Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Me no doku
Brett, bless him, got me Kodansha's Dictionary of basic Japanese idioms for me birthday. The title of this post (lit: eye poison) means an eyesore. Here it is in Japanese:
First character is eye, second character denotes possession, third character is poison. It's all so simple gaijin-san.
Brett having provided me with such a handsome present, it would have been churlish and remiss of me to deny him a night's accommodation at the Casa Dan ahead of Man Ure and Chelski's European Champion's League Final on Wednesday night. We got to sleep sometime after midnight and had to be up again before 3 am, thanks to the blasted time difference between Europe and Japan.
Brett had had the foresight to bring a fruit salad breakfast for the pair of us. Where he had erred, however, was in leaving his contact lens solution at home, necessitating his purchase of a fresh bottle at the local convenience store.
Sadly, what he bought turned out to be me no doku. After a stifled yelp, Brett announced that his eyes were burning. That shouldn't be, I thought. I had a quick shuftie at the label on the bottle, beneath CONTACT LENS (English characters) there was a bit of a twist:
(Yep, there's that "poison" character again.)
"Dude," I said; "you put disinfectant in your eyes."
"That explains it," said Brett, blinking like an eight-year-old at a funeral.
***
He didn't cry as much as John Terry, though. How, in this day and age, anyone can allow an English centre half to take a clutch penalty is beyond me.
First character is eye, second character denotes possession, third character is poison. It's all so simple gaijin-san.
Brett having provided me with such a handsome present, it would have been churlish and remiss of me to deny him a night's accommodation at the Casa Dan ahead of Man Ure and Chelski's European Champion's League Final on Wednesday night. We got to sleep sometime after midnight and had to be up again before 3 am, thanks to the blasted time difference between Europe and Japan.
Brett had had the foresight to bring a fruit salad breakfast for the pair of us. Where he had erred, however, was in leaving his contact lens solution at home, necessitating his purchase of a fresh bottle at the local convenience store.
Sadly, what he bought turned out to be me no doku. After a stifled yelp, Brett announced that his eyes were burning. That shouldn't be, I thought. I had a quick shuftie at the label on the bottle, beneath CONTACT LENS (English characters) there was a bit of a twist:
(Yep, there's that "poison" character again.)
"Dude," I said; "you put disinfectant in your eyes."
"That explains it," said Brett, blinking like an eight-year-old at a funeral.
***
He didn't cry as much as John Terry, though. How, in this day and age, anyone can allow an English centre half to take a clutch penalty is beyond me.
Labels: BUNKA, THE BEAUTIFUL GAME
