New love-related words develop among young Japanese people

May 30, 2009

New love-related words develop among young Japanese people


“Yubi-koi,” which literally means finger love, is one of brand-new words in use among young people in Japan. The term means love which has developed as a result of finger-touch cell phone mails. A new breed of abbreviated and shortened words is emerging amid changes in young people’s behaviors following the spread of mobile information devices. In Japan, words are long believed to have miraculous power. Will the series of words enrich or just confuse the language in Japan?
Waka poems of the earliest time, including love poems, were made when people hoped to express their wishes or wills to the gods while counting on the special power of the language. A poem extended from Prince Ootsu (663-686) to Lady Ishikawa and her return poem follow:

I got wet with dewdrops
when I was waiting for you, my love, on a mountain path.
I wish I were the dewdrops that you said wetted you
who were waiting for me on a mountain path.
(Personal translations)

The poems were included in the Manyoshu (ten thousand leaves) poem anthology, which came into being in the eighth century. Their rendezvous failed, but the couple came to love each other later. Another poem composed by Prince Ootsu and placed just after the two poems in the anthology says:

Our relations have been revealed by fortune teller Tsumori,
but while exactly knowing this would happen,
I had slept with her.
(A personal translation)

A newly published book collects a variety of new words spoken by young Japanese people, mainly teenagers. Besides yubi-koi, love-related words shown in the book include “rea-koi,” or real love, and “tomo-koku,” a declaration of love by a friend as a surrogate. “Byosatsu,” or killing in a second, means one falls in love with her or him at very first sight.
Prince Ootsu, a son of Emperor Tenmu, was known for his distinguished talent and popular among court people at his time. But he succumbed in a power struggle which followed his father’s death. He was “given a death” just after the incident, history says.
Poems exchanged by couples came first in the second volume of the Manyoshu anthology, followed by elegies, including those regarding the prince’s death. This indicates that love and death were close to each other for ancient people. A separate poem in the anthology suggests Lady Ishikawa was also loved by Crown Prince Kusakabe. But he also died young. Prince Ootsu had married Princess Yamanobe. She followed her husband to the grave.
Young people in today’s Japan are not exposed to such real threats of death, but they are faced with new kinds of harassment, such as stalking and sexual abuses. How to declare love for her or him is always the foremost issue of concern for young people. The Japanese language is flexible in accepting imported or new words to evolve itself. Young Japanese people, who have inherited a keen sense of the language from their ancestors, are expected to create new words further to express their feelings in their own way in the current information-oriented age.

Row over infant organ transplantation and endangered small lives in Japan

May 19, 2009

Row over infant organ transplantation and endangered small lives in Japan


Should Japan remove a ban on infant-to-infant organ transplantation? and if so, how to diagnose would-be young donors as brain dead? This is a major area of discussion about a proposed revision to Japan’s 12-year-old organ transplantation law. A total of 81 organ transplant operations from brain dead patients have been carried out in Japan since a relevant law took effect in October 1997. But Japan bans operations from those aged less than 15 years.
The current law requires donors’ prior consent in writing and their families’ agreement. It is very difficult to diagnose seemingly brain dead young patients, physicians say, because children have strong recuperative power. This is a major reason for not allowing heart and other organ transplantation from infants. Experts also stress the difficulty of locating brain dead patients linked to child abuse cases. As a result, dozens of children are believed to be dead in Japan every year without chances of receiving organ transplant operations.
A waka poem composed by Ki Tsurayuki, one of the greatest poets in the Heian period, about his dead daughter goes:

The waves lapping the beach.
Please bring me a memory eraser shell.
And I will get on the beach and pick up one
to put my child out of my mind.
(A personal translation)

The bivalve mentioned in the poem, a tradition says, buries sad memories if one keeps it. The daughter died when Tsurayuki was governor of Tosa, the current Kochi Prefecture, western Japan. He made the poem on his voyage back to Kyoto, Japan’s capital in the Heian period from the late eighth century. His young wife disagreed. Her poem follows:

I will never pick up a memory eraser shell.
I will keep my feeling of love as a memento of my dear daughter
who was like a white jewel.
(A personal translation)

His wife’s name is unknown, as is the case with most women at his time.
The remaining way for Japanese children suffering from serious cardiac diseases to survive is to receive heart transplant operations abroad, but this requires massive money, estimated at tens of millions of yen or more.
Three bills for revision of the organ transplantation law have been before Japan’s parliament, but none of them are likely to be acted upon. The bills are aimed at improving the situation surrounding Japan’s organ transplantation, but by different approaches. People on campaigns for increasing opportunities for organ transplantation for infants call for removing the limit on donors' ages.
A fourth, compromise proposal has been recently prepared, but it fails to satisfy these people. Among them is a young father whose one-year-and-four-month-old son died before receiving a heart transplant operation. The latest proposal calls for scrapping the age limit but authorizing organ transplantation from children only when parents agree. The father stresses that it will be actually very hard for parents to acknowledge their small children are brain dead.
Tsurayuki served in Tosa when he was in his 60s. Tosa was a remote, underdeveloped country at his time. The poet regretted that he could not save his daughter’s life because good physicians were not available there. She was the apple of his eye.
It is far from certain if a solution will be found for opening the way for domestic organ transplantation for infants. But it should become unable for Japan before long to rely on organ transplantation, especially for infants, in other countries. Japanese must make more serious efforts to establish a consensus on how to save their endangered small lives.

Lunar calendar revisited in Japan

May 14, 2009

Lunar calendar revisited in Japan


Japanese are a nature- and season-conscious people. The four seasons are clear in Japan, which lies in the Temperate Zone in East Asia. “Japanese people have a highly developed sense of the seasons, and I think this is praise-worthy,” Dr. Donald Keene, a professor emeritus at Columbia University and a noted Japanese literature researcher, said in a recent extensive interview on NHK, Japan’s public TV network.
Japanese lived with a modified lunar calendar until 1872. The remnants of the lunar calendar are seen sometimes in the social life in today’s Japan. Japanese people exchange greeting cards with each other at the beginning of the year. The messages have an introductory remark, for example, “I pray for your family’s health on the start of the new spring.” This is because the start of spring came around the start of the year when the old lunar calendar was in use.
A waka poem composed by Ki Tsurayuki (871?-946), one of the greatest poets in the Heian period, and included in the Kokinwakashu poem anthology follows:

A hillside fountain where I scooped up water
while getting my sleeves wet;
it perhaps froze in winter,
and I wonder if it is melting on a breeze today on the first day of spring.
(A personal translation)

The poet tried to depict one cycle of the seasons, from summer to early spring, in a single 31-syllable waka poem. The editors of the 20-volume poem anthology, including Tsurayuki himself, developed a method of dividing and arranging poems by season, giving the first six volumes to those related to the four seasons.
Japanese people feel no problem with the current solar calendar in their ordinary life, but it becomes complex when they observe certain seasonal events and customs. The old lunar calendar is about one month behind the solar calendar. According to the lunar calendar, the first day of spring falls on Feb. 4 in 2009.
People who call for revisiting the lunar calendar fear that Japanese people’s traditional sense of the seasons may be distorted further if they live only on the existing solar calendar. “Why do we have to observe the Festival of the Weaver amid the tsuyu rainy season?” they ask. The rainy season continues from June to early or mid-July. The Star Festival is held on July 7 according to the solar calendar in most regions in Japan, but the original custom calls for observing it a month later.
The lunar calendar “reminds us of the original bodily rhythm which we received from our ancestors,” says the author of a book which recommends the lunar calendar. Farmers and fishermen read the old lunar calendar for their nature-oriented jobs. The old calendar gives Japanese people power to heal themselves while living a life in harmony with nature, another advocate says. Tsurayuki came of a ruined old prestigious family. He is not a poet of passion. His poems are moderate and elegant. The argument of the lunar calendar advocates should be studied further, but at least it sounds attractive to many Japanese as their daily life is filled with strong stress.

An author’s note: Most waka poems have five phrases, basically with 5-7-5-7-7 syllables. This style sounds smooth and rhythmic to Japanese, including today’s Japanese.

Statute of limitation for murder cases and bereaved families’ grief

May 8, 2009

Statute of limitation for murder cases and bereaved families’ grief

A group of families who lost their beloved ones in unsolved murder cases held a rally in Tokyo late February to announce the inauguration of an association. The purpose was to call for scrapping or suspending Japan’s statute of limitation system.
Doubts about the statute of limitation in criminal cases were little heard until recently. But the rule has come to be questioned as many years have passed for yet-to-be-solved murder cases involving young victims and one whole family.
The country cannot afford to continue to spend taxpayer money indefinitely for the search of criminals. This is a reason cited by experts for maintaining the statute of limitation system. They also say that bereaved families’ grief will be usually eased as time goes by. It also becomes difficult to collect evidence and related materials as the cases become older.
A waka poem composed by Princess Ooku (661-702) about her younger brother, Prince Ootsu, and included in Japan’s first waka poem anthology Manyoshu (ten thousand leaves) goes:

When I saw my beloved one off on his way back to Yamato,
the night was far advanced.
And I found myself standing wet with morning dewdrops at daybreak.
(A personal translation)

The poem depicts a situation when the prince visited his sister at her residence in Ise, where the maiden princess served the God of Ise. Prince Ootsu was in danger of being arrested in a power struggle at the time. Princess Ooku’s fear about her brother’s fate became a reality. Prince Ootsu was actually arrested and executed after their separation. Her poem made after her brother’s death was also included in the waka anthology.
“Our anger at the criminals will get stronger. It will never weaken,” said a document issued by the families before the inauguration of the group. “Why do we, the bereaved families, have to feel pain like this?” it said.
Japan had been evolving around a public-oriented social system. The nation was the first and individuals the second. This was an idea long followed by general people. But more emphasis has been given now to individuals’ rights and views. The tendency is becoming more pronounced, now that people pay attention to the importance of families and things around themselves as Japan has entered an era of low growth. It is difficult to keep a balance between the budget for the search of criminals and costs for realizing the social justice to respond to bereaved families’ feelings. Discussion about what to do with the statute of limitation system may be a cost for Japan to be a more matured democracy.

An author’s note: Yamato is an area in the current Nara Prefecture, where the emperors’ palaces existed in the seventh century. Ise is a region in the eastern part of the current Mie Prefecture.

Children’s Day and young Japanese parents’ fears

May 4, 2009

Children’s Day and young Japanese parents’ fears

May 5th is Children’s Day or one of the 17 national holidays in Japan. Public and other events take place across the country to encourage the growth of children. Prime Minister Taro Aso’s 2-trillion-yen cash handout scheme, aimed at resuscitating the economy hurt by the global financial crisis, calls for extending 20,000 yen to those aged up to 18 years. This compares with the regular amount of 12,000 yen. “We are basically happy about the cash handout, but we know this will be financed by an additional national debt issue,” a young father told a TV interviewer on the street. “I have a mixed feeling when I think about the already bad national finances for the future generation,” he said.
A waka poem composed by Yamanoue Okura, a court official who was active in the early eighth century, and included in the Manyoshu (ten thousand leaves) poem anthology goes:

How actually valuable should silver, gold or jewels be?
Even these precious things never match children.
(A personal translation)

The population of children in Japan has been declining steadily in the past decades. The proportion of those aged 14 years or younger relative to the total population has fallen to 13.4 pct this year, down 22 points from 35.4 pct in 1950, according to a government estimate.

Experts have presented prescriptions for boosting Japan’s birthrate in order to increase the number of children. They cite a number of reasons for the declining birthrate, including changes in people’s views about families and an increase in the number of working women.

Young couples actually hope to have children, but the social and economic situation is hard for them to raise children, said one expert. “We must take various measures steadily to create an environment for young people to raise children without fears.”

The cash handout scheme has been branded as a pork barrel policy by opposition parties. The money will reach households in most regions from early to mid-May. People, especially those with young children, should carefully consider how to use the money.