Norwegian Wood/ノルウェイの森

Rereading Norwegian Wood by Murakami (and on that note, why does WordPress never let me type in Japanese the first time I hit the IME key? I always have to open up another windows, switch between Japanese and English input, and then go back to WordPress and switch again. It makes no sense) 村上- it worked that time…

Anyway, rereading Murakami I remember first picking up the original Japanese, entitled ノルウェイの森, and thinking that the title makes no sense- It’s a reference to the Beatles song. The line the song takes its titles from is

“She showed me her room/isn’t it good?/Norwegian Wood”

It is obviously a reference to the timber decor of the girl’s room, but the word 森 means ‘wood’ in the (less common, I think) British sense, where it is a synonym for forest. Most English dictionaries list the primary definition of wood as ‘the hard fibrous substance under the bark of trees’ with ‘a small thicket of trees’ as the secondary meaning, while wwwjdic’s definition of 木 is “tree; wood; timber” and the word 木材　(which I’d conjecture is far less common, using the possibly flawed logic that I’ve never heard it before therefore it’s used less) means “lumber; timber; wood” closer to the Beatles meaning.

But it goes deeper- I may have mentioned before the characters that make up 木 (wood), 林 (woods) and 森 – which suggest a growing number of trees, culminating in the compound 森林, which means forest. 森　and 林 are both common surnames (like Wood and Forest in English) in fact one of them is the name of a woman in my office. I thought all this, all these possible meanings would have had to gone through 村上春樹’s mind (not forgetting he is quite a famous translator as well, fluent in English) as he chose the title of the novel. But then I was going through the songs I copied off 惠子’s iPod and there was a group of songs by a band called ビトルズ (ie. Beatles spelt out in Japanese), one of which was ノルウェイの森. I knew that it’s kind of wrong, and I thought there must be a better way to translate the title. Setting myself the task to work it out, I realised two things almost instantly:

1. ノルウェイの木 would be horribly incorrect, because the song is not about a tree from Norway, and neither is the book.

2. The song itself would be incredibly hard to translate- song lyrics always are but this one particularly. I’m not saying it can’t be done, I’m saying I can’t do it. Take the opening line, for instance

” I one had a girl, or should I say/She once had me”

How could I possibly translate that? I can’t even work out where the punctuation is meant to go in the English version.

So I’ll just go with what The wikipedia page on the book says, that the title is a reference to the most common Japanese translation of the song title, and that forest settings play a prominent part in the novel. But the original John Lennon song is not referring to a forest.

Oh well, oh well. I feel like listening to Rubber Soul.

 

More 漢字 study

Every now and then while studying I come across something that’s so insanely stupid I will always remember it- like people I’ve talked to who said the only Japanese they could ever remember is the counter for chickens （わ） or Tamara, who despite being vegetarian knows the international sign language symbol for abattoir. These things just seem so useless that you always remember them, mainly because of their uselessness.

I do this with characters in Japanese (by characters I mean letters). You see I tend to isolate seperate parts of characters to remember them individually. So I can remember older sister (姉) is the character for woman/female (女）and the character for city （市） Therefore an older sister lives in the city. Same with 妹　which means younger sister…although I remember that mainly because I remember older sister.

But then 女 pops up in some really weird characters. For instance 安 means cheap, 安全　means safe (there was a great moment in Tokyo when I saw a taxi from a company called 安全タクシー dart across three lanes of traffic and turn left through a red light without indicating. Really living up to its name) 

furthermore 好 means to like, or be fond of (the two characters smooshed together are woman and child) and the one that I just realised today (because I mustn’t have been looking before, or I just saw the characters together for the first time) is 始- which means begin. Its made of 女 and 台、which means very big, and is also the counter for cars and large pieces of machinery.

It makes no sense I know. This country is messing with my mind.

 

More 漢字

I’m spending my morning catching up with online news and trying to write down a few things that came to me during my eight hour transport epic yesterday. These include recipes using Vegemite, a less-flawed, systematic way of learning 漢字, and this quote from Spaced about toasted-cheese sandwiches

Daisy: In the end, our relationship was just like a sandwich toaster. You know, you just forget you’ve got one. And it just sits there on the top of the cupboard collecting a layer of greasy fudge. And even if you do see it you just assume it’s broken, you think if it’s working I’d be using it all the time, but you don’t and it just sits there. Then one day, you get an overwhelming desire for toasted sandwiches, you know? And you get it down and it works, and you can’t believe it, you know? And then you make every kind of toasted sandwich there is, you have toasted sandwich parties. You make Marmite and cheese, chocolate and…
Tim: Pilchards.
Daisy: Banana and…
Bilbo: Acorns.
Daisy: Acorns. And then as quickly as the desire comes, it just goes. And then you put the toaster sandwich maker away. And, you know what?
Tim: What?
Daisy: You don’t miss it.
Bilbo: So what you’re saying is ‘Don’t hide the toasted sandwich maker away, use him regularly and you’ll get the most out of him’.
Tim: No, she’s saying ‘Chuck your boyfriend, have a sandwich’.

(and the Google search keywords I went through to find that! Oh, auto-complete will be full of the most interesting nonsense)

It occured to me that the toasted cheese sandwich maker, which sits in somewhere deep in the cupboard of western-houses (like a more prevalent version of the waffle-iron), with a crusty layer of melted cheese from its last use, months before, doesn’t really exist in Japan- and the alternatives are things like rice cookers (although rice cookers here get used- a lot) and Takoyaki thingies. Cooking impliments with a very specific use. Any recipe I offered for toasted cheese and vegemite sandwiches would have to take into account that a Japanese household does not contain this indispensible, yet rarely used, kitchen tool. Bread here, too, is different (far too thick) and the cheese is not really Cheddary enough, and doesn’t have the fantastic meltiness of Coon, or the sharpness of a good Mt Barker or Watsonia block of Cheddar. Vegemite isn’t too hard to find, but it does present a bit of a challenge for anyone living outside of a big city, although I think there are a few stores in Kochi city that sell it.

So, here’s a recipe for Cheesymite Scrolls instead (ignoring the fact that most Japanese households lack an oven)

2 cups self raising flour
30gr butter, chilled, chopped
3/4 cup milk

preheat oven to 200c. line a large baking tray with baking paper.
sift flour into a large bowl.
add butter. using your fingertips, rub butter into flour until combined. make a well in the centre and add milk. using a flat bladed knife, stir until mixture is almost combined. using your hands kneed out on a floured surface. use a rolling pin to roll out dough and top with cheese and vegemite roll up dough firmly ike a swiss roll. cut into 12 slices and arrange scrolls close together
bake for 18 to 20 minutes

 And the 漢字, I worked this out

子 means ‘Child’, easy enough

学 means ‘learn’, a child with some kind of learning hat on

見　means ’see’

覚　means ‘remember’, seeing and learning!

The trouble is I knew those four already. Aside from remembering that 複雑　is complicated (that’s what it means. Also it is complicated) I need a better way to learn this. I think that better way is by reading lots and lots.

But, if you’re ever in Australia, get yourself a loaf of white bread, a tub of margarine, a jar of vegemite, a 1kg block of any semi-matured or matured cheddar cheese, and a sandwich toaster. Ingredients and impliments are both available from all big supermarkets. Spread the bread thick with the margarine, and put it margarine-side down on the sandwich toaster (to stop it sticking), spread a thin layer of vegemite over the side facing up (the spread should be TRANSLUCENT- not opaque. The bread should be entirely visible) and place half-centimetre slices of cheese over the vegemite. Finally, place another slice of margarine-spread bread on top to complete the sandwich, with the margarine side facing up. Close the sandwich toaster and turn the power on. It might take a little effort to close. Wait five to ten minutes, when you come back the sandwiches should be toasted to a golden colour. Turn the power off and remove the sandwiches using a butter knife, and consume while hot and delicious.

(These sandwiches, eaten cold the morning after a drunken sandwich-making party, are a good remedy for a hangover. Seriously! And almost anything you can think of can be put in them)

 Lastly, I bought a new ten megapixel Olympus camera, with a ridiculous amount of zoom and manual focus. The focus is great, the super macro shots I took of the Cherry Blossoms in Fukuoka look great on my desktop, a 22″ screen, meaning a single blossom takes up about 14 inches! I didn’t buy it from Yodobashi Camera, for two reasons, one is that they didn’t have an affordable digital camera with manual focus, and the second is that I can’t stand the voice of the girl who does the English ‘Welcome to Yodobashi Camera’ recording, especially the way she says ‘Canon’

Although the French one is super-sexy. ‘Bonjour et bienvenue a Yodobashi Camera…’

Fantastic!

Edit: I was in the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum on Thursday, and a cameraman from NHK interviewed me! He said I’d be on TV on Saturday morning, and if there was a report I missed it. I doubt I would’ve made it anyway, when I have a camera pointed at me I tend to forget any language.

So If anyone was watching NHK in Fukuoka on Saturday morning, the bumbling gaijin was me!