Japanese Numbers

I think Japanese ad people are geniuses at least for one thing: phone number memorableness.  In America, we’ve got jingles and things that we can include phone numbers in—I still remember singing, “Think Ancira!  Think Ancira!  689-4100 (or whatever the number was)” over and over as a child in San Antonio—and we also have the thing where your phone number can spell out a word on a number keypad (e.g. the last four digits of Soka’s IT help desk number spells out H-E-L-P).  

The Japanese do these kinds of things too.  Here’s an example I heard on tv today: 919-919 would normally be read kyuu ichi kyuu kyuu ichi kyuu, but the advertisement shortened the syllables as “kuikku kuikku” or “quick quick” (the ad was for some sort of packing company, I think).  The Japanese also have the advantage of having multiple readings for its numbers (due to things like having both Japanese and Chinese readings for kanji characters).  Take, for example, this billboard:

3 can be read as san or mi (as in 三つ), 8 is read as hachi, and 7 can be read as shichi or nana.  This billboard for an ENT (ear, nose, throat) clinic advertises the last four digits of its phone number as mimi hana or “ear, nose.”  Cute, huh?

One more that my teacher told us about in class today (it’s not a phone number, but it’s the same concept).  There’s a new big-o broadcasting tower being built in Tokyo, and it is going to be 634 meters high.  6 can be read as roku  or mu (as in 六つ), 3 as san or mi, and 4 as yon  or shi.  So 634 can spell out mu sa shi (the san of 3 being shortened to sa), which is apparently an old name for Tokyo.  It would have been better to build the tower to be a couple meters taller, but the people building it couldn’t resist the historical shout-out.

お花見-Ohanami

With the sakura (cherry blossoms) in full bloom, I’ve come to observe what I’ve interpreted to be a sacred Japanese tradition.  When the sakura bloom, it is the Japanese tradition of hanami to go out to look at them.  And that’s it.  Sometimes people plan a picnic or the city plans a festival, but many Japanese people simply go out to look at the sakura and appreciate their beauty. 

I didn’t realize what a big deal it was until this past week.  The newspapers have detailed maps of what percentage of blossoms the sakura trees in various cities have and which areas have lights on for night-time viewings.  The tv news covers stories about “hanami gone wrong” and shows off products that resemble sakura.  Anytime you pass by an area with some cherry trees, you’re bound to see people just standing and looking at them.  My mother loves sakura so much that a couple years ago she had three of them (representing her three daughters) planted in our backyard in Oklahoma (the picture below actually is of our cherry tree, but I pasted my face onto my little sister's so the perverts won't come looking for her or something). 

My host parents went to look at sakura yesterday, and today, they went to separate locations to see more.  I believe my host dad is going again tomorrow.  How many times a year do they go to hanami, and how many years have they done it, and how many photos of sakura have they taken in all that time?  Yet they’re still going and taking pictures.  The fact that these people admire these trees and make a day out of going just to look at them shows the kind of values these people have.  Of course, Japan has its problems, but isn’t it amazing that so many people go out to appreciate trees and that they do it year after year?  I don’t know what kind of historical or cultural symbolism that sakura hold, but I’m deeply touched by the Japanese people’s general reverence of them.  感動しています。

I myself accidentally hanami-ed this past weekend when I happened upon a sakura festival while hanging out in Kobe.  There weren’t very many trees there, but they were beautiful nonetheless, and the general festival atmosphere was pretty fun.  I’m really glad that I was able to experience that, but after having heard today of other people’s hanami experiences from over the weekend, I really want to go again and appreciate it even more.

Wasn’t Me

I was coming home from Kobe, and because it was late, I decided to take the bus home from my train station instead of walking.  It was a completely normal bus ride, and I got off the bus after putting exact change into the coin receiver as I had done many times before.  I was the only one who got off at the stop, and I started walking away from the bus toward home, but the bus didn’t go on after I had gotten off.  I kept checking behind me as 10, 15, 20 seconds went by and the bus hadn’t left yet.  After about 30 seconds, which is an unusually long interval for Japanese public buses, the bus finally left.  I can’t help but feel that I did something wrong.

A Weird Thing

A weird thing:  When I told my aunt about my getting sick the day of the trip to Tokyo, she, like my host mom, suggested that it was probably because I was too excited.  I thought that reason was insane, but the more I think about it, the more I’m getting convinced that it might not be completely crazy.  I recall that when I originally chose not to enter Soka for college, my mom was extremely stressed and got an awful rash on her arms that didn’t go away until I agreed to go to Soka, as if her body were reacting to the condition of her mind.  Maybe that’s what happened to me.

I’ve read that Japanese philosophy traditionally expounds the inseparability of body and mind, whereas Western philosophy more often tries to separate the mind from the body.  My American rationalization thinks, “Why would I be in pain because I’m excited?  That makes no sense,” but perhaps the Japanese are more aware of the intimate workings of the human mind and body than I am.