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We've entered that hectic time near the end of the year that the Japanese call
"Shiwasu," which was originally the name for the 12th month under the lunar
calendar, and which now describes that extra-busy few weeks at the end of the
year when no one has enough time to do the things they need to get done. This
is the month companies will have their "bonenkai" (boh-nen-KAI) which
literally means "forget the past year party," a long tradition going back to
the Kamakura Period (1185-1333). A bonenkai is a big party held by companies
or other groups where everyone eats, drinks and looks back on the events of
the past year -- it's a great stress reliever, and lots of fun. December is
also the season for "osoji" or "big cleaning": you always clean your house
from top to bottom in December so you can start the new year with a clean
house (especially the doors -- for some reason clean doors are very
important). Every third TV commercial these days is an advertisement for
cleaning supplies with bizarre names like "Quickle Wiper" and "Charmy Green."
Like all languages, the Japanese language has many dialects, from well-known
ones like Osaka-ben and Kyoto-ben to the unintelligible utterances of people
from the Tohoku region of northern Honshu, whose strangely inflected speech is
caused (according to one theory) by centuries of living in the cold, which
encouraged people to learn to speak with shorter words and not open their
mouths as widely while talking. When the capital of Japan was officially moved
from Kyoto to Edo (which was renamed Tokyo or "East Capital" in homage to the
cities of Beijing and Nanjing, "North Capital" and "South Capital"
respectively), the official language of Japan became the dialect used in
Tokyo. Today Japanese from all regions of the country have to come to terms
with this bi-dialectical aspect of their language, the existance of their own
local dialect in relation to the "official" language taught in schools, which
can differ quite a lot. In the U.S., we don't have a physical region that we
define standard American English by, just as we lack an official body to
define the boundaries of our language like the Academie francaise in France --
whatever dialect they're using on the evening news is the most accurate
bellweather of standard American English, for the most part.
I see that the U.S. Treasury is going to be adding color to its bills soon,
introducing shades of blue and orange to the $20 and $50 bills. The Japanese
have always used money that was colored very differently -- blue for the 1000
yen note, purple for the 5000 yen and brown for the 10,000 yen note. Having
differently colored money makes it easier to use and lessens the chance you'll
plunk down the wrong bill at the supermarket, an important consideration in a
country where 20% of the population is age 65 or older. When Japanese go to
the U.S., they need to be careful to avoid making mistakes with their dollars.
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