The day of wise cats and foolish dogs －賢い猫とアホな犬の日

February 22^nd was Cat Day in Japan.  Because the number two is pronounced “Ni”in Japanese, and cats are said to say ”Nyaa” or “Niyan”, someone had the bright idea of making it a special day for our feline friends.  Someone else had the idea of turning the “Ni” sound into Ninja Day, but we’ll ignore that this time.

Perhaps you ate an onigiri shaped like a cat’s head to celebrate.  Perhaps you went to a cat cafe to pet the creatures.  Perhaps you ate a burger made of cat meat instead.  I hope not.

Anyway, I like cats.  So to mark the occasion I have edited part of a story by Rudyard Kipling.  He explains why cats have retained an independent spirit and don’t always do what people tell them to, unlike dogs.

An edited extract from “The cat that walked by himself”, first published in “Just so stories” (1902) by Rudyard Kipling:

This happened when the tame animals were wild.  The dog was wild, and the horse was wild, and the pig and sheep were wild.  But the wildest of all the wild animals was the cat.  He walked by himself and all places were alike to him.

Man and woman were wild too, until they made a fire in a cave for the first time.

Out in the wet, wild woods, all of the wild animals gathered together where they could see the fire and they wondered what it meant.

Then the wild horse stamped his foot and said, “Oh my friends, and oh my enenies: Why have the man and the woman made that great light in that great cave, and what harm will it do us?

The wild dog smelled the smell of cooking meat on the fire and said, “I will go up and look and see and say, for I think it is good.  Cat, come with me.”

“Nay.  I am the cat who walks by himself and all places are alike to me.  I will not come.”

“Then we can never be friends again,” said the dog.  And he ran off to the cave.

But when he had gone a little way, the cat said to himself, “All places are alike to me.  Why should I not go and see and look, and come away again as I please?”  So he slipped after wild dog, softly, and hid himself where he could hear everything.

The wild dog smelled the cooking meat, and it smelled delicious.  He pushed open the skin covering the entrance to the cave.  Inside he saw the woman cooking the meat.

The woman said, “Wild thing out of the wild woods: Help my man to hunt during the day, and guard this cave at night, and I will give you as many bones from this cooked meat as you need.

“Ah,” said the cat listening.  “This is a very wise woman.  But she is not as wise as I am.”

Wild dog crawled into the cave and laid his head on the woman’s lap and said, “Oh my friend, and wife of my friend: I will help your man to hunt through the day.  And at night I will guard your cave.”

“Ah,” said the cat, listening.  “That is a very foolish dog.”

Vocabulary:

to mark something – to make note of or celebrate something like a birthday or anniversary

tame – of an animal, not wild; domesticated or safe

alike – the same

to stamp – to put one’s foot down hard

What is a lazy ant doing? - Writing newspaper articles and blogging 怠け者の蟻は何をしてるか？ －新聞記事を書いたり、ブログをしているよ

A Japanese friend of mine told me about an interesting item she saw on the news recently.  She told me that some Japanese researchers had studied the behaviour of worker ants and found that some of them are “lazy”.  They stay in their nest and don’t seem to do much while the rest of the worker ants are busy keeping the nest clean and foraging for food.

I thought it was a fascinating story.  You naturally hear about lazy ants and wonder whether there are any parallels in human society.  Am I one of the lazy 20 per cent? Am I one of the hard working 80 per cent?

So when I got home I searched the internet to try to find some news articles about the ants.  In the course of doing my research, I came up with my own theory to explain what the seemingly lazy ants are really doing.  They have tiny little smartphones, too small to be noticed by the researchers.  And they are sitting at home, posting angry comments on blogs.  How did I come up with this remarkable theory?  I will tell you.

Searching for a story about lazy ants, I quickly came across a Japan Times article on this research.  It told me some basic facts: that the study was done by researchers at the University of Hokkaido; that they found 20 per cent of the ants were doing no work; and that the other 80 per cent were having to work harder on their behalf.  The article also then said that even if the hardest workers were removed, the 20 per cent of “lazy” ants did not change their behaviour.

This last point confused me, since it seemed to say the exact opposite of what my Japanese friend had told me.  “Oh, well,” I thought.  She must have misunderstood the story.

Rather than relying on a single source for my information, I continued searching the internet to see if I could find any other articles talking about this study.  I next found a blog which had posted a link to the Japan Times article and had lots of comments from readers underneath the link.  Some of the comments were funny, some were defensive about the benefits of being lazy, some used the study to “prove” that people (yes, human beings) receiving welfare benefits were lazy and should have their benefits taken away from them.  It’s quite impressive to see what leaps in logic can be made from a short article about ants.

I still couldn’t rely on this as confirmation that the Japan Times article was accurate, since the blog was using the exact same article for its information.

So I then found another article discussing the research.  This was from Mainichi, another major Japanese newspaper.  It quoted some of the same facts, but was a longer article giving more details.  And the details it gave were rather surprising!  For example, it said that if the 20 to 30 per cent (not 20 per cent, you will notice) of “lazy” ants were all removed from the colony, leaving only “hard working” ants, then 20 or 30 per cent of the “hard working” ants stopped working and became inactive.  In other words, it seems that having a per centage of ants in the colony doing nothing is actually important for the survival of the colony.

The article then went on to say that the researchers had done computer models to show that if all of the ants worked hard, then they would all become tired at the same time.  This would prove disastrous for the colony as none of the ants would be able to look after the eggs for a time.

Someone reading only the Mainichi article would get the completely opposite impression from the research than someone who only read the Japan Times article.  All of the people who were writing their comments on another blog about removing “lazy” humans’ benefits were ironically too lazy themselves to check the information they were talking about.

Now you can see how obviously true my theory is.  The inactive ants are just sitting around, playing with their smartphones and submitting comments to blogs.  Rumours that one of the ants contributes articles to a major Japanese newspaper cannot be confirmed at this time. 

Vocabulary:

to forage – of a person or animal, to search widely for food or provisions

to come across – to find something by chance

welfare benefits – money paid by governments to people in need, such as the unemployed, disabled etc.

a leap – a large jump

 

 

Samurai in the Rain, Attack of the Giant Lizard!, and other classics －雨の中のサムライ、巨大トカゲの襲撃！、そしてその他の名作－

I wrote last week about one of my favourite movies, Groundhog Day.  There is a big problem, however, when talking to a Japanese audience about movies.  The titles of foreign movies in Japan bear little relation to the original title.

Groundhog Day became “Love is déjà vu in Japan (恋はデジャ・ブ).  Umm, what?

It seems to me that the Japanese distributors have a very low opinion of Japanese audiences.  They think that the original title is confusing, so everyone will just give up on it.  It also fails to treat the movie as a work of art worth preserving in as close to its original form as possible.  It’s just a source of money.  Throw the word “love” into the title and more people will watch it.

And English teachers like me have to learn never to talk about movies with their students.  It simply sparks confusion all around.  Don’t believe me?  Take a look at some more examples below.  I’ll list the title in Japan first, followed by the original title.

If we were to encounter (めぐり逢えたら)　

Sleepless in Seattle

There is no tomorrow for us (俺たちに明日はない)　

Bonnie and Clyde 

Those days with Penny Lane (あの頃ペニー・レインと)

Almost famous 

A 17 year-old’s medical charts (17 歳のカルテ)
Girl, interrupted 

In the English language world, we have tended just to keep the original titles of Japanese films and books.  Audiences are just expected to deal with it.  But maybe we have missed a trick.  If someone were to re-release classic Japanese films and books with a catchy new title, they could make millions!

So I have come up with my own new, catchier titles for classic Japanese books and movies.  I’ll put my titles below.  See if you can guess what original work they represent.  I’ll then put the answers further down the page, after the vocabulary. 

1 – Attack of the Giant Lizard!

2 – Should I kill my baby?

3 - Sensei with the guilty heart

4 - The man in the well

5 - Samurai in the Rain

6 – Kids and parents these days

7 – The ghost girl in the tv

 

Vocabulary:

ｔo spark something – to create or cause something

ｔo miss a trick – to fail to use some helpful tactic or clever solution

 

Answers:

1 - Godzilla

2 - A personal matter (個人的な体験)

3 - Kokoro　

4 - The wind-up bird chronicles (ねじまき鳥クロニクル)

5 - Rashomon

6 – Tokyo story (東京物語)

7 – Ring

 

 

6 more weeks of winter, 33 more years without hayfever － あと6週間の冬、花粉症のないあと33年間 －

“What would you do if you were stuck in one place, and every day was the same, and nothing that you did mattered?”

Phil Connors, played by Bill Murray 

“I was in the Virgin Islands once.  I met a girl.  We ate lobster, drank pina coladas.  At sunset we made love like sea otters.  That was a pretty good day.  Why couldn’t I get that day over and over and over...”
Phil Connors, played by Bill Murray

I noticed a couple of days ago that it was February 2^nd: Groundhog Day.  For those who haven’t heard of it, it is a day associated with a superstition about the change from winter to spring.  In a small town in America called Punxsutawney, there is a ceremony held every year on this date.  They pull out a small hibernating animal called a groundhog.  According to the legend, if the animal sees its shadow then that means that there will be six more weeks of winter.  If it doesn’t see a shadow, then there will be an early spring.

There are a lot of daft superstitions in the world.  What makes this one special is that it inspired one of the greatest films ever made...  Well, one of the greatest films I have ever seen, anyway.  I must have watched the 1993 film, “Groundhog Day”, at least 50 times.

I am occasionally asked what my favourite film is and, when I mention Groundhog Day, no Japanese person has ever seen it.  That is a terrible shame.  Because the film offers advice to anyone who feels stuck in life, unable to influence things around them.  As Japan drifts into a future of an ever increasing ratio of pensioners and ever declining opportunities for the young, a lot of people are going to need to get over a similar feeling of powerlessness.  Don’t worry, it is not a philosophical lecture.  The film is extremely funny.

The story is about an arrogant weatherman, who travels to Punxsutawney to cover the Groundhog Day festival.  He annoys everyone around him and tries to get out of the town as fast as he can.  But he is unable to leave because of a blizzard and has to stay the night in a local hotel.

He then becomes trapped in a time loop.  He can travel around the town, talk to the limited number of residents, watch the festival, and so on.  But whenever the time passes 6 am the following morning, he wakes up in the same hotel bed and it is February 2^nd again.  Only his memory remains of what he has done before.  Many years pass in this way.  According to one estimate made by fans of the film, he lives the same day for what he experiences as about 33 years.

Like a Buddhist living through a cycle of thousands and thousands of lives and seeking a way to escape, the weatherman , Phil Connors, goes through stages of ignorance, selfishness, self-indulgence, desperation and finally moves towards enlightenment.

This week in the real Groundhog Day, a sleepy little animal predicted an early spring.  For hayfever sufferers like myself, that’s worse than a long winter.  I’m still in my phase of desperation at my powerlessness in the face of unstoppable pollen.  Perhaps if I had a 33 year break from spring, I would reach enlightenment too.
 

Vocabulary:

a sea otter – a type of mammal that lives in the sea and which was once hunted for its fur

a superstition – an un-scientific belief involving luck, magic, the supernatural etc.

a hibernating animal – an animal which sleeps for a long period during winter

daft – silly; stupid

arrogant – having an excessive belief in one’s own importance

a blizzard – a snow storm

a time loop – especially in science-fiction or fantasy, a situation where time does not move forwards in a straight line, but repeats itself

ignorance – lack of knowledge or understanding

self-indulgence – being overly kind to oneself; following one’s own desires too much

enlightenment – in Buddhism, the state of proper understanding of the world which the Buddha achieved