Imi-kotoba -words you should avoid to use in certain situations
In the Japanese language, we avoid using words related to death and also numbers that have the same sound as the words associated with the image of death. The famous ones are 4 and 9. In Japanese 4 is pronounced ‘shi’ which also means ‘death’. 9 is pronounced ‘ku’ which also means ‘suffering’. So there usually are no room number 4, 9 or 49 in hospitals and hotels.
In wedding parties people try not to utter the words incurring the image of separation. If you are a parent and when your child is about to take an entrance exam you, as well as others, will try not to use words like ‘fail’,‘slip’ or ‘drop’ etc.
Taboos in English are not quite the equivalent of these – euphemism is an option to avoid shocking expressions however actually I think everything is much more open to talk about in England. People seem not to hesitate in talking about all kinds of human activities happening around them where Japanese people will be careful not to. We tend to talk about things moderately and there is a thing about ‘shame of the family’ here, so people especially avoid talking about something bad that happened to your own family to others. However that’s not the case in the U.K. Well at least that’s what I observed with Iain and his friends. Sadly my Japanese-ness stops me from going into further details at the moment!
posted by Edera
posted by Iain @ 6:34 AM
2 Comments:
Where do you draw the line? I assume there are shinkansen and airline seats numbered 4, 9 and 49? The Chinese also have propitious numbers (and days). There are dates on which you don't get married. Somewhat off-topic, I was always puzzled in Japan (and Singapore) by the lack of urgency of ambulances. A flashing red-light, minimal, if any, siren, patiently going with the traffic, stopping at traffic lights, nobody yielding and letting the ambulance through. I never understood it.
I hope typhoon Roke spared you.
Hi Walter, thanks for commenting. I can see you've changed your photo!
That's an interesting question - where to draw the line? With Shinkansen Nozomi, all the seats are numbered like 1A, 2B, 3C etc.. upto 20D, so they are not really simple numbers - always with an alphabet!
Ambulance... have you seen people not letting it through? When I practiced driving I was strictly told to stop at the left side and let it go ...but yes sometimes it feels as if some drivers never mind such things. Strange. I have to ask the police about it when I take their 'lecture' next time I renew my driving license!
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