Tanabata

Sent: Sunday, July 04, 2004 8:25 PM
Subject: Weekly Email

Hello to all and I hope you are doing well. This week I went to a festival called Tanabata which is based on an old Chinese tale converted to Japanese. There are lots of festivals in Japan during the year but this is one of the more famous ones. It is frequently translated as the "Star Festival" and the story is something like Romeo and Juliet depending on who you hear it from. If you are interested, here are some websites:

http://www.internet-at-work.com/hos_mcgrane/holidays/akie.html
http://www.geocities.com/shunkomuroya/nihongo-memo/nenchugyoji/tanabata.htm

I went to the festival at Hiratsuka which is just south of Tokyo, in the Kamakura area. I've attached two photos from that festival. Basically you wander down the street with a million other people and look at the lanterns and decorations. And then you stop at one or more of the stalls and eat and drink. It goes on for blocks and blocks and blocks. A lot of girls wear kimono (really they are wearing yukata which is a simpler lightweight cotton kimono - kimono are too heavy and expensive to wear to a summer festival) and there are lots of families. It was fun.

The end of FEED party went well and all the Chiyoda (Japanese), Qataris, and expats seemed to have fun. I made a pretty good mistake before the party trying to speak japanese. But if you don't make mistakes you aren't trying. Anyway, my boss from Doha told one of the Japanese that a plate was pretty. So I translated it as "Kirai desu" but this means "He hates it". The correct translation is "Kirei desu". But one of the japanese guys laughed and said are you sure about that? I caught my error since I knew both words. Another one along the same line that I messed up once is "Karei desu" which means it is spicy. An "r" sounds more like an "l" to us a lot of the times so these words are pronounced:

kirai (key-lie-ee) - hate
kirei (key-lay-ee) - pretty
karei (ka-lay-ee) - spicy

Muzukashii desu ne - Hard isn't it? A lot of Japanese jokes are based on plays on words. You would have to be careful what you said to a Japanese girl or you could call her spicy or tell her you hated her.

So, next week I am going to a cryogenic heat exchanger fabrication shop in New Jersey and then to Houston for a week so I won't write for a while.