When You Wish Upon A …. BIG… GIANT… BUG.

Japanese is a complex language with three different systems of writing that leaves even the most atheistic of foreigners utterly frazzled at times, yanking out what’s left of their hair, plunging hammers into their face, screaming “WHY, GOD, WHY?!!?” Generally speaking, Katakana is utilized for foreign words that are brought into Japanese. Kanji and hiragana are, generally, used for words that are Japanesey with some other Asian influences.

However, as language is constantly changing, this rule does not hold fast any longer. Young people are defenestrating some kanji characters because they are simply too time consuming to learn and write, or because it is ‘cooler’ to utilize katakana. I suppose this is kind of similar to how I, and several graffiti artists, once thought bubble writing was dastardly cool in the early 90’s. While it looks charming spray painted on schoolyard walls, it seems to make ones homework or book reports look slightly less professional. In any case, this becomes problematic for us dense foreigners who assume that when a word is in Katakana it MUST originate from say, English, German, or some rare form of Estonian that one mental Japanese person decided he fancied one day. We sit there for hours muttering the bastardized word over and over again, trying to dredge up our diminishing German or French vocabularies from high school and adding vowels in the hopes that it will morph into Japanese, only to discover that it’s not imported from any language at all, and is, in fact, a Japanese word we never knew to begin with that some flippant native speaker decided to write in Katakana just to make us cry.

Another factor that makes Japanese rather frustrating to learn is the amount of homonyms in the language. To my untrained ear, Japanese sounds as though it has very few different sounds. For example, “saru” さる　can be both a verb and a noun, meaning to leave, to resign, to quit, to die, as well as monkey. Imagine the confusion that could result:

Fed-Up Man: I QUIT damnit, I QUIT THIS &*^&%$@!# company.

Boss: What’s that? A MONKEY you say? He wants to join this &*^&%$@!# company? Well then, where is this little fellow?

Fed-Up Man: NO, I SAID I QUIT. I QUIT. I QUIT. I QUIT.

Boss: Steady on, you. A monkey. I follow, no need to bellow. Now where’d that banana get off to.

“Modosu” (もどす) can mean to return, to restore, or, conveniently enough, to toss your cookies.

“Seikou” (せいこう) can mean to have a certain disposition, can be the noun meaning character and behavior, can be a な adjective meaning both elaborate and exquisite or the な adjective meaning crude and stiff. It can mean to succeed. It can mean a political program. It can mean steelmaking. Lastly, this word can also mean to have sex. Elaborate, crude, steel making, stiff, sex. Imagine the possibilities. It’s all a matter of using different kanji to differentiate. No wonder they use text messages to communicate instead of actually calling one another on the phone.

Over the past weekend I ventured to the Niihama’s renowned planetarium. Conjoined with the Prefecture’s Science Museum, the Planetarium (プラネタリウム-look at that fine usage of katakana) boasts the “world’s largest domed surface.” If you look up the verb “to boast” in a Japanese dictionary you will also come across the secondary definition “to lie.”

The Planetarium’s showing was entitled むしむし星空—something-something. I assumed that むしむし (mushi mushi) meant “hot and humid.” It’s about the stars – stars are hot, fizzling balls of gas. It made a bit of sense. Incidentally, mushi mushi CAN also mean “sultry,” but I figured it wasn’t that kind of I-max, with this many children filing into the rows.

After about ten minutes of rules advising us not to smoke, not to put our feet up on the chairs, not to breathe too loudly, not to exit midway for fear of disturbing other people, and advising the ‘hardcore’ stargazers to take a seat in rows 4-7, the program begins.

Large claymation bugs appear on the screen. And they do not leave. These large purple and brown bugs remain on the “largest domed surface in the world” for the majority of the show, towering down on us attempting us to shower us with wisdom. I listen to them talk in cartoonish voices about the stars that they are conveniently not showing us. As if two giant bugs on a giant dome are not enough, MORE insects join the party. In a futile attempt to link monstrously large invertebrata to the heavens, the bugs are named after various mythological characters such as Hercules and Perseus whose stories have been used to name constellations.

I painfully crane my neck as a large constellation of Hercules, completely drawn out for those of us with no imagination, is quickly flashed on the dome, upside-down and behind me. The hypothetical ‘hardcore’ stargazers in rows 4-7 sigh deeply, fooled by the announcement in the beginning. And then, as quick as can be, the bugs brusquely usher the stars off the domed sky, where they clearly had no place, and return to the big screen, lecturing the audience about the delightful bug-life of Japan. A metrosexual bug is introduced. A boorish bug is introduced. A pretty butterfly that all the other bugs want to date is introduced. It becomes painfully clear why the show was titled “mushi mushi –etc.etc.” Mushi also means “bug” (虫). This is a time when Kanji utilization would have done some good.

And then the sky becomes dark. The auditorium grows dim and hazy.

Why? Not because it is finally time to gaze up dreamily at the stars, but because I fall asleep.

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Published:
6.22.07 / 1pm
Category:
amusing incidents, what i call life, culture, unschoolish