Day 51 (21.ix.10)
Just gotten back to my room after a lovely meet-up with Eddy K, a fellow pupil and student, and since I spent most of today regretting not having slept more last night, I will make this another Key Kanji, and a hasty one at that.
銀行: ぎんこう, ginko, meaning “bank”. There are certainly more than enough of them in Japan – not quite on the extreme level of Moscow, which literally seemed to have a branch of some company bank every 25 metres, but a healthy amount, at least. I will go into the bigger names in a future Key Kanji, but suffice it to say that Citibank and 7/11 Bank are definitely the newbie tourist’s friends here in Japan – they are, so far, the only branches which have consistently accepted my very English debit card. The others often refuse anything foreign other than China UnionPay – and I’d rather flush the contents of my bank account down the toilet than entrust them to anything approved of by the central bank of a communist state…
動物園: どうぶつえん, dobutsuen, meaning “zoo”. 動物, どうぶつ, dobutsu, means “animal”, while 園, えん, is a kanji that should already be familiar from a previous edition, and amounts to “parkspace”. To me, this has rather lovely implications of animals roaming happily at will through a large and imaginatively-designed habitat – and indeed, the tourists that visit Ueno Zoo do seem quite content with their environs. Not so sure about the exhibit specimens cooped up behind bars though…
博物館: はくぶつかん, hakubutsukan, meaning “museum”. Tokyo has fewer than many other capitals I can think of, but the ones that it does have are well worth a look. Top pick: still the Edo-Tokyo Museum in Ryogoku.
美術館: びじゅつかん, bijutsukan, meaning “art gallery”. According to my travel guide, this is all Tokyo apparently consists of – which makes me wonder whether the guide to Paris by the same firm just has a page of exclamation marks in place of sober description for the Louvre and the other galleries there…
消防署: しょうぼうしょ, shobosho, meaning “fire station”, where 消防, しょうぼう, shobo, is the fire service.
警察署: けいさつしょ, keisatsusho, meaning “police station”, where (similarly) 警察, けいさつ, keisatsu, is the police force itself. Might just be me, but the kanji for ‘police force’ is possibly the most complicated and illegible ones I’ve seen so far!
～の調子が悪いです: ～のちょうしがわるいです, … no choshi ga warui desu, meaning “XYZ is not working”. A phrase I have struggled to remember so often over the last 2 months, usually when my loyal PASMO card occasionally forgets to beep at an entry gate and I then have to persuade the staff at the other end that I haven’t just been free-riding. So far, they’ve always been nice about it – maybe the expression of anguish and mouth opening and closing like a stressed goldfish are what’s doing the trick.
高い: たかい, takai, meaning “expensive”. Can be used to describe pretty much everything in Japan.
安い: やすい, yasui, meaning “cheap”. Included here only for completeness’ sake – it is highly unlikely you will ever need to use this. Pity really – it’s quite a pretty kanji character in my opinion…
厚い: あつい, atsui, meaning “hot”. What the weather has been far too much during my stay.
寒い: さむい, samui, meaning “cold”. What the weather in the UK has been far too much during my stay.
天気: てんき, tenki, meaning “weather”. Oh come on, you know what weather is… it’s what boring people wish interesting people would talk to them about, since they don’t have the wherewithal to engage the interesting people on their own terms.
Now, here are the compass directions.
北: きた, kita, “North”. 東: ひがし, higashi, “East”. 南: みなみ, minami, “South”. 西: にし, nishi, “West”.
And now my wild-card no. 4:
信号: しんごう, shingo, meaning “traffic light”. Very well-made here in my view: not just because of the tinny muzak and X-crossings, but because a lot of them have a ‘decreasing-bar’ timer on them to indicate how much of green or red is left for pedestrians. Oh, and another thing: here in Japan, the 3 lights are horizontal (in either order) – somehow exotic yet more aesthetically pleasing than the Western vertical variety…
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