Month: January 2013

Japanese is rather difficult to learn for people who speak a Western language. Part of the difficulty lies in its three distinct scripts for writing (actually it’s four if you include romaji, the Latin alphabet, which is also used):

Hiragana
Katakana
Kanji

All of these three, which I will talk about the next few weekends, are freely mixed together in sentences, and although there are some rules when to use which scipt, those can be bent to express slight nuances. While you shouldn’t expect to be able to read everything you may encounter without extensive study, knowing how to decipher some word here and there may come handy. Let’s start with the the script that is – at least in my opinion – easiest to learn:

Hiragana

Hiragana is one of the two Kana scripts used in Japan. It consists of 46 basic characters, 40 of them are syllables (always consonant + vowel), 5 of them are the single vowels A, E, I, O, U (pronounced like in Latin or Spanish, btw), and there is a single symbol for the consonant N. Here is a list of them (empty squares mean they are no longer in use):

Additionally, some diacritic marks are used to add some more consonants:

and then there are syllables for kya, dyo, … etc. (note that the second part is written slightly smaller)

and doubling of consonants are indicated by adding a slightly smaller tsu before the consonant (exception: N, where you simply add the symbol for N).

That does not appear that difficult after all, does it? So, when is Hiragana used?
Hiragana characters are mainly used for:

• any Japanese words for which there are no Kanji or where the Kanji are obscure (Japanese could be completely written in Hiragana, and in fact, all children’s books are)
• grammatical elements like verb and adjective inflections (called okurigana), particles, and suffixes.
• so called furigana, indicating the pronunciation of Kanji, mostly seen in books for children as sub- or superscripts to the Kanji they describe (or in parentheses behind them)

Hiragana have developed from Kanji, and were long considered “women’s writing” when women were not allowed to study the Chinese Kanji. Many works of early Japanese literature have been written in Hiragana, for example the famous “Tale of Genji” by Murasaki Shikibu, or “The Tosa Diary” by Ki No Tsurayuki (a man who pretends to a woman writing the diary). Even today, Hiragana are used instead of Kanji when a non-formal way of writing is desired, or when trying to convey a more warm feeling.

One of the most useful things to know before going to Japan is how to eat with chopsticks. Unlike in China or Korea, where you at least get a spoon for sour or rice, it’s chopsticks only in Japan. (Unless you wish to exclusively eat at the Mos Burger, of course.) Hence, to assure survival, you’ll need at least to know the basics of handling chopsticks, which are:

1. Take the first chopstick in your hand. It should lie on top of the fingernail of your ring finger. Resist the urge of pressing the tip of the middle finger against the wood!
2. Take the second chopstick like a pen in your first three fingers. You should be able to move it relatively freely.
3. Although you have a pair of chopsticks, only the upper one moves, essentially up-and-down towards the lower one.

Tips for beginners:
Relaxing your hand and fingers makes using chopsticks more easy. Or so I’ve heard…
Don’t use your chopsticks as pointing devices or skewers.
Never stick them into the rice in an upright position – this is how offering to the dead are made.

There are plenty of other rules on using chopsticks – as for everything else in Japan – I may write about those later. You’ll need a lot of practice until you can eat with them, don’t get disheartened. Even Asians can have a hard time eating slippery or soft food like tofu drowned in sauce!

Good luck!

Before moving to another country, a bit of fact finding is in order. As I like numbers, here are some statistics:

Japan (日本) –  Nihon or Nippon in Japanese – is an archipelago consisting of 6852 islands located between 20° – 43° N and 122° – 153 ° E, comprising a total area of 377.915 sqare km. The four main islands are (from North to South) Hokkaido, Honshu, Shikoku, and Kyushu. The climate is mostly temperate, but obviously there is large variation between the humid continental of the North and the subtropical of the southern islands. The temperatures average between 5.1 °C (winter) and 25.2 °C (summer), the highest ever recorded lay at 40.7 °C. Japan has a rainy season from May (South) to July (North), and there are numerous typhoons in the autumn.

Japan has more than 127.000.000 inhabitants, which makes it the 10th most populated country in the world. About 13.000.000 Japanese live in the capital city Tokyo (東京),  and counting the larger Tokyo Metropolitan Area, it’s more than 35.000.000, giving the area a densitiy of about 2600 people per square km. However, this is going to change, as the population growth is negative at -0.077%, with a birth rate of only 8.39 per 1000 population (217th in the world), and a death rate of 9.15 per 1000.

The country has been inhabited since the paleolithic, about 30.000 BCE. The feudal era is problably the best known outside of Japan, starting with the emergence of the samurai class about 1200 CE, and ending with the Meiji restoration in 1868. Today, Japan is technically a constitutional monarchy, but the emperor (currently: Akihito) has very little actual power.

Both China and Korea have had a great influence on Japan’s culture, but many of those cultural imports have received a quite specific Japanese twist – just think of Zen Buddhism. Once again, the feudal era gave rise to many of the pastimes and arts so admired abroad, like the tea ceremony, ikebana, and martial arts; but also wooden dolls, painted kimonos, and the whole entertainment culture of the Geisha.

Japan is the third largest economy in the world, and hence, one of the G8 states; and that despite the fact that it has very little natural resources and is the 4th largest importer of crude oil. Most of its electricity (63%) is generated using fossil fuels, and also nuclear power goes strong here (17%). The gross domestic product per capita is 34,700 US$, currently shrinking at -0.8%.

Its work force comprises about 66.000.000 people, the majority of 70% working in the services sector, and only 3.8% in agriculture – that’s even less than the unemployment rate of 4.6%. Anyway, industries abound in Japan, especially for highly advanced products like cars and electronics, but also chemical substances and processed foods. Clearly this goes along with (fundamental) scientific research – there are about 700.000 researchers with a total budget of 130 billion US$, the third largest in the world.

There are 1.200.000 km of paved road in Japan, but still, driving makes up for only about 50% of the distance traveled. Another major means of transport is the railway, with 27.182 kilometers of rail in total, and 250 shinkansen bullet trains connecting the major cities. There are several regional companies all over Japan and dozens of small railway companies around the major cities. Only 9 cities have a metro system, but there are buses available everywhere. There are 173 airports in Japan, with the second busiest in all Asia being Tokyo-Haneda, and the largest Tokyo-Narita. Finally, lots of ferries connect the islands – especially the smaller ones – on 1770 kilometers of waterways, with the largest port in Nagoya.