No cultural or societal update today. I’m feeling kinda sick right now…
I was ok earlier today, but I think I ate something I shouldn’t have. I’m well enough to write these few words so as not to miss a post, but not enough to put much thought into it. I went to T.G.I.Friday’s with a friend for lunch. It was good, but I guess I’m not used to such heavy eating anymore.
I must admit my portions did get smaller over the two years I’ve lived here. And I’ve lost weight. But to think that I’d get this sick over a little bit of American junk food!
Anyways, I’ll survive. So no need to worry. I usually suck it up because I know I did something to deserve feeling sick (more often than not , drinking too much), but I find it unfair this time and I honestly feel like I’ve been cheated. I mean, all I did was help the fast food industry make more money… oh! I see… I guess I deserve it, then 😛
Here’s a small bit of Japanese trivia I discovered this week.
You know how there used to be “flesh” colored pencils. I think most were retired before I was even born because of the Civil Right Movement, but I’m pretty sure I have seen at least one – probably an old pencil from my parents’ era – in my crayon box when I was a kid. Anyways, without going into too much detail, the Crayola ‘Flesh’ color was retired in the 1960s and renamed ‘Peach’. Much later, at the turn of the century, the company retired ‘Indian Red’ and renamed it ‘Chestnut’ for fear (a little late for that, yeah?) that children would think it was actually the skin color of Native Americans.
The whole thing always reminds me of the time when I was in elementary school and a friend asked me to pass him a skin colored crayon. Being the oblivious little runt I was, I didn’t think twice and reached for the “peach” colored pinkish one which I proceeded to hand to my African-American friend… *belated facepalm*
Probably motivated by such situations, I imagine ranging from comical to downright horrible, Crayola introduced some 20 years ago the ‘Multicultural’ crayons (and markers!) – eight different tones of browns and pinks to emulate the different skin tones. Because as we all know there are only eight!
So on to the Japanese trivia:
Shigeru Matsuzaki Color is a color from a line of watercolor by Sakura Color Products Corp. (of the Micron markers fame) in the tones of Shigeru Matsuzaki’s skin. The singer/actor is famous for his dark complexion.
It all started in 2005, when a variety show asked the company to find the mix (what % of which colors) would be needed to recreate Matsuzaki’s skin color. After 6 hours of trials and errors, they got their answer: 25% of ‘Yellow’ (#3), 45% of ‘Vermilion’ (#18), 14% of ‘Green’ (#50), and 16% of ‘White’! Thanks to the influence of the show, Sakura Color Products Corp. decided to offer to viewers a chance to win one of 10 boxes of their famous 12-watercolor set with ‘Brown’ replaced by ‘Shigeru Matsuzaki’ (#55).
Due to the major popularity of this gift, the company later decided to start selling the revised 12-color set at the FujiTV souvenir shop. Wikipedia adds that the RGB code for it is #A55A4A.
The title doesn’t refer to my friend who will join this blog at a later time 😉 – although, would that mean I’m the main monkey? – nor is it a critique of Japanese hierarchy. (I have personally no beef with it.) lol
It’s still me writing this time around.
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So I was translating this document the other day that contained the word 副申書 (fukushinsho). From the kanji, I could see what it meant, but I thought “better run this through a dictionary.” Since the document was a last minute request, I didn’t have much time and immediately turned to an online favorite of mine: Weblio. (Keep in mind that I don’t just use the one. I use many different sources, but this is the one I decided to turn to at that time. And thankfully at that, since it gave me this priceless moment.)
I thought I would save time by only looking up 副申 since 書 was bound to be some kind of document. The result I got was vice-monkey!!! After laughing to myself for a few minutes and showing it to my boss, which spurred a second bout of laughter, I started thinking about it. 副申書 literally is “the supplementary documents you need to add to an application”, but why did it return vice-monkey? Last time I checked, 猿 was the kanji for monkey!
The answer can be found in the magical world that is the many meanings of Chinese characters.
You see, 副 means ‘duplicate’, ‘assistant’ or, more often than not, ‘deputy’ or ‘vice’ as in Deputy Mayor and Vice-President. So the result I got is not too farfetched.
But the real problem here, is 申. For any practical end, this character has two main uses. When used in its Japanese reading, it is the polite way to say ‘speak’ (the polite version of 言); when used in compounds and with its Chinese reading, it often takes on the meaning of ‘apply’, ‘request’. However, there is a third way the character is used: in the Chinese zodiac, 申 is the ninth sign, the year of the monkey.
Now, had I looked up the whole word from the start, my search would have been much quicker – albeit still wrong in the context of the document I had to translate. Then again, it wouldn’t have been as funny. Maybe if I botched my dictionary searches more often, work would be more funny!
(By the way, I know an ape is not a monkey, but this is the best picture I could find.)
GO!GO!7188 is a three-piece Japanese rock band which sadly disbanded in 2012. For a while, they were my favorite band and I went to see them live a couple of times while I was studying in Japan a few years ago. GO!GO! is composed of guitar/lead singer Yuu, bassist Akko and drummer Turkey.
At its core, the band was influenced by Japanese Group Sound bands of the 60s, which were themselves influenced by the likes of The Beatles. Accordingly, songs are written for two guitars, one bass and one drum at most, sometimes less as is the case with GO!GO!. At their debut, they used the slogan “Contaminating the Music Industry! A Cute Punk Band’s Super Natural Group Sound”. In many respects, their earlier compositions were more punk than rock. In the beginning, both Yuu and Akko wrote lyrics for songs, but Yuu gradually switched to exclusively composing music, leaving Akko in control of writing, which is what they later adopted as the norm among the members.
Their more popular songs include “C7”, “Ukifune” and the infamous “Koino uta”. The latter is the band’s most sung karaoke hit. And after a few years from release, they got pretty fed up that the song still stuck to them even though they had written all these other great songs since. At a live I went to, they even joked about how “real” fans would never say “Koino uta” if asked what their favorite GO!GO! song was! lol
C7. Look at that glorious bass!
Although the members have never explained the meaning behind the name of the band. Fan theories seem to point to bassist Akko. You see, if you type 557188 (“go” means five in Japanese, hence 557188) on a Japanese pager, you get the message “Noma♡”. Akko’s real name is Akiko Noma, but when the band was formed, she was Akiko Hamada (maiden name)… which means that Noma is the name of her now husband, then boyfriend. Was it all just a message of love? Well, it wouldn’t be a bad thing 😉
And here is Ukifune
As announcement that the band was splitting, Yuu simply wrote “Our activity has reached its limit” on the band’s site.
While playing as a band, each member has also had a solo career over the years.
– Yuu (Yumi Nakashima) had formed a second band, Chirinuruwowaka, since 2005. She’s still its lead singer and the band is getting more popular of late. Although a rock band as well, the sound is definitely different from GO!GO!.
– Akko (Akiko Noma) has released solo albums as Akiko Hamada in 2003 and again in 2006. She now concentrates on raising her kid as well as writing lyrics for and supporting other artists.
– Turkey (Takayuki Hosokawa) had been working as a session musician since 2004 through which he played with big names of the pop industry such as Ai Ohtsuka, Younha, Ikimonogakari and KAT-TUN. In 2007, he started a brand called Trico Roll Beauty for which he has designed t-shirts and jewelry. He joined the band La La Lark in 2012 along with School Food Punishment’s Yumi Uchimura as lead singer. He still supports other artists and now gives lessons.
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As a side note, I want to let people know that a friend will be joining me in writing posts for this blog. He is fairly new to Japan, so I’m hoping he will be able to take charge of the new discoveries/experiences side of living in Japan. I consider it a very important part of any good blog on a foreign country, but I often find myself too far into it to have a fresh outlook on the matter. We haven’t really discussed it yet, though, so don’t take my word for it ^^;
Today, it has been exactly a month since I started this blog. Let’s celebrate with Day3 of my photo project.
When I woke up this morning, the sky was clear, so I was finally able to go north. I walked for 6 hours, but this time, I actually had an objective. Up to now, I had only been walking in a general direction. This time, I walked in a general direction with the aim of getting to the Nissan Stadium and back.
Here’s the weather that greeted me this morning
Living next to the port has its good sides
I think they want you to pass through here
Japanese says “It is forbidden to step into the greenery zone”…
but “No entry” works just as well 😛
Did they really need to put up three signs?
I have a fascination for long sets of stairs…
…as I do long straight roads…
…and abandoned bikes ^^;
Oh! and the color yellow, of course!
Me thinks the air-conditioner could have been put closer
Here’s an abandoned store replaced by vending machines
Let’s hope I never have to wait at this bus stop in the middle of the night. Scary!
I like the way things are built uphill in Japan
What is that? I think I’m getting close to my goal. Having watched Independence Day on TV the night before, the shape of the stadium is reminiscent of those alien motherships
I’m slowly developing a mania for trains as well
560 meters from East to North gates. And another 560 from North to West: you have to walk more than 1 kilometer to go from the East to West gates!!!
Mission accomplished!
I believe the little arrow indicates the front of the caterpillar tracks
Again, a long straight path
Wooden owl sculpture peeking from the corner of a store
I think I’ve talked about my love for colorful stuff before? 😉
Nearing the end of my walk and the weather is still amazing
On my way back, I walked by the Sakata Seed Corporation installations which I’ve talked about before here
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