This is something I have wanted to post about for a while and George’s article on learning Japanese prompted me to write.
About 15 years ago when I was living in Japan and training with the local university kendo team, we were round at one of the members’ apartments, watching footage of a recent uni taikai. Watching video footage of kendo was for me at that time, still something of a novelty, and it was great to be able to pause and frame-by-frame through some of the interesting points (even if doing that on VHS was much rougher than we’re used to today).
So there was lots of chat and noise and laughter; drinking and eating, and I had kind of given up trying to keep up with any of what was being said. However there was one word that several of the seniors kept saying whenever they saw a nice point scored: “oishiiii!”
Well my Japanese has always been strictly survival level: words to indicate hunger, sleepiness, a desire to buy or an apology for bumbling. So “oishii” was in my vocab. I thought, “Cool, I’ve learned some uni-kendo slang for a nice, literally “tasty” waza.” Typical gaijin, I was ready to go home and spread this bit of half-baked knowledge around as proof of having “been there”.
Luckily I was inebriated just enough to chime in the next time a cool waza was scored. “Oishii!!” It sounded like what everyone else was saying… But then one of the first years leaned over and ever-so-politely corrected me: “Oishi janai, hoshi“ （欲しい）He explained to me in faltering English “Ai wanto“. I nodded, only half understanding what it meant in that context, but clearly understanding that I had grabbed the complete wrong end of the stick with that one…
Actually, as time went by I came to understand 欲しい in that context very clearly, and to admire a little more the guys and girls in the room that day. They weren’t just saying, “That guy’s technique is awesome.” They were actively saying, “That guy’s technique is awesome, and I want it for myself.” This is a kind of thinking reserved for people like them (and us), who are actively engaged in the art. It also takes some humility I think, because by implication you’re admitting that in this area your kendo is lacking. Not just the (sometimes) false modesty of “oh, I’m not very good”, but actually taking ownership of your weaknesses by saying ”I’m not very good, and this guy is better.” It also directly comes from being instilled with 百連自得, both in theory and practice. It has taken a couple of decades for me to get it, but finally I understand that this is the only way to improve.
On the other hand, armchair warriors would never say “欲しい！” They just say “凄い (sugoi)!” and imagine that they could do the same… b
PS – Of course it’s quite possible that I’ve grabbed the other wrong end of the stick with this interpretation as well. I don’t have enough Japanese to know whether “I want” in this context is meant to be synonymous with “I like”. It might well be, and I have gone and created a whole meaning-universe around another half-baked interpretation!
I’v had an almost similar experience… except I didn’t repeat the word. For a long time I thought I was being told that my men-uchi was “tasty” …. which I thought meant “pretty good…..”
Of course, うまい can mean both “tasty” and “skilful” (美味い and 上手い).
A similar-sounding word I hear a lot is oshii (惜しい) – literally “regrettable,” it can be used to mean “almost,” or “if only I’d done it a bit better…” Perfect for when you narrowly lose a shiai!
Thanks for sharing Ben.
Ugh.. this brings me back again to cheering on others in a foreign language. I remember attended a taikai in California and a lady instructor was cheering on her friend by yelling “oishii yo” in forced Japanese. Obviously she didn’t know what she was saying because what she was saying was completely wrong, but neither could her friend. Why? Why? Why? I just can’t understand it. What’s the point?
Damn, what I usually hear from my sensei regarding my men is さぶい.
As for the cheering in a language neither person understands, I don’t get that either. I guess it seems exotic and cool, but of course they just end up sounding like idiots.
Learning Japanese is great – but some people seem to want to skip the ‘learning’ step. Even people who work hard at kendo…
Naming no names, I’ve met quite a few people who learn about three words of Japanese and suddenly think they’re fluent. It’s just embarrassing for all concerned. Anyone shouting “faito” and so on at a shiai outside Japan just sounds ridiculous.
(Does anyone remember the hilarious 秘書/必勝 debate on KWF?)
By the way, my men usually gets an incredulous 「何だそれ？」 from my sensei…
The problem I find is when I was learning a new language, and living in the country of origin, I tended to generalise from specifics all the time. In a sense I had to, this was how I was learning. But it also meant that I missed the grey areas. “This guy said this to me and it meant this so that’s what it means”, rather than, “this guy said this to me but it was in this context so I know it means this only sometimes, but I don’t know what it means other times”. Or murkier still, “this guy is very dry so when he says this, he really means this, which is different to when that guy says the same thing”.
For instance when one sensei says your approach to kendo is very “majime”, he means that he admires your serious commitment. Another sensei might say “majime” and mean that he thinks you’re a bit uptight. The latter could be said of a lot of gaijin who land Fresh of the Boat in Japan ready to learn ‘the real kendo’.
One of the things I really miss not having great Japanese skill is to be able to, from all the other subtleties of tone and idiom my interlocutor is using, understand the difference between the former and the latter.
Do the Japanese ever wink to communicate the fact that there is another meaning at work? I’ve never seen it happen and can’t imagine it.
b
Winking is generally considered flirting, so no, they generally don’t wink in those situations.
I have to agree for the most part. It helps if you know what some terms mean. Hiki men (or any other hiki technique) for instance is always explained as going backwards. I always wondered why that was because back is “ushiro” or “ato”. (correct me if I’m wrong). But hiki means “pull” so you pull away your strike. This makes more sense in learning the technique properly. The Zen Ken Ren dictionary can be a great help in cases like this.
@Fonsz
While they are written with the same character, “ushiro” refers to “rear, back, behind”, while “ato” refers to time: “later, afterwards”.
Hiki (hiku) is indeed a transitive verb meaning “pull”, but it’s also an intransitive verb meaning to “move backwards, retreat, pull back”. So “hiki-men” is not really pulling away your strike, but rather a men while retreating.
I stand corrected. Thanks Josh. A wrong explanation nipped in the bud. Goes to show that it’s always hard to get the drift of the intricacies of any language.