The universe next door


23rd August 2009



From Ingram my American neighbour, I learned that the bathroom really is a dangerous place.

In Kyoto to research the Japanese legal system, he once went to a public bath. He knew the ritual involved – shower before you get into the bath – but he wasn’t expecting what would happen with the two old men in it.

They’d never seen a naked Jew before and proceeded to ask very probing questions. At his most vulnerable and unable to speak much Japanese, he did his best to explain circumcision anyway. The old men were astonished and kept on asking questions. He soldiered on with the explanations and emerged from his bath with his composure a little dented but his sense of humour intact.

From Klaus my German neighbour, I learned how to open jars with stubborn caps. Slip the point of a knife into that thin space between the edge of the lid and the jar and lever up. Once you hear a pop, the lid will come off without a fuss.

Open a jar for someone and he’ll have an open jar. Teach him how to open it and he’ll be able to eat from jars for life.

The jar Klaus taught me to open was one of rotkohl, pickled red cabbage from Germany. He taught me that rotkohl is better hot than cold.

A retired maths teacher, he spends half the year in Japan with his Japanese wife and the other half in Hamburg. They met at an English school in South Africa.

But he also spent time studying the language in Malta – ‘it’s cheaper than in England’ – and on the Maltese island of Gozo, he met an old man with a thousand books.

When he was young, the man left for the United States to look for work. Once he found it, he crammed it into his life, working for as much as 20 hours a day. He had no time for the books he loved so he collected them, intending to read them when he retired.

In time he grew rich and when he retired, he had a printing company to pass on to his children. He moved back to Malta, built a splendid house and began to read.

All had gone according to plan except for one thing: he was losing his sight.

My neighbour spoke of him as an old man in a room full of books he would never be able to read. He told Klaus, don’t wait.

A year later, Klaus retired. He was 49. Since then, he’s spent his time travelling and learning languages: first English because he wanted to read more about politics and now, Japanese.

His wife Kimiko said he could spend as much as 10 hours a day studying. They don’t have much but, as Klaus said, 'we don’t need much'.

From Maripass, I learned that when a Mexican says a chilli pepper is harmless, to take her words with a sea of salt.

And if the same Mexican tells you a chilli is hot, there’s no need to check for yourself unless you’re interested in near-death experiences.

From Lars the guitar-strumming Swede and Peter the Norwegian, who cross-dressed as a fairy one Halloween, I learned that the image of Scandinavians as a sober, reserved folk does not give the entire picture.

From Kim the South Korean, I learned that you can play Celine Dion on a bamboo flute.

Whenever he started warming up, I would open my door to hear him better. After he was done with the traditional tunes, he would move on to the Titanic song.

He introduced himself as a businessman when we first met but after we got to know each other better, he told me that he was a political refugee.

His exact words: ‘I write on Internet, I hate (name of politician). And police catch me.’

My first thought: is this guy for real?

He spoke little English and less Japanese and I didn’t know Korean so conversations took time. But when he showed me pictures of his wife and children, the look on his face said enough.

After a few months in Japan, he told me that his legal adviser in Seoul had called to say that it was safe to return.

I still don’t know what to make of his political dissident story but I can believe in the shochu he shared, in his parting gifts of pine nuts and ginseng snacks, and in his music – even the Celine Dion.

From the family of northern Chinese whose names I never found out, I learned nothing but received handmade dumplings, so many I ran out of vinegar.

From the Australian who might have been called Becky, I learned that when the Internet disappeared, I should go into the mysterious room under the stairs, insinuate my hands into the nest of wires, pull out all the plugs I could find then put them back.

On occasions like this, residents, including those I’d never met, would pour out of their rooms saying, ‘Is it just my computer or…?’

Then as we stood around, waiting to be connected, that would be the time to start learning about the neighbours, and from them.

Summer faces

18th August 2009





If you say hello, they'll say hello back. It's all rather friendly at the Kyoto Botanical Garden.

Listening to a people hear


13th August 2009


This tells you a bit more about cicadas than the published version.

And for those interested in finding out more about Japanese onomatopoeia, here are the grammatical terms:

- 擬声語 giseigo or 擬音語 giongo (words that mimic sounds that actually exist in nature)

- 擬態語 gitaigo (mimetic words used to convey actions, non-auditory senses, bodily feelings or mental states. The last two are sometimes classified as 擬情語　gijougo).

...


If dogs go woof and pigs go oink, what do cicadas say?

Now that it’s summer, they sing through the long days and short nights but I still don’t have the exact word to pin down their chirring.

When muffled by a closed window, the sound falls on the ear like a maracas chorus but when heard under trees shrilling with cicadas, it bares jagged teeth. Listen long enough and it could saw your head in half.

If dogs in Japan go wan-wan and pigs go buu-buu, what do cicadas say?

It depends partly on the species. There’s jiii-jiii, miii-miii while another kind has been named tsuku tsuku boushi because that is, apparently, what part of its call sounds like.

Many races have listened to the world and tried to capture its sounds as exactly as possible. Wan-wan is not one of a kind when there’s woof woof, ouaf ouaf and arf arf.

But Japanese is particularly rich in soundtracks of things that have none – things such as sight, sensation and emotion. These ideas in sound cut across the usual categories so an omelette, a towel and a balloon can all be fuwa-fuwa if soft and light.

The lines between mental and physical states, between animate and inanimate, disappear. A messy room, like a cluttered mind, is gocha-gocha and the mysterious residue on the dining table that left your fingers sticky is as beta-beta as a couple plastered all over each other.

These words pitch a narrative out of a monotone. They are the words you reach for when telling a story, when you want people to know how ira-ira irritated you became when waiting for a friend for over an hour.

At first, you waited with nothing much on your mind, bon yari staring off into space. But then a quarter of an hour became half and half became a full hour. Then thunder began to goro-goro and the rain raged down zaa-zaa.

Splashing to the nearest bus-stop, you called your friend, only to learn that she was still at home. You snapped at her to stop guzu-guzu dawdling and sassa get there at once. But before she could, a car zoomed by, straight through a puddle, and left you bisshori drenched.

By the time your friend arrived, you were kan-kan furious.

Comics and novels make full use of this aural drama of clashing consonants and colluding vowels because they too are in the business of telling stories.

But as a situation becomes more formal, these words often end up being shoved behind curtains and into closets. Chances are, you won’t find them in a thesis because they smell too human and we like to pretend that academic papers are written, not by people, but by brains on legs.

To some ears, the repetition in words like jiro-jiro (to stare) and kira-kira (twinkle) sounds childish.

Childlike may be a better term. This is language wide-eyed and inventive, filling its tiny fists with clay. It clumps syllables together, moulding sound as it tries to show you that thing, you know, that thing that goes hurdurdurdur.

But clay hardens and the child’s world grows focused by growing narrower. The more choices he makes, the more he has to give up because to go through one door is to close five.

The world of Japanese idea sounds has matured beyond the days when it still sparkled pika-pika new. That there are dictionaries cataloguing these sounds suggests that they are no longer instinctive and obvious, even to native speakers.

For foreigners, they represent another set of lists to be remembered and puzzled over. It’s easy to see how thunder and heavy things rolling down would both go goro-goro but why would someone lazing at home be assigned the same sound?

And what’s the connection between leaves drifting hara-hara to the ground and someone being hara-hara nervous?

Yet in the process of linking experiences I share with sounds I don’t, memories are accreting, making the words easier to see and recall.

Waku-waku: a state of excitement or happy anticipation.

My waku-waku: an orchestra tuning up, setting off flares of sound in the dark of a concert hall.

Kichin-to: Neatly, precisely, properly.

My kichin-to: Approval when I see something done neatly, precisely and properly. Tinged with the laughing despair that comes from knowing my folds, whether in paper or cloth, will never be as crisp or aligned as the Japanese ideal and that my knots will always have the unsteadiness of the yoro-yoro drunkard.

These ideas in sound ask you to use your ears in a different way: not just listening to the thing described but also to how a people have decided to hear it and in going through the door they picked over others, find a world you might have missed on your own.

So though the cicadas outside my window seem to be saying schwiiiing, I shall try hearing as the Japanese hear and see if that takes me to the summers they’ve stored on the other side of the door that swings open on cicada trills: Miiiiin. Miiiiin. Miiiiin.


...

感謝コーナー：Many thanks to Chizu-san and Iuchi-kun for help with cicadas.

Columns mean legwork


6th August 2009


Today was a big day for my legs. First, I visited a cemetery (up a hill!), then a museum (up a hill!) and a shrine (deep inside a forest!), where I watched a Shinto rite (standing for over an hour!).

I have to walk to the supermarket tomorrow. I hope nothing falls off on the way.

If you don't recognise it, it's probably where you were born


5th August 2009


So you spend some time away from Singapore - about three months should do it - and when you return, a building you know will have vanished while another you don't will have appeared. Or a tunnel will gape where a library used to be.

On one occasion, I returned to find a water-slide amusement park had gone. I never visited Big Splash but as a child, I passed it on my way to school almost every day. So - Big Splash gone while down the road, a big wheel had popped up.

I've no complaints about the Singapore Flyer but I didn't pass it every weekday morning for years, wondering if I'd forgotten anything when I packed my schoolbag.

For a spot-on picture of this and what else it means to be Singaporean, take a look at Troy Chin's The Resident Tourist. Click before he moves, gets upgraded or turns into a shopping centre.