So my Japanese roommate and her friend (also Japanese) were browsing through my bookshelf one day, looking at my English language literature, when they stumbled upon an old paperback of Matsuo Basho’s Oku no Hosomichi (Narrow Road). They picked it off the shelf wondering how haiku, something so intimately Japanese, could be translated to English.

After just a few minutes browsing through the pages, my two fluent-in-English friends burst out into laughter. I overheard the uproar in an adjacent room and went over to ask what the fuss was about.. Apparently, the original message was so unbelievably lost in the translation from Japanese to English, they thought it was downright hilarious. They said it was way too modern and conjured up images of Basho wandering the forest with an iPod Nano, mobile phone (with bluetooth headset), and Macbook (which he of course used to write his haiku).

I have decided to take this idea and run with it for haloween. I’m tentatively calling it DJ Basho, and it’s gonna be rad.

More to come.

One of the more unexpected aspects of living in Japan as an American is the presence of political posters for candidates in the Japan Communist Party.

I’m pretty sure most people don’t think of the words “Japanese” and “Communist” together very often, but the surprising fact is that the JCP is Japan’s second largest minority party, with 400,000 members. Because the Parliamentary system in Japan makes it possible for small political parties to win some representation, there are currently 16 national Diet members who are affiliated with the JCP, something that wouldn’t be possible in the U.S. with our two-party system.

The Japan Communist Party isn’t pushing for the kind of Soviet-era ideas Americans usually associate with Communism — the Japanese are far too conservative politically for that — but they do oppose the special military relationship Japan has with the U.S., as well as any cooperation by Japan’s military with foreign wars, even in a support capacity, as going against Japan’s Constitution.

Supposedly a 1929 novel called Kanikousen (Crab-Canning Ship), which portrays the hard life of workers on a ship at sea, is experiencing a boom among younger readers, which is causing conjecture that larger numbers of young people will consider joining the JCP. On the other hand, this could just be the summer’s short-lived “My Boom,” as something that’s popular with an individual for a short time is called.

Check out this surreal story over at Danwei about a Chinese writer who visited North Korea, returned to China, and published a book about what he saw there, only to have the book banned from bookstores and wiped from the Web after the NORKS complained to the CHICOMS.

The first “trouble” it ran into was when a retired Chinese Foreign Ministry official called up the Foreign Ministry to report that The Real DPRK had “problems.” This individual had not read the book and did not go online; he had heard the audio version on Beijing Radio. When the Foreign Ministry received this old cadre’s report, it immediately telephoned Xinhua Lipin Book Co. to request a copy of the book for review. Xinhua Lipin couldn’t ignore this request, so it sent off a copy of The Real DPRK by courier to the Foreign Ministry. The company was quite nervous at the time, but then more than a month passed without the Foreign Ministry making any movements. This indicated that the book had its approval.

The real “trouble” for The Real DPRK began in the first part of July, 2008. The embassy of the DPRK in China sent a letter to the Chinese Foreign Ministry demanding that it halt circulation of The Real DPRK. The Foreign Ministry handed this matter over to GAPP, which issued an order banning the book.

However, “banning a book” is ultimately a process. At first, The Real DPRK was only taken off the shelves of major book stores. On 17 July, the DPRK embassy sent another letter to the Foreign Ministry, under the impression that many places in China were still selling The Real DPRK. So GAPP pressed bookstores across the country to remove book from their shelves.

Slate.com has a nice gallery of Hiroshi Hamaya photographs to accompany a post about his retrospective book (Fifty Years of Photography 1930-1981).

Born in 1915, Hiroshi Hamaya began his career studying aerial photography and started his Yukiguni (Snow Land) series, which focused on farming practices and daily life in the remote mountains of Niigata prefecture, in 1940, then followed it with his Ura Nihon (Japan’s Back Coast) series in 1954. His work was included in Edward Steichen’s 1955 “Family of Man” exhibition at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, and Hamaya later became the first Japanese photographer to work for Magnum, in 1960. After covering the demonstration against the U.S.–Japan Security Treaty, he returned to aerial and landscape photography, personally adopting an anti-government stance.

When Westerners first began to visit Japan in the mid-1500s they were struck by the refined beauty and quality of the country’s arts and crafts. It was a kind of beauty and quality that they had never seen before.

This special quality of Japanese things was so commonplace that the Japanese themselves did not consider it unusual. Everything they made, including simple household utensils, had the same quality.

Japan’s traditional arts and crafts owed their special character to a merging of cosmic and Shinto concepts of harmony, sensuality and spirituality — ­a cultural factor that remains very much in evidence and in force among Japanese artists and craftsmen in present-day Japan.

The Shinto concept of harmony included the size and shape of things, how they were to be used, and their relationship with people. The spiritual element in Japanese things incorporated the essence and spirit of the materials used, and was based on both respecting and revering these inherent qualities.

The sensual element in Japanese arts and crafts was reflected by the things that people automatically find attractive ­harmony in shape, in size, in the relationship of the parts, in the interaction of colors, in their feel when touched, and in the vibrations they project.

After generations of refining their designs and techniques, Japan’s master artists and craftsmen achieved a kind and quality of beauty that transcended the obvious surface manifestations of their materials ­a kind of beauty that was described as yugen , meaning “mystery” or “subtlety.”

Quoting from my book The Elements of Japanese Design:

Yugen beauty referred to a type of attractiveness ­ beneath the surface of the material but in delicate harmony with it ­ that registers on the conscious as well as the subconscious of the viewer. It radiates a kind of spiritual essence.

The skill and techniques that were going into Japan’s arts and crafts by the 10th century became so deeply embedded in the culture that they were not distinguished from daily life, and were reflected in everything the Japanese did, from designing and building castles, gardens, homes and palaces to the creation of hand-made paper.

Despite the mostly Western façade that today’s Japan presents to the world yugen beauty is still very much in evidence in the arts and crafts, in traditional restaurants, inns, shops, wearing apparel and elsewhere in many unexpected places.

Yugen is another Japanese word I recommend that other people learn and use because it clearly identifies a concept that in other languages requires several sentences to explain­and in itself is an example of the traditional Japanese propensity to refine things down to their essence.

This compulsive reduction tendency of the Japanese is also dramatically demonstrated in their ability to design and manufacture miniaturized hi-tech products and in using nanotechnology to create new processes and new materials.

For a definitive look at the Japanese view and creation of yugen beauty, see Elements of Japanese Design - Key Terms for Understanding & Using Japan’s Classic Wabi-Sabi-Shibui Concepts.

One of the funniest men on the planet, David Sedaris, has a new book out: When You’re Engulfed in Flames.  I saw him interviewed by Jon Stewart (another one of the funniest men on the planet) last night on The Daily Show.  In the interview, he discusses the new book in which he moves to Hiroshima to stop smoking.  I don’t know much about this book, but judging by his past books, it’s sure to be hilarious and at least part of the book takes place in Japan.

Diane Rehm interviewed (audio) Martha Sherrill the author of Dog Man: An Uncommon Life on a Faraway Mountain.  Sherrill spent some time in Japan and found out about the story of the Akita, its near extinction, and its preservation by Morie Sawataishi around WWII.  If you’re a dog lover, you’re sure to enjoy the interview and the book.

 Here’s the Publishers Weekly review via Amazon.com:

Morie Sawataishi had never owned a dog, but in 1944, when the Japanese man was 30 years old, the desire for one came over him like a sudden… craving. During WWII, snow country dogs were being slaughtered for pelts to line officers’ coats; working for Mitsubishi in the remote snow country, Morie decided to rescue Japan’s noble, ancient Akita breed—whose numbers had already dwindled before the war—from certain extinction. Raised in an elegant Tokyo neighborhood, his long-suffering wife, Kitako, hated country life, and his children resented the affection he lavished on his dogs rather than on them. The book brims with colorful characters, both human and canine: sweet-tempered redhead Three Good Lucks, who may have been poisoned to death by a rival dog owner; high-spirited One Hundred Tigers, who lost his tail in an accident; and wild mountain man Uesugi. To Western readers Morie’s single-mindedness may seem selfish and Kitako’s passivity in the face of his stubbornness incomprehensible, but former Washington Post staffer Sherrill imbues their traditional Japanese lifestyle with dignity, and Morie’s adventures (he is now 94) should be enjoyed by dog lovers, breeders and trainers.

I often have conversations with a slightly older generation of people in Japan about how cultural values have changed, and how youth no longer respect their elders. An izakaya owner put it to me like this: “They are now more individual, but they do not have the respect for tradition that we did.” It’s a lament you hear constantly.

It was interesting, therefore, to read Haruki Murakami’s thoughts on the subject in a somewhat rare interview published in the Japan Times, which I’d encourage all of you interested in contemporary Japan to read. Some salient quotes:

Murakami, 59, is a baby boomer who is deeply interested in the problems of his generation. “Our generation tended to pick the best of everything by upholding idealism while engaged in a revolutionary struggle without believing in a revolution.”

But once members of this generation graduated from school, many became company employees. “This time, they became corporate soldiers, developed the economy, created a bubble and called it quits by bursting it. The baby-boom generation was at its core. So, I think someone has to take responsibility.”

I found this notion that Murakami’s generation was engaged in revolution–without actually believing in revolution–fascinating, as though there really is a half-way commitment to change. Certainly Japundit has fostered numerous conversations over the years about how slowly change takes place, and how uncommitted people are to seeing it through.

The collapse of the bubble economy in the first half of the 1990s coincided with the collapse of the Cold War structure. Everybody thought peace was at hand, but what came was a chaotic world.

“Especially after Sept. 11 (2001), we live in a world in which nobody knows what will happen next. My novels are about stories in which nobody knows what will happen next. That may be the reason readers have an affinity for my novels.”

The Japanese also harbored the illusion that if they worked hard, they would become rich and happy, but that has been totally crushed. “So, they were forced to face the facts about what they are. But that is very uncomfortable.”

On a somewhat related note, I was curious to see very few Louis Vuitton handbags in Japan this time around. Even a few years ago, the outrageously expensive (and to my eye, bland) Hermes tote bag seemed to be everywhere. I have no real way of proving what I saw–aside from a bunch of photos of people in trains not carrying designer gear. Perhaps there is a change of sorts, more in attitude than anything else, about wealth and the future and relating to the world at large. Others disagree, and perhaps are completely correct.

What do all of you out there think: is the baby boomer generation, as Murakami suggests, not committed to change? And on a shallow note, do you see fewer brand items circulating around?

Do you know the story of the “homeless junior high school student”?

When Hiroshi Tamura was was just ten, his mother died of an illness, which was a terrible shock to his family. A bigger surprise was in store five years later, however, when Hiroshi and his older brother and sister arrived home to find their house repossessed.

Their father appeared soon after, explaining the situation: the family was penniless and had lost everything. “So we’ll all go our separate ways now. Family, dismissed!”

Determined not to drop out of school, he moved to a nearby park where he lived, sleeping on a sliding board for several months, eating rice when he could get it and cardboard boxes when he couldn’t and washing himself with rain water. Through hard work, he was eventually able to graduate from high school, and now he’s part of a successful Japanese comedian duo called Kirin.

When he mentioned his sad experiences on the air once, an editor saw it and suggested he write a book about it. Homuresu Chugakusei became a huge hit, selling more than 2 million copies in Japan and spawning a movie deal.

The story of a young person who’s able to be thankful for something that we all take for granted — the availability of hot water — really struck a chord with modern Japanese readers.

Japundit reader Mark Robinson has written in to let us know about his new book, titled Izakaya: The Japanese Pub Cookbook a food culture and cookbook that gets behind the counters and into the kitchens of Japan’s izakaya.

Here’s what they say about it on Amazon.

Product Description
Japanese pubs, called izakaya, are attracting growing attention in Japan and overseas. As a matter of fact, a recent article in The New York Times claimed that the izakaya is starting to shove the sushi bar off its pedestal. While Japan has many guidebooks and cookbooks, this is the first publication in English to delve into every aspect of a unique and vital cornerstone of Japanese food culture.

A venue for socializing and an increasingly innovative culinary influence, the izakaya serves mouth-watering and inexpensive small-plate cooking, along with free-flowing drinks. Readers of this essential book will be guided through the different styles of establishments and recipes that make izakaya such relaxing and appealing destinations. At the same time, they will learn to cook many delicious standards and specialties, and discover how to design a meal as the evening progresses.

Eight Tokyo pubs are introduced, ranging from those that serve the traditional Japanese comfort foods such as yakitori (barbequed chicken), to those offering highly innovative creations. Some of them have long histories; some are more recent players on the scene. All are quite familiar to the author, who has chosen them for the variety they represent: from the most venerated downtown pub to the new-style standing bar with French-influenced menu. Mark Robinson includes knowledgeable text on the social and cultural etiquette of visiting izakaya, so the book can used as a guide to entering the potentially daunting world of the pub. Besides the 60 detailed recipes, he also offers descriptions of Japanese ingredients and spices, a guide to the wide varieties of sake and other alcoholic drinks that are served, how-to advice on menu ordering, and much more.

For the home chef, the hungry gourmet, the food professional, this is more than a cookbook. It is a unique peek at an important and exciting dining and cultural phenomenon.

About the Author
Mark Robinson is an editor and journalist based in Tokyo and has contributed articles on the arts, food, and lifestyle to publications such as Nest (US), the Financial Times, The Times (UK), the Australian Financial Review Magazine and others. For Japanese national broadcaster NHK he has produced radio programs on Japanese culture, and was the deputy editor of Tokyo Journal magazine and editor of culinary magazine Eat. Photographer Masashi Kuma was nominated for a James Beard Award for Photography for his work in the Kodansha book, Kaiseki, published in 2006. His work also appears regularly in a number of periodicals, including Voce and GQ.

We’ve just received word that famed JAPUNDIT contributor Marie Mockett has accepted an offer from Graywolf Press to publish her first novel, Picking Bones from Ash, which is scheduled to start hitting bookstores in 2009.

Marie tells us:

I’m so excited to have a home with Graywolf. They are considered a “small big press” and a “large small press” which is the kind of imprecise categorization with which I’m comfortable. This past year, they published Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson, which the New York Times named one of the top ten novels of 2007. Other authors you may have heard of are Charles Baxter, Percival Everett, Benjamin Percy. It’s a great time for me to be part of this particular house, when they are so visible and receiving so much attention. Also, because of the size of the house, I will have (and already feel) tremendous enthusiasm and support for my book, which is enormously important for a first novel. I don’t feel that I am competing with other novelists, or that marketing will suddenly drop my project in favor of someone younger and hotter . . . Graywolf distributes through FSG (Farrar Straus and Giroux) which means that my book will be in all the big stores–chains and all–and that you should be able to find it wherever you are. It’s an interesting partnership–Graywolf and FSG–two little elite companies working together.

What else. Graywolf will seek a UK publisher for me, which means you in the UK might also be able to find the book. We’ll see what else materializes.

I know from what Marie has told me that she has been working extremely hard on this book, first to get it written and then to get it published, and I am sure that she is very pleased to have the “business” part of the writing business behind her.

Please join me in congratulating Marie and wishing her the best of success with her new publisher.

A blogger has won Japan’s top literary award, the Akutagawa Prize. Her name is Mieko Kawakami and she started her blog to try to promote her music, but soon found herself writing about more personal matters. She wrote her first novel entirely online; her third book won the prize.

But here is the interesting part; the article referenced above notes that there are more blogs in Japanese than in any other language. Further:

Kawakami is unusual in the extent of her success. But Steve Weber, an American who has written about marketing books online, said Japanese writers are far ahead of Americans in making their work available on the Internet. Many have had successful books published after producing novels intended to be read on mobile phones, for example.

In the U.S., publishers are just starting to understand the market power that writers with hit blogs can wield, Weber said.

“Popular bloggers are definitely being targeted by smart publishers because the publishers realize that the authors have already done the hard work of book marketing,” he said in an e-mail from Falls Church, Va. “They’ve attracted the audience.”

I fell in love with the Internet as soon as I found it. It never occurred to me that it would take so long for it to catch on with traditional industries. I’m glad to see that there is more room for bloggers and that older media outlets are starting to understand the benefits of the online world. And I think it’s cool that there is a kind of example in Japan to follow.

Friday, March 7th, Ellis Avery read an excerpt from her lovely novel, The Teahouse Fire, at Asia Society.

We then had a good discussion about her work and her work habits and this was in turn followed by a tea ceremony performed by Noriko-san of Cha’an.

Two lucky winners from the audience were selected to drink the tea. Despite the poor weather, we had a very nice turnout to enjoy the gorgeous space on the 8th floor of the Asia Society.

I asked Ellis how she had managed to capture Japan in such a 3-dimensional way, and I found her answer really compelling. Essentially, she told me that she had learned Japan “through her body.” She talked about the mosquitoes in the summer, about the long walk to the bathroom, the discomfort with sitting on the floor, the process of learning just the correct way to place and hold everything in the tea ceremony. All this had given her a visceral and physical sensation of the culture.

It seems like such an obvious answer–but I’ve actually never heard anyone say this. Most writers when speaking of craft emphasize the process as it happens in the mind. You must research a place, you must visualize characters, you may draw out a dramatic arc within your story. But of course it makes sense that the body is another instrument you can use for anything you create. The stereotype of the writer is a of a person sitting in a corner, observing. It’s helpful to feel too if you want to impart an impression of a place. Ellis has a background in the performing arts (check out her posture) and perhaps this came into play in her work.

At any rate, I had a lovely time that evening and was reminded again of just how much I enjoyed The Teahouse Fire. I hope you check out her book, if you have not already.

A while back we got mail from the University of California Press telling us that they have recently published by a book that might be worth reading. It is by now Japan resident Charles Jenkins, and it is titled The Reluctant Communist: My Desertion, Court-Martial, and Forty-Year Imprisonment in North Korea.

Charles Robert Jenkins is a former United States Army soldier who lived in North Korea from 1965 to 2004. He now lives in Japan. Jim Frederick was _Time_ magazine’s Tokyo bureau chief from 2002 to 2006 and is now a Time senior editor stationed in London.

“Jenkins’s straightforward presentation . . . conveys effectively both the hardships that he and other foreigners endured and the understanding and personal ties that he established. Readers have few opportunities to hear firsthand about life inside North Korea; those who follow current events will be intrigued by this story.”- Library Journal

In January of 1965, twenty-four-year-old U.S. Army sergeant Charles Robert Jenkins abandoned his post in South Korea, walked across the DMZ, and surrendered to communist North Korean soldiers standing sentry along the world’s most heavily militarized border. He believed his action would get him back to the States and a short jail sentence. Instead he found himself in another sort of prison, where for forty years he suffered under one of the most brutal and repressive regimes the world has known. This fast-paced, harrowing tale, told plainly and simply by Jenkins (with journalist Jim Frederick), takes the reader behind the North Korean curtain and reveals the inner workings of its isolated society while offering a powerful testament to the human spirit.

Full information about the book, including the table of contents, is available online.

At the end of his book, “Princess Masako,” Ben Hills ominously declared that there would be no happy ending for Princess Masako, her husband the Crown Prince and their daughter, Princess Aiko. The strangled, cloistered world in which they all lived would never change. In “The Commoner,” John Burnham Schwartz’s fictionalized account of the life of Empress Michiko, the doom and gloom is resolved when one Crown Princess and her Imperial daughter escape via a jet plane to the land where all people are free and happy. That would be New York. There are no Amber Alerts issued and the US government doesn’t vow to help its Japanese counterpart uncover the missing royals. Apparently, none of the thousands of Japanese expats living in America recognize the Princess either. They just fly off like “two cranes.”

Seriously.

I would feel bad about spoiling the ending for you, except that it is honestly so ridiculous, so tacked on and so obviously the kind of plotting intended to appease baby-adopting westerners who fret over the subjugation of women in Asia, that, well, I simply don’t feel bad at all. In this novel, Schwartz just fulfills our fantasies about the exotic and oppressive East. This is to say: we like Asia to be beautiful, and we like to lament how cruel it is to the independent spirit. Beyond that, we don’t care, thank you very much, about who these people are. And if we believed they had any independent spark, which we don’t, we wouldn’t want to read about that anyway, because, well, apprehending that would require effort.

And the novel is beautiful. It’s a wonderful chance to borrow from Japanese aesthetics to make everything beautiful. A burn victim “wore his painful strangeness, like his unseasonable coat and his skin lost to fire, as a flag not of suffering but of distinction.” Get it? He’s deep and he’s beautiful in that wabi sabi way, even though he’s a burn victim. Oh, he becomes a painter too. After a firebombing “the wind continued to blow, scattering perfectly formed corpses of ash, mothers and babies alike, into unrecognizable shapes, and finally into dust.” Be still my impermanent Buddhist heart.

But there must be some kind of plot, right? Beyond all the prettiness? Here, then, is the big question the novel asks. Why does Haruko, the novel’s stand-in for Empress Michiko, marry the Crown Prince of Japan, and how does she survive? What kind of a person can go through this kind of emotional journey?

Schwartz doesn’t know. You can tell. He knows his aesthetics and he bombards us with those, but try reading this novel for a truly three-dimensional understanding of human behavior, a true insight into Japan and you won’t find it. Case in point. At the start of novel, we are told: “On these matters, as on so many others of terrible important, I held no opinion that I can recall, and, of course, no one ever asked me to speak my mind.” Really? Was there no gossip at home? Did her father not express his opinions? How does this person of no opinion square with the girl who decides to keep beating the Crown Prince at tennis, even when she is told not to? It’s an inconsistent portrait.

For those interested in finding the real Japan of old here is a site dedicated entirely promoting. . .

a wider understanding and appreciation of The Tale of Genji - the 11th Century Japanese classic written by a Heian court lady known as Murasaki Shikibu. It also serves as a kind of travel guide to the world of Genji.

around the age of 20 i was first introduced to the books of haruki murakami with the acclaimed novel, kafka on the shore. It hooked me instantly drawing me into a world of believable fantasy characters, haunting and nostalgic scenery, and plots that stretched the boundaries of absurd all while allowing the maintenance of my suspension of disbelief. i felt a feeling that i suppose was somewhat similar to the dreamreader in the library. his books were like reading the extant remains of someone’s consciousness. i was immediately drawn to this style of writing and like millions in japan and around the world was soon stuffing my nose into any tome that i could find written by the author.

but lately it seems his literature has reached an impasse. while i enjoy his older work and most of his short stories i am detecting a steady decline in the quality of his work as of late. i first began sensing something was awry when i read the last book released before kafka on the shore, sputnik sweetheart. it seemed all to be building to something, the trip to greece, the portal at the summit, all to end the same way it all began. at first i thought it was a writing device of some sort, murakami was just trying to convey the frustration and psychological trama of being in a situation of utter confusion in a book about missing halves and ultimately unknowable people involved in relationships.

then came blind willow sleeping women, murakami’s first collection of short stories that i had to force myself to read through to finish. it felt like reading an “f” project in a high school creative writing class. sure there were good points; dapchick was funny, and tony takitani was fantastic literature, but the rest was a struggle to read. finally, there was the titanic piece of crap known as after dark. was there seriously supposed to be a plot to this. i felt like one of those security guards in the movies that have fallen asleep watching the disjointed cameras as they look over nothing.

anyone agree? disagree? it might just be a rant but i’d thought someone might have an opinion

Readers of Japundit will remember my rapturous review of Ellis Avery’s delightful novel, The Teahouse Fire.

Avery is also an artist and bestows upon us a beautiful world of embroidered silks, glazes, good posture, grammar lessons and even a socially uppity geisha or two. There’s plenty here for lovers of Japanese aesthetics to feast upon.

Nearly a year after the hardback was published, the paperback is due to come out. Numerous online retailers and your local independent bookstore for a copy. You might even consider it as a stocking stuffer for the Japanophile in your life.

Richard Chmura (no relation, I think, and creater of GoStats) writes in to point us to an interesting article in The Mirror about Toujours Tingo, “a new book which draws on more than 300 languages exploring the areas where English fails us.”

Kaelling - Danish: a woman who stands on her doorstep yelling obscenities at her kids.

Pesamenteiro - Portuguese: one who joins groups of mourners at the home of a dead person, apparently to offer condolences but in reality is just there for the refreshments.

Okuri-OKAMI - Japanese: literally a “see-you-home-wolf”. A man who feigns thoughtfulness by offering to see a girl home only to try to molest her once he gets in the door.

Jayus - Indonesian: someone who tells a joke so unfunny you can’t help laughing.

Spesenritter - German: a person who shows off by paying the bill on the firm’s money, literally “an expense knight”.

Kamaki - Greek: the young local guys strolling up and down beaches hunting for female tourists, literally “harpoons”.

Kanjus Makkhicus - Hindi: a person so miserly that if a fly falls into his cup of tea, he’ll fish it out and suck it dry before throwing it away.

Giri-GIRI - Hawaiian pidgin: the place where two or three hairs stick up, no matter what.

Pelinti - Buli, Ghana: to move very hot food around inside one’s mouth.

Dii-KOYNA - Ndebele, South Africa: to destroy one’s property in anger.

Hanyauku - Rukwangali, Namibia: walking on tiptoes across warm sand.

Tartle - Scottish: to hesitate when you are introducing someone whose name you can’t quite remember.

Vovohe Tahtsenaotse - Cheyenne, US: to prepare the mouth before speaking by moving or licking one’s lips.

Prozvonit - Czech and Slovak: to call someone’s mobile from your own to leave your number in their memory without them picking it up.

Hira Hira - Japanese: the feeling you get when you walk into a dark and decrepit old house in the middle of the night.

Koi No Yokan - Japanese: a sense on first meeting someone that it is going to evolve into love.

Cafune - Brazilian Portuguese: the tender running of one’s fingers through the hair of one’s mate.

Shnourkovat Sya - Russian: when drivers change lanes frequently and unreasonably.

Gadrii Nombor Shulen Jongu - Tibetan: giving an answer that is unrelated to the question, literally “to give a green answer to a blue question”.

Biritululo - Kiriwani, Papua New Guinea: comparing yams to settle a dispute.

Poronkusema - Finnish: the distance equal to how far a reindeer can travel without a comfort break.

Gamadj - Obibway, North America: dancing with a scalp in one’s hands, in order to receive presents.

Baling - Manobo, Philippines: the action of a woman who, when she wants to marry a man, goes to his house and refuses to leave until marriage is agreed upon.

Dona - Yamana, Chile: to take lice from a person’s head and squash between one’s teeth.

Oka/SHETE - Ndonga, Nigeria: urination difficulties caused by eating frogs before the rain has duly fallen.

Pisan Zapra - Malay: the time needed to eat a banana.

Physiggoomai - Ancient Greek: excited by eating garlic.

Baffona - Italian: an attractive moustachioed woman.

Layogenic - Tagalog, Philippines: a person who is only goodlooking from a distance.

Rhwe - South Africa: to sleep on the floor without a mat while drunk and naked.

Shvitzer - Yiddish: someone who sweats a lot, especially a nervous seducer.

Gattara - Italian: a woman, often old and lonely, who devotes herself to stray cats.

Creerse La Ultima Coca-COLA EN EL DESIERTO - Central American Spanish: to have a very high opinion of oneself, literally to “think one is the last Coca-Cola in the desert”.

Vrane Su Mu Popile Mozak - Croatian: crazy, literally “cows have drunk his brain”.

Du Kannst Mir Gern Den Buckel Runterrutschen Und Mit Der Zunge Bremsen - Austrian German: abusive insult, literally “you can slide down my hunchback using your tongue as a brake”.

Tener Una Cara De Telefono Ocupado - Puerto Rican Spanish: to be angry, literally “to have a face like a busy telephone”.

Bablat - Hebrew: baloney, but is an acronym of “beelbool beytseem le-lo takhleet” which means “bothering someone’s testicles for no reason”.

Vai A Fava - Portuguese: get lost, literally “go to the fava bean”.

Rombhoru - Bengali: a woman having thighs as shapely as banana trees.

Tako-NYODU - Japanese: a baldy, literally an “octopus monk”.

Snyavshi Shtany, PO VOLOSAM NE GLADYAT - Russian: once you’ve taken off your pants it’s too late to look at your hair.

Mariteddu Tamant’e Un Ditu Ieddu Voli Essa Rivaritu - Corsican: a husband must be respected even if he is very short.

Bayram Degil (SEYRAN DEGIL ENISTE BENI NIYE OPTU? - Turkish: there must be something behind this. Literally “it’s not festival time, it’s not a pleasure trip, so why did my brother-in-law kiss me”?

And now for something completely different (as they say)…

Hitotoki: a narrative map of Tokyo.