Book : Guin Saga Vol.129

This is the latest volume of Guin Saga, entitled “The Child Chosen”.


This is what Skarr (the second son of the Arugosu’s king) said:

"You say that we, who are at the mercy of the gods, try to escape fate desperately to survive or try to achieve our ambitions while, all around us but just out of sight, necromancers and strange monsters who came from nowhere are struggling for power to dominate the whole world?"

The storyline seems to be becoming a magic and monster story. I prefer human stories to stories about magic or monsters. If a powerful wizard appears, settles wars and saves people in the end, the story is absurd.

I believe that telling a wizard story is difficult because the author must decide what a powerful wizard can’t do. If there are many almighty wizards, regular people are useless. The author of Guin Saga might have known this and therefore made Skarr speak the lines above.

The problem is that the author has died. Who can take over the world’s longest great story?



Thank you.

Farewell Party

I gave a farewell party for one of my friends from belly dancing class.She is going to Kobe, which is very far from Kawasaki. I will be missing her. When I belly danced for the first time at the belly dancing party, she danced with me. It was very fun to practice together, and to talk about the costumes for the party.
We were sad to say goodbye, so we took many pictures with her just before she left us.I wish she lives in happiness in Kobe.

Thank you.

This is the restaurant where we held the party.
http://www.rest-intiraimi.com/food_menu.htm

Koir, Columbine and DougLewis, thank you for helping.

Ise Grand Shrine

I went to Ise Grand Shrine last week. Ise Grand Shrine is the headquarters of approximately 80,000 shrines, and the most traditional site in Japan.

The Ise Grand Shrine has two distinctions. One of them is that the shrine has two gods.

There are 125 shrines within Ise Grand Shrine, and the two main shrines each house a major god (not saints). The names are “Amaterasu-oomikami” and “Toyoukeno-ookami”. “Amaterasu-oomikami” is said to be one of ancestors of Tennoh(Emperor of Japan) and the Imperial Household of Japan.

The other distinction is that the two main shrine buildings and the gate bridge are rebuilt every 20 years.

You would think a very traditional shrine would be old and huge. However, Japanese people believe that gods would like to live in new houses. We think gods lives in the shrines, not in Heaven Above. So we can’t take pictures near the buildings. (I took the picture shown above at the foot of the stairs in front of the building.)

Another reason for rebuilding is the architectural style known as Shinmeizukuri. That means the building doesn’t have groundwork. Ise Grand Shrine is the one and only shrine built in this style.

When I entered the gate of the shrine, it started raining. I walked about 20 minutes to get to one of the main buildings in the downpour. I thought gods might dislike me.

Thank you.

http://www.isejingu.or.jp/shosai/english/index.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ise_Shrine
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amaterasu_Omikami
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_of_Japan
http://www.sengu.info/index.html
Koir, thanks as always.

Yokozuna

Yokozuna is in the highest position in the sumo world. Yokozuna Asashoryu won in the Akibasho(Autumn Tournament). He displayed a sign of pleasure with his fists in the air when he won the last match. This kind of behavior is a problem in the eyes of the Yokozuna Deliberation Council.

They say that Yokozuna should not behave like that. I agree with them. I believe a Japanese sumo wrestler would not do that. Asashoryu is from Mongolia, so he does not have Japanese feelings or sensitivity.

I used to do Karate, and I had never behaved like that when I won. Showing your pleasure is rude when you win a Japanese traditional match. If he was a soccer player, there would not have been any problems.

However, some people approve of his behavior. They say Asashoryu is exciting, and that we need to accept foreign manners when non-Japanese are involved. These days, judoists display their pleasure when they win in the Olympics or similar matches, and there are many foreign judoists in the world.

Should we change our culture? I don’t think so, but I need to accept the possibility. Still, I don't like seeing people showing their pleasure when they win in Japanese traditional matches.

Do you understand what I feel?

Thank you.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumo
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asash%C5%8Dry%C5%AB_Akinori
Koir, thanks for correcting my English.

We are entering the realm of the unknown.

Yukio Hatoyama took office as prime minister, and gave his inaugural address on September 16th. “We are entering the realm of the unknown” was a part of his speech.

He promised to reduce bureaucratic meddling in politics, eliminate the practice of wasting tax revenue, and to make the best effort with a sense of responsibility.He did acknowledge “we might fail through a trial and error process”. It was then that he said “We are entering the realm of the unknown.”, and asked for people to be tolerant.

This would be an odd thing to hear, right? This is the Japanese way of speaking. I believe The President of the U.S. would not speak in this way.

Some Japanese people don’t like a person who displays any confidence when beginning something. For example, a Japanese person new to a company would say he or she has no knowledge, needs help, and is not confident even if he or she knows the business well and is confident. If you say you are full of confidence when you are new, you arouse ill feeling.

Despite that, I believe he went too far by saying “we might fail”.

Thank you.

This is the inaugural address in Japanese. Sorry, we don’t have it in English.
http://www.hatoyama.gr.jp/speech/090916.html

This is an article about Yukio Hatoyama.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/17/world/asia/17japan.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=yukio%20hatoyama&st=cse
Koir, snbzk. Thanks for helping.

‘A Dress Shirt’ has become ‘a Y-Shirt’ in Japan

We call a "dress" shirt a "Y-shirt" in Japan.

By the end of the Meiji Era (1868-1912), people had begun wearing dress shirts. At that time, dress shirts were only available in white, so they were called “white shirts”.

However, the word “white” was indecipherable as a word to Japanese speakers, to whom it sounded like the letter “Y”.

Many Japanese people have trouble with spoken English; the Japanese language has many vowels which makes hearing consonant sounds difficult. To illustrate this point, Japanese speakers refer to “white" as “howaito” (white=ホワイト) in romaji.

By the Taisho era (1912-26), people began referring to white dress shirts “Y-shirts”.

Even though many colors of dress shirts are available now, we still call them Y-shirts. In Japanese, it’s “waishatsu".

Here is a song named “Heya to Y shirts to watashi” (or “Our Room, Your Dress Shirts and Me").http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUBAUVg5Kxs

Thank you.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meiji_period
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taish%C5%8D_period
Koir, Naoko, thank you for helping.

To Praise the Members of Your Family

You are not expected to praise the members of your family when speaking or writing in Japanese. However, this seems to be a little difficult to understand for some American people. (I don’t know about people from other countries.)

One of my American friends had begun studying Japanese. He wrote me something in Japanese, and he kept calling his wife beautiful. This sounded very strange to me.

In Japanese, we speak about our own family in a modest way. If you praise them, you sound sort of rude.

When I warned him not to praise his wife, he insisted that was his choice and writing style.

He didn’t understand that he should use the Japanese style when speaking in Japanese, as learning any foreign language is connected to learning the foreign culture. He eventually gave up studying the Japanese language.

Nevertheless, many young people read Japanese manga and know much about Japanese culture from them. I believe this is a great thing. Studying Japanese may be easier for them.

Thank you.

Nagoyankee, thanks for the first sentence.
Koir, thanks for the great revision.
Snbzk, thank you for telling the grammar.