Not Quite Fire and Brimstone

A few months ago I received a postcard in the mail which advised me that it was time for me to renew my driver's licence.  I don't recall how long my licence was valid for in Canada but over here in Japan it's three years.  The renewal period was of two months length and it bracketed my birthday in July.  Of interest was the section which mentioned where I could go to get the deed done: the choices being the Yamagata Traffic Safety Bureau up in Takadama (which is on the southern outskirts of Tendo city) or a local police station.  Needless to say I chose the latter option.  Takadama is about an hour and half drive north of Yonezawa and I wasn't quite keen on retracing my treks there, which were quite long when I went by train and bus, when I went through the procedure of exchanging my B.C. driver's licence for a Japanese one.

So I dutifully cycled to the local police station.  The counter for processing driver's licence renewals was full front and centre upon entering the building.  That was certainly convenient.  Filling out the form wasn't as simple.  A complication arose from the fact that my licence is not only registered in my full name in English, with a transcription in katakana, but I also have a Japanese version of my name (minus my English first name) inscribed on the reverse with the notation that it's my registered nickname/alias.  So I was advised to write my name in both English and Japanese on the form.  There obviously were some subtle nuances in the verbal instructions I was given because I didn't get it right until the third time. 

Having overcome that obstacle, I paid the renewal fee and was then told that I had to attend some sort of session.  I wasn't quite sure what as I didn't understand the term for it.  But the gist of the next part was quite clear to me: the sessions are held monthly in Yonezawa due to the relatively smaller numbers of first time renewals.  My options were mid-week days in mid-August or mid-September.  I made a quick phone call to the office and found I could attend the August session on account of our Obon break.  What followed was a routine eye examination and photo shoot.  (Japanese eye exams are interesting: instead of having to read letters of various sizes, one has to look at circles of various sizes and announce which direction there is a break in the circle.  A co-worker had no idea what it was he was looking at and started telling his examiner the names of fruit...yes, he thought he was looking at drawings of fruit!)

The session I attended is what I would describe as a traffic law and safety awareness lecture.  One can't fail the session as there is no examination included in it.  As one friend said "You just look at some books, watch a video and then you're done".  Simple.  In my case the presenter was a gentleman who introduced himself as Harada.  He was an older fellow of not anywhere close to imposing size or height.  Just a man whose demeanor was calm, deliberate and firm.  His delivery wasn't quite fire and brimstone level but he certainly wasn't one whose authority was to be questioned.  Early in the session he advised attendees that in the past they've had people come in who obviously were lacking sleep.  Graciously he stated these individuals had worked graveyard shifts.  The point being that if anyone was caught sleeping during this session they would be required to return at a later date to do it all over again.

What I was exposed to next was a myriad of recent updates to Japanese traffic laws.  There was plenty of mention given to increased fines, increases in penalty points and...the only one change to interpretation of traffic signals (that being where one can make a U-turn in an intersection on a priority right hand turn signal).  I found one of the statistics a touch unsettling: Yamagata isn't an excessively densely populated prefecture (it's a shade below the national average) yet on average there are about 90 traffic accidents a day(ibid).  I certainly wondered where all the accidents were happening given that I've seen only one accident during the time I've spent so far in Yonezawa

Another portion of the presentation which had me puzzled afterwards was when Mr. Harada spoke about accidents at night.  I don't remember all of the preamble but what stuck in my mind was his admonition that "Though shalt drive with high beams on at night".  This pertained to accidents which happened because the drivers didn't have enough braking distance to avoid a collision when driving at night with low beams on.  That makes sense when one remembers that it is possible to overrun the area illuminated by ones low beams even at moderate speeds.  What popped into my mind later was the question "If their statistics show a higher frequency of accidents at night on poorly lit roads then shouldn't someone think about putting up more street lights?". 

So after all that I am now in possession of blue coded Japanese driver's licence.  That's not a cause for major celebration but it's nice to have it over and done with.  Though it is amusing to pull out in response to the question "Can I see some ID?" when I'm back in Vancouver.  Last winter was I asked to do so at a TD Canada Trust branch.  The bank teller who asked was a bit stumped at first when faced with my Japanese driver's licence.  "At least I can read your name on it" was her first response....

I Didn't Find That In My Dictionary....

One of the trusty tools I used when studying Japanese on my own back home in Canada was a copy of "The Kodansha Kanji Learner's Dictionary".  I had come across it by chance at the Indigo book store on Marine Drive in North Vancouver.  After giving it a quick perusal I promptly purchased it.  I hadn't set out to find such a book but once I had it my hands I just had to have it.

When I came to Japan I left that volume in storage back home.  I don't specifically recall why I put it in storage but that's what happened.  Upon my arrival in Yonezawa I didn't go out of my way to find another copy.  It was probably a more than a month before I made my way to the local Book-Off store and checked out their selection of foreign language books.  As luck would have it, a copy of "The Kodansha Kanji Learner's Dictionary - Asian Edition" was available for purchase.  Once again, I hadn't gone out of my way to find it but I certainly didn't let the opportunity to obtain the book (again) slip through my fingers.

The dictionary names Jack Halpern as its editor in chief.  I presume he is a naturalized Japanese citizen as his name is printed in kanji (with furigana) and with the English alphabet on the book's publication information page.  In the foreword a brief biography of Mr. Halpern can be found along with mention of his SKIP system.  SKIP stands for "System of Kanji Indexing by Patterns".  The main feature of the system is that it allows one to look up kanji relatively quickly based on their assignment to one of four geometric patterns (left-right, top-bottom, enclosure and solid).  When I first started using the dictionary, I learned to look up kanji using that system.  It was slow going but I could find what I needed.

Today when using the dictionary I go straight to the back of it and open up the section which has lists of kanji organized by their primary kanji radical.  I won't go into an in-depth explanation of what a kanji radical is simply because I can't think of one!  Nonetheless, I've slowly gotten the hang of identifying radicals so using the radical lists has become an easier chore.

Recently though I've had a few instances where I've been stumped when trying to look up a kanji character.  I find that a touch amusing as there are 2230 kanji listed in the dictionary and yet somehow I seem to have come across characters which don't seem to be in that large set.  Perhaps I was looking in the wrong places but that's a different matter.

The first culprit is this character:

蛾

I encountered this on a notice slipped into the letter slot of my apartment door.  I could pick out bits and pieces of the text that talked about windows, passageways and...something.  My search of the kanji dictionary failed to come up with a match.  Either I had the stroke count wrong or the print was too small for me to recognize and locate the elusive character.  So I fell back on the old method of trying to figure out how to read something based on context and the circumstances of the time.  

One thing we've had plenty of this year are moths.  More than I can recall seeing in previous years.  Supposedly the exterior walls of Yonezawa station were coated with masses of them, though I didn't see them on account of my exiting the station from the opposite side of where the moths were amassing.  But there were plenty of them fluttering about in the corridors of my apartment building.  So I grabbed my iPhone, switched to Japanese text entry and entered "ga", the Japanese word for "moth".  Sure enough the mystery kanji character appeared.  So now I know to read "moth" in kanji.

The next culprit is the first character of this pair:

蒲鉾

These were brought to my attention by a friend who works in the food floor department of an Isetan department store in Tokyo last week.  The last time we met, one of the topics of our conversation was about translating the names of Japanese food items into English and the supposed failings of a food consultant the company had employed.  I don't remember the details of which food item we were talking about but the person in question had claimed there was no equivalent English name for it (details of conversation have been lost as we were drinking in an Irish pub in Ueno at the time).  I just blinked and spouted off its English name not even a second after she had let it slip off her tongue.  Her immediate response was along the lines of "See!  I told you this person wasn't very good".

Any ways, she had fired a message to me on my phone asking "Quick...what is 蒲鉾 in English?".  Luckily I had my kanji dictionary right next to me so I said "Hold on, I'll check for you"...followed by "How do you read 蒲鉾?".  I hadn't found the first kanji character within a minute and I didn't want to keep her waiting.  The reply was "kamaboko".  Ah...one of those "'I see', said the blind man when he bumped into the wall" moments.  The answer, "boiled fish paste cake", was dutifully and quickly sent in a reply.  (Oh yes, the food doesn't look as bad as it sounds.  Here's a link to a photo of some: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Kamaboko.jpg.)

A few days later I told a couple of friends about this discovery and one person pointed out that the character read as "kama" can also be found in the name "Kamata".  Kamata is a district I've walked through once and whose train station I've been in a number of times.  It's been about five years since I last visited the place so the kanji obviously was lost from my memory.  In short hindsight, I do find it odd that one of three people having a conversation in Yamagata prefecture would come up with the name of a relatively obscure place in southern Tokyo. 

Thus ends today's kanji lesson...