Scent Sent Cent, Chews Choose, Days Daze, Sweet Suite!

Homonyms in Japanese provide an excruciating pain in the ass for any foreigner attempting to learn the language. They cause one to have a completely different conversation than the person with whom they are conversing. They cause one to think that the cab driver is talking about the lovely flowers of spring when he is, in fact, talking about snot. They cause one to think the old lady is crooning about the beautiful Fall we are having when she is, in fact, talking about her rabid gerbil and how it ate it’s own tail. They cause endless confusion and if one is not completely comfortable in the language assuming that “context” will help is something of a downright lie.

I call a cab company.

A man answers:

“Hello? Thank you for calling. How may I help you?”

“’Morning, yes, one cab to Tsutaya please” (Tsutaya being the local DVD/CD/Book rental place. A huge, huge monster of a building and the only one in the area).

“Oh. Nicole-sama. Right. Your apartment. Hang on.’

“No. No. No. Tsutaya. Please come to Tsutaya.”

“Yes. Yes, I got it. Your house. You’re at your house.”

“NO. NO. NO. TSUTAYA. NOT MY HOUSE. NOT MY HOUSE. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, DO NOT COME TO MY HOUSE”

“Right. Got it. Your house. You can’t possibly have MOVED locations WITHOUT a cab. Your house. You’re at your house. We’ll be right over to your house. You just hold on. At your house now, don’t forget.”

“NO NO NO NO NO!”

“See you at your house!”

*throbbing, mighty vein in forehead contracts one last time and then bursts*

What needs to be explained here involves vowels. One word for “house” in Japanese is “ie.” Meanwhile, the word for no is “iie.”

The conversation the fluent Japanese taxi-dispatcher heard:

“HOUSE HOUSE HOUUUUUUUUSE!!!!!!” as I bellowed “NOO NOOOOO NOOOOOOOO” back at him into my cell phone.

Another tricky part of learning Japanese is mastering particles. Japanese particles are a series of little connectors or indicators that link clauses and sentences together. I suppose the closest thing we have in English are things like prepositions: in, on, at etc. What makes particles so difficult is the fact that in daily spoken conversation many native speakers just choose to elide them, or skip them or put a zillion of them together just because they can.

I walk into a coffee shop somewhere in Uwajima – a town on the western coast of Shikoku renowned for its bullfighting and sex shrine. A friend and I sit down and start chatting with the woman. The place is small and can fit perhaps ten customers at a time. A poster with two Caucasian people on the wall boasts enjoyable coffee.

I ask the woman what there is to do in Uwajima. She responds in a flood of Japanese and my brain does its very best to keep up with the flow, grabbing onto familiar words here and there in a desperate attempt to create some sort of logical sense out of torrential waterfall of vowely sounds escaping this woman’s mouth. The basic gist of her spiel is that there really isn’t ALL that much to do in Uwajima. But then wait. I hear a word:

Oni.

Onis are the Asian cousins of Western demons or ogres. They tend to be red or blue, carry large spiked baseball bats as weapons, and often are dressed in some sort of stylish animal skin loin-cloth.

As it’s one of the few (incredibly useful) Japanese words I know, my ears immediately perk up. Perhaps Uwajima has a rich history when it comes to mythology and folklore. Perhaps it has oni and kappa and tanuki frolicking somewhere in a hidden forest clearing, or fishing together in a secret inlet.

“ONI?” I exclaim looking probably far too tickled at the idea, making little finger horns behind my head.

The woman behind the counter and her one remaining local customer throw back their heads and laugh.

No. That would be the particle “o” and “ni” used simultaneously at the same time.

My way was certainly more interesting.

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Published:
10.11.07 / 9am
Category:
amusing incidents, what i call life, culture