Watch your language

First, the story as reported by The Japan Times:

Police arrested four members of a rightwing group Thursday on suspicion of defaming the chief priest of Meiji Shrine last autumn by claiming in loudspeaker truck protests that he had embezzled money.

Toshio Takahashi, 60, head of Kokubo Doshisha (Group to Defend the Country), and group members Kei Sasaki, 69, Shin Sasaki, 34, and Osamu Nakagawa, 33, were arrested on suspicion of slandering the shrine’s chief priest, Katsushi Toyama, 73, police said.

Investigators believe the acts were connected to Meiji Shrine’s erroneous failure to use on invitation cards the appropriate honorific language to describe a visit by Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko last April.

The shrine, dedicated to Emperor Meiji (1852-1912), used the phrase “ryo denka” (“their highnesses”) instead of “ryo heika” (“their majesties”).

The shrine’s mistake drew criticism from various nationalist groups. A senior member of another group was arrested in February for allegedly breaking windows at Toyama’s home in Setagaya Ward.

According to police, Takahashi and the other three paraded in loudspeaker trucks in the shrine’s vicinity last September and October.

Their speeches featured slanderous claims, including that the chief priest had pocketed income from Meiji Jingu Stadium, investigators said. Between last September and February, the group paraded near the shrine in loudspeaker trucks some 150 times, according to police.

What exactly were the right wingers so upset about? What do these titles even mean?

Meiji Jingu accidentally referred to the Emperor and Empress as ryou-denka. (両殿下) Denka (the prefix simply means ‘both’) in modern usage is a proper way to refer to the princes and princesses of the Imperial family. In earlier times it was also, beginning with the time of the Emperor Daigo (reign 897-930), used to refer to the Fujiwara clan regents who held much of the political power, and eventually by the Shoguns who ran the government during the Muromachi and Edo periods.

The term that the shrine should have used is Ryou-heika (両陛下). Heika is the correct term of address for the Emperor, Empress, the previous Emperor’s wife, or the Imperial Dowager.

According to various Japanese language articles, there was also a second reason for the right-wing protests.

In august of last year, after some sort of quarrel (I haven’t read about the details), the Meiji Shrine withdrew from the Jinja-honchou (神社本庁) in August of last year. It was actually at that time that the right wing groups began their campaign of harassment, which they were ordered to stop by the courts in October. The Jinja-honchou is the nation-wide Shinto organization that was established following the post-war dissolution of state-Shinto. Approximately half of all Shinto shrines in Japan currently belong to the association.

For reference, here is what one of the trucks from one of Japan’s other fascist organizations looks like. Notice the large Japanese flag on the right side, and on the left the chrysanthemum seal of the Imperial Family with the character, 自( short for 自由, meaning ‘freedom’) in the middle. The slogan on top reads ‘Establish an independent constitution,’ which of course means one that does not limit Japan’s military activities, and I would hazard, also isn’t so hung up over protecting the civil rights of Japan’s foreign population.

Taike

An amusing article in the Taipei Times:

Premier Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) said yesterday that the term Taike (台客) should be an adjective for young Taiwanese men who possess clear and logical thinking, and who speak eloquently.

“When the noun and adjective Taike is used, usually people are calling or describing somebody who is not elegant or has bad taste in clothes and no sense of style, perhaps even in the way they talk. I hope that we can turn this upside down and make it all around,” Hsieh said.
[…]
Taike is a recent popular noun and adjective which media often have used to describe somebody who gives the impression of having bad taste in many respects, such as the way they dress, their speech and behavior.

Originally, Taike was first used in 1990 in Taiwan among teenaers, but the term did not become widespread until recent years.

Stereotypical Taike dye their hair different colors, wear colorful shirts and baggy pants all the time irrespective of the occasion, talk a lot, drink too much, curse constantly, chew betel nut and speaks Mandarin with a heavy Taiwanese accent.

I first heard this term when I went on a trip to Penghu a few weeks ago with a group of Taiwanese when a couple of the girls were using it to tease one of the guys on the trip. Interestingly, despite what the article says, I only heard the term ‘tai,’ not the longer ‘taike.’ Still, the description in the article fits what I heard. According to the girls I was with, there are two basic types of ‘tai.’

First is the type who just doesn’t know/care how to dress or act: flip flops, a sloppy and vaguely bow-legged way of walking, exercise shorts, probably a betel-nut chewer. Second: the kind who thinks they know how to dress, but is tragically and comically mistaken. There may not be any exact equivalent in America, but perhaps if you meditate a little on terms like ‘redneck‘ or ‘guido‘ you may begin to get at least a kind of relativistic sense of what’s going on.

Does anyone out there have any good examples, either in words or photos?

Romanization in Taiwan

I just spotted this article on romanization in Taiwan at a good and brand-new Taipei related blog with the unfortunately bland name of Taipei, Taipei. This article he(she?) links to, as well as the blog post on Taipei2 do a good job of introducing the problem of completely un-standardized, incompetent romanization of place names in Taiwan.

At least the situation seems to be improving in a way. Here in Taipei, all official signs now use standard Hanyu pinyin.

Let’s look at the way 古亭 has been romanized. The MRT stop is labelled “Kuting.” But because the apostrophes are routinely omitted in Taiwan, it is completely impossible — even for the relatively few people who are familiar with Wade-Giles — to know if the name is really Ku-ting (Guding ㄍㄨ ㄉㄧㄥ), K’u-ting (Kuding ㄎㄨ ㄉㄧㄥ), K’u-t’ing (Kuting ㄎㄨ ㄊㄧㄥ), or Ku-t’ing (Guting ㄍㄨ ㄊㄧㄥ). (Note that hanyu pinyin, Guting, has no such ambiguity and works well to show the correct pronunciation.)

That’s four equally likely possibilities — and that’s without considering tones, which are an essential component of Chinese. If tones are included in the computations, there are 64 different possible pronunciations of the two syllable “Kuting” — hardly a useful representation of 古亭.

As it so happens, I live right by 古亭 MRT station, and it’s official romanized name is, of all things, Guting! Exactly what it should be. The Taipei city/county government has, sometime in the past few years, rewritten all of the signs in proper Hanyu pinyin.

Another example that those of us currently living in Taipei luckily do not have to deal with.

But Tamshui is the historical Taiwanese name for the city.

No. Tamsui (no h) is the correct historical spelling, reflecting the Taiwanese name for the city. Tan-shui would be correct Wade-Giles, and Danshui correct hanyu pinyin. Of course, the “Tam-shoo-ee” pronunciation formerly used on the MRT is quite beneath contempt.

Like Guting, 淡水 is now rendered in the correct Hanyu pinyin of ‘Danshui.’ It may not match 17th century Dutch maps, but it sounds closer to the Chinese pronounciation, and it’s consistent with, for a start, the way people write Chinese words in the Roman alphabet in the other 99% of the planet that isn’t Taiwan.

Unfortunately the problem persists in other areas of Taiwan. For example, I have seen the character 中 romanized as, zhong, chong, chung, jhong, and now thanks to Taipeitaipei, the inexplicable ‘jhorg.’

How on Earth is this inconsistency helpful to anyone?

A Happening Happpening.

Since Roy and I seem to be trading rather interesting posts on language (here, here, and here), here’s another great Japanese word that I just happened upon and happen find amusing. It’s also an example of how as words become transplants from one language to another, they often undergo slight changes in meaning or nuance.

From today’s Asahi online edition:

ヤンキースタジアムで3階席の少年がネットに転落

2005年08月10日22時29分

9日の大リーグ、ヤンキース―ホワイトソックスでファンが観客席から転落するハプニングがあった。

I’ll be nice this time and spell it out, but it says: Kokonoka no dai ri-gu, yanki-zu- howaitosokkusu de fan ga kankyakuseki kara tennraku suru hapuningu ga atta.

I’m not quite sure how to translate that literally using the actual word “happening” as it is used in the original Japanese without adding additional, implied information. I guess it would read something like this: “At Tuesday’s Yankees – White Sox game there was a happening (where a fan) fell from (his) seat.”

The reason I find this word so amusing is that the word happening is overwhelmingly used in English as a verb, not as a noun – though it also occasionally shows up as an adjective. Nevertheless, it somehow managed to make the jump to Japanese as a noun and has survived. I tried to think of common usages as a noun in English, and the best I could come up with is “fortuitous happening.” A few fruitless Google searches later, I gave up and just turned to the The Columbia Guide to Standard American English, which had this to say:

A happening is an event, especially a noteworthy or dramatic one, or one staged deliberately for theatrical effect, as in Her parties were always planned to be happenings, intended to be talked about for weeks afterwards. The word is Standard.

Being very unscientific about this inquiry, I feel that using happening as a noun has always had a slightly antiquated feel to it. It’s the type of word that I might expect to hear a Brit use with regularity, but one that just somehow sounds a bit odd coming from the mouth of an American too often.

In Japanese, happening is used only as a noun (although there is an entry in 英辞朗 of the noun ハプン but I’ve never heard or seen this word used before) and refers to an unexpected or surprising event – like some kid falling out of his seat into the safety net at a Yanks-White Sox game. Here’s the definition as provided by goo 辞書:

ハプニング 1 [happening]

(1)思いがけない出来事。偶発的な事件。
「―が生じる」

(2)予想外の、意表をついた出来事の表現効果を積極的に追求する演劇・絵画などにおける前衛的芸術活動。

Coincidentally, while reading up on Japan’s September 11th general election, I happened across ハプニング once again, which I could only call a fortuitous happening. On May 19, 1980, then Prime Minister Ohira dissolved the lower house and called for elections. The name of the dissolution?

ハプニング解散

Unfit for the Salamander – A lesson in Japanese etymology

Occasionally I run across a word or phrase in Japanese that I recognize only because I know I’ve looked it up at least two or three times (if not more). Yet for some reason the meaning just won’t stick with me. This happened earlier today while reading the Asahi at work. This time I intend to do something about it, as well as provide an interesting language lesson for any of our readers who are slowly killing themselves learning Japanese.

The phrase in question today is particularly irksome because of its idiomatic nature. I know the meaning of the individual words, but haven’t an inkling what the hell the phrase as a whole means. It’s as if someone was conversing with you in English and described a situation as “unfit for the salamander.”

So now that I’ve hopefully gotten everyone’s attention, here’s the sentence with today’s mystery phrase in bold:

森氏は会議後、記者団に「はっきり言って、さじを投げた」と語った。

Literally, it means, “to throw the spoon.” So the entire sentence literally translates as:

After the meeting Mr. Mori told reporters, “Honestly speaking, [I] threw the spoon.”

So what’s it mean? It means to give up on something.

And just how did it come to mean this? Isn’t that obvious? The Japanese eat with chopsticks, don’t they? Just as the occasional foreigner who visits Japan today and manages to master the art of eating with chopsticks will be repeatedly praised by his hosts, at one time it was equally difficult for Japanese to master the art of eating with a spoon. As anyone who’s tried eating with chopsticks knows, sometimes you just want to throw them on the ground, go for a fork and just dig in. Well, apparently Japanese used to feel the same way about spoons and would often throw them down in resignation.

Okay, okay. I just made all that up. And honestly speaking, that story was about as unfit for the salamander* as one can get.

Actually, the real story as best I can tell is this. The meaning derives from a situation where a doctor diagnoses a patient’s recovery to be hopeless. At one time medicine was prepared with a spoon and once it was determined that someone was a goner, there was no further need to continue preparing medicine and the doctor could just “throw in the spoon,” so to speak.

If anyone out there can add any clarity to this little history lesson (and my money says that Roy can), I will be looking forward to any additions in the comments section.

* As of 6:41 pm on August 8, 2005, the phrase “unfit for the salamander” did not show up on a Google search. It may be a safe assumption that I am among the first, if not the first, to actually use this phrase in a sentence.

Paekche and Kudara

I don’t usually like to just provide links to things on other blogs, but the Marmot pointed out this amazing article that’s just the sort of thing I love.

A research on the name Kudara
Here’s a random excert.

For these characters Karlgren reconstructs the archaic and ancient Chinese pronounciations: *χmwət / χuət for 忽 , – / mai: for 買 , *nâd / nâi- for 奈 and *nəg / nậi for 乃 50, from which we can obtain the pronounciations in Paekche’s language *xol for “fortress”, corresponding to the Mongolian qorga “fortress 51, fence”, to the ancient Turkish qurγan “fortress” and koriğ “enclosure” 52 and to the MK 53 .ulh “enclosure, fence” 54, *mai for “river”, perhaps to be connected to the MK mɨl “water”, and with the Mongolian mari “great river” 55, *nai for “land”, corresponding to the Jurchin náh, to the Manchu na, to the Goldi na and to the ancient Japanese *na, all with the meaning of “land”.

The already cited 56 Chou-shu passage mentions for the king of Paekche the names Wolaγa 於羅瑕 and Kjʌnkitsi 鞬吉支 and for the queen the name Woljuk 於陸 57. Let’s reconstruct, always with the help of Karlgren, the northern Chinese pronounciations of the 6th-7th century of these names.