井底之蛙: why frogs do not fly

Once they asked a frog who lived at the bottom of a well, 'Would you like to fly in the sky?'

'Why the fuck would I want to do that?' quoth the amphibian. 'Your sky is the size of a handkerchief!' 

井底之蛙 - jǐng dǐ zhī wā, "frog at the bottom of a well".

"In the sky full of people, only some want to fly, isn't that crazy?"

 

More articles like this: 四字熟語- ancient wisdom in four-letter maxims

弱肉強食: “survival of the fittest”

弱肉強食 (jakuniku kyōshoku)

Is Leben really a Kampf? Should we cull out the low-earners annually? Who will eat the strongest once they are too fat?

The proverbial “survival of the fittest”, the Neo-Liberal rallying cry meant to justify every minor and major dastardly policy, in Japanese sounds even juicier: “The weak are the meat for the strong”. That said, it’s no match for my Dad’s laconic French, ‘in life you either fuck or get fucked’.

More articles like this: 四字熟語- ancient wisdom in four-letter maxims

晴耕雨読：the joys of country life

晴耕雨読　(seikō udoku): "Till the land when the sky is clear, read a book when it rains." For those aware of ancient history, this would surely remind of the Roman Emperor Diocletian's retirement plan. After a career of feeding Christians to lions, introducing prostration as the form of greeting the emperor, and a slew of very savvy administrative reforms, he retired to blessed Dalmatia (now part of Croatia) to grow cabbages. When appealed by his subjects to return to the throne and fix the crumbling empire, he reportedly replied: 'If you could show the cabbage that I planted with my own hands to your emperor, he definitely wouldn't dare suggest that I replace the peace and happiness of this place with the storms of a never-satisfied greed.' That uncool verbosity could have been avoided though, had he have a smattering of Chinese or Japanese:'晴耕雨読, innit!".

More articles like this: 四字熟語- ancient wisdom in four-letter maxims

Four-letter words are not always foul language: 四字熟語 and 成語

Chinese for Japanese is what Greek and Latin are for European languages or Sanskrit is for Thai and Malay: the source of a high, abstract vocabulary as well as, with a due bit of curiosity and intellectual effort, access to the wisdom of the ancients of the "Confucius say" fame.

One part of that ancient Chinese heritage are yoji-jukugo (四字熟語), delightfully laconic idioms that express very complex ideas or metaphors in mere four characters.  Using the same model, the Japanese have later come up with their own indigenous yoji-jukugo, just as succinct and sagacious as the 成語 (chéngyǔ) borrowings from China.

Quite a few of them are included in the national school curriculum and thus effectively are part of the daily vernacular. Every once in a while I post the juiciest and intellectually aesthetically striking ones here: 四字熟語/成語, so that you too can drink from that refreshing font of timeless wisdom. 

P.S. The Thai language also has a similar concept, where a four-letter, essentially four-word set expression represents a graphic metaphor, a moralistic proverb or a witty allegory. There's a plethora of such in Thai but one that springs to mind first is บ้านนอกโคกนา (ban nok khok na), literally meaning "the countryside: a chicken coop and a rice field", a both nostalgic and slightly pejorative description for where most people in this rapidly urbanising nation come from.

Old-Style Japanese names of months （旧暦の月名）

Before Japan was restyled along the Western lines in the 19th century, it had enjoyed about three centuries of relatively isolated existence off the easternmost side of Eurasia. Even before that, a strong urge for departing from perceived cultural dependence on China, a great influence on Japan since its early days, had kept cropping up in various circles of Japanese society. Consequently, practically every aspect of Japanese life had evolved deliciously original or creatively reinvented to develop a rather unique flavour. 

For example, the latter-day boring names of months - the First month for January, the Second month for February, etc. - were predated by colourful native Japanese (Yamato) names.

I remember listening to a song by Nakajima Miyuki many, many years ago and admiring just how much more powerful and graphic was 嵐明けの如月compared to a mere 寒い二月.

Here's a list of all old-style Japanese names for months with most widely accepted explanations of their  meanings:

• １月/January：睦月(むつき) Mutsuki - the month when families gather to celebrate;
  
• ２月/February：如月／更衣(きさらぎ) Kisaragi - the month when winter clothes are changed for spring ones;
  
• ３月/March：弥生(やよい)Yayoi - the month when leaves and grass finally become abundant;
  
• ４月/April：卯月(うづき)Udzuki - the month when deutzia flowers (u no hana) blossom;
  
• ５月/May：皐月／早月(さつき) Satsuki - the month to plant rice;
  
• ６月/June：水無月(みなづき) Minadzuki - the month when the tsuyu rains stop;
  
• ７月/July：文月(ふみつき／ふづき) Fudzuki - the month of poem-writing for the Tanabata festival;
  
• ８月/August：葉月(はづき) Hadzuki - the month when leaves start turning yellow;
  
• ９月/September：長月(ながつき)／菊月(きくづき) Nagatsuki/Kikudzuki - the month whe nights start growing longer or the month when chrysanthemums blossom;
  
• 10月/October：神無月(かんなづき) Kannadzuki - the month when the first sake of the year is drunk as offering to gods;
  
• 11月：霜月(しもつき)Shimotsuki - the month when frost starts appearing;
  
• 12月：師走(しわす)／極月(ごくげつ) Shiwasu/Gokugetsu - the month when Buddhist priests are busy running end-of-the-year errands or the final month.

Best Japanese textbooks

I have been teaching Japanese for last 15 or so years and two best textbooks I have come across are:

• A Guide to Writing Japanese Kanji & Kana Book 1: A Self-Study Workbook for Learning Japanese Characters

•   Communicating in Japanese by Hiroyoshi Noto 

What makes the two stand out is that they are perfect both for self-studies as well as learning with a teacher/tutor.  Unlike many textbooks in the market that offer few or no exercises, these offer plenty practice for the words, kanji and grammar that you learn. That is the best way to make sure that you don't forget what you  learn the next day, as it seems to happen way too often.

Sexual morality in Indian myths

1. Sita got laid at 6.
2. Brahma did same with a daughter at 4.
3. Five members sharing one wife (Draupadi).
4. Strip a woman before everyone (Duryodhani and Draupadi).
5. Gamble your wife(Pandavas) 
6. Millions girlfriends and never marry anyone (Lord Krishna
7. Eve-Teasing (Lord Krishna with gopis) 
8. Send a nude girl to distract someone (Menaka to Vishwamitra) 
9. Abandon your pregnant wife (Lord Rama andSita)
10. Abandon your own child (Kunti to Karna) 
11. Elope with a girl on her wedding (Lord Krishna with Rukmini) 
12. Mother advises to share wife among brothers (Kunti to Pandavas about Draupadi).

Myths in every culture contain  instances of sexual  practices questionable from the point of view of current morality: e.g., righteous Lot upon escape from the ungodly Sodom had sex with his two daughters and had children by them. It only shows that our ideas about sexuality change drastically in the course of time. There is no doubt that our latter-day sexual mores will seem outrageous to our grandchildren.