Here's to hoping that no one at the next station will baord this train to sit next to me. I finally opened this book after two months and would like to keep studying on this tiny table that is shared by 4 seats.

Ginko with buttons painting I made in college!

It's oil paint on a 35.5 x 35.5 inch masonite board

Took about a month and a half to paint

Thank you for looking at it I'm very proud of it

If it's possible for you, please send donations and humanitarian aids to Myanmar for the earthquakes. We don't have a good plan for earthquakes in place because the country literally is going through a civil war. Though I'm not minimizing the damage in Thailand in anyway, Myanmar's situation has been very largely ignored for the last few years so this was very hard-hitting since we were already going through so much. Mandalay is especially in shambles, and it is known as the second most populous city in Myanmar. People and businesses really suffered from this and they won't be able to rebuild this at all for the next few years because of the civil unrest. And even places not affected too much by the earthquakes, like Yangon, is facing electricity cutoffs. They were rationing electricity before and now there are not even rations. The whole grid is down. Phone lines are also still partially down. What's worse is the military junta hates the word "donation" or "charity" so sometimes they would shut down bank accounts for it and give out arrest warrants, even if the donation is not about supporting the defense forces. So we're in a bind as people who want to send money over will already have to disguise their help as something other than a donation because they don't wanna be flagged and arrested for this. Foreigners have the upper hand as they can just prove their aids truly is a humanitarian aids, while people in the country don't even get a first chance. So please send any (monetary or otherwise) help over if you can and I hope y'all can at least spread the news even if you cannot contribute to the cause.

See this post for updated local news in Myanmar.

the close association between gui 鬼 as in "ghost" and gui 归 as in "to return, to go back to where you belong;" such that ghosts are coming back to the living and the living are coming back to ghostliness. these two states are two sides of the same coin, of the same existence.

chinese ghosts are about coming home.....!

the ghost = the restored image of the living yet alienated human in chinese society. the ghost = a manifestation of the need to return home, where one belongs, and so order and humanity is restored.

Aaa!!! This gives so much more context to the song "Gui" (the 归 "to return" one) from the "Word of Honor" soundtrack, that plays when Wen Kexing goes in to save Zhou Zishu!

This one, timestamped:

#5 @ 16:28, in case the timestamp doesn't work on embeds https://youtu.be/AXegKfwJDF4&t=988

This is one of my favorite songs from the OST!

me when my disabilities disable me:

hating generative AI in college is like being labeled the village crazy lady for having common sense

no punctuation we read like romans

NOPUNCTUATIONORLOWERCASEORSPACESWEREADLIKEROMANS

INTER·PVNCTVATION·WE·INSCRIBE·LIKE·ROMANS

words doesn’t classical matter order in greek;

we, in a manner akin to that of a man who once was, in Rome, an orator of significant skill, who was then for his elegance of speech renowned and now for his elaborate structure of sentences cursed by generations of scholars of Latin, the language which he spoke and we now study, Cicero, write, rather than by any efficiency, functionality, or ease of legibility have our words, our honors, the breaths of our hearts, be besmirched.

The fact that this has yet to devolve into boustrophedon is a miracle… or a challenge. I’m looking at you @terpsikeraunos @macdicilla @labellamordens

I’m up to it

Not many jnſtances of Punctuation - but for many Daſhes – et words Capitaliz’d for emphavſis, but not logicaly - ſpeeling and word Endings varied Gratelie - and the long S - ſ - vſed in at the ſtart and Centre of wordes - & the short “s” vſed only at the end - as with the U and V, and the I and J - but v and j only at the ſtart of wordes (we diſtinguishe not between Vouels and Conſonants, only decoratiue Letteres). Ye letter “y” being in lookes cloſe to an Olde letter “þ” which is vſed as “th” - Y may be vſed in the place of TH - but only ſparingly - and ſtill Pronounc’d the ſame as TH. Long and rambling ſentences - ſeeminglie without end - a paragraph can conſiſt of One whole ſentence, and ſhort ſentences are rare – we ſcribe like hiſtorical Modern English – and other european Languages.

And furthermore, Carthage is to be destroyed.

How to write formal Japanese emails・正式な日本語のメールの書き方

The nonprofit I work for recently gave all us interns a really informative talk on the protocol for writing profession emails in Japanese, so I thought I’d share what I learned with you guys! Just so you know, I’ll be using some advanced vocab (including 敬語) in this post and pretty much won’t gloss any kanji. So if you’re feeling up to it, then let’s go! 行きましょう！

Subject line

For some reason our presenter did this one last, but I’m going to put it at the beginning. As in English subject lines, be plain and mention the specific purpose of your email. I have temporarily lost SO many work emails due to inane or repeat subject lines. Include your last name in the subject line if you think it’s necessary. Here’s a sample subject line for an internship application:

Here’s one for the nonprofit I work for:

Please don’t ask what I do here…it’s semi-ridiculous. (And I don’t even get paid.)

*If you have a Western name where your given name comes before your family name, it’s more up to you which order you put them in and which one you use in general, especially if you don’t know if your Japanese recipient will be able to recognize which is which (or if you’re like me and your last name is nigh unpronounceable in kana). You might want to think about this on a case-by-case basis.

Addressing the recipient

Usually the first thing you do in an English email is greet who you’re talking to. This is the same in Japanese. Here’s a basic template:

First, you name the company* your addressee works for; second, the department; and third, their full name, accompanied by 様（さま）, not さん!

*Be careful here: not all companies are 株式会社. Basically, the first line is for their workplace. If you’re a university student like me, you might be emailing someone who works for ABC大学.

Introducing yourself

Next, you should say who you are. The format for this varies on whether you are telling them who you are or reminding them, i.e., if this is your first time emailing them or not. Here’s an introduction template for a university student:

With a first email, you state that it’s the first email and introduce yourself using 申す to be extra polite. You also state your university (if they don’t work for it already, presumably), your major, and 学科* if necessary. If you’re a double major like me, you can write XX学部 twice in a row.

Here’s a template for a second email:

Basically, you thank them for talking with you again and briefly reintroduce yourself, depending on if your university or your major is more relevant. No need to use 申す.

*I’ll be honest: I don’t really know what a 学科 is or how it differs from 学部／専攻／専門. Our presenter called it a “sub-major.” No clue what that means. Concentration, maybe? Tread carefully, my friends.

Email body

Just as in English emails, Japanese emails should be simply written and get to the point as immediately as possible. That’s more basic email etiquette than anything—after all, does anyone really want to be reading emails?

You should also use 敬語 in the email body if you can. Pick whether to use 尊敬語 or 謙譲語 and then stick with your choice for the entire email. I gotta say, I have no idea how to decide which one to use! 敬語 is so hard! Do your best!!!

(Also, here’s a 敬語 Quizlet I made a while ago!)

Here are some useful phrases to include in your email body:

クッション言葉 (cushion phrases)

In classic Japanese fashion, クッション言葉 are phrases used to soften requests, questions, apologies…basically all manner of inconvenience or imposition. These can get pretty long, which seems to go against the general rule of concision in emails, but in Japanese these are very important. Use them in your email body.

Asking for help, making a request:

Asking a question:

Making an apology:

There are probably lots more of these to be discovered. Maybe someday a Japanese person will write YOU an embarrassingly polite email!

Closing

Ah, conclusions—the worst part of any piece of writing. Luckily, we have more templates. This is another case where the format varies depending on whether you’ve emailed this person before. Here’s the template for a first email:

Probably the most commas I’ve ever seen used in one Japanese sentence. This is all 謙譲語.

Here’s a template for if you’ve emailed them before:

Basically, you have to thank them for their continued support/tolerance of you. 

Signature

And here we have just what we did for the addressee at the beginning, but now for you, the sender.

Optionally, you can also link any webpage you might have (like LinkedIn) or include your home, school, or business address. I’m not totally clear on what the protocol is surrounding your cell phone number, since in the US at least I would never give that out in an email signature, but you can probably delete it or easily replace it with a work number.

*Again, substitute your place of work if necessary.

お疲れ様でした！

Yikes, that was a lot of content at once, especially since most of it is just canned phrases to memorize or keep on hand. I hope this will help you guys in all your scary email-writing endeavors!! またこの次までね！

Apolaki Wept. (click for high res.)

Apolaki, the sun god of the Tagalog and Pangasinense folk of the northern Philippines, was said to have wept in great sorrow at the suffering of his people during colonial rule.

腾云驾雾 来去自如

to float as if on a fog of clouds; as vibrant as the rivers and mountains of my ancestry

冬 (fuyu) "winter"

i don’t know why but i’m really amused by the winner of some ‘new kanji’ contest:

compare with the real kanji

座 (seat/gathering), but the two 人 (person) radicals have been moved from next to each other within the 土 (earth) radical to diagonally from each other, making this “social distance(d seating/gathering)”

This is hilarious, but to further the hilarity, I’d like to point to the fact that half of the “A rank” (runners up) for this contest also are related to 2020 epidemic jokes

First up we have:

Compare with 太

The original kanji means “to gain weight”. But it adds the コ “ko” and ロ  “ro” katakana symbols at the top to represent the weight you gain while staying home due to the corona virus.

Then we have:

Compare with 会 

The original kanjij means “meeting”, but the lower radical is changed to look more like a “Z” to represent Zoom meetings. Thus, the new kanji means “web meetings” or “zoom calls”

And of course another social distancing one:

Compare with 話 

This means “to talk” or “chat”, but it’s changed simply to show the two radicals social distancing from one another as we should also while holding conversations nowadays.

At least we can have some fun language humor despite all of this!

@goromonkjima

That’s really neat! 

Anyway, here’s Loss kanji again.

Love this one from 2024!

ゼット世代：gen Z

The Series of Burmese-Japanese Visual Poetry

Yay Ta Shauk & Takahiro Sawamura – Rain

 雨 [ame] - rain မြန်မာ [myanmar] - Burmese, Myanmar

Yay Ta Shauk & Takahiro Sawamura – Droplet

雫 [shizuku] - droplet ပြည့် [pyae] - full

Yay Ta Shauk & Takahiro Sawamura – Snow

雪 [yuki] - snow လွင့် [iwint] - blow away

Yay Ta Shauk & Takahiro Sawamura – Water

氵 [sanzui] - something about water, the element of Chinese Character used in Japanese မိုး [moe] – rain

Yay Ta Shauk & Takahiro Sawamura – Raindrop

雨 [ame] - rain မိုး [moe] - rain ရွှာချ [ywar cha] - fall down (especially for rain)

Yay Ta Shauk & Takahiro Sawamura – Rainfall

ぽ [po] - the sound of water falling on the water surface ပလုံ [pa lone] - the sound of the droplet when it hit the water surface

We, Yay Ta Shauk and Takahiro Sawamura, collaborated to create pieces of visual poetry. Using Burmese and Japanese characters related to water, we aimed to connect each language and create a new landscape. Burmese characters have round shapes like glass balls or water drops. Japanese characters often preserve the forms of things within them. By integrating these features, these works were created. We hope you enjoy them. ©️Yay Ta Shauk & Takahiro Sawamura 2024

Biography 

Yay Ta Shauk

Thura Khaing aka Yay Ta Shauk is a Burmese multidisciplinary artist based in Singapore. His interests on the various mediums such as music, language and visuals reflect on the way he conceptualizes the chosen materials. He is currently working on Burmese Komplete konkrete e book (the burmese concrete poetry series made by him) and the very first poetry book of his own while running the underground poetry station called "ကဗျာ အမြန်ဖတ်" Kabyar A myan phat which is the bit size poem reading of the Burmese modern and contemporary poetry.

Takahiro Sawamura

Takahiro Sawamura (澤村貴弘) is a poet and collage artist living in Kyoto, Japan. He published a collection of poems titled "Kaitenmokuba (回転木馬)" with two poets, Somg Lee Shun and Mizuho Sato in 2019. He also held exhibitions of concrete/visual poetry four times from 2022 to 2024. He is now pursuing poetic emotions between literature and art through his cross-cutting activities.