A Personal Japanese Dictionary

2020-09-082020-09-08

昭和 – Shōwa

Shōwa was the posthumous name of the 124th emperor of Japan who reigned from December 25, 1926, to January 7, 1989. Abroad he is known as Emperor Hirohito, however, few of the ordinary Japanese know the real name of the monarch. Here the reigning emperor is referred as „His Majesty the Emperor“ (天皇陛下; Tennō Heika) while he‘s alive and receives a posthumous name after passing away. This name is also given to the period of his reign. Therefore Shōwa refers to the whole turbulent 63-year-long era which saw the disastrous fall of the Empire of Japan (大日本帝国; Dai Nippon Teikoku) and the astonishing post-war recovery of the modern Japanese state (日本国; Nippon-koku).

2020-06-012020-09-08

アベレージ　(aberēji) – Average

When we were living in Sendai me and my husband sometimes listened to this radio drama in his car: “NISSAN あ、安部礼司〜BEYOND THE AVERAGE” (NISSAN A, Abe Reiji〜BEYOND THE AVERAGE). Broadcasted every Sunday for more than 15 years it is hugely popular. The show depicts the everyday life of an ordinary middle-aged salaryman Abe Reiji who is working at a publishing company in Tokyo. As you probably have already figured it out, his name is a pun for “average” – a word loaned from English. Many reasons can explain the popularity of this heartwarming radio program, however, the main one is its protagonist – a kindhearted, well-liked, yet ordinary in every sense of the word Abe Reiji is a character that many Japanese listeners relate to. The show’s unusual hero caught my attention and after a while, I started noticing how many other movies, TV shows and manga comics in Japan center around somewhat similar characters: “salarymen” (white-collar office workers), so-called “OL” or “office ladies”, bank officers, housewives, and other unassuming, ordinary people.

2020-05-072020-09-08

FAX; ファックス (fakkusu)

Japan is a land of many contrasts. On one hand, it has a reputation of being a hi-tech wonderland: the country of robots, coolest electronic gadgets, high-speed bullet trains, artificial shooting stars, a place where rice is grown with the help of AI and satellite data, a nation whose space probes are transmitting pictures from asteroids and even blasting them, and yes, the birthplace of the ultimate symbol of technological advance – “Washlet” toilets that confuse foreign tourists with their many buttons and functions.