Japanese Polish Potato Salad: Happy Thanks Giving Everyone!

so it's a ripe 1:00am friday here. but you guys are just getting your thanks giving settings out. tonight, we're also going to be having a celebration here in the seminar house, which is at least half overrun with americans. a thanks giving potluck. so, after a good 15 years of observing and helping, i have decided to create the next generation of potato salad.

i was talking to my mom about the ratios. she asked, "well, how much are you making?" i answered, "3 or 4 potatoes. 6 max." she came back with "i've never made so little!" but i must have done it right, because there wasn't enough room in the 'bowl' i was using to stir it. i was also stirring it with a rice paddle. i'm taking that trick back with me. it's amazing.

the ingredients were a little difficult to find. you can pretty much find vegetables and potatoes anywhere, though celery is ridiculously expensive. but mustard and dill pickles were going to be tough.

i had a heck of a time finding the pickles. in the end, i didn't even find them. i was at the end of my rope (even visited a colombian import store*) and asked a friend who was going out for her own ingrediants to keep an eye out. she found them all right. they aren't quite the same, but they're still good.

*funny tangent time: i talked with the owner (or at least a worker) of the import store for a bit. my friends had, for some reason, thought the shop was brazillian. the person i spoke with was colombian. he, too, spoke japanese, spanish, and english. but for some reason, when i revealed that i spoke spanish too, all of my spanish hid in the dark corners of brain. i guess it was because i was in "japanese mode." he asked if i spoke spanish, in spanish, and i answered "chyotto," japanese for "un pocitto," or "a little." the opposite always happens when i try to speak in japanese; for example: "necicito los meganes de sol," "i need my sunglasses," replacing "gafas" with the japanese word for "glasses," "megane." (btw, these two words are not interchangeable in ANY other context.) i think i should go back there some time and prove that i'm not a total moron. but it occured to me on the way back to the school that i've forgotten the past tense in spanish. i should fix that.

i found the mustard on top of a shelf wrapped in a cord hanging from the ceiling.

getting the sour cream was fun, too. it's a good story. i had no less than three japanese people searching the store* for this "sawaa kuriimu." one of them actually thought it was a face cream. turns out it was right next to the whipping cream that i had not only looked at but picked up and read... twice. one of the people helping me look had done the same. there were two containers about half the size of a yogurt cup (you can see it in the pictures below) with the labels facing inward. no wonder i didn't recognize it. when i finally went to use it, it had the consistancy of creame cheese. i had to warm it up by putting a bowl of hot water under the bowl containing it. all is well now though.

*(well, really, just the refrigerator section)

the mayo is also a little sweeter here, but i happened not to use much. it's not exactly the same, but it's still delicious. we'll see how it does tomorrow at the party.

so, for your eyes, unfortunately not for your mouths, the next generation of Polish potato salad, or perhaps the first generation of Japanese Polish potato salad.

Sweets Paradise

so, as promised, we went to Sweets Paradise. it is a たべほうだい tabehoudai, or "all you can eat" establishment dedicated to, you guessed it, sweets; more specifically cakes. (interestingly enough, the place is pay by the hour.) but they also had some really good pastas and カレー (karee) curry there. that's a good thing, because i've found out here, i'm not really someone who likes "sweet" so much. i'm definitely more of a salt or spicy person.

nonetheless, they had some really delicious mushroom sauce pasta, and curry. they also had mochi (a soft, sweet rice cake), and a really good strawberry-whipped cream sandwich-like thing. The mochi was nice because it was one of the japanese foods that i've been wanting to eat since i got to japan, but haven't gotten to yet. it was a little sweeter than i was used to, so i only had one, but it was good.

the place was on the sixth floor of a subway station. the stations here are often shopping centers as well. this is a little strange to me, but it was cool to go through some of the places and get a little more modern japanese culture while we were there.

also, everything was decorated for christmas. it really makes you realize how much Thanks Giving breaks up the season. some of us were talking about how, even though you see the Christmas stuff out right after halloween, the decorations themselves don't really go up until after thanks giving.

over all, the place wasn't as cool for me as i had expected, but it was still a fun night. afterward, some friends and i went to the arcade to do peliculo, which i'll have to explain at a later date. *mischievous grin* heh heh!

pictures!

the atmosphere ..................................................the view from the 6th floor


the desert spread ...............................................the strawberry thing


white chooooooocolaaaaaaate .........cool water clock in the station


the street ..........................................yes, there is a place called "Toyota"


water clock in the station

Learning Japanese: Romaji and Other Useful Things

i said that i should get some of this in here. probably should have thought about it earlier, but oh well. it's long, but it's about three classes and several years of correction worth of information here. feel free to skim. i've tried to make it skim friendly with bolding, headings, paragraph breaks, and colors. at the end in a set of words and how to get easy sound bites for demonstration.

Writing and Pronunciation

so, about, these words that i keep writing in these glyphs (mostly because i like playing with my keyboard) and then have to "subtitle" with pronunciation, a lot of those pronunciation guides are retarded approximations of the word. and they're annoying to write and look at.

as it happens, there is a systematic and standardized representation of japanese words in characters that western speakers can read. this system uses a "kana" called "romaji."

from now on, i want to write my japanese pronunciations in romaji rather than these bad pronunciation guides.

there are four ways to represent words in japanese. i will use some "romaji" in my explanations, but i will explain romaji in and of itself soon enough. (you can skip the first three if you like.)

Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji:

- the first is a syllibary called ひらがな (hiragana). it has about 45 characters, each representing what we would call a vowel or a consonant-vowel combination. the first "line" is あ い う え お, pronounced "a, i, u, e, o." the second "line" is か き く け こ representing "ka, ki, ku, ke, and ko." it continues like this. these characters are used for native japanese words, or sometimes adopted chinese words old enough to be considered "native" japanese.

- the second is カタカナ (katakana). this also has about 45 characters representing proximately the same syllables. アイウエオ are similar to, if not the same as the aforementioned "a, i, u, e, o."カ キ ク ケ コ are respectively "ka, ki, ku, ke, and ko." these characters are used to represent sounds not always necessarily words. what does this mean? basically, they represent pronunciations, sound effects/some onomonopia, and in this case foreign words adopted into japanese, but aren't considered native. katakana spellings of foreign words are often approximated pronunciations, but for some reason, truely adopted words like コンピューター (computer) have acquired "standard" spellings. it has also become common to spell native japanese words in katakana for marketing and advertising purposes like in brand and store names, just because it's "cool," similar to the American convention of spelling things like "kwik/quik" (quick) or "EZ" (easy). the sound and meaning are the same, but it's note really that word.

- the third is 漢字 (kanji). these are pictographs/characters with varying pronunciations that represent meanings and concepts stolen from chinese writing. this is the most educated form of writing, but they are often combined with other kanji and/or hiragana for grammatical purposes. for example, the kanji 大 has the general meaning "big." as an adjective, it is written 大きい and pronounced "oo" (not "oo" as in "food" but a very long/strong sounding "o" as in "abode") in "oo-kii." it can also be combined with the character 学 (school/study/learning) to become 大学 meaning "big school" or more properly "university/college" and pronounced "dai." the whole word is pronounced "dai-gaku." it becomes very complex and difficult. i think it's said that you need to know about 500 of these characters to read a newspaper, 2000? for a novel, and there are over 5000 used in japanese. i think the chinese have something like 20,ooo of them. i don't believe i've used any kanji in my blogs yet.

(skipping people, pay attention now.)

Romaji:

the fourth, is romaji. this is what i really want to talk about. romaji is the standardized usage of roman characters to represent japanese sounds. lucky us, unlike the western attempt at representing chinese sounds, this one usually works pretty well. for those who don't know, roman characters, for our purposes, are basically the english alphabet abc...xyz. i believe the system is based off of english spelling anyway.

japanese pronunciation consists of a few main features:

• vowels (pure vowels similar to spanish),
• diphthongs and vowel blends,
• hard consonants,
• long vowels,
• long consonants,
• and consonant blends.

these are reflected in romaji representation of japanese. most of these conventions are reflections of the hiragana used spell the japanese pronunciation.

vowels:
(i'm taking alot of the next part from the Langenscheidt Pocket Dictionary Japanese.)

the vowels are pure vowels pretty close to the ones used in singing or spanish.

• -あ "a" is pronounced "ah" like the "a" in "father"
• -え "e" "eh" like the "e" in "get" (except i think it has more of the element of a long "a" like the last sound in the name "Renee´" or the spanish word "grande")
• -い "i" "ee" as in "heat" (but shorter)
• -お "o" somewhat of a long "o" as in "port" (but shorter)
• -う "u" as in "put" (but sometimes more "oo" as in "food")

diphthongs (and vowel blends):
(some of this is stolen too)

• -あい ai as in "Thai" (or the spanish "bailar"):
• -あえ ae pronounced "ah-eh"
• -いえ ie pronounced "ee-eh"
• -うえ ue pronounced "oo-eh"

(most japanese double vowels like this usually emphasize both vowels. the vowel sound doesn't usually change, though sometimes they can get "mushed" due to the speed of speech.)

special consonants:
(the framework for this is stolen too, but a lot has been added)

the consonants are pretty much the same, but a few conventions need to be talked about:

• - "c" and "x" aren't usually used.
• - "g" is always hard regardless of the vowel that comes after it, like the g in "go," "girl," or "get," even when "ge" or "gi"
• - "j" (or soft "g") sound is represented with a "j" like in "jar." however, often there is a trick to the "j" because of the sound in japanese is often a variation on "shi" or sometimes "tsu"
• -"s" is always hard like in "sit," never "z" like "jars." this will always be represented with "z."
• - "y" is always a consonant like in "yet," never a vowel like "fly" or "myst." this one may also end up a little tricky sometimes because of it's usage in japanese blends.
• - "sh" is like "she." this will usually be "shi" because sha, shu, and sho are usually blends (shya, shyu, shyo) and "she" (with a short "e" as in my last name) doesn't really exist.
• - "ch" is like "cheeze." this will usually be "chi" for the same reasons "sh" is usually "shi."
• - also, in japanese, there is a character す "su," but sometimes especially at the end of a word or sentences, most commonly in the word です "desu" and verb forms ending in ~ます "~masu," this "su" is shortened to "des/dess" or "~mas/~mass." so far i've been writing these as "des'" and "~mas'," but from now, i will write them as "desu" and "~masu" because there are times that another word comming after it will change the pronunciation back to standard, such as ですよ "desuyo." so for consistency, i won't use the apostrophe anymore. the same kind of thing also tends to happen to the characters つ tsu, ち chi, し shi, and じ ji.

double and long vowels:

sometimes in japanese, two of the same or similar vowels are used next to one another. these produce the same sound, but twice as long. some examples are: ああ aa, えい ei, ええ ee, いい ii, おう ou, おお oo, うう uu.

in cases where the vowels are different, the first vowel's sound is dominant. however, the aforementioned あい ai, あえ ae, いえ ie, and うえ ue are not in this category. neither is おあ oa, あお ao, あう au, and others; these are vowel blends. this really only happens with えい ei, and おう ou.

what exatly does a "long" japanese vowel sound like? (skimming people can just check out the listening part and try to hear the difference.)

exercise:
try this. we'll use the sound よう "you" (a long "o" not the english pronoun "you"). this is actually a two syllable word よ "yo" and う "u." hold up one finger and say よ "yo," kind of short like a rapper, pointing to the finger. now hold up two fingers and say よう "yo-o" pointing to the first on よ "yo" and the second on (う)お "o."

the same can be done for へい "hei." point to one finger and say へ "heh" like a short laugh. now two, saying へい "he-e" like a greeting to a friend you've been thinking about lately.

you can try these too: さあ saa, ねえ nee,きい kii, ゆう yuu, けいこ keiko, きいて kiite*, おおきいookii

*meaning "listening" as opposed to きて kite meaning "cutting"

also, as a last note, katakana has a separate character for this, ー indicating to hold the previous vowel sound longer such as in コンピューター konpyuutaa, computer.

double consonants/long consonants:

in japanese, there is a character termed a "small tsu." it is literally a smaller rendition of the character つ/ツ "tsu" but it it pronounced as a "long consonant." in romaji, it is represented by two of the consonant following it. this is a little difficult to describe in writting. basically, to an english speaker, it comes off as kind of a 'silent syllable.' this can be illustrated in the same way as the long vowel pausing for a bit between the first syllable and the second. it may be best to check out the listening section and try to hear the difference.

some examples:

(hiragana; romaji; meaning)

• けこ; keko (plain vowels); a flower/plate used in flower scattering rituals
• けいこ; keiko (long vowel); a girl's name
• けっこう; kekkou (long consonant then long vowel); used in the phrase けっこうです kekkodesu meaning "no thank you" "i'm fine" or literally "that's fine"
• けっこん; kekkon (long consonant); pronunciation of 結婚 meaning "marriage;" also a root for mariage related words

• にっぽん; nippon; a pronunciation of "日本," a name for japan
• にぽん; nipon; not a word (as far as i know)

• いっぽん; ippon; one (of something); one cylindrical object

there is one kind of double consonant that does not use a small つ tsu, and that is "nn." instead, this uses the character ん/ン "n" (the only character in japanese without a vowel) in front of a character front the "na" line (な, に, ぬ, ね, の; na, ni, nu, ne, no). this isn't truly in the same category as "long consonant" but both sounds must be pronounced, making the "nn" sound longer.

example:
どんな donna which; what kind


as you can see, though many english speakers at first can't hear or even pronounce the difference in these sounds, the distinction is very important, especially in writting.


consonant blends:

this probably isn't difficult to pronounce, but i feel the need to draw attention to it. structures like きゃ kya, きゅ kyu, and きょ kyo. this structure is created by using characters unding in the い/イ"i" sound like き/ぎ ki/gi, し/じ shi/ji, ひ hi, ち chi, に ni, etc. followed by a "small" や ya, ゆ yu, or よ yo (there is no yi, or ye). this results in blends like きゃ kya, ぎゅ gyu, しょ shyo, ひゃ hya, じゅ jyu, ちゃ chya, etc.

closing words:

that's pretty much it. pure vowels, vowel blends, hard consonants, long vowels, long consonants, and consonant blends. it is quite long and wordy, but these are things that we learn over two or three days of classes and still get corrected on them. i hope this has been more helpful (and possibly interesting) that long and time consuming.

Listening:

here's some interesting words an pronunciations to try. you can copy and paste the terms in green to this site* for pronunciation sound bites. i've checked them, and they should come up as the first result from the search. the "" icon will give you a little sound bite. have fun.

*Jim Breen's WWWJDIC: Online Japanese Dictionary Service;
http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/cgi-bin/wwwjdic.cgi?1C

(vowels)

• 亜 (あ a),
  
• 位 (い i),
  
• 卯 (う u),
• 柄 (え e),
• 緒 (お o)
  

• 枝豆; えだまめ; edamame; green soybeens (a food); (illustrates several plain vowels and consonants; a fun word)

• 名古屋; なごや; nagoya; Nagoya (city) (where i live); (plain vowels and consonants)
• 日記 ; にっき; nikki; diary, journal (long consonant; used in the name of my blog)

• 学校; がっこう; gakkou; school (in a general sense) (LC (long consonant); LV (long vowel))
• 従業; じゅうぎょう; jyuugyou; employment (LV, CB (consonant blend))
• 授業; じ ゅぎょう; jyugyou; class, lesson (academic class); (LV; and SV (short vowel) used for contrast)

• 会いたい; あいたい; aitai; a for of the verb 会う/あう au meaning "to meet (with)/to come together," this form means "to want to meet" as in: 家族に会いたい; かぞくにあいたい kazoku ni aitai; i want to meet with my family. ^.^ (vowel blend/diphthong)
• 愛; あい; ai; love (romantic/married); (vowel blend/diphthong)

• 百; ひゃく; hyaku; hundred (100) (CB)
• お客; さん; おきゃくさん; okyaku-san a formal term for a customer or guest (CB)

• 一本; いっぽん; ippon; one (of something); one cylindrical object (LC)

• 大きい; おおきい; ookii; big, large (LV)

(this group of words are used for comparison)

• 蹴込み; けこみ; kekomi; riser; footboard (plain sounds)
• 稽古; けいこ; keiko; training, practice, etc. (LV)
• 結構; けっこう; kekkou; used in the phrase けっこです kekkoudesu meaning "no thank you" "i'm fine" or literally "that's fine" (LC; LV)
• 結婚; けっこん; kekkon; pronunciation of 結婚 meaning "marriage;" also a root for marriage related words (LC)

• どんな; donna; which, what kind (LC, specifically ん/ン n)

• へい; hei; has several meanings depending on kanji, but you can plug it into the search engine for demonstrative purposes. you can listen to several different words to demonstrate intonation, which i have not gone over here. (LV; intonation)

(another group of words used for comparison)

よ　YO

• よ; yo; (a sentence particle used for emphasis)
• 世; よ; yo; world, society, generation, etc.
• 夜; よる; yoru; night
• 良く; よく; yoku; well (adv.)

よう　YOU

• 陽; よう; you; meaning: yang
• 用; よう; you; task, business, study
• 漸く; ようやく; youyaku; same as "hei"

いそがしい、いそがしい：Busy Busy

(いそがしい romaji: isogashii; pronounced eesogashee-ee)
((i suppose i should throw a little romaji lesson in here somewhere.))

yeah, i've been busy. i've got at least two backblogs in the works, but to do them i have to sort through mountains of pictures, and i'm tired. but i figured i would write something just to update people about what's going on.

~

the past:

i've been up to so much that i haven't expended the engergy to properly write about yet.

field trip

at the end of october, i went on an amazing field trip to the mountains. it was cool and we did lots of stuff like cave walking, old-school japanese fishing, eat yakiniku, go to an onsen, make plastic/wax food samples, walk up a mountain road, stay in a historical inn, and go exploring in a historical tourist town. the details and pictures of the beautiful scenery from this trip are in the works for one of the backblogs i mentioned.

bike

i also bought a bike a few weeks ago. i absolutely love it. the bikes here are rather unique, but most importantly, it's quite useful and convenient. so now i can go more places, and do more stuff, and take more pictures, and with different people; all of which i can then share about here. details and requested pictures of the bike are another in-progress blog.

matsuri/festval

at the beginning of october was a massive festival called matsuri (simply meaning "festival"), celebrating the history of japan as well as each city's and neighborhood's respective history with various events, festivals/carnivals, and, most importantly, processions and parades. we went out to see the massive parades and festivals around the city. i think i have yet to properly talk about this experience, but that will hopefully be coming in the future. it's still a lot to process.

Oosu

durring this excursion, we also went to an area of Nagoya called Oosu, which is practically indescribable except awesome. some have likened the area to Tokyo's Akihabara, a technological, geek, and otaku mecca. but Oosu also has many clothing, souvenir, food, art, and other shops as well as a massive temple. many of these clothings shops are second hand and extremely economical. they have relatively high quality goods at very low prices, including a wonderful deni jacket for 600yen, which i quickly snatched up.

housing

i also have to take pictures and such of my living quarters. i've had some requests for this.

finally... chilly?

i have to give my congratulations to southern japan. the weather has been trying so hard to become autumn/winter. the other day, it was raining and less than 60 degrees F as well as windy. as i stepped out in my jeans, sandals (because i was late for class), and still very nice denim jacket, i thought 'hm... this is... uncomfortably chilly.' the japanese, philippine, and tennessee students have been complaining of the "cold" for weeks. the alaskan, northern midwest, and canadian students have just broken out the jackets. i finally used my heater the other day, but it's still usually set to 16 or 17 degrees C. my roommate has has the heated bed pad out for weeks. poor Pusan girl. (Pusan is a city at the southern tip of the Korean peninsula well known as a vacation spot for it's many beaches.)

the future:

i can't believe i've only got a month left in japan! there seems like so much left to do.

Sweets Paradise

tonight there is a group of people planning to go to go to a place called "Sweets Paradise," a buffet style restaurant that i hear is dedicated to cakes, fruit, and... pasta? i should probably go with them, but i haven't decided yet.

homestay

this weekend i am going to an "English" event for middle school students followed by a homestay with a local family. i have emailed with them and it appears that we will be going either to see autumn leaves or a famous temple... or both. i didn't really understand that well, but i'll find out.

Thanksgiving

i believe we are also planning a thanksgiving potluck for next friday. i'm going to try to recreate the infamous polish potato salad. should be fun.

Kyoto

next weekend i have plans to go to Kyoto with some friends. for those that don't know, Kyoto, a long with Tokyo, is one of the most well known japanese cities to Americans. Tokyo is more or less well known for being modern (not to mention the capital). Kyoto, on the other hand, is most well known for it's history and the countless historical buildings, temples, shrines, and castles preserved and recreated there. It has been very high on my list of things to do in japan and since it's in the south, (just west and maybe a little south of Nagoya) it's relatively close and nice for a day or weekend trip.

onsen/tokyo/maybe/probably/huh?

there is also talk of a girls' day visit to a local onsen/spa/relaxation parlor in the near future. i don't know how feasible it is, but i would love it if it worked out.

my mom is also trying to get me to go to Tokyo. i have no idea of any details surrounding that.

~

but anyway, that's what's up here, even if it's just a skim over.

missing people back home. i'll post when i have more "articles" written. happy thanks giving.