A bicycle parking lot in Tokyo.
I've no idea how they manage to remember everyone's bike.

https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/shows/4026258/

The world's first Fedify book, Practical Fedify: Introduction to ActivityPub Microblog Development (実践Fedify——ActivityPubマイクロブログ開発入門), has been published in Japan. This is also the first book I have ever published, and it feels quite surreal that my first book is in Japanese rather than my native language, Korean. This book is an expanded version based on the official English Fedify tutorial, Creating your own federated microblog, with various additions. Yumetsuki Mama (ゆめつきママ) worked on the cute book cover illustration, which features the Fedify dinosaur mascot, Misskey's mascot Ai-chan, and the Mastodon mascot together. It is scheduled to be published in both e-book and print formats on the 22nd by Impress NextPublishing. See also the Amazon Japan.

RE: https://mastodon.online/@brianbilston/116323127511469330

I often have to remind my wife "it's not Japan" about various transport issues.
I wonder what the poem from a Japanese platform would be like.
A series of haiku about reliability maybe.
I suggest a crowdfund for Brian to find out...

@amyfou
Here's an article explaining the French and English with illustrations
https://auntymuriel.com/2012/12/23/asterix-in-translation-the-genius-of-anthea-bell-and-derek-hockridge/

I seldom pay attention to the dialogue in Genshin Impact but today I found some that seemed to be the translators having some fun.
I assume the original is Chinese and aimed at a young audience. The English today referenced "Hello Darkness, my old friend" "Simon and Carbunkle", Frank Drebbin, and "Go on punk - make my day!". I wonder if a young English speaking audience would get the references either.
It makes me wonder about the original (& jp version) but not enough to load the .cn files

New blog post
Programs I like on NHK for School

http://shiawase.co.uk/doku.php/blog/nhk-for-schools

#blog #JapaneseLearning #日本語

Grave of the Fireflies 火垂るの墓 didn’t lend itself to merchandising.

Here’s a reproduction of the sweet tin from the film.

The text was confusing me until I realised it was right to left from early Showa rather than the left to right I now expect.

They are (or were) an actual product
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sakuma_drops

I think the original tin was more upright rectangular with art deco like design

I bought these in Meiji-mura back in 2006 ish

( @mario )

Came across the word 黒曜石［こくようせき］Obsidian.
The use of 曜 had me wondering if it was ateji or if there was a different character before modern reforms. Apparently not. There is another version 黒耀石 using a non jyouyou kanji but this is a modern usage by archeologists.
曜 does have a (original?) sense of shiny but maybe only seen in names and 黒曜石 now.
I always thought it redundant as “day of the week” 曜日

https://ja.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/黒曜石#文化

I’ve just watched 「リバー、流れないでよ」because I stumbled on it on All4 1hr before it left the service!
It’s a very inventive film from the same people who made “Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes”
This film is told in a series of 2 minute continuous takes, covering a two minute time loop happening at a ryokan.
Although snow (presumably unplanned) must have made for a continuity nightmare.
I thoroughly recommend this (and Beyond…) if you ever get the chance to watch.

You have to wonder about people that a Japanese train company felt it had to spell out that you can’t take dynamite with you on a train. or rather that there is a quantity of dynamite that would be permissible!

You’d wonder at over 2kg of cosmetics being considered dangerous as well.

Impressive NHK documentary.

One of the last traditional Japanese falconers agrees to pass on the tradition to a young high school student, a city girl. He teaches her to hunt with hawks.
She is so impressive in how she sought this teacher out, and was so calm next to a pretty agitated and big raptor which latched onto the ungloved arm.
You get the sense of what was once a harsh rural existence.

*content warning* there is footage of hawks killing live prey.
https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/ondemand/video/3016163/

I uploaded my Kanji Sieve project to github.

Take a text file, roughly analyze the kanji and make a glossary with links to another dictionary resource for ease of checking for extra info.
Also a step in making your own dictionary with own definitions in Japanese.

It’s in python but the dialogs depend on Pythonista3 on iOS, so slightly more niche.
I could refactor for other OSes but am unlikely to anytime soon.

Maybe someone will find a use or inspiration.

https://github.com/takarabune/kanji_sieve

I saw a “drug free - gun free school zone” sign in a post from the US here today. Promising severe criminal penalties.
Here’s a sign on a school gate in London that caught my eye. Prohibiting unlicensed ice cream vans outside the school. Promising a fixed penalty notice.
(presumably if you have a license it’s ok)
Different worlds.

If a hitchhiking hoopy frood knows where their towel is, cool Japanese froods carry a tenugui and furoshiki as well.

I’m reading Etsuko Yamada’s “Wrapping with Fabric”.

My favorite is using furoshiki to wrap bottles. There’s also a clever way to wrap two books with a carry handle.

An interesting portrait of a young horse archer and her mount in Aomori, Japan.
Yabusame is traditional horse archery. Once mainly a ritual it is now practiced as a sport. (I dare say combat archery would be very different and I’d put my money on the Mongols or Parthians)

It must take a lot of skill to control a fast moving horse while both hands are wielding a longbow trying to hit three targets in quick succession.

https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/ondemand/video/5003222/

Good opening

I enjoyed this book
Days at the Morisaki Bookshop, Satoshi Yagisawa tr. Eric Ozawa

From the translator: “[The author] catalogs the many pleasures of reading: the joy of discovering a new author; the hedonism of staying up too late to finish a book; the surreptitious thrill of getting to know someone by reading their favorite novel; and the freedom of walking into a bookstore and scanning the titles, waiting for something to catch your eye.”

https://share.libbyapp.com/title/9738387

My wife found an old Japanese dictionary at the “little free library” in the local tube station. It’s an 1982 larger print kanji dictionary for “older” people. Mainly to look up words you can’t remember the kanji for.
It’s arranged in あいうえお order, so you get homonyms grouped together.
The typeface is the school typeface, which is easy to read and good to copy by hand.
Really nicely made with a slipcase, proper binding, finger index and round corners. There are also useful appendices.

I was browsing some kanji and came across 巴投げ (ともえなげ) a judo throw. Known as stomach throw in English. However 巴 is the circular comma like design seen in Mon designs, not stomach.
I always thought the use of Japanese terminology in Judo is a bit like a cargo cult. It sounds exotic but is actually prosaic. As 10 year olds we butchered the pronunciation as well. (Not pronouncing the え)

https://ja.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/巴投

@SayakaChatani ‘s website of translated sources on Japan’s (short lived) empire.
Primarily presented as a teaching resource, but lots to read for anyone curious about that period of history.

ABOUT | | Grassroots Operations of the Japanese Empire

https://www.japaneseempire.info/about