおやじにもあぶらをしぼられた） – I messed up at work and even my dad gave me hell afterwards.
That would be it for today, I hope it’s not too much rōmaji and
To tell you the truth, the first time I saw 一方 in it’s grammatical glory(after two years of studying Japanese) was on that japanese test I wrote about last time. It’s a funny thing indeed, because I answered correctly to all the related questions by pure intuition. But, let’s get to know this fellow a little bit better.
Writing:
A compound formed by two very basic kanji.
一 + 方 = いち+ ほう = 一方 = いっぽう Two changes to notice, ち->っ and ほ->ぽ
Meaning:
We have ‘one’ + ‘way/direction/side’, readings changing accordingly to form a compound. The meaning would literally be something like ‘one way’. “One way as in one way street?” You might ask. Well, that way too, but not quite. I’ve never seen 一方道(lit. one-way-street) or something similar. The ‘one-way’ implication is present in
一方交通（いっぽうこうつう）
一方通行（いっぽうつうこう）
both meaning ‘one way traffic’ (not street).
Another literal meaning is ‘one side’, quite straightforward, like
この机は一方に傾いています。（このつくえはいっぽうにかたむいています。） – This desk is leaning to one side(like mine).
A bit less literal, we have ‘one-sided’ as
世の中は一方的な意見ばかりだな。（よのなかはいっぽうてきないけんばかりだ。） – The world is filled with one-sided opinions.
彼に一方的に言われた。- He one-sidedly told me off. Note that in this case, passive verb carries a negative conotation, litteral translation would be “He one-sidedly told me.”(Told you what?)
Grammar:
Grammatically, 一方 conveys the idea of any side/direction/thing as opposed to other possible sides/directions/things. It comes in different variations:
猫が２匹いて一方は黒で、もう一方は白かった。（ねこが２ひきいていっぽうはくろで、もういっぽうはしろかった。） – There were two cats, one was black, the other was white.
町に住むのは一方で便利だけど、一方ではめんどくさいことも多い。（まちにすむのはいっぽうでべんりだけど、いっぽうではめんどくさいこともおおい。） – Living in a city can be convenient, but on the other hand, lots of things can be a real pain in the ass.
その一方では経験を得た。（そのいっぽうではけいけんをえた。） – On the other hand, I gained some experience.
Important to point out is the meaning of stubbornly(not in a human sense) continuing an action, in most cases of increasing the quantity of whatever:
値段は上がる一方だ。（ねだんはあがるいっぽうだ。） – Prices just keep growing. (damn them prices)
問題が増える一方だ。（もんだいがふえるいっぽうだ。） – We’re having more and more problems. (damn them problems)
外人も増える一方だぞ！（外人もふえるいっぽうだぞ！） – We’re even having more and more of those smelly 外人. (damn them 外人)
I ran out of examples. Note that the last one was a goddamn joke.
That would be it for this time, I hope you enjoyed the example sentences and of course, if you notice anything wrong, do tell. You can even be sarcastic, I won’t get mad.
Some time ago, my Japanese teacher(yeah, I actually took a class to practice speaking, but I’ll leave that for another time) came to me with an application for a contest in Japanese held by The Japan foundation, and as it turned out, the 1st prize was a fully paid and organized 15-day trip to Japan.
In all the confusion, the keywords ‘trip’ and ‘Japan’ triggered my subconscious paperwork-filling subroutine and before I knew it, my 先生(せんせい) was telling me when and where the contest will be held. Realizing what I got myself into, I immediately proceeded to assess the situation by stuttering something similar to 「書けば良いですね、会話せずに。」(“I just have to write, no speaking?”). My teacher nodded and I knew this is it, no formal spoken Japanese, no way to fail. Or maybe…
The test was to be held in the embassy, with a mighty total of 5(five, FIVE, including me) participants. Me being me, I failed to see a lighthearted conversation between the participants’ as a lighthearted conversation. Instead, I listened and analyzed their levels of knowledge(I can’t help it, okay?). One of them was out right off the bat, one i assessed to have a rather low chance to beat me, but the remaining two were 2nd and 3rd year students of Japanese studies. I didn’t give myself much chance. Then the test started.
The test itself was a mix between N4 and N3 with less focus on kanji, much focus on understanding and a little bit of reading and writing. Frankly, I was disappointed. I finished 20 minutes earlier, so I kept multi-checking all the painfully obvious answers, as well as the swetting competition, remembering how my teacher kept saying I always rush things and make silly mistakes, but getting comfort from their painful facial expressions.
Well, it turned out the answers weren’t as obvious to the Japanese studies’ folks, thank god. The test was graded only a few minutes after, and the result was conveyed to us in a simple “We only have business with this guy, the rest of you, GTFO.” expressed as the diplomatically correct equivalent. But oh well, efficiency first.
Now that I think of it, it’s the greatest tradeoff between the work invested and the prize won. In my life. Entire life.
I hope it wasn’t a boring read, with well, no Japanese in it and stuff.
お詫びに最後の文だけ日本語で書きます。
おわびにさいごのぶんだけにほんごでかきます。
“To make up for it, I’ll write the last part in Japanese.”
最近記事にするネタはあまりなくて全然書いてませんでしたので質問したら助かります。
さいきんきじにするネタはあまりなくてぜんぜんかいてませんでしたのでしつもんしたらたすかります。
“Lately, I’ve run out of material to write about so any questions from you(yeah, you, what’cha lookin’ at) would help.”
For people who enjoy Japanese music, but are not quite into the modern pop/rock scene, it may seem hard to discover artists even on the internet. So if you’re one of those people, this post is for you; today I present you some of my favorite pre-internet singers of 演歌, a distinct singing style with some interesting traditional elements.
Elements to consider:
Melisma – a very expressive vibrating sound reminiscent of my childhood days in Herzegovina
Themes – a less light-hearted approach covering love, loss, life hardships, sometimes intertwined with re-tellings of historical events
If you’re into Japanese for a longer time, you’re almost sure to have come across these four-kanji compounds. Some people find them hard(and annoying to read), some people love them, some people ignore them, but it’s a fact that they exist and that one can often run into them when dealing with the Japanese language. By the way, I like them. A lot.
There sure are many 4-kanji compounds out there, but today, I’d like to write about a specific group, the ones with idiomatic meaning because, well, if you know some kanji, you can easily figure out the non-idiomatic ones.
Many of these were taken from the classical Chinese literature, hence the poetic expression taking form of seemingly unrelated kanji. For today, I’ve prepared a few of my favorites so let’s check them out:
百花繚乱(ひゃっかりょうらん) – In my experience, one of the most frequently appearing 四字熟語 around. Literally translating the kanji, we end up with something like “hundred flowers rioting”, but I like to tone it down to “hundred flowers blossoming” which brings us one step closer to the metaphor it represents; a gathering of talented/beautiful people.
合縁奇縁(あいえんきえん) – Although I didn’t see it used often, I always liked the way it sounds, and the idea it carries, a strange, destined encounter. Ever had one of those? I didn’t, but it sure would be fun to have one^^
異体同心(いたいどうしん) – A concept I admire, literally “different bodies, one heart”. Aside from mentioning that symbols of heart and mind are bound closer in Japanese than they are in English, this one is self-explanatory.
十人十色(じゅうにんといろ) – Here we have some pretty basic kanji literally meaning “ten people, ten colors”. An easy to undestand metaphor, right? I like to translate it as “hundred people, hundred minds” because that’s literal translation from my native language(so I got used to it a long time ago). Now, the thing I love about this one is the way I misheard it the first time I encountered it. Watching some random movie(can’t remember the name), there was this old man spilling his guts on an old Japanese-style porch about how life sucks and so on and then boom!
十人十色(じゅうにんといろ, lit. “ten people, ten colors”) is what he said, but 十人トイレ(じゅうにんといれ, lit. “ten people toilet”) is what I heard. What the f***, most toilets I’ve seen barely accommodate one D:
To sum it up, there are thousands of such idiomatic expressions and some of them are quite cool. If you like expressing yourself in poetic terms, 4-kanji compounds are something you’ll want to learn sooner or later. If you know some cool idioms you think I might like, use the comment form to teach me!
To start off, I’d like to apologize to those people who may have started reading this blog only to find it stopped after three posts. Through a lot of real-life circumstances, I happened to stop writing, but things are back to normal IRL so this blog will continue where it left off a few months ago.
Back to the subject.
Yesterday, March 3rd, was the day when Japanese people pray for good upbringing of their female children, known there as 雛祭(ひなまつり). It’s a cheerful day when families get together to eat, drink and admire the 雛人形(ひなにんぎょう), ornamental dolls representing people of the imperial court. The tradition goes way back to 平安時代(へいあんじだい), when it was nothing more than court girls’ favorite past-time, 雛遊び(ひなあそび). At the time, March 3rd was celebrated as 穢れ払い(けがればらい), literally “cleaning the impurities”. The tradition was a bit different than today, with people passing on their impurities to dolls and letting them float away into rivers and seas.
It was not until 江戸時代(えどじだい) that 雛遊び merged with 穢れ払い into what we know today as 雛祭. For people interested in history and culture, I wholeheartedly recommend reading the Japanese wikipedia article(it’s not too long, but very informative) or if you’re not happy with constant dictionary-typing, it’s english counterpart which is fine too.
To put it in a language-learning context, here are some sentences from an essay I did about 雛祭 for my Japanese class.
初めに平安時代の京都の女房の遊びごとでしたので雛遊びと言われました。 – (In the Heian era, the custom was Kyoto’s court ladies’ past-time, so it was called doll play(as opposed to today’s doll festival).)
はじめにへいあんじだいのきょうとのにょうぼうのあそびごとでしたのでひなあそびといわれました。
人形の並びは正式に決まっていませんが、内裏の並び方を模すことが多いです。 – (The way in which dolls are displayed is not pre-decided, but it often mimics the layout of the imperial court.)
Note that my translations are quite provisional; I encourage you to translate sentences in a way that makes most sense to you(hopefully retaining the original idea^^).
I came across this interesting quirk after being hinted that sleeping with your head pointing north is bad. Why the hell would that be a problem, I wondered, checking my bed direction at the same time. Okay, my head’s pointing east, no big deal. Well, after thinking that we’re through with that, I heard a ｢北枕に気を付けてね！」(きたまくらにきをつけてね！). That was the no-return point; I just had to look for 北枕 on denshi jisho. Funny how quickly a general dictionary explained this… Concern.
Well, it seems that sleeping with your head pointing towards north is rather morbid for some people. Why are so many things morbid in Japanese culture, I sometimes wonder. This is especially dangerous with chopsticks ^^. According to the tradition, dead men were buried in the 北枕 position. I’m guessing most people don’t give a damn about it nowadays, but you probably wouldn’t want to surprise someone older or superstitious in this fashion.
Q:Where's romaji?
A:Study kana or fail in Japanese.
Q:What level should I be to understand your posts?
A:Preferably a level 80 cleric, but you'll be fine if you can read hiragana.
Q:How come you always mention other sources from which you learned stuff?
A:I'm no Moses, nobody gave me two bricks full of kanji from which to write posts.
Q:Why do you mix English and Japanese, that's so gay!
A:That is indeed gay, but also a good way to remember vocab. If you don't like it, just translate the parts in Japanese and pretend they're in English, ha!
Q:I can't find a post about what I want to know.
A:How about asking me to write one? I'll do it right away.
If you have any other, please ask them and I may put'em here.
RSS
