Lately, I share a lot of kanji, words, and phrases from Japanese in my twitter stream, but today's word demands a bit more of an explanation. Plus it has one of my favorite units of time built into it: the kalpa.
How long is a kalpa, you ask? In Hindu and Buddhist cosmology, they explain it this way sometimes: Imagine an immense block of stone. Every century, an angel descends from heaven to give the stone a brief wipe with a silky cloth. That stone will be worn down a little at a time by this process. But the stone will be gone long before a kalpa can finish.
Less poetically, some clock a kalpa at 4.32 billion years.
Anyways, looking at today's word, 億劫 okku, meaning troublesome or annoying, we can see the kanji 億 (100 million) and 劫 (a kalpa). So it refers to a task that would take 100 million kalpas, or 4.32x10^17 years. Very troublesome indeed.
--
Bonus kalpa fun: A webcomic. The kalpa part comes around panel 31.
During a wiki-surfing session, I ran across a pic of this hand purifying basin, or tsukubai, and learned that the characters meet up with the middle hole, which is shaped like the kanji/radical for mouth (口), to make new kanji. Then those kanji make a sentence. Brilliant!
put them all together as a 4 character idiom and you get:
吾唯足知 or 吾唯足るを知る ware tada taru wo shiru which means I am content with just what I have.
I found a page with a couple of follow up idioms that one may have learned back in the day if they hung around the temple with this profound basin. They are:
知足の者は賤しとも雖も富めり Those that live within their means are rich even when destitute.
and
不知足の者は富めりと雖も賤し Those that live beyond their means, even when blessed with riches, are bereft.
Notice the liberties I took with 賤しい iyashii (greedy, vulgar, shabby, humble, base, mean, vile). You can probably think of a better way to put it, but I am 不知 fuchi (an ignoramus.) By the way, there seems to be a connection of some sort between these two idioms and what Lao Tzu said in the 33rd chapter of his book, How to Make a Blog Post Long, Erudite, and Boring: 足るを知る者は富む To be satisfied with one's lot in life is to be rich.
Okay, are you still with me? Because I wanted to discuss one more thing. You see, I thought I had seen a coin with the same characters as the basin at the top of this post. Turns out that such coins are not currency, but novelty items for sale in some areas, and that I was thinking of the Zenigata's 寛永通宝 kan'eitsūhō (Kan'ei era coins). Their names match the characters on them as you can see in the following pic.
Now the word just said, zenigata, may ring a bell with you. The word was even payed some homage by a Lupin character. Zenigata (coin shape) is part of the title to a series of books, plays, and dramas about an Edo period detective named Heiji that throws coins at bad guys. Somehow that works. Thus the series is called 銭形平次 Zenigata Heiji.
I will leave you with a video from the Zenigata series. Watch for coin throwing and use this vid to practice karaoke. After people get so wowed by you knowing this song that they start throwing money and kisses, you can pull out all the awesome knowledge you got from this post and really impress the crowd. But don't get cocky; know your limit.
Recently, I ran across a post about the phrase 刎頚の友 (funkei no tomo, or decapitation friend), which seems to translate as "a friendship that could survive mutual beheadings." Be sure to check out the comments on the post for the origin of this phrase and how it may relate to seppuku.
I got interested in the kanji 刎, which seemed to be supplying the cutting meaning of the compound (頚 means neck) at that point. It's made from 勿 (absence) and 刀 (sword). It appears in the word 刎ねる (haneru) which means many things including flip, spatter, hit with a vehicle, and of course chop off a head.
Here are some other goodies WWWJDIC supplied for me:
刎 words: 刎 [はね] (suf,ctr) (arch) counter for helmets, etc. 刎死 [ふんし] (n,vs) decapitating oneself 自刎 [じふん] (n,vs) committing suicide by slitting one's throat 刎ね上がる [はねあがる] (v5r,vi) to jump up, to spring up
Intriguingly, a word with the same pronunciation as funkei, 焚刑, means burning at the stake. That may have led to some confusion at the courthouse, eh? Ha, ha, I kill me.
-- Bonus morbid knowledge: Ladies don't do seppuku, they commit jigai.
Hey, I'm in this video, as the guy with the funny hat... uh after the first guy with a funny hat, and not to be confused by the other guy from Saga with a funny hat (Hi, Bobbyjudo!) that appears on youtube occasionally as well. Anyways, watch and learn why cat poop is a cool word to know.
I recently gave a presentation on kappas, mischievous water sprites of Japan, in my language school. I learned a couple interesting phrases on the way:
河童の川流れ: Kappa+possessive+river+flow= the washing away of a kappa. Which means, "even a kappa can drown" or the like. It's very similar to 猿も木から落ちる, or "even monkey's fall from trees." These phrases mean everybody fails, and they are a fun retort to people who notice your failings.
陸へ上がった河童: land+towards+having come up+kappa= A kappa that has come ashore, meaning "someone out of their element". If you change a person's surroundings, even if they are talented, they will be at a loss. Note that 陸 is pronounced おか in this phrase.
Now my favorite:
屁の河童 or 河童の屁: fart+possessive+kappa= a kappa's fart, meaning "a piece of cake to do". I guess farting in the water is an extremely easy thing for a kappa to do. Incidentally as I was giving my presentation, I was searching my mind for the kun'yomi of 屁 (onara) and said "onani", which, well... I won't translate that word, but we must appreciate the patience of the teachers with me.
