I'm "falling"...

Yes, it is autumn - or fall - season again. And, as usual, I've had my share of momiji-hunting this year.

Unlike my previous picture-huntings (check autumn and spring posts of years past. Too many links to put here), this time most of the time I wasn't alone. Guess that, with my thesis pending, I might not have gone to all those places without an "external pressure".

Where could I go after two years in Kyoto? Well, the question is better said as "which of the many places I've never been I may be able to go this year?" That's one of the wonderful things of living in Kyoto, although beautiful places exist throughout the whole country.

The first place was the Kyoto Imperial Palace. Not that I've never been there before. Actually, it was just last spring. Nevertheless, at the time, the place was open to the general public instead of the usual reservations required to enter as part of the commemorations of the 20th anniversary of the current emperor's reign. It actually caught me a little off-guard for this year being "21st year of the Heisei era" on the Japanese calendar.

Japanese calendars counts years according to the year each emperor started its reign. So, when Emperor Akihito came, the Heisei era started; Emperor Showa reigned during the Showa era; Emperor Taisho during the Taisho era; and so on. (The era name and the posthumous name of the emperor have been the same since the Meiji era.)


Also, for being a special occasion, there were special exibitions and events. One more reason to get in and see.

Ohara is a place some people were recommending me to go to take pictures during autumn. So, I tried to gather the Brazilian group in Kyoto and go straight to the main highlight: the Sanzen-in (三千院).


Unfortunately, by a series of misunderstandings and sudden cancellations not many people gathered; and those who did ended up separated in two groups who basically didn't meet each other. Still, it was possible to taste a bit of the traditional Ohara atmosphere and appreciate the autumn leaves on the moss garden at the temple.

The next place wasn't exatcly new for me. After going there in 2007, I went again to Shugakuin Imperial Villa. That time I was with friends from Himeji who came to see the autumn in Kyoto.


Shugakuin Imperial Villa is still one of my favorite places in autumn. It's not too hard to figure out why. Even with some rainy weather by the end of the visit, it was still beautiful. Or should I say, raining while it was still possible to see the sun gave an even more special feeling to the scenario.

Talking about imperial places, the next one is the only one of the four in Kyoto I have never been to (the other ones are Shugakuin Imperial Villa, Katsura Imperial Villa and Kyoto Imperial Palace)... until now. Using a open place in a reservation Fang made, I went to Sento Imperial Palace, or the "retired emperor's palace". And I would like to live in a place like that after I retire... as long as some modern facilities were provided, of course.

It was during the peak of autumn, so the red leaves were at its maximum beauty (the guide himself said that). The garden, although it can't beat Shugakuin Imperial Villa, is really beautiful. Too bad that this time I was experimenting my polarizing filter and the results were often not close to what I expected. The cloudy weather during most of the visit also played a role in depreciating the pictures, too.

The last one was part of a part-time job activity: go to some touristic places in Kyoto with junior high school students. There we went to Toji and Nishi Honganji. The former was already withnot so many red leaves left; the latter had two full yellow beautiful trees. I will skip pictures of those two places to avoid showing the students (maybe there's no problem, but I'll play safe this time).

Well, not so many places this year. This happens when you are under pressure because your research is not going so well as it is supposed to. I would like to have gone to more places, but that was all I got.

To see more pictures, check my Picasa album.

Noh theater and evacuation training

Just because I said I wouldn't be joining many other events as an exchange student there were two more... on the same day. Never say never, I guess...

On November 14th, an "international friendship group" called Kamogawa-kai organized a "mini-Noh workshop". Although there was no actual performance scheduled, there would be a short lecture and some "experiencing".

I've never seen noh myself, and at times I thought that I could understand the explanations better if I had. Nevertheless, the explanations were easy to understand; especially considering its a performing art about 800 years old that even most Japanese can't understand completely.

On the "experiencing part" we could try walking like Noh performers on stage and someone was chosed to wear one of the clothes (the whole set is heavy!) and testify that peripheral vision goes away when one wears a Noh mask. For those reasons, some characteristics of Noh aim at avoiding that performers fall from the stage.

Still, I was more surprised at the stage itself. From the outside it looks like an ordinary Japanese house, but there is a relatively large Noh stage inside. As the lecturer said herself, people usually don't expect to see that stage when they first enter the building.

As one event wasn't enough, on the very same day there was another.

This time it was an event organized by the Kyoto City International Foundation. And with a relatively more serious aim, too. It was a Overnight Evacuation Shelter Training Program focused on explaining procedures in case of natural disaster.

Among the items on the program there was experiencing famous earthquakes in Japan on a truck that simulates those tremors, use of a defibrilator and eating emergency food. It was also a training exercise for volunteers who offer support to foreign residents.

It is nice that they go all that way to explain to foreigners those evacuation procedures. Most people don't know or don't care, and many (like me) come from regions where there are no earthquakes. That sort of drill makes people remember better than just a lecture on safety, but it is also expensive for those who organize it (it was free of charge for foreign residents).

It seems that those drills explaining procedures to foreigners started after the Great Hanshin Earthquake. That quake hit Kobe - a city with many foreign residents - and many foreigners didn't know what to do in those situations.

What I didn't like much to hear was that I'm basically living on a fault line. There are basically three in Kyoto, and if the worst happens (a 7-magnitude earthquake on one of those lines) I'd have an earthquake at home with intensities 7, 5-strong and 6-strong respectively.

Taiken Festival

Once you stay too long in Japan, you tend to participate less in events for foreign students. There are a variety of reasons that change according to each person, but in my case I am now busier than before and a little tired of the routine those events usually take.

Still, even after two years in Japan, there was one that got my attention. It was a "experience festival" (literal translation) from the local Rotary Club: 「留学生のための体験フェスティバル」 on October 24th.

The main reason was because the girls could dress the jyuunihitoe (十二単), a traditional clothing that was worn by the court-ladies during the Heian Period. As the name suggests, it is composed of twelve layers of silk kimono, being extremely elegant and complex to wear (not to mention heavy. In some cases up to 20kg!). Nowadays it is mostly used by the Imperial family in special occasions and in few weddings. It is expensive, and, in part for that reason, almost unseen outside of museums.


The boys would wear an equivalent traditional clothing for court nobles from the Heian Period. I forgot the right name, and searching on the net I found names like sokutai and kariginu, but although they look like, they're not the same.


There was a buddhist monk outfit as well...

And, of course, there were other events. One of them was the game based on Hyakunin Isshu (百人一首), the Uta garuta (歌ガルタ). It is one of the traditional card games in Japan, still played often during the New Year. Each card has a part of poetry, and the objective is to pick the sequence of the waka that is being read. For people who want to know further, I reccomend looking for sites like this one. I am not very familiar with the rules myself to try to explain them here.


At the end, while being treated to dinner (a very good one), we watched on TV the local news reporting the event. They are fast...

And one thing that came to me, this could be one of my last events as a international student in Japan. Ironic that it was with the Rotary Club... because my first dance presentation (when I used to practice ballroom dance back in Brazil) was also at the local Rotary Club.

Yellow Cake

Lately I've been busy like never before. I have to prepare my thesis, an article for a congress, some other obligations in between...

Still, I can't abandon the blog. So, for the time being, watch this animation by Nick Cross. There are many interesting interpretations for this video.

Warning: the beginning may look like some fluffy-happy-fairytale. I warn you it is not.

http://vimeo.com/6898451

More common mistakes in keigo

Back with more common mistakes when using polite Japanese (keigo).


Example 4: Did I give you permission?

Wrong: 当社ではIT商品を中心に開発させていただいております。 (tousha dewa IT shouhin wo chuushin ni kaihatsusasete itadaiteorimasu)
Right: 当社ではIT商品を中心に開発しております。 (tousha dewa IT shouhin wo chuushin ni kaihatsushite orimasu)

The sentence itself means "Our company focus on developing IT products."

This example is not a mistake in all cases. Nevertheless, using the first form shows a shaky command of keigo - more especifically, of kenjyougo (謙譲語). In short, "you know something, but not enough."

Kenjyougo is used to humble oneself or parts more related to oneself than to the listener (one's own family or company, for example). Some verbs have special forms (like the 拝見する in an example in a previous keigo post), and those one can't help but remember. For most others, there's a general rule similar to the one for sonkeigo explained in the previous post (お／ご～になる).

The general rule for kenjyougo verbs consists of placing the affix (接辞) お or ご in front of the verb in the continuative form (連用形). So far, it's the same as sonkeigo. But after the verb, we add する; or いたす - the humble form of する - for some extra politeness.

But there's a catch. Not all verbs can be transformed that way. In general, verbs that deal with feelings (laugh / 笑う; cry / 泣く; be disappointed / がっかりする) and verbs that deals with actions related to the self (return / 帰る; marry / 結婚する; sit / 座る) can't be "humbled" through the form above. Actually, since they refer to one's self, there's officially no need to run those verbs through kenjyougo.

Still, many Japanese people want to show politeness even with those verbs. Others get confused with the special forms. So they resort to one different form: （さ）せていだだく.

The magic of this form is that it can be used with any verb. And there are no special forms, so they all follow the same basic structure: the verb in the causative form (使役動詞) followed by （さ）せていただく. Thus "eat" (食べる) becomes 食べさせていただきます; send (送る) becomes 送らせていただきます; sit (座る) becomes 座らせていただきます.

There's only one problem. This form is (correctly) used mostly in situations where one asks for permission or receives it. Although it may also be used to show manners towards other people present, as it has the connotation of asking for/receiving permission, those who overuse it are not only seen as having insufficient knowledgle of keigo (if using this form in cases when one of the other forms would be preferable), they also might be seen as people who "do things as if they've received permission from others when actually they didn't".

In the initial example, the listener might think: "I don't remember giving you permission to focus on IT products..."


Example 5: Half a right is not a right.

Wrong: 先生はおられますか。 (sensei wa oraremasu ka?)
Right: 先生はいらっしゃいますか。 (sensei wa irasshaimasu ka?)

This one has a good range of possible translations: "Is the teacher here?", "Is the professor present?", "Is the doctor there?"... But you probably got the idea. The same sentence in a less formal way would be 先生はいますか (sensei wa imasu ka).

Let's check the polite forms for the verb いる (to be, there is/are, to exist):
尊敬語 (sonkeigo)：いらっしゃる (irassharu)
謙譲語 (kenjyougo)：おる (oru)

Wait a second... Why is the humble form (おる) being used towards a professor/teacher/doctor? In this case, there is an attempt to turn the humble form into something that shows respect towards that person. That is the られる form.

Most known for indicating passive voice, られる may also be used to express respect toward the listener or a third person when the subject is someone who is respected. Also, if させていただく is the magic form for kenjyougo, られる is its equivalent for sonkeigo. There's little variation from the basic structure: the same for conjugating verbs in the passive voice (受身), which makes it simpler.

Nevertheless, combining a kenjyougo form with られる doesn't just fail to turn the result into sonkeigo, it is also grammar mistake.

(And even if it did, use of られる is considered less polite than the other forms of songeigo. It is looked down less often than させていただく, still one shouldn't overuse られる either.)

Reasons for that mistake in my opinion is basically a combination of two factors:
1- Some people either don't know that いらっしゃる is the sonkeigo form of いる or they may know, but not be confortable with it because of the most common use of that verb: when a customer enters a store, it is normal to hear from the employees いらっしゃいませ！ ("Welcome! May I help you?").
2- The られる form actually can't be combined with neither special kenjyougo verbs (おる, 拝見する) nor sonkeigo verbs (召し上がる, なさる), but the verb いる is not much used in its passive form (there's some discussion on whether いられる exists or not in modern Japanese. Some sources I found say it is not acceptable and others say it's only not usual. None is totally reliable, though), おる doesn't have that problem.
(The mistake of combining られる and sonkeigo verb is known as a form of redundant keigo, or 二重敬語)

Thus, おられる becomes a failed attempt to produce a new sonkeigo verb.


Example 6: What's the alternative?

Wrong: ご注文の方は以上でよろしいですか。 (go-chuumon no hou wa ijyou de yoroshii desu ka?)
Right: ご注文は以上でよろしいですか。 (go-chuumon wa ijyou de yoroshii desu ka?)

The good thing of reusing an example is that you don't have to explain it all over again, but I will anyway... by copy-and-paste.

The correct version means "Will that be all?" or "Is there anything else you'd like to order?" As the translation itself indicates, this sentence is said after a customer orders something as a mean to verify if there's nothing else he/she would like to order.

This time, the mistake is different, though. The use of の方 in this sentence just isn't correct.

Grammatically speaking, の方 has two main uses:

1- When comparing things. Example: りんごよりバナナの方が好き ("I like more bananas than apples")

2- When indicating vicinity (approximation). Example: その店は駅の方にあります ("That store is near/around the station")

So, which one is the の方 used in this example? If we assume comparison, what is the order being compared to? Is the person asking if I'd like to order or do something else? And if we assume approximation it gets even worse... I can't even make a joke for that one.

Why this happens? Again, my best bet is the frenzy for indirectiveness when speaking politely in Japanese, based on the second meaning. An "approximation" is more vague, thus might be considered more polite.

Searching for sources on this one, I found something interesting. This link leads to a pdf file with some discussion about the use of 方. And to describe uses of の方 the author uses the word ぼかし (bokashi), which can be translated as "making something vague".
(That's the "approximation" use I guess... That's why you need examples in things like dictionaries.)

Wow! A word that says on its description it makes things vague. No wonder it is used for politeness...

Thanks to Claus for remembering this one.


Aftermatch

I plan to finish my posts about polite Japanese for now. And one thing I have to say is even though the examples I've shown are regarded as mistakes nowadays, since languages are modified by people continuously, they may become standard Japanese someday.

But, for now, they should be avoided by people who want to give a good impression when using polite Japanese.