Some years ago, I received a tenugui (手ぬぐい), a kind of cotton cloth traditdionally used in Japan, with the following calligraphy on it:
我逢人 gahōjin
“self meets person”
I have briefly mentioned here this notion, but today I wanted to delve into it more. I have struggled to find a clear reference, but according to one story I found, these were the words uttered by founder of Soto Zen in Japan, Dogen, after first encountering his new teacher Rújìng (如淨, 1163–1228) in China.1 Dogen had studied under the Tendai sect in Japan for years, but he was dissatisfied with the lack of rigor, and journeyed with his mentor to Song-dynasty China to learn more there. At the Tiantong Temple (天童寺, Tiāntóngsì) he met Rujing, and after their first meeting, Dogen was said to have uttered these words meaning “At last, I have met someone”.
The sentiment here is that even though we might be physically in a room full of people, we may not really connect with them. We all go through this feeling. In modern society, that sense of isolation in a crowded room may feel even more acute. It is indeed a noisy yet lonely world we live in, and as the Buddha described it, a world of aimless wandering.
Only when you connect with someone does it really feel like you meet them. This could be someone romantic, or someone like a mentor, or just a really good friend. When you connect with that person, you can speak your mind 100%, and they will understand you. Such encounters are indeed rare (I can probably think of maybe 10-15 people in my own life), but it’s an example of how karma can work in mysterious ways, maybe across many lifetimes.
It is also why, in my opinion, when one encounters the light of Amida Buddha, or the Dharma in general, it subtly alters one’s aimless trajectory. Imagine an asteroid hurtling through the void of space for eons, then one day it’s finally caught within the gravity of a star. It’s still moving, but now its trajectory gradually bends more and more toward the star. I like to think of encountering the Dharma like that.
It’s also a great example of how Zen phrases and idioms proliferate Japanese language.
Namu Shakamuni Butsu
P.S. Please enjoy the Maha Santa Claus Sutra, an old classic I wrote 6 years old (!). Happy Holidays!
1 In Chinese, he is known better is Tiāntóng Rújìng (天童如净, “Rujing of Tiantong [temple]”).
The nianfo (念佛) is widely recited across many cultures and languages by people who follow the Pure Land Buddhist tradition. In Japanese it is called the nembutsu (念仏), and that is the name I most often use on this blog. In Korean it is the yeombul (염불), and in Vietnamese it is the niệm phật. Just as the name differs by language, the phrase itself has changed pronunciation as it is adopted in other cultures and languages, just like the sutras did.
Let’s look at examples.
The original form of the nianfo (as far as I can tell) comes from Sanskrit language in India. In Sanskrit, “nianfo” was buddhānusmṛti (buddhānussati in Pāli language). The venerable site Visible Mantra states that it was recited like so:1
namo’mitābhāyabuddhāya
In the Siddham script, still used in some esoteric practices, this is written as:
𑖡𑖦𑖺𑖦𑖰𑖝𑖯𑖥𑖯𑖧𑖤𑖲𑖟𑖿𑖠𑖯𑖧
From here, Buddhism was gradually imported into China from India (a fascinating story in and of itself), and because Chinese language and Sanskrit are so different, this was no easy task. Nevertheless, the buddhānusmṛti was translated as nianfo (念佛) and written as:
南無阿彌陀佛
This was how the Chinese at the time approximated the sound of the Sanskrit phrase. In modern, Simplified Chinese characters this looks like:
南无阿弥陀佛
But how does one read these characteres? That’s a fun question to answer.
You see, Chinese has many dialects because of geography, regional differences, and migration of people. Thus, even though Chinese characters are written the same (with only modest regional differences), the way they are read and pronounced varies. Thanks to Wiktionary, I found a helpful list to illustrate:
Of these dialects, I am only familiar with Mandarin and (to a much lesser extent) Hokkien, so I can only trust the others based on Wikipedia.
Anyhow, China was a powerful, dynamic culture at the time, and it had a profound influence on its smaller neighbors such as the Korean peninsula, Japan, and northern Vietnam (a.k.a. Dai Viet). Just as the neighbors of the Romans (including the Byzantines) absorbed Roman culture, the neighbors of China did the same even though the languages were very different.
What about Tibetan Buddhism? I am really unfamiliar with that tradition, so I might be wrong here, but my understanding is that Tibetan veneration of Amida Buddha stems from a different tradition, so instead of the nianfo, they recite appropriate mantras instead. Beyond that, I don’t know.
Anyhow, this is a brief look at how a simple Sanskrit phrase has evolved into so many traditions and ways to express veneration to the Buddha of Infinite Light. Thanks for reading!
𑖡𑖦𑖺𑖦𑖰𑖝𑖯𑖥𑖯𑖧𑖤𑖲𑖟𑖿𑖠𑖯𑖧 南無阿彌陀佛 Namu Amida Butsu
P.S. Another post despite my intended rest. The time off really has helped, so it’s been well worth it, but now I am eager to write again. 😌
1 As I’ve written before, writing Sanskrit in the more modern Devanagari script is kind of pointless since Sanskrit was never written in that until late in history, long after Buddhism in India was gone. Sanskrit does not have a native script either, so the Roman Alphabet is as god as any.
2 Brushing off my college Vietnamese, this is pronounced as “Nam-moe Ah-zee-dah-fut”.
Garibaldi: This isn’t gonna be easy. G’kar: Nothing worthwhile ever is.
Babylon 5, “And the Rock Cried Out, No Hiding Place”, s3:ep20
Recently, I talked about the key to practicing Zen (or Buddhism in general) is training while incorporating other things in your life toward that same goal. Like Rocky Balboa training in Rocky, or Li Fong in the excellent movie Karate Kid: Legends, or someone working hard to learn a language by making other aspects of life conducive toward language learning.
In most cases, we go through a some stages when we take up a project like this.
New thing – “this is fun, I can see the benefits already!”
Steady practice – “gotta keep this up”
Boredom – “ugh, I gotta do this again”
Skipped days – “I’ll make up for it tomorrow”
More skipped days – “No, really, I’ll make up it up tomorrow.”
Guilt – “I suck”
Despair – “I’ll never succeed.”
Quitting.
My usual pattern with new projects, or dieting and exercise, is to eventually feel guilty, despair, and quit. It happens to me a lot over the years, admittedly.
But also, there are a few things that surprisingly I have managed to stick with for years, decades even. I’ve been actively studying Japanese since 2008, for example. I realized though that the way I’ve studied Japanese has changed and shifted many times. Some experiments succeeded, others failed immediately. But the goal was important enough to me, that even when I failed I just shifted tactics and tried again. I failed the N1 JLPT twice in the last five years, and to my surprise, I am still at it, but now trying a new tactic.
Put another way: when I hit a roadblock, instead of hitting my head on the wall harder and harder, I tried another route. I knew where I wanted to go (language fluency) and just kept trying methods until I found something that stuck.
I realized too that my pursuit of the Buddhist path has been much the same way. I started out in 2005 with very little understanding, but I really liked reciting the nembutsu, and I loved the simple, down-to-earth, and highly approachable Jodo Shu sect as taught by Honen (still do!). But while I’ve had the same basic goal, my understanding of Buddhism has grown over time, and like language learning, has gone through many false-starts, projects that soon ended, or things that just didn’t work. So, I just shifted, tried another route, backtracked, and so on. This what I think happened to me, and why I took up Zen practice since May.
My current Zen practice is, I suppose, just another track toward my goal.
So, I think the point of all this is that the goal is more important than the particular approach. If the goal is something you really care about you’ll find a way. In fact, you’ll probably bend other aspects of your life toward it. If not, then the goal maybe wasn’t that important to begin with. That’s OK. Better to acknowledge it, cut your losses, and move on.
But if the goal is worthwhile to you, then like G’Kar says, you’ll find a way.
As I write this post, I am in Dublin, Ireland on a short trip (business, not pleasure), helping my daughter get settled in for college. Thanks to timezone differences my daughter and I were awake at 11:30pm on a Friday and starving.
Taken near Trinity College and the main Bank of Ireland building (right).
Since a lot of pubs close their kitchens early, we went over to the local Supermac’s1 :
My daughter took this photo of her food. Mine is at the far end of the table (upper right corner).
It’s Friday night, so as we’re seated, people are stumbling in drunk looking for some cheap food, and there’s a steady stream of food delivery guys picking up orders. Still, even here, as I open my bag and eat my food, I try to still take a moment and appreciate the food, so I discreetly did gassho.
In Japanese culture, people will usually say itadakimasu before eating food, and gochisōsama deshita after finishing. The word itadakimasu is just the humble form of the verb “I receive”, and gochisōsama deshita means “It was a wonderful meal”.
But there’s also a set of verses that in the Zen tradition are recited before meals called the Shokuji Gokan (食事五観, “five observations at mealtime”). When I was watching a documentary recently, during mealtime, one of the Eiheiji monks walked the documentary host through the five verses. The five verses in Japanese for the Rinzaitradition are:
一つには、功の多少を計り、彼の来処を量る。 hitotsu ni wa, kō no tashō wo hakari, kano raisho wo hakaru
二つには、己が徳行の全闕を忖って供に応ず。 futatsu ni wa, onore ga tokugyō no zenketsu wo hakatte, ku ni ōzu
三つには、心を防ぎ、過貪等を離るるを宗とす。 mitsu ni wa, shin wo fusegi, togatontō wo hanaruru wo shū to su
四つには、正に良薬を事とするは形枯を療ぜんが為なり。 yotsu ni wa, masa ni ryōyaku wo koto to suru wa gyōko wo ryōzen ga tame nari
五つには、道業を成ぜんが為に、応にこの食を受くべし。 Itsutsu ni wa, dōgyō wo jōzen ga tame ni, ō ni kono jiki wo uku beshi.
The verses in Soto Zen appear to be slightly different. I am fairly certain, these are descended from Chinese Chan Buddhism, but I wasn’t able to find much information.
There are a lot of fine English translations available, though for now I am using the one from Sotozen.net:
We reflect on the effort that brought us this food and consider how it comes to us.
We reflect on our virtue and practice, and whether we are worthy of this offering.
We regard it as essential to free ourselves of excesses such as greed.
We regard this food as good medicine to sustain our life.
For the sake of enlightenment, we now receive this food.
In either case, the meaning is the same: before we take in the food, we should first reflect where it came from (and the countless people who made it possible),2 and whether we are living up to the practice or not. Finally, the verses remind us that food is essentially medicine (hence don’t be a pig), and that it helps us along the path toward Enlightenment. Even some chips (fries) at Supermac’s is something to be grateful for.
So, hello from Ireland, and will post more soon! 🇮🇪🖖🏼
1 The local version of McDonald’s, but ten times better.
2 The Jodo Shinshu tradition focuses on the concept of “gratitude“, so there’s a lot of overlaphere.
Japanese language, like any language, uses verbs a lot. But verbs in Japanese differ considerably from Indo-European languages in how verbs are constructed, conjugated and so on. This makes them pretty tricky to learn at first glance, but the good news is that the internal structure and logic is actually fairly straightforward. You just need to unlearn your native language to avoid casual mistakes.
Warning: This post assumes you can read hiragana script. Hiragana takes a bit of work upfront, but you can master it quickly, and be reading Japanese fairly well after that (kanji notwithstanding). You can see my articles here, here and here about it.
The first thing to understand is that Japanese, especially in conversation, has a lot of implicit and contextual meaning. So, you can leave out many parts of speech because it’s already implied, or you just know from the context. But usually a sentence needs at least a verb.
A: [did you eat?]
B: ん、たべた (yeah, I ate)
This is a perfectly normal sentence in conversation. No subject, object or anything, just the verb (to eat, past-tense).
Also, as I alluded to earlier, the conjugations and usages differ from European languages. Let’s look at some examples. This chart doesn’t cover everything but covers some of the most essential forms.
Conjugation
Usage
Example “Godan” Verb : 読む・よむ
Example “Ichidan” Verb : 食べる・たべる
Dictionary form
Dictionary listing of verb, also used for subordinate clauses, recurring actions (e.g. I eat X daily), and also future tense!
読む・よむ
食べる・たべる
Polite form
Used in polite, formal speech, especially at work, talking to teachers, or one’s elders. Also used for future tense!
読みます・よみます
食べます・たべます
“Te” form
Extremely useful. Links verbs together in sequence, or allows for other grammatical forms.
読んで・よんで
食べて・たべて
Simple Past
Casual, past tense form. Similar to dictionary form, but expresses past tense.
読んだ・よんだ
食べた・たべた
Passive form
When something is being done to you. (e.g. I am being eaten)
読まれる・よまれる
食べられる・たべられる
Note that I divided verbs by Go-dan (五段), and Ichi-dan (一段) verbs. This is important as each one has a slightly different conjugation process. Ichi-dan verbs, sometimes called “ru-verbs” because the dictionary form always ends in る “ru”, however not all verbs that end in る are ichi-dan verbs. Everything else are go-dan verbs because the dictionary form has five (“go”) possible endings: う “u”, つ “tsu”, る “ru”, ぬ “nu”, and む “mu”.
Speaking from personal experience, people who are first learning Japanese often learn the textbook polite form since they’re talking with other adults, and don’t want to be rude.
However, it’s far more useful to learn the dictionary form and the “te”-form. The dictionary form is useful form many grammatical forms, and for more complex sentence. Note to mention it also expresses future tense in the right context. Similarly, the “te” form is the base of many other grammatical forms.
To conjugate the “te”-form from the dictionary form, change the verb endings like so:
Dictionary Verb ending
Becomes…
Example before
Example after
う (u)
って (tte)
言う・いう (iu)
言って・いって (itte)
つ (tsu)
って (tte)
持つ・もつ (motsu)
持って・もって (motte)
る (ru)
って (tte)
切る・きる (kiru)
切って・きって (kitte)
る (ru), ichidan
て (te)
食べる・たべる (taberu)
食べて・たべて (tabete)
く (ku)
いて (ite)
書く・かく (kaku)
書いて・かいて (kaite)
ぐ (gu)
いで (ide)
急ぐ・いそぐ (isogu)
急いで・いそいで (isoide)
む (mu)
んで (nde)
読む・よむ (yomu)
読んで・よんで (yonde)
Similarly for the simple past tense, just change the “te” to “ta” like so:
Dictionary Verb ending
Becomes…
Example before
Example after
う (u)
った (tta)
言う・いう (iu)
言って・いった (itta)
つ (tsu)
った (tta)
持つ・もつ (motsu)
持って・もった (motta)
る (ru)
った (tta)
切る・きる (kiru)
切って・きった (kitta)
る (ru), ichidan
た (ta)
食べる・たべる (taberu)
食べて・たべた (tabete)
く (ku)
いた (ita)
書く・かく (kaku)
書いて・かいた (kaita)
ぐ (gu)
いだ (ida)
急ぐ・いそぐ (isogu)
急いで・いそいだ (isoida)
む (mu)
んだ (nda)
読む・よむ (yomu)
読んで・よんだ (yonda)
Using these simple tricks, you can do more complex forms, like converting a passive form verb to past-tense (i.e. the sushi is being eaten -> the sushi was eaten), and so on.
In fact, I believe when learning Japanese verbs, it’s best to record and list them like so:
dictionary-form, te-form
examples: 読む、読んで 食べる、食べて 切る、切って 着る、着て
This not only helps you memorize the basic grammatical forms, but helps you remember if it is an ichidan verb vs. godan verb. “By their te-form, ye shall know them…“1
Anyhow, that’s a brief look at Japanese verbs. It’s not necessary to learn all the forms and applications at first, but a good way to build solid fundamentals and branch into more advanced lessons more seamlessly.
Good luck and happy studying!
1 This was a trick, not to mention a joke, I learned recently while studying classic, Koine Greek. Nouns are recorded as a combination of nominative + genitive forms, while Greek verbs are listed by principal parts. There’s no reason why Japanese language tools can do the same, but I don’t see books really doing this. That’s a shame. Greek and Latin have been scrutinized and studied for centuries in the West, so the teaching tools and methods are very mature. Japanese language studies in the West are much newer, and lacking many of these handy mnemonics, tools, etc.
Do you still play D&D Adventurers League, or did you take up new hobbies? How’s your figurine painting going?
Yes, though not as much as I did at the time.
As I write this, it is January 2020, and overall things are pretty darn good. Finances are better than before, and [trimmed for privacy].
I was laid off by my old company two months later, but then found a better job anyway.
Your health-habits are (somewhat) better than before, too.
Some improvements, but also some setbacks here too.
As this is not my first (and probably not my last) FutureMe letter, let me say that as you’ve reach the half-way point in your life, you still have much to look forward to. Never get complacent, always strive for better, and never forget Hierocles’s Circle when you regard other people.
This is something that really felt meaningful in 2025. I talked about Hierocles’s Circle here, and I still think it’s a nice blend Greek philosophy and Buddhist practice.
Happy 2024 (?) ol’ buddy!
Not sure why I said 2024, when I meant 2025. Oh well.
Anyhow, that’s what I wrote to myself 5 years ago. Clearly, I failed to predict some things, some things never changed, and it was also a nice reminder to myself of some things that are important.
Authors’s note: shifting gears a bit as I clear out the blog backlog. 😆
“Measure words” or “counting words” are an interesting phenomenon found in many East Asian languages, but less so in Indo-European languages. This leads to some challenges with counting things.
In English, we might say “one sheet of paper” or “two sticks of incense” or “a box of nails”. But we wouldn’t say “three things of fish”. We say “three fish”, or “three chickens” or “two cows”. People too: two senators, one customer, or three employees. So the use of counting words in English is limited. From what I recall of Classical languages such as Greek, Latin and Sanskrit, it doesn’t exist at all.1 In Japanese, there are counting words for all of them, and some of these counting words can be pretty obscure.
Let’s look at some examples, but first, let’s review basic numbers from one to five:
Four is a special case since there two words for “four”, but for counting stuff, the word “yon” is used.
Anyway, let’s start with good entry-level counting words. For paper, and other flat things like it Japanese counts them with the word “mai” (枚), so counting sheets of paper looks like so (using Kanji):
一枚 – ichi mai (one sheet)
二枚 – ni mai (two sheets)
三枚 – san mai (three sheets)
四枚 – yon mai (four sheets)
五枚 – go mai (five sheets)
By the way, it is PERFECTLY normal to use Arabic Numerals for counting too, especially for numbers beyond three.
1枚 – ichi mai (one sheet)
2枚 – ni mai (two sheets)
3枚 – san mai (three sheets)
4枚 – yon mai (four sheets)
5枚 – go mai (five sheets)
Anyhow, the important thing to understand grammatically speaking, is that counting words like this are treated like adverbs, and adverbs in Japanese IMMEDIATELY precede the verb they modify, as in this sentence:
紙を二枚使ったよ。
かみをにまいつかったよ。
kami wo nimai tsukatta yo. “I used two sheets paper”.
In this case, the counting word “ni mai” comes right before the verb to use (使った). It took me a long time to realize this. I kept using the incorrect grammar of nimai no kami wo tsukatta. This is wrong, but is more similar to English, hence my mistake. DO NOT DO THIS. Put the counting word just before the verb and you’ll sound a lot better.
Anyhow, mai is a nice easy counting word and frequently used. Another common counting word is “hon” (本) used for long things, bottles, sticks, and so on:
一本 – ip-pon (one stick)
二本 – ni hon (two sticks)
三本 – san bon (three sticks)
四本 – yon hon (four sticks)
五本 – go hon (five sticks)
Wait a minute. Some of them aren’t pronounced as “hon”. Japanese, like many languages, has a grammatical feature called “Sandhi”3 where certain sounds change to make them smoother. English has lots of Sandhi rules, Japanese has relatively few, but one rule is that the “h” sound sometimes becomes a “b” or “p” sound in some cases: n + h = nb, for example. Another rule is that the “chi” or “tsu” sound sometimes becomes a small “tsu”.
Unfortunately, Japanese has a lot of little use-cases like this for counting. There’s no easy way to say this: you just have to memorize these oddities. Most of them make sense when you say them out loud because they evolved to be smoother for native speakers.
But I digress. We’ve learned mai (枚) and hon (本).
Let’s move onto people. This one is particularly tricky:
一人 – hitori (one person)
二人 – futari (two people)
三人 – san nin (three people)
四人 – yo nin not yon-nin (four people)
五人 – go nin (five people)
Here, some of the words are complete different, and don’t fit a pattern. This is a somewhat extreme example, but it shows how some common-use cases just don’t always follow a pattern. There are times when you just have to memorize how to count something.
Similarly, for “things” (generic), there is a similar way to count:
一つ – hitotsu (a thing)
二つ – futatsu (two things)
三つ – mittsu (three things)
四つ – yottsu (four things)
五つ – itsutsu (five things)
When all else fails, use the generic counter above (except on people!). There are many situations where that is sufficient. If you happen to know the correct, more specific counting word, use that instead.
Anyhow, let’s get back to specific counters. For animals, things get interesting because there are multiple counting words. To list a few that we saw at the top of this post:
hiki (匹) – small animals and fish: ip-piki, ni hiki, san biki, yon hiki …
wa (羽)- birds and rabbits: ichi wa, ni wa, san wa, yon wa …
tō (頭) – large, or hoofed animals: it-tō, ni tō, san tō, yon tō …
So, two cows would be ni tō, while three chickens would be san wa, and three fishes would be san biki.
Let’s talk a bit about rarer counting words.
Tofugu has a great comprehensive list of all the counting words, and some of these are obscure even for Japanese people, but there’s a few worth calling out because they do come up.
You might think that chopsticks are counting using hon as we saw above, but it has its own counting word: “zen” (膳). A single pair of chopsticks is ichi zen (一膳), two pairs are ni zen (二膳), and so on. This counting word is ALSO used for bowls of rice, or bowls of beef and such.
Another example is “chō” (丁). The counting word is used for things like bowls of ramen and kitchen knives, among others. If you wanted to ask for three bowls of ramen, you could say:
ラーメンを3丁下さい。
ラーメンをさんちょうください。
Ra-men wo san-chō kudasai
This one is a bit obscure, but like “zen” (膳) it does come up from time to time, so it’s good to be aware of it.
As I alluded to earlier, this is not a comprehensive list. There are many counting words ranging from very common to very obscure, some even that day to day Japanese might not always know. There are a couple takeaways from this to be aware of as a language student:
counting words behave like adverbs, which in Japanese means that they immediately precede the verb.
some counting words have pronunciation that varies, in order to make smoother sounds. Some are just not pronounced the way you’d expected. You just have to know these, and memorize them.
It is not necessary to know them all. Knowing the most common ones is a good start, and over time you might learn the obscure ones through experience.
Good luck and happy counting!
1 IIRC, numbers behaved like adjectives, so they would describe “two cows” as duas vaccas, since the adjective “two” must agree in case, number and (grammatical) gender with “cows”. English has very minimal inflection like this, so we just don’t do it. The Sanskrit version, btw, is dvau gavau because it still has a “dual” case between singular and plural. Ancient Greek dropped dual not long after Homeric Greek, I think. Sanskrit is thus a super old language, even compared to Greek/Latin because it retains some truly ancient grammar patterns.
2 Originally from the “Sandhi” rules in Sanskrit. Sanskrit has a complex series of rules for sound-changes, and linguists borrowed the term to describe the same phenomenon in other langauges. Sanskrit has a lot of rules, Japanese has relatively few.
This is another cool moment in Japanese history (previous post here) that I wanted to share while re-watching the drama Thirteen Lords of the Shogun. Shortly after the death of Kazusa Hirotsune, the head of the Genji (Minamoto) clan named Minamoto no Yoritomo, sought to finally take the fight to Heike (Taira) clan. The trouble was was that he had a rival within the Genji clan itself.
Yoshinaka as portrayed in woodblock print from 1866, source Wikimedia Commons.
The Genji clan was quite large by this time, going all the way back a few centuries to Emperor Saga in the early 9th century. By the time of the Genpei War (late 11th century), the clan had a number of sub-clans, domains and so on. One such branch was led by Yoritomo’s cousin, Kiso no Yoshinaka.1 Yoshinaka and Yoritomo initially worked together, and Yoshinaka even sent his son, Yoshitaka (木曽義高), in good faith as a hostage at Yoritomo’s court in the city of Kamakura. However, the relationship quickly became estranged, and they competed for who could get to the capitol of Kyoto first to rescue the Emperor under house-arrest from the Heike clan.
What Yoshinaka didn’t know was that the scheming Emperor, Go-Shirakawa, was already in league with Yoritomo. Go-Shirakawa expressed gratitude to Yoshinaka, and even bestowed the lofty title of Asahi Shogun, or “Asahi” Commander of the Armed Forces, and commanded him to take the fight to the Heike. And yet, Go-Shirakawa still threw in his lot with with Yoshinaka’s cousin Yoritomo. Things quickly went downhill as Yoshinaka, realizing that he was being double-crossed, seized the Emperor briefly, and battled his cousin’s forces. In the end, Yoshinaka and his army were wiped out. His son, Yoshitaka, did not survive much longer despite being wed to Yoritomo’s daughter O-hime. This part of the historical drama is really sad because it was clear that Yoshitaka did nothing wrong, but was simply a victim of politics.
In the historical drama, and in Japanese literature, Yoshinaka is portrayed as sincere and well-meaning, but out of his league compared to the scheming of the Emperor and of Yoritomo. He was a genuine warrior, loved by his vassals, but court politics were beyond his ability, and he was ultimately betrayed by the very forces he sought to help. Seeing a pattern with Yoritomo?
So, why bring this up?
Yoshinaka’s remains were interred at a small Buddhist temple named Gichū-ji2 in the city of Otsu, in Shiga Prefecture. Centuries later, the famous haiku poet, Matsuo Basho, visited the temple on one of this pilgrimages. Basho was evidentially an admirer of Yoshinaka and composed a haiku upon visiting the gravesite:
Japanese
Romanized
Rough Translation2
義仲の
Yoshinaka no
Is this not the mountain
寝覚めの山か
Mezame no yama ka
that Yoshinaka woke up on?
月悲し
Tsuki kanashi
The melancholy moon.
2 any faults in the translation are my own
According to tradition, it is thought that one night while sleeping on a mountainside, Yoshinaka woke up and gazed at the moon. Here, on that same mountainside, the moon shines melancholy, still reflecting over the demise of Yoshinaka.
Later, when Basho passed away he was, according to his wishes, also interred at Gichū-ji so that he may rest alongside the admired warlord.
There’s a travel blog entry in Japanese that shows the temple grounds and the grave sites, while this page shows the temple.
It’s interesting that such a talented poet was so infatuated by this legendary, though ill-fated warlord that he would be buried alongside him despite the passage of centuries.
P.S. If you thought Yoritomo was a scallywag now, wait until you get to the murder of Yoritomo’s own half-brother, the talented general Yoshitsune.
P.P.S. Yoritomo also punished another branch of the Genji clan, the Genji of Kai province, by executing that lord’s young heir on suspicion of treason as well.
P.P.P.S. Yoritomo was, suffice to say, a cold-blooded ruler. Not surprisingly, the Shogunal military government he founded got off to a rotten foundation and struggled after his death. Unlike the video game character Edelgard, Yoritomo seemed to have no moral conviction. He wanted power and vengeance.
1 Fun fact: the actor who played Kiso no Yoshinaka in the historical drama was also in Godzilla Minus One. He appears in the opening scene as a runway mechanic, Tachibana, talking to the ensign.
2 The kanji characters 義仲 can be read as either “Yoshinaka”, as in Kiso no Yoshinaka’s name, or as “Gichū”, the name of the temple. Clever.
Way back in high school, like most American kids, I had to study things like Spanish, French, etc. I took German for two years in high school, but I didn’t find it very interesting, and I didn’t like my teacher very much. So, I never put in much effort. Later, one of my friends told me that we offered Mandarin Chinese at my high school, and I was just beginning my “teenage weeb phase”, so I was definitely curious.1
Our teacher, Mrs. Wu, was a very nice elderly teacher, even though she was in over her head dealing with a bunch of teenagers. Still, exploring something exotic like Chinese language really interested 16-year old me, and I was a pretty motivated student. I tried to learn both Traditional Chinese characters (used in Taiwan) and Simplified characters (Chinese mainland). My best friend at the time was Taiwanese-American, and I used to practice with his immigrant parents.
Anyhow, long story short, once I got into college, I focused on other priorities, and gradually, I forgot my Chinese studies.
Lately, I have been dabbling in Duolingo and learning Chinese again. I forget why, but I guess it’s partly fueled by nostalgia, but also because I already know how to read many Chinese characters through my studies of Japanese.
It’s been fascinating to see how Japanese kanji (Japanese-imported Chinese characters), and modern Chinese characters overlap and yet differ. The important thing to bear in mind is that Japan (like other neighboring countries), imported Chinese characters at an earlier stage in history, and over centuries the usage, pronuncaition and such have all diverged.
Take this easy sentence in Chinese:
All of these Chinese characters are used in Japanese, and without any prompts, I can read this and get the gist of what its saying, but there’s some notable divergences.
These Chinese sentence above is:
日本菜和中国菜 rì běn caì hé zhōng guó caì
A Japanese equivalent might be:
日本料理と中国料理 nihon ryōri to chūgoku ryōri
A few interesting things to note.
The character 菜 is used in modern Chinese to mean food in general, but in Japanese it means vegetables. So the usage has diverged. I noticed that Chinese
The country names, 中国 and 日本 are used by both languages, but the pronunciation has also diverged considerably. 中国 is pronounced zhōng guó in Chinese, and chūgoku in Japanese. You can kind of hear the similarities, but also the pronunciation has diverged for centuries.
The character 和 (hé) is used in Chinese to mean “and”, but in Japanese a system of particles is used instead. Interestingly, 和 is used in Japanese, for example the old name of Japan was Yamato (大和) or modern words like heiwa (平和, “peace”). The pronunciation is wa, so it has diverged as well.
On thing I haven’t really delved into is the native Japanese readings for Chinese characters. Chinese characters are a foreign, imported writing system to Japan, so native words sound completely different even when written with Chinese characters. The word for 中国 (chūgoku) derives from Chinese, but 中 by itself is pronounced as naka (“middle”) which is a native Japanese word (not imported).
Anyhow, this is just a quick overview of how two entirely different languages both adopted the same writing system, but have diverged over time. If you add in languages like Vietnamese and Korean that also adopted Chinese characters, the picture is even more fascinating.
P.S. Through Duolingo, I learned that the Chinese word for hamburger is hàn-bǎo-bāo.
Chinese has to import foreign words using Chinese characters that at least kind of sound like the original. Japanese uses a second syllabary system, katakana, to approximate the same thing, although in the past Chinese characters were used as well. Hence, America is usually written as amerika アメリカ, but in more formal settings it is called beikoku 米国 (compare the pronunciation with Chinese měi guó).
1 The fact that my high school even offered Chinese language at that time (1990’s America) is pretty unusual, but I am grateful for the option. Also, thank you Mrs Wu if you ever happen to read this.
In our last episode, we talked about some basic, fundamental particles used in the Japanese language. Today, we’ll cover some other, essential particles: “ni” に, “de” で, “yo” よ, and “ne” ね. The first two are often required for parts of speech, but the second two are often used to provide “flavor” or “nuance” to conversation. All of them are frequently used, and necessary to speak Japanese well.
As with the previous post, this post assumes you know how to read hiragana script. If not, now would be a good time to review. Kanji will be kept to a minimum for now.
The targeting particle: に
The particle に (ni) is used in many ways in Japanese, but it’s best to think of it as a particle that provides a target for a verb. Credit goes to Tae Kim for coming up with this explanation.
The に particle is not used for direct objects. As we saw in the last post, the を (wo) particle fulfills that role.
たなかさんにCDをあげた。
I gave Mr Takana the CD
Instead, the に (ni) particle is used when a verb relates to something, but not as a direct objection. A couple examples:
へやにはいる。
To go into a room
also:
でんしゃにおりる。
To get off a train
In both cases, a verb relates to a noun, but it’s not directly doing something to the noun. The に particle simply specifies the targets of the verb. A lot of verbs in Japanese are intransitive verbs, more so than English, so they won’t take direct objects anyway, and in such cases, に is often used.
You can also target time with a verb:
くじにでる。
I will leave at 9 o’clock
One other important note: に is also used in passive speech to designate the agent of the passive action (e.g. “it was done by who”). I still consider this a target, but that’s just me.
たなかさんにすしをたべられた。
The sushi was eaten by Mr Tanaka
The context particle: で
This is another very useful particle. The で (de) particle is used to explain context for things. This includes:
Where something took place.
Something was done with something.
Something will take place within a time frame.
It’s hard to explain, but pretty easy to use once you get the hang of it.
がっこうでごはんをたべた。
I ate lunch (lit. meal) at school
Or:
フライパンでつくった。
[I] cooked with a frypan
Another often overlooked example is:
レゴであそんだ。
[We] played with legos.
And finally for time:
ごふんでつく。
[we will] arrive in five minutes.
The assertive particle: よ
The よ (yo) and ね (ne) particle below are both “nuance” particles. They are not used for parts of speech like many of the particles we’ve seen so far. Instead, these particles are put at the end of sentences to provide nuance to a sentence.
The よ (yo) particle is used to assert something. This is often done to either:
Present new information, or
Make a point
As with any culture, if you are too assertive, this can annoy other people, but there are many times this is used in Japanese without sounding rude or overly assertive.
Let’s compare these two sentences:
きょうはさむい。
Today is cold.
with:
きょうはさむいよ。
Today is cold.
When translating to English, the meaning is the same. However, the nuance is different. The first sentence is matter of fact, with no nuance. The second sentence assumes that the listener either didn’t know it was cold, or that you are trying to remind the listener that it is cold (therefore you should dress warm).
The soliciting particle: ね
As with the よ (yo) particle, the ね (ne) particle expresses nuance only, but tends to convey something different. Where よ (yo) asserts something, the ね (ne) particle solicits feedback from the listener. This is often used in Japanese language to either solicit agreement from others, but also to downplay one’s opinion (e.g. soften it), thereby making it a bit more polite.
Using the example sentence above, let’s change the nuance a bit:
きょうはさむいね。
Today is cold [don’t you think?].
Here, the speaker is making a point, but doing it in a more solicitous way, hoping to garner agreement with the listener. This is obviously less assertive, and more conciliatory to the listener.
It’s very common to also combine the two to both assert something, but not too strongly:
きょうはさむいよね。
Today is cold [don’t you think?].
You’re still asserting something information, but also pulling back a bit too, so it’s often a happy medium in conversation.
Conclusion
There are a lot more particles in Japanese language, and we haven’t covered all use-cases of these particles either, but even knowing this much gives you a solid foundation, once the usage sinks in. The best way to learn particle usage isn’t memorizing grammar, but instead learning sentence patterns, preferably from real Japanese media (books, TV, etc). Once you’ve seen a sentence pattern 50 times, you can generally get the gist of it. If you’ve seen it 500 times, you probably are pretty familiar with it. 😙
Gleanings in Buddha-Fields 
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