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Manche Leute stellen sich Kanji lernen ja eher schwer vor und solange man die Zeichen nur als eine wilde Ansammlung von Strichen sieht ist es auch nicht ganz einfach, vorallem weil man sich nicht nur die Zeichen, sondern auch noch die Bedeutung, eine Handvoll verschiedener Aussprachen Kanji und diverse Kombinationsmöglichkeiten merken sollte. Aber sobald man aber einmal begriffen hat, dass sich die Kanji eigentlich nur aus verschiedenen kleinen Teilen, den Radikalen, die wieder alle eine Bedeutung haben, zusammensetzen wird es deutlich leichter. Vorallem weil dann nicht nur jedes Wort, sondern auch jedes Kanji eine eigene kleine Geschichte hat.
Deshalb will ich ab jetzt jedes Wochenende ein neues Kanji vorstellen.1
Es gibt Bücher, da erfindet der Autor irgendwelche abstrusen Geschichten, damit man sich die Kanji und deren Aussprache besser merken kann, aber ich finde die Etymologie meist deutlich spannenden und interessanter als die faden und erfundenen Geschichten. Und obwohl ich oft nicht so weit daneben liege mit meinen Vermutungen schöpfe ich meine Weisheit doch aus dem Skriptum von Prof Holubowsky "Die chinesischen Schriftzeichen im Japanischen", dem Buch "A Guide to Remembering Japanese Characters" von Kenneth G. Henshall und Kanji Networks einem Etymologischem Kanjiwörterbuch im Internet.
Ein Problem sollte allerdings nicht ganz unerwähnt bleiben. Political correctness (政治的妥当性) hat eindeutig zu viele Kanji und wird daher eher nicht vorkommen. Wobei der Großteil der Schuld daran bei den Chinesen aus der Han-Dynastie liegt. Die haben die Zeichen nämlich vor über 3000 Jahren vereinheitlicht und dabei anscheinend ganz auf etwas so wichtiges vergessen.
Und am Schluss möchte ich noch darauf hinweisen, dass bei uns noch im 17 Jahrhundert so Nettigkeiten wie "aus dem letzten Loch pfeifen" nach dem (damals tödlichem) Lungenstich beim Duell gerade ganz groß in Mode waren und ich bei einigen Wörtern gar nicht so genau wissen möchte woher sie kommen.
- 1. bei meinem Durchhaltevermögen wären das dann genau drei Kanji, deshalb habe ich auch schon einmal vorsorglich 10 herausgesucht, damit bin ich zumindest für die nächste Zeit gewappnet.
Just before I left Japan a friend of mine grabbed me and said:
Alex, now that you have a really cute girlfriend you are not allowed to gain any weight back home! I don't want to see you with a belly like a grandfather when you come back!1
After coming back some of my friends commented on my newfound slimness -- a BMI of 19 apparently is quite nice to have as a guy-- others noticed this too, but preferred to call my great looks scrawny. Anyway I was quite satisfied with my looks, at least for the the first one or two weeks in Austria.
Here Ali here take a cookie.
Eva -- my brother Georg's girlfriend -- is always looking out for me. So sweet, she is even bringing me chocolate covered Lebkuchen2 with some delicious filling -- really tasty!
I eat one, but then remember the warning of my friend and I know I already gained weight in the few weeks I'm back. Better cut back a bit.
Five minutes later Georg stands in my room, grasping my belly and exclaiming:
Ali you've grown fat! I guess now you can eat all the cookies you want, it won't matter anyway.
Sure there now is a tiny bit more of me where before no unnecessary layer was hindering the view of my belly muscle. But honestly who cares I never had any muscle to speak of anyway, so nothing lost and a insulation-layer gained!
Sadly I do care. I start to wonder how much weight I really gained since coming back. There is a scale in our bathroom, but I dare not to mount it. No I have a much better idea. I'll just shoot a photo and forget all about my belly and the associated problems.
5 minutes later I have an acceptable photo and a heap of chocolate covered cookie lying on my bed, but then I notice I can't really put back in the box. Who want's to eat a cookie that was already touched by someone else?
Oh well at least do not to worry about the cookies in the photo -- I assure you they have all been liberated after their participation in the photo shoot. I'd never throw away perfectly fine food.
After living for one year in a japanese student home it seems like any room that can contain more than a bed and a table feels huge to me. With that in the back of my mind the hotel room I have here is still big. I live on the twenty first floor, one entire wall is a huge window and the bathroom wall facing the room is also made of glass. I can very well understand why this hotel has ratings describing it as perfect for lovers. I mean here I could lie on my bed and watch the sunset on my right or a beautiful girl shower to my left -- at the same time -- how cool is this?
The huge flat screen TV, the provided computer and the broadband internet1 connection are a nice bonus. I guess just in case the stunning girl you share the room with is not enough, or you missed the sunset and are getting bored.
One problem for me is, that currently there is no beautiful girl in my room that I could admire while she takes a shower and the beauty of the sunset is slightly dampened by the air pollution, that makes the sun vanish, before it can reach the horizon. Luckily if there is a problem as serve as this there will almost always be a solution near by.
For example yesterday, while enjoying my time on Skype I got a phone call -- at 23:00 local time. I'm not really supposed to get phone calls here in Beijing on my hotel number. Only very few people know which hotel I stay at and I told nobody the room number. Maybe they have a problem with my credit card -- it would not be the first time here in Asia -- so I go and pick up the phone.
Yes
Ah ... Hello English?
Yes how can I help you?
Massagi?
It's the middle of the night and someone calls me to ask if I want a massage? Nice service from the hotel.
Oh wait it's the middle of the night, I get a call on my hotel phone and a girl asks me if I want a massage -- no thanks. I guess it would be kind of hard to explain to the girl I'm skyping with.
Well such is life -- full of suboptimally timed events.
So today I get home from a shopping spree2 at 16:00. Tired from walking around all day and not finding nice cheap shoes in my size I just want to take a relaxing hot shower and rest for an hour or two, but my keycard for the room does not work. I roll my eyes, take the elevator down again, they repair my card, but just in case send someone up with me to check everything is alright.
She rings the doorbell to make sure she will not be intruding, opens the door for me and
Where do you come from?
Austria -- Europe Austria
Want a massage?
As some of you might already know I'm currently traveling around in China. The food is great the air is very polluted and the Internet is ... shall we say not as wide and unlimited as I remember it. Especially the part where Flickr,1 the photo site I use for all my travel shots, resides seems to have fallen of the map (right along with Facebook and YouTube)
Since the webspace on this server is by far not large enough to accommodate my photos and I don't feel like searching for a photo site that is acceptable in China, there will be no new shots of my last days in Japan or from my travels in China until I return home. Also no Facebook updates and I gave up on Twitter when my time was rapidly vanishing in the last few months in Japan.
Look at him isn't he the happiest man in the whole world?
Watching the dusk in Yokohama with a nice girl lying next to you in the grass, there is not much to add to the observation of these two passerbys. After hearing that we just look at each other and laughed in surprise. It was a great day, just as many other days lately.
In this last month my Japanese finally became good enough to understand simple conversations and talk to my friends in Japanese most of the time. Yes Japanese is a hard language to learn and outside of Japan it is most likely not very helpful, but all this is more than compensated by my friends, that repay my every effort trice.
In the last week I had a guy crying at my shoulder and a girl tell me she had sore muscles in her face from laughing so much.
Indeed these were great and happy days, some of the best I've ever had. Sure the nail that sticks out will be hammered in -- or break in the process -- but the more you are embedded in the Japanese wood the more fun it becomes. Maybe after a few years, when you still stick out a little bit, it will become bothersome, but for now I'm very much looking forward to coming back.