I got into four-word proverbs (Yojijukugos), like the one described here, when I was brainstorming some names for a new collection of quad-CPU workstations. Fifteen years ago, such beasts were new to us. A friend and co-worker gave me a book that was a collection of Yojijukugos for English speakers. I will try to dig it up, it’s in storage at the moment. But it got me thinking of traditional English-language Yojijuku…
Sharing some Korean Yojijukugos (originating from China) 위록지마(謂鹿止馬) wii rok ji ma To point at a deer and call it a horse. Used for suck ups who says agrees to things that are clearly not right. 읍참마속(泣斬馬謖) ub cham ma sok To behead Ma Su (name) while crying. In the Romance of Three Kingdoms, Zhuge Liang had to behead his favourite general Ma Su as he wept because Ma Su ignored the given command resulting in losing the…
Here's another interesting one that gamers might recognize, JP-from-CN: > 竜頭蛇尾 (ryuutou dabi) "Dragon head, snake tail" Blizzard's Overwatch team decided that would make a cool family motto for a ninja clan, so it features prominently in the game's launch cinematic and some in-game areas. But they apparently never looked up the meaning, which is basically "starting strong but ending weak", or just "anticlimactic".
Huh, sounds a little like how Overwatch unfolded! Strong start, a lot of enthusiasm, now everybody's pretty much over it and the competitive scene is dying (?)
It makes for a fun bridging the gap cultural experience when talking to Chinese people about the Chinese idioms you learn in Japanese class. Even the pronunciation is so similar (I mean, of course it is, duh). My favorite one is 吴越同舟 or 呉越同舟 (Wú Yuè tóng zhōu) meaning people of different backgrounds finding themselves having to work together. https://www.zdic.net/hans/%E5%90%B4%E8%B6%8A%E5%90%8C%E8%88%... https://jis…
It's indeed a regrettable circumstance that the diplomatic ties between the two countries don't reflect their cultural similarities. My parents, who are Chinese and in their 60s, managed to travel around Japan without knowing Japanese or English. They successfully took trains, hailed taxis, and communicated with locals using just a pen and paper, ultimately enjoying their trip.
I'm sure they have Chinese around other places, but one thing I've noticed around train stations in Tokyo is that for the major announcements they are read out in Japanese, English, and Chinese. Hopefully those announcements were something that helped them on their journey.
In some sense yojijukugo are the original memes, in that they can be riffed off for humorous purposes. For example, the Japanese idiom for "the strong devour the weak" is 弱肉強食 jakuniku kyuushoku (the meat of the weak is the food of the strong), but you can instead say 焼肉定食 yakuniku teishoku (lit. grilled meat set meal) for laughs, and rakugo comedian Jakusaburo Katsura released an album called 雀肉共食 jakuniku kyuushoku…
Japanese is a wonderful language for puns. Not only do they have homophone puns (so many homophones) and rhyming puns, but also visual puns like Katamari Damacy 塊魂.
I have been wanting to learn Japanese but have been putting it off, you just convinced me that I have to get started learning it already. I love a good pun!