In Japanese, White People Have No Experience

What? The post title sounds like what-ism? Wait, I haven't even talked about the black people part. Hello? Did you just hang up in the middle of my blog post? How do you even do that?

This time I am going to talk about something that was one of those things where I turned to the J girl I was dating and was like, I bet x is true about the Japanese language. And she was like what are you talking about. And then I looked it up and was all, yeah I was right! Kind of. For the dumb luck reasons. And then she's like, huh.

See there is this word, 素人 (shirouto) that means beginner, and this other word, 玄人 (kurouto) that means expert and they are antonyms. Know that the 人 in both of them means person. Based on their pronunciation*, I figured that they were at one time written as the much more intuitive 白人 and 黒人. Of course, if you can read simple Japanese you know that 白人 and 黒人 mean white person and black person respectively, and these days they refer to races. But back in the day they referred to beginners and experts.

From the sources I looked into, it's not clear how 白 (white) became 素 (foundation) (I had just figured it was to avoid confusion once white dudes started visiting Japan, but don't see any support for or against that). 素 could refer to the baseness of the beginner. The character for white used back in the day referred to a white-painted performer (I would hazard they mean geisha-like performers).

I also folk-etymologized myself into thinking that one gets a little dirty with experience. Nah, they just used the opposite kanji character than that of white.Gogen says that 玄 has "profoundly not plain" nuance, as opposed to 黒 (black). Even though Gogen wasn't sure about why they switched up the white kanji, it's cool with the reason for the black one.

白人 and 黒人 came along later, I guess, but it's amusing to this white boy to note that 白人 is still listed as being both a racial classification and a reference to beginners even to this day. Also, prostitutes. 黒人 is just a race. Or at least a skin color; I don't know if it implies geographical or anthropological concepts. Race is kinda silly and divisive concept anyways.

*: To summarize phonetic and kanji changes:
白人 shirohito -> 白人 shirauto -> 白人 shirouto -> 素人 shirouto
黒人 kurohito -> 玄人 kurouto

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Words I Found Interesting from The Otaku Encyclopedia

Been reading The Otaku Encyclopedia recently (buy link US and JP). I met the author briefly once, though he was missing his Goku outfit.

Thought I would post a sample of some of the interesting words from the book. I did my own research on the meanings and origins of the words, because the book, being concise as possible, doesn't get into a lot of detail.

伏せ字/伏字 fuseji (cover+letter): Those symbols that show up whenever someone swears in an anime. Though we are talking about Japanese here, a language with few swears, so what the book fails to mention is they are often used for many other things such as unintelligible utterances.　Also used to mention the names and intellectual property of others, like the G○nd○m franchise, without fear of legal retaliation.
Bonus related term from uncle Claytonian: チョメチョメ/xx: A blankety-blank.

じょそこ jyosoko (from 女子, girl+ child, and 女装, girl+clothes): A dude that cross-dresses as his favorite anime girl characters. Oh no! I've summoned IT!

間 ma (physical, temporal, or metaphorical space):  A thing where the reader/viewer has to fill in what's happening. I think the book is talking about those beats where the camera pans to a bamboo garden pipe filling up, or a glass of ice and beverage, and they suddenly move due to being full or having an ice cube melt respectively. This is the biggest cliche in Japanese media, but it works well to let you know time is going on while seeming profound. Deeeeep.

漫符 manpu (cartoon+sign): Those wacky manga conventions like nosebleeds, big sweat drops, and pulsating angry vein lines that let us know what characters are thinking. One manpu I have never understood is Osamu Tezuka's little pig guy manpu. What is that?

ヲタク (w)otaku: I like this alternative spelling of otaku (seriously, I don't need to define this one for you, right?) a lot, because the older generations just don't get it. The hard core kids use this one. Maybe.

In the book, there is an interview with Okada Toshio, one of the otaku ledgends behind daikon. By his definition I am an otaku, studying Japanese culture and language. Yay?

オタ芸 otagei (otaku+performance art): Those dance moves and shouts that the audience performs during idoru shows. If you get a chance, check out the otagei at the end of the movie Kisaragi or the movie Densen Uta (both are awesome).




Look up the book! In the meantime, enjoy the Daikon IV video to get yourself in the right mindframe:

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Lucky Racoon Poop used by Japanese Students

Graduating students are leaving my little Japanese language school soon, so we had a bit of a party in the classroom after class. The Chinese/Taiwanese girls are leaving us, so they took lots of pictures. Always on the day my hair is not styled does this sort of thing happen. Oh well. I will miss these girls who thought I was both alluring and scary for my rare skin color.
I'm still sticking around until at least July. The family keeps wondering when I am going back to America, but I keep finding excuses to stay here, like mastering Japanese, or merely passing a test. If only I knew that poop was the answer to my problems, I could have passed the JLPT!


Sapporo--They are taking the poop of a couple lesser pandas at the local zoo and mixing it into the materials to make paper charms. But this isn't crappy protection in their opinion; it will help you pass your tests!
So, a few words may be good to get why they do this. First off, うんち means poop, and it sounds like 運, which means luck. It's also useful to know ふん (animal droppings), and 漉く (make pulp) in フンを漉き込む*, or to mix poop into paper to give it that special scattering--I mean smattering... splattering?--of patterning. Finally, the reason why lesser pandas are so lucky: They have tenacious claws so they don't drop (落ちる) from trees. Use a paper charm, and your grades may not drop as well, they say.

Do you think is a load of BS?
[Nihongo news source and bigger pic]
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*As a combo, 漉き込む specifically refers to entering non-standard materials into pulp for patterning.

Anime Characters Walking Around in Our 3D World

Spain--You may have heard of Takashi Murakami. His name struck a bell with me so I did a quick Google image search. Oh, that guy. The one that sold the really indecent statue for disgusting amounts of money and reminded us that art was dead*. Anyways, here he is with a creature that looks like it sprang from his mind. The headline: そっくり ( looks just like him).[article]



Tottori prefecture--Also ran across this monstrous guy. Gegege no Kitaro! Remember when I made that video where I started to translate the theme song and then subconsciously switched back to Japanese? The train wreck? Eh? All of my videos are train wrecks? Too true. Anyways, here our protagonist is displaying the winners of a 妖怪　(Japanese monster) 川柳 (joke haiku, or as I like to say, joke-ku) contest . I believe the haiku here are the winners, in case you don't have access to our friend, but I warn you, they are kinda cheesy.[article]
I have been wondering since I saw the live-action movie: why did they cast a half-Japanese guy as Kitaro? I mean, does that mean that he is so Japanese looking that it doesn't matter? Or that yokai look slightly like foreigners? Or that foreigners look slightly like yokai? Or maybe they just choose him for good looks and Japan is at a happy state where such things don't matter...

A contest of my own for Dear Reader: Can you translate this joke-ku (ha ha, get it, see... jyokku is the katakana word... I'm sorry...) into English?: １０年で　嫁は寝肥り　オレ河童
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Bonus etymology:
The term for joke-kus came from a haiku critic's name. I wish I could get such an easy job. Anyways, the guy was 柄井川柳（からいせんりゅう).

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*Hey, I was an art major, so I can say these controversial statements with confidence ;) Also, you should take the hint and not do a Google image search if you are easily offended by... seminal works.

Etymology: The Mystery of Pickpockets

In class we were talking about 掏り (pickpocket(ing)　when the teacher drew 掏摸 on the board. Why would something that is based on a verb (掏る) be written like that as a noun? I resisted the urge to interrupt and ask, because I do that about 100 times a day already with my silly questions, but I resolved to find out the answer myself.
WWWJDIC claims it is gikun, but my understanding is gikun is when the reading doesn't match what you expect from the on or kun'yomi, like in the case of 今朝. So is it ateji? Wikipedia seems to agree with that theory, but I discoved WWWJIC is also claiming something from that article is gikun! Maybe some talking with Jim Breen is in order, or I may not understand gikun yet...
Anyway, why are we sometimes seeing those kanji? Well 掏 meant pickpocket to begin with, and 摸 kind of meant to grope around, which is what you do when you lift a wallet. To complicate the whole thing, the sound came from 擦る, which is to rub, also for the bump and pump that a pickpocket does. All of this entymology is courtesy of the fine folks at Gogen.
It's no wonder that most people just resort to katakana (スリ) for this one.

Your word of the day

屁理屈　(herikutsu) means sophistry, quibble, or nonsense. 理屈 means theory, and 屁 means fart. I find this very funny, because if you say someone is a 屁理屈屋 (herikutsuya, or sophist), you are saying they are full of hot air in more ways than one.