Mnemonics for Pronouncing Chinese Characters (the Marilyn Method)


Update: This is the Marilyn Method for memorizing the pronunciation of Chinese characters. The method has generated enough interest that I decided it needs a name of its own.

Update update: The method has now been adapted to Polish and German, as well as adapting the target language to Cantonese.



Photo by Felix_Nine

For me a new mental gimmick is the best kind of toy there is—better than a new electronic gadget. My latest toy is a technique for memorizing the pronunciation of Chinese characters—my own invention, I am proud to say. This might end up being my greatest contribution to civilization, even better than my killer nacho recipe.

Lots of attention has been given to the problem of remembering how to write Chinese characters (see, for example, my review of Heisig and Richardson's book). By comparison, remembering how to pronounce the characters has been the neglected well-behaved sibling. But pronouncing the characters is by no means trivial—especially since the Chinese (Mandarin) language uses important sound contrasts that just don't exist in English, including of course tone of voice.

With my system I can link just two concepts (as is done in most memory systems) to represent the pronunciation of any Chinese character, including the tone. If you are using Heisig and Richardson or something similar to remember how to write characters, this is the perfect companion. You can also use the system to memorize spoken Mandarin words even if you don't care about writing them (not what I would recommend, but some people like it). It will take a bit of time and effort up front to memorize the basic correspondences, but this will be paid back with interest pretty quickly (within a matter of days in my own case). This post gives a complete description of the method—so bear with the length. You might also learn a little about Mandarin phonology.

The fact that this is possible at all is thanks to the Chinese "one character = one syllable" principle and also thanks to the rather constrained Chinese sound system, which makes it possible to list all Mandarin syllables in a rather modest table. My system uses a similar table, but pushed and pulled around a bit. It also has much in common with the "Bopomofo" system, which represents every possible Chinese syllable with one to three symbols taken from an alphabet of 37 symbols. I won't use the rather exotic-looking symbols themselves here, but their pinyin equivalents.

21 out of the 37 symbols can appear only at the beginning of a syllable:

b-, p-, m-, f-, d-, t-, n-, l-, g-, k-, h-, j-, q-, x-, zh-, ch-, sh-, r-, z-, c-, s-

Another 12 can appear only at the end of a syllable:

-a, -o, -e, -ê, -ai, -ei, -ao, -ou, -an, -(e)n, -ang, -(e)ng

(...although certain syllables in both cases consist of a single symbol such as s ["si" in Pinyin] or ai, so that the beginning of the syllable is also the end.)

Three more symbols, representing -i-, -u-, or -ü-, can appear at the beginning, middle, or end. The -i- and -u- sound essentially like they would in Spanish, whereas -ü- sounds like a French "u" or a German "ü".

 Examples:

zh+ang = zhang in Pinyin
u + ang = wang in Pinyin
zh + u + ang = zhuang in Pinyin
zh + (e)n = zhen in Pinyin
i = yi in Pinyin
j + i + (e)n = jin in Pinyin

If you have been paying attention, you should have noticed I have only listed 36 of the 37 symbols. The remaining symbol, representing er, never combines with another and represents a syllable in itself.

All Mandarin syllables are made up of a limited number of such combinations. (Compare this with the rough-and-ready situation in English, where a single syllable might be "strength" or "boxed" or "splashed". Good luck finding a table of English syllables.)

The Basic Approach

The first step in the method is to use a mental picture of a given individual (real or fictional) to represent each of the initial symbols. We're going to call these representatives personages. I have made the following assignments, but you can use others if you like them better:

Babe (Ruth) for b-
Peter (Pan) for p-
Mark (Twain) for m-
Frazier (Crane) for f-
Darth (Vader) for d-
Tarzan for t-
Noriyuki (Morita) for n-
Leonardo (da Vinci) for l-
Groucho (Marx) for g-
Karl (Marx) for k-
Herman (Munster) for h-
George (Washington) for zh-
Charlie (Chaplin) for ch-
Sherlock (Holmes) for sh-
Ringo (Starr) for r-
Zach (Galafianakis) for z-
(Christopher) Columbus for c-
Sam (Spade) for s-

I tried to pick these to be as visually distinctive as possible. I put the last names in parentheses because I recommend you get on a first-name basis with your personages. You'll be spending a lot of time with them. Notice everyone on the list is male; also I left out j-, q-, and x-. The reasons for this will become apparent in due time. The names are a clue to the associated sound: Babe for b-, Groucho for g-, and so on. This "clue" will actually be important only in the early stages of use—eventually (pretty soon, really) you will learn the correspondences by heart anyway.

We also need to introduce a new "null" initial symbol, which I will denote Ø-. So, for example (b- + -ao) gives you bao but (Ø- + -ao) gives you plain ao. This null symbol also gets an associated individual:

Ø- Albert (Einstein)

We might as well go ahead and introduce the "null" final symbol, denoted -Ø. So (s- + -ao) gives you sao but (s- + -Ø) gives you plain s (which is, however, written "si" in Pinyin).

 (Now I have to interrupt myself to emphasize an important point: the "i" in Pinyin "si" is nothing like the "i" in "yi" or "ji". "Si" is pronounced more like "sz" than English "sea". Same for "zhi", "chi", "shi", "ri", "ci", "zi". If you don't understand this point then go back and ask your Chinese teacher about it, because it will wreak havoc with your Chinese pronunciation. The Pinyin symbol "si" is written with just the "s-" symbol in Bopomofo. To help keep this point in mind, I'm going to use parentheses to write it like this: "s(i)", "zh(i)", etc.)

Now the do-it-yourself part: for each of the twelve final symbols -a, -o, -e, -ai, -ei, -ao, -ou, -an, -(e)n, -ang, -(e)ng, and  -Ø, choose a familiar place—a house, a restaurant, or a hotel. You will have to exert the modest effort to remember which places go with which symbols. I can't do this part for you because they need to be places familiar to you. (This is a point about the "memory palace" that many people seem to miss.) But for the sake of explanation we're going to pretend with a few examples:

-Ø your own house
-a the Plaza hotel in New York City
-e Maxim's restaurant in Paris
and so on....

(We lump -e and -ê together because these just happen never to appear in the same situation.) Now each syllable can be visualized as an image of a particular personage in a particular place. For example:

ba = b- + -a = Babe Ruth at the Plaza Hotel.
zha = zh- + -a = George Washington at the Plaza Hotel.
zh(i) = zh- + -Ø = George Washington at your house.
zhe = zh- + -e = George Washington at Maxim's.
ta = t- + -a = Tarzan at the Plaza Hotel.
a = -Ø + a = Albert Einstein at the Plaza Hotel.

We can summarize all the combinations (so far) of initials and finals in a table:


-Ø-a -o -e -ai -ei -ao -ou -an -(e)n -ang -(e)ng
AlbertØ- er a o e ai ei ao ou an en ang eng
Babe b- ba bo bai bei bao ban ben bang beng
Peter p- pa po pai pei pao pou pan pen pang peng
Mark m- ma mo me mai mei mao mou man men mang meng
Frazier f- fa fo fei fou fan fen fang feng
Darth d- da de dai dei dao dou dan den dang deng
Tarzan t- ta te tai tei tao tou tan tang teng
Noriyuki n- na ne nai nei nao nou nan nen nang neng
Leonardo l- la lo le lai lei lao lou lan lang leng
Groucho g- ga ge gai gei gao gou gan gen gang geng
Karl k- ka ke kai kao kou kan ken kang keng
Herman h- ha he hai hei hao hou han hen hang heng
George zh- zhi zha zhe zhai zhei zhao zhou zhan zhen zhang zheng
Charlie ch- chi cha che chai chao chou chan chen chang cheng
Sherlock sh- shi sha she shai shei shao shou shan shen shang sheng
Ringo r- ri re rao rou ran ren rang reng
Zach z- zi za ze zai zei zao zou zan zen zang zeng
Columbus c- ci ca ce cai cao cou can cen cang ceng
Sam s- si sa se sai sao sou san sen sang seng


Notice that certain of the possible combinations, for example *be, just don't occur. This would mean, for example that Babe Ruth will never visit Maxim's. Notice also that we have handled the oddball syllable er by arbitrarily representing it as (Ø- + -Ø), or Albert Einstein at your house. This saves us from having to create an entire new column of the table just to handle this one case.  

This is the basic idea of the system. We still have some unanswered questions, though:

(1) What about those pesky tones?
(2) What about the intermediate symbols  -i-, -u-, and -ü-?
(3) What about the initials j-, q-, x-?

All to be answered in the fullness of time.

Handling Tones

First, question (1): we're going to expand the image to include the tone for the syllable by refining the location:

1st tone: In front,
2nd tone: Just inside the entrance,
3rd tone: Any other location inside,
4th tone: In the bathroom.

So, for example George Washington at the reception desk of Maxim's is zhe (2nd tone) whereas George Washington sitting at a table in Maxim's is zhe (3rd tone).

More Enhancements

Now, question (2), but first we focus just on the intermediate -i-. Standard Bopomofo practice would be to represent the syllable liao, for example, as l- + -i- + -ao. But we don't want to juggle three parts for the syllable, so our approach is to merge l- and -i- into a new initial li-. And since we need to distinguish li- from l-, we introduce a new personage Lauren (Bacall) to represent li- as opposed to Leonardo (l-). Similarly, we introduce:

Indira (Gandhi) for y- 
Brigitte (Bardot) for bi-
Paris (Hilton) for pi- 
Marilyn (Monroe) for mi-
Dorothy (Gale) for di-
(Mother) Teresa for ti-
Nancy (Pelosi) for ni-
Lauren (Bacall) for li-

 Some points worth noticing: (i) This list is much shorter than the first, because f-, for example, never appears before -i-; (ii) These personages are all female, which will help you keep track of which initials have -i- and which don't.

And now we can introduce the remaining initials:

Gidget for ji-
Katharine (Hepburn) for qi-
Hattie (McDaniel) for xi-

 There was no point in introducing these earlier because (just as f- never appears before -i-) j-, q-, and x- never appear except before -i- (or -ü-).

You may wonder why I chose Gidget to represent ji- instead of someone whose name begins with "J". This is to avoid confusion between zh- and j-, which are quite distinct in Chinese, although both come close to "j" than any other English sound. Confusing j- with g- is not really an issue because g- never appears before -i- or -ü-, exactly the opposite of j-.

(Representing j- by "G", q- by "K", etc. also has a solid historical basis, because Mandarin used to have a *gi syllable, but the g- took on a softer sound before -i [thus becoming ji], just as the English "g" in "giraffe" did, or the Italian "c" in "ciao". Likewise for *ki and *hi. Why do you think "Beijing" used to be spelled "Peking"? But once you learn the system by heart it won't matter anyway.)

So we can update our table with the new syllables (we're not finished yet, though):


-Ø-a-o-e-ai-ao-ou-an-(e)n-ang-(e)ng
Indiray-yiyayoyeyaiyaoyouyanyinyangying
Brigittebi-bi
bie
biaobianbin
bing
Parispi-pi
pie
piao
pianpin
ping
Marilynmi-mi
mie
miaomiumianmin
ming
Dorothydi-didiadie
diaodiudian

ding
Teresati-titie
tiao
tian
ting
Nancyni-ninie
niaoniunianninniangning
Laurenli-lilialie
liaoliulianlinliangling
Gidgetji-jijiajie
jiaojiujianjinjiangjing
Katharineqi-qiqiaqie
qiaoqiuqianqinqiangqing
Hattiexi-xixiaxie
xiaoxiuxianxinxiangxing


The columns of the table are represented with the same places you already identified (all though you won't need all of them for this table).

Final Pieces of the Puzzle

Next step is to handle -u-. Just as with -i-, we fold this into the various initial sounds to make a new series of initials bu-, pu-, mu-, etc. And just as before, we assign personages for each of the new initial symbols:

Wonder (Woman) for w-
Bugs (Bunny) for bu-
Popeye for pu-
Mickey (Mouse) for mu-
Fred (Flintstone) for fu-
Dick (Tracy) for du-
Totoro for tu-
Ninja (Turtles) for nu-
Lisa (Simpson) for lu-
Garfield for gu-
Kang (& Kotos) for ku-
Huey (Donald Duck's nephew) for hu-
the Joker for zhu-
Charlie (Brown) for chu-
Shrek for shu-
Richie (Rich) for ru-
Ziggy for zu-
Casper (the ghost) for cu-
Superman for su-


This time I used characters from either comics or cartoons, to help keep this group distinct from the others. And here is the corresponding part of the table:


-Ø-a-o-ai-ei-an-(e)n -ang-(e)ng 
Wonderw-wuwawowaiweiwanwenwangweng
Bugsbu-bu
Popeyepu-pu
Mickeymu-mu
Fredfu-fu
Dickdu-du
duo
duiduandun
dong
Totorotu-tu
tuo
tuituantun
tong
Ninjanu-nu
nuo

nuan

nong
Lisalu-lu
luo

luanlun
long
Garfieldgu-guguaguoguaiguiguangunguanggong
Kangku-kukuakuokuaikuikuankunkuangkong
Hueyhu-huhuahuohuaihuihuanhunhuanghong
Jokerzhu-zhuzhuazhuozhuaizhuizhuanzhunzhuangzhong
Charlie (Brown)chu-chuchuachuochuaichuichuanchunchuangchong
Shrekshu-shushuashuoshuaishuishuanshunshuang
Richieru-ruruaruoruiruanrun
rong
Ziggyzu-zu
zuo
zuizuanzun
zong
Caspercu-cu
cuo
cuicuancun
cong
Supermansu-su
suo
suisuansun
song


You will need to keep Charlie Brown distinct from Charlie Chaplin, but if you think this is going to be a problem for you, you can always change one name or the other. You will notice some spelling oddities: for example, zhu- + (e)ng becomes zhong instead of *zhung, but these merely reflect the way Pinyin works.

And then, finally, we create a series of initials with -ü- and their associated representatives:

 Aphrodite for yu-
Neptune for nü-
Luna for lü-
Geryon for ju-
Cupid for qu-
Hermes for xu-

This time we use names from Greco-Roman mythology, to distinguish this series from the preceding three. You will notice that the Pinyin system drops the little dots over the -ü- in most cases. Once again, this is done only when there is no possibility of confusion. We keep the dots in nü-, because n- can precede both -u- and -ü-. We drop the dots in ju-, because j- can precede -ü- but not -u- (so you know the dots should be there even when not written). And Pinyin uses yu- to represent initial -ü- by itself.

Here is the final part of the syllable table:


-Ø-e-an-(e)n-(e)ng
Aphroditeyu-yuyueyuanyunyong
Neptunenü-nünüe
Lunalü-lülüe
Geryonju-jujuejuanjunjiong
Cupidqu-ququequanqunqiong
Hermesxu-xuxuexuanxunxiong


The final column of this table (yong, jiong, qiong, xiong) springs one last gimmick. The combination (ju- + -(e)ng) does not represent *jung (that doesn't exist) but rather jiong. Strictly speaking, jiong would be composed of (j- + -i- + -u- + -(e)ng). For our purposes, this gimmick saves us from having to come up with another four personages to represent, for example, (j- + -i- + -u-). I wish I could take credit (or blame) for this idea, but it comes from the Bopomofo system. My guess is the creators of Bopomofo did not want to deal with sequences as long as four symbols.

Putting it all together

Let's close with an example. I'm going to take the case of this character:

苗

Heisig and Richardson assign this character the keyword "seedling". It is composed of two simpler characters: 艹 ("flower") and 田 ("rice field"). To memorize the writing of the character, the normal approach would be to make up a little story combining the elements of "seedling", "flower", and "rice field". But we're going to go one better, by working the pronunciation of the character into the same story. This is pronounced miao with a 2nd tone. (Note 艹 is pronounced hua and 田 is pronounced tian, so there's no help there.) We break miao up into mi- and -ao. The personage for mi- is Marilyn (Monroe) and my location for -ao is the Keio Plaza Hotel in Shinjuku (you would of course pick your own location). So we could imagine something like this:

The lobby (2nd tone) of the Keio Plaza hotel (-ao) has inexplicably been converted into a rice field (田). Strange seedlings sprout and rapidly grow to a great height, developing large flowers (艹). Each flower blooms to reveal a figure of Marilyn Monroe (mi-). It's important to visualize this, like a movie, rather than just read the words. This image will stick with you, and it contains all the basic facts about 苗.

Posted by 119 comments:
Labels: , ,

The Dark Knight's Tax Bracket Rises

Photo by themichaelminer

So here I reveal an important theme of the forthcoming Batman movie. Not that I have any inside information—it's just a hunch. Read on.

But first go back to the previous film The Dark Knight. This was a really good movie. One thing that makes it stand out from the typical run of comic book movies are the extra layers to the story. Er, I suppose that's two things. You get Bruce Wayne's personal sacrifice and his struggle to find the right path. (This is what makes a real hero.) And you get the social commentary. Batman's fight is against terrorism in the person of the Joker. And it is a highly nontrivial issue just how far one is justified in going to fight terrorism. This is clearly an important issue in the movie; various characters spend no little time discussing it amongst themselves. I think it is no coincidence that this theme appeared in The Dark Knight just at the time it was being discussed in society at large. Or, to be more exact, at a time when it should have been discussed but was generally ignored.

Which brings me back to the upcoming The Dark Knight Rises. I just saw the new trailer—the one that opens with the boy singing the Star Spangled Banner. And these words, spoken by Selina Kyle, were of particular interest.

You think this can last. There's a storm coming, Mr. Wayne. You and your friends better batten down the hatches 'cause when it hits you're all gonna wonder how you ever thought you could live so large and leave so little for the rest of us.

Doesn't this resonate with another issue that's been in the news lately—that of rising income inequality? I bet you this will be a theme of the new movie. Remember, you heard it here first.

And it also points up the big messaging issue the Democrats have. I imagine they would get much more traction on the issues if they got Anne Hathaway to whisper their message into John Boehner's ear.

Post-release update: I consider my prediction verified.

Posted by No comments:

Product Review: Remembering Traditional Hanzi, by James W. Heisig and Timothy W. Richardson

Hanzi is the Chinese term for Chinese ideographs. Reading the Chinese language entails being able to recognize three to four thousand of these. There is a far greater number than this (to paraphrase Clinton, depending on what the meaning of "is" is). At least one Chinese dictionary listed 100,000 characters. But Zipf's law indicates that the vast majority of these would never be encountered in a typical human lifetime. I like to imagine some mischievous Chinese scribes living a thousand years or so ago playing a little joke, only to get their inventions immortalized in the dictionary.

So don't feel bad about your measly three or four thousand. Of course, learning even three thousand characters is no picnic. Thus the demand for anything which can smooth the process. Heisig and Richardson's Remembering Traditional Hanzi is one of several competing books promising to ease the memorization process. I like this one the best, for reasons given herein.

This particular volume appears to be adapted from Heisig's Remembering the Kanji ("kanji" being the Japanese equivalent of "hanzi"). Although the Japanese borrowed the idea of writing, and almost all their ideographs, from China, they simplified some of them and pronounce all of them differently. And the Chinese later went through their own round of simplification—although (as I have discussed elsewhere) not all Chinese use the simplified versions, and of course the earlier documents printed in "traditional" hanzi did not disappear. So one with ambitions to read both Japanese and Chinese may need to cope with as many as three versions of a single character, such as:
Versions of this book exist for all three forms. I chose the traditional hanzi because I think it provides the best basis for learning all three.

Learning several thousand characters would scarcely be possible did not most of them consist of combinations of simpler components (there are still more than enough "simpler components" to keep the student occupied for a long time). In some cases the meaning of the character can be explained by the meanings of the component parts. For example, a "man" standing by his "word" represents "trust." I have no idea whether this etymology is historically accurate—for this purpose history is beside the point.

There are several books out there which use the etymology approach to help the reader remember the characters. Heisig and Richardson's version adds a couple of unique wrinkles which I find extremely helpful. Here is a sample entry from the book:


As you see, the character is assigned a keyword send out. (A keyword is usually, but not always a single word, but is always a single concept.) This particular character is explained in terms of the keywords of the parts appearing within: missile, bow, and teepee. A little story explains how the meaning of the whole is derived from the meanings of the parts. I think it safe to say this particular etymology is not historically accurate.

One of the particular characteristics distinguishing Heisig and Richardson's book is the use of the single keyword. Many or most Chinese characters have meanings which cannot be captured in an English word. This one for example, has a meaning similar to "send out" but appears as part of words with meanings as diverse as "explode", "discover", "departure", "vivacity", "put [a product] on the market", or "run [a fever]." The typical dictionary will run a long list of words with alternate meanings. Sticking to a single keyword means all the nuances of meaning cannot be captured, but I find this is more than outweighed by the cognitive advantage of having a single clear-cut label—to look at this character, either alone or as part of a still more complex character, and say "Oh yeah, that's send out." And moreover the expression send out refers to one and only one Chinese character. The nuances of meaning will sink in over time as one learns various compounds and expressions containing the character.

A second distinguishing characteristic of the book is the order chosen for the characters. They are organized not alphabetically, nor according to the order in which they are taught in Chinese schools, nor according to frequency of usage, but according to the method. So immediately after a given character appears you might see several others which use that character as a component. Frequency of usage might be better if you planned on quitting the book part-way through—so don't.

A final advantage is that Heisig and Richardson also define keywords for several elements which do not constitute characters in their own right, but do appear as elements of several characters. The keyword—a mental peg on which to hang the image of the component—is tremendously helpful.

For example, the keyword study is given to this important character:
This is part of the Chinese words for school, university, institute, and so on. The bottom part of this character:

is a character in its own right, and gets the appropriate keyword child. The top part:
is not an independent character, but gets its own keyword anyway. Since this component always appears at the top of a character, like others variously labeled roof, hat, teepee, etc., but is far more elaborate, it gets the apt (but probably historically inaccurate) name Carmen Miranda hat.

And now for some criticisms. My biggest problem with this book is the failure to include the Chinese pronunciation of each character in the entry for that character. This practice is probably carried over from the Japanese version of the book, where it makes more sense—since in Japanese a single character usually has at least two, and sometimes as many as seven or eight different pronunciations. But in Chinese almost all characters have one and only one pronunciation. Moreover, in many many cases, part of the character is an indicator of the sound. So, if the pronunciation were known, rather than concoct an elaborate story for why a particular component appears in the character, one could simply note that it has the same or similar pronunciation. But the book includes a simple numbered index of all the characters with their Chinese pronunciations, so this oversight is easily remedied with a ball-point pen.

My other complaint is that this is Volume I, and only contains 1500 characters. I would cheerfully buy Volume II and any that come after, but they don't exist.

In summary, I would definitely use this book as one of my tools if I were studying Chinese. To be more accurate, I am studying Chinese, and I am using this book.






Posted by 1 comment:

Alvy Singer Wants to Stop Your Kids from Killing Aliens

A recent Wired Science article compared two bodies of research on the possibility of a link between violent video games and violent behavior. Quick summary of the story: A recent California court case examined the constitutionality of a law outlawing the sale and rental of violent video games to minors. Group X of scientists submitted a brief claiming that such games lead to aggressive behavior. Another Group Y submitted a brief disputing the claim to a link between game play and aggressive behavior. (Note: I myself am agnostic as to whether such a link exists.)

The court ruled the law unconstitutional. One could say that Group Y won and Group X lost, although it's not clear from the story what role the briefs played in the decision. I don't know what other evidence was presented; I don't even know necessarily that the judges even read the briefs.

But here's the other part of the story. The Northwestern Law Review later published an article suggesting that the court should pay more attention to the claims of Group X than Group Y because Group X had published more articles and had published more in "top-tier" journals.

There is a venerable term for this type of argument: ad hominem.

The article doesn't claim to have found an error in the analysis in Group Y's brief, or pick bones with the way Group Y collected their data. No, the argument presented is we're bigger big shots than the big shots on the other side, so the court should have believed us instead of them. This is by definition an ad hominem argument because the identity of the disputants is made an issue rather than the content of the argument.

The Northwestern article includes this amusing footnote: "In the interest of full disclosure, note that we disagree with much of the information contained in the Millett [i.e., Group Y's] Brief." This is amusing because a full disclosure would have mentioned that not only do the three article authors "disagree" with the Millett Brief, but two of them were actually members of Group X that authored the opposing brief. Instead they present themselves as merely concerned bystanders.

With this in mind, I can't help but be reminded of the ending of the movie Annie Hall, wherein Woody Allen's Alvy Singer rewrites his real-life break-up with his girlfriend Annie as a play, only changing the ending so that Annie comes back to him. To be fair, the authors might be less concerned with stewing over past losses than influencing the upcoming Supreme Court review of the case. I still think their time would be better spent in coming up with more persuasive data and analysis than attacking the reputations of their opponents.








Posted by No comments:

Starved for Irony

Picture shows a notice posted in a college restroom in Japan. Translation runs as follows:

USE OF THE TOILET
  • Thanks to you, the toilet is always maintained in a clean condition.
  • Let's continue to use the toilet in such a way that the next person can feel good about using it.
  • Let's avoid wasting toilet paper and water.
  • Smoking is prohibited in the toilet.
We request everyone's cooperation.

[In the lower-left corner, next to the drawing of the toilet, surrounded by little stars, is one of those peculiarly Japanese expressions which serves as a sound effect for something that doesn't really have a sound: pika-pika, or in other words, "sparkle sparkle."]

The only thing that could make this any more Japanese would be a cute cartoon animal pointing to the text.

Now consider hypothetically a similar notice (but in English, of course) posted in a restroom on an American college campus. What would be the effect? For the assorted reading audience, standing at the urinal, surely reactions ranging from befuddlement to raucous laughter. Is this for real? Within a matter of hours, defacement by some sort of crude graffiti. Within a matter of days, the notice is flung to the ground and trampled upon, and most likely soiled with a selection of bodily fluids.

So here we see an interesting aspect of Japanese society (or perhaps it is an interesting aspect of non-American society): the incredible sincerity. Japan is a place where you can actually say things like "It's a shame that a few bad apples have to spoil a good time for everyone by breaking the rules" and no one will snicker.

As an American of the sarcasm-prone variety, I am acutely conscious when in Japan of the need to watch what I say. Sarcasm is still possible, but must be carefully calibrated. Otherwise leads to befuddlement on the part of others, or in the worst cases, offense.

The advantages of the sincere society are pretty much what you would expect. The restrooms are in fact remarkably clean. As are the streets—all the more remarkable when you consider there is hardly a trash can to be found. Properly disposing of a plastic soda bottle entails separating it into three components—the bottle, the cap, and the label—and putting them in three separate locations.

I can't help but feel, however, that sarcasm and cynicism have their advantages as well. Life in Japan has provoked a lot of introspection. Why do I feel a frequent urge (by no means always indulged in) to play the devil's advocate, particularly if I can flavor my cynicism with a little humor? There are two obvious justifications:

1: I get to show off my sparkling wit.

2: I get to brighten the day of those around me.

But I think the real basis for American cynicism is something more philosophical. We recognize that no one is perfect, that even the most virtuous among us have a guilty secret or too. And therefore, when we hear someone or something praised extravagantly our automatic reaction is oh yeah? Well, what about....
Japanese people, if pressed, will admit that everything has its dark side. But they don't share our compulsion to point it out constantly.

Lest anyone misunderstand, my intent here is not to claim that America is better than Japan, or vice-versa. I think of different societies as representing different strategies for social organization, and am rather fascinated by the many different possible approaches to solving the same problems. Somewhat in the spirit of Arrow's Theorem, I rather think every approach is going to have serious drawbacks some of the time.







Posted by 1 comment:
Labels:

Hello, Kitty!


I got off of writing for awhile...been on the road—still on the road, actually—in Japan, that is. It's been seven years since I was here last The place has changed a lot, and I myself have changed even more. I find myself little interested in going to the "Japanese" places that I used to put on my list and am far more interested in seeking out the little Japanese things (without the quote marks) that open at least a small window into what is going on.

I was rather stunned to see the obvious difference in atmosphere between Tokyo and Osaka, and marvel at my own obtuseness in not noticing it on earlier visits. In Tokyo, a goodly proportion of the women seem to have taken the inspiration for their dress from the pages of a manga book (quite enjoyable for the onlooker) and everyone walks extremely fast—though I've heard there is a strong correlation between city population and walking speed. Tokyo is at the extreme end of the spectrum by both measures.

There is also something of a fad for wearing surgical masks. So you get the incongruous sight of a young woman dressed to the nines in a frilly microskirt and seven-inch heels, elaborately applied make-up and hair ribbons, and then gilding the lily with a surgical mask. I myself would die a premature death rather than wear one of those things.

In Osaka, on the other hand, about half the people on the street dress like refugees from a homeless shelter. The difference was obvious the instant I hit the sidewalk. And the taxi, was by no means meticulously clean like those in Tokyo. The trunk was half filled with the driver's own weird crap.
There was a thought-provoking scene in Osaka. A girl, obviously profoundly hard of hearing, was trying to get service in a shop and the guy behind the counter was wearing one of those damn masks. You're really screwed in this country if you rely on reading lips to get around.

The lights are out in the big cities—at least the big neon advertising signs—reflecting the ongoing power crisis in Fukushima. But the cities are still far sparklier than any place I ever lived.









Posted by No comments:
Labels:
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)