What are tengu?

You may have heard of them as “forest goblins”, perhaps “mountain demons”, or maybe even “birdmen”. Regardless of how you try to interpret these magical sprites, the Japanese tengu play an important role in both the traditional Japanese mythological landscape and modern pop-culture alike.

I was first introduced to tengu as red-faced masks sprinkled throughout the interior of an izakaya in the south part of the Tohoku region a few years ago. With only the most perfunctory explanation of what they were, I never really understood their full background until just recently.

Description

Tengu, written in kanji as 天狗 meaning ‘heaven’ and ‘dog’, come in two forms described as the “minor tengu“, also known as karasu tengu referring to their appearance as giant crows, and the “higher tengu” called konoha tengu (tumbling-leaf tengu) which take on the appearance of a long, beak-nosed, feathered man. For our discussion, we’ll focus on this latter version.

Some of the defining features of the tengu form are a feathered fan, a very small, black, box-shaped hat, tight leggings, and a colorful priest-like robe. They live in the mountains and often play tricks on Buddhist priests, and they are known to capture lost children. However, not all tengu are malevolent creatures. They also possess magical powers that mountain-dwelling yamabushi (hermits) utilize, such as an increased stamina and a knowledge of the mountainous terrains. Tengu are in charge of natural resources like timber, so in order to cut down a tree in the wilderness, loggers must first make a proper tribute.

Tengu are said to be spirits of the deceased whose spiteful souls play vengeful games on the living. That is one possible explanation of why they target, in particular, Buddhist priests (who have a connection with the spiritual world) and children (whose innocence exposes them to alternate realities).

Possible routes into Japan

The most plausible origin of the Japanese tengu is in the Hindu / Buddhist lesser divinity garuda, described as a sharp-beaked, winged man, or bird-like creature with social intelligence, depending on which religious text you refer to.

Through the eastward spread of Buddhism, the divinity may have reached China where it took on the extra form of a shooting star. Known as tiangou and sharing the same kanji (天狗), the Chinese version comes in a variety of forms. The basis of the myth is that of a black dog in the sky that consumes the sun during an eclipse. One legendary story puts the tiangou against an archer named Zhang Xian, protector of children. This legend with the form of the Indian garuda may be a fusion that was ultimately imported to Japan in the 6th or 7th century as tengu.

Funny origins

Perhaps less outlandish but just as amusing is the concept of tengu as father of the ninja.

Stories told of the ninja’s descent from tengu — a half-crow, half-man demon — were probably a cultural adaptation of the legendary garuda of Tibet. The ninja were known to have been influenced and inspired by the fanatical shugenja ascetics of the mountains, who were said to have taught them how to walk through fire, move unclothed through freezing waters, control and command the weather, and summon the powerful kami (spirits) that dwelled in all parts of nature.
(Ninja Volume 3: Warrior Path of Togakure)

Other claims exist that the tengu are the source of sword skills of the famous historical figures Minamoto Yoshitsune and Kobayakawa Takakage, and still others that they are merely romanticized versions of yamabushi.

Tengu in Japanese culture

As mentioned at the beginning of this writing, I first encountered tengu as masks on the walls of an izakaya. Incidentally, the mask form was also on the beer mugs, windows, menus, and izakaya logo as it was, in fact, the large izakaya chain Tengu where I happened to be. This is perhaps the most common introduction to the mythology that most foreigners in Japan will experience.

For fans of the Naruto manga series, you may have noticed earlier in this writing that the “higher tengu” carried with them the term ‘konoha‘, the same name given to the village that the main character of the series comes from. In later chapters of the manga, this all comes together when readers are introduced to the entrance of the fire temple guarded by none other than our friends the tengu – A konoha tengu on the left and a karasu tengu on the right.

Conclusion

For so simple a mythical creature with so limited a dwelling, we see the tengu everywhere in region, time, and tale. Whether in the beautiful mountains of Japan, at a pub in the city, as you casually read a manga or attend a shrine on New Year’s Day – It’s hard to escape the Japanese tengu.

References used in this post:
Handbook of Japanese Mythology
Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics
Jews in the Japanese Mind: The History and Uses of a Cultural Stereotype
Ninja Volume 3: Warrior Path of Togakure
When Tengu Talk: Hirata Atsutane’s Ethnography of the Other World
The Demon’s Sermon on the Martial Arts
A Field Guide to Demons, Fairies, Fallen Angels and Other Subversive Spirits

This article is a submission for the Japan Blog Matsuri hosted by Mazikeen.

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Mark C. Baker’s The Atoms of Language starts out with an interesting story of how the Navajo language aided the U.S. Marine Corps in WWII against the Japanese.

Deep mysteries of language are illustrated by an incident that occurred in 1943, when the Japanese military was firmly entrenched around the Bismark Archipelago. American pilots had nicknamed the harbor of Rabaul “Dead End” because so many of them were shot down by antiaircraft guns placed in the surrounding hills. It became apparent that the Japanese could easily decode Allied messages and thus were forewarned about the time and place of each attack.

The Marine Corps responded by calling in one of their most effective secret weapons: eleven Navajo Indians. These were members of the famous Code Talkers, whose native language was the one cipher the Japanese cryptographers were never able to break. The Navajos quickly provided secure communications, and the area was soon taken with minimal further losses.

…

This incident vividly illustrates the fundamental puzzle of linguistics. On the one hand, Navajo must be extremely different from English (and Japanese), or the men listening to the Code Talkers’ transmissions would eventually have been able to figure out what they were saying. On the other hand, Navajo must be extremely similar to English (and Japanese), or the Code Talkers could not have transmitted with precision the messages formulated by their English-speaking commanders. Navajo was effective as a code because it had both of these properties. But this seems like a contradiction: How can two languages be simultaneously so similar and so different? This paradox has beset the comparative study of human languages for centuries. Linguists are beginning to understand how the paradox can be dissolved, making it possible for the first time to chart out precisely the ways in which human languages can differ from one another and the ways in which they are all the same.

This story highlights an interesting point for us language learners. If you think of a foreign language as merely a code to be broken, the more analytical, mathematically minded learners out there might be able to take such an approach in their own studies.

I’ve pointed out some other similarities before, particularly in the metaphorical usage of language. (See the post Japanese Observations.) With this sort of mindset, that languages can be superficially different yet have fundamental similarities, you might see how I can assert the claim that learning Japanese really isn’t as hard as many people make it out to be. I’m not trying to belittle the experience — The process requires real dedication — but in the end, Japanese is just another code that needs to be broken. Take solace in the fact that it’s easier to break than the Navajo or Mohawk languages.

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I haven’t really thoroughly explained my own study process, but, to put it simply, I collect sentences that highlight content that I want to internalize. (I go for “i + 1″, which is the level just beyond my current reach.)

I don’t limit myself to individual words in sentences, but expand my search into strong collocations as phrases, and sometimes even just “cool phrases” that I come across, which is the foundation of my What the Textbooks Don’t Teach series of posts.

As cliche as it is to liken this to Pokemon, I strive to “catch ‘em all”.

Here’s one particularly nice catch from Kenkyusha:

そんな屈辱に甘んじるくらいなら、まだしも死んだ方がい。
I’d rather die than take such an insult lying down.

It’s pretty easy to remember if you visualize a manly-man saying it. A samurai fits the role.

It’s really satisfying to finally get to use these sorts of stock-piled phrases, and it’s fun to see native Japanese react to your novel use of their language. So what I recommend to you is that you utilize Anki as more than a simple SRS. Imagine it as a multi-functional tool that can also serve as your own pedagogical corpus and data bank. I guarantee that you won’t regret employing it as a foundational portion of your own studies!

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Kodansha’s Effective Japanese Usage Dictionary truly lives up to its title, and I really recommend it to pre-intermediate through pre-advanced level learners.

It’s basically a book of explanations between the differences of commonly confused Japanese terms. The explanations (which are provided in both Japanese and English!) are then highlighted with a ton of example sentences to bathe the words in sweet, sweet context.

Examples: What’s the difference between 込む and 混雑する? (They’ve both got the same meaning of being crowded, but 混雑する has a connotation of the situation being disorderly and out of control.) The book gives 11 example sentences to highlight this! The example sentences and explanations are about 3 pages worth of content!

On top of that, the book takes on metaphorical language. That’s a good thing! Metaphorical language may actually be a more predominant feature of real language use than when the same words are used with concrete meanings. It’s easy enough to remember that つぶす means ‘to crush’ (悲しい彼が右手に持った薔薇をにぎりつぶした), but what do you suppose 顔をつぶされた means then? This is a major pitfall for most language students! You might wrongly interpret the phrase to mean that someone’s “face was crushed”, unless you learn it as a lexical (and metaphorical) phrase that means “to lose face”. (I hear this a lot even from my university-level English students. Something so simple for us native speakers like, “That sucks!” can be a major hurdle for a foreign learner. “What do you mean, it inhales air?”)

You can get the book now for about 30% cheaper than what I paid for it when I picked it up a few years back. The price is reduced, but the quality isn’t! You definitely won’t regret the investment!

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Learning Japanese in a classroom setting, you probably won’t be getting into too many heated arguments, unless your class resembles Yankumi’s 3D. If you stick only to the textbooks, your Japanese will reflect a world through rose-colored glasses. Don’t get me wrong, you definitely need to know how to search for an apartment, talk about entertainment, and properly thank your dinner hosts for a great meal, but life isn’t always that straight forward!

Let’s look at a couple of useful phrases for those times when you’re not on amiable terms with the person you’re speaking to.

The Phrase:
ふん、おっしゃいましたね。
(What a thing to say! You don’t mince your words, do you!)

The word おっしゃる itself is a formal alternative to 言う, but formal language is often used sarcastically in Japanese. One extreme example is the word 貴様 [きさま] which used to be a formal way to address a person, but now means something along the lines of, “You bastard!”

In action:
The following example is kind of dark (about alcoholism), but it shows the sort of sarcastic usage of おっしゃいましたね.

アルコールを やめる簡単な 事 と
おっしゃいましたね
簡単には やめれないですね…
簡単に やめられたら …
アルコール依存症じゃないですね…

Real Japanese source: http://ameblo.jp/shun-1399/entry-10451375294.html

The Phrase:
ふざけんじゃねぇよ！
(Stop %@&$ing around! You’ve gotta be %@&$ing joking!)

In action:

ふざけんじゃねぇよ！(Post title)
今日は午前中のみの臨出予定だったんですが、仕事のきりが悪かったので飯抜きで１４時過ぎまでがんばってきました。
帰宅後、ご飯食べてから出かけたんですが、その帰りに片側１車線の田んぼ道で外車がパッシングして自分をぶち抜いていきました。自分の前を走っていた軽もそのままぶち抜き、停止線直前で軽の前に割り込み…
　かなりムカつきましたよ（怒）
　何様だ！
(Alex’s note: Sounds like a standard day of driving in Korea.)

Real Japanese source: http://minkara.carview.co.jp/userid/437283/blog/15565855/

Be careful when and where you use these phrases, or face the embarrassment of a social blunder! I’d recommend actually just keeping an ear to the ground and consciously noting how they’re used, by who to who, and in what tone. If you find yourself shouting out ふざけんじゃねぇよ！at a night club in downtown Tokyo on a Friday night, chances are a fight’s about to break out.

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1. What the Textbooks Don't Teach: ど and 素人
2. What the Textbooks Don’t Teach: 中途半端
3. What the Textbooks Don’t Teach: がり勉

These days, there are a lot of foreign expats who are making inroads into Japanese society. This is a list of who I consider to be the top ten successful expats (or former expats) in Japan, complete with fun facts and media.

The list includes ‘Gaijin Talent’ (外人タレント, shortened to 外タレ), bloggers, journalists, game translators, instructors, and self-described otaku. These aren’t necessarily people I look up to, but who I consider to be the most successful expats in Japan. I’ve ordered them by my opinion of the weight of their accomplishments, whether I agree with their methods and goals or not. I apologize for the male-centric, US-centric nature of the list. Definitely English-speaking, American, white males have the easiest access to success as a foreigner in Japan.

1. Konishiki Yasokichi (Born Saleva’a Fuauli Atisano’e, US)

Fun facts: The multi-talented Konishiki Yasokichi is most famously known as a former Ozeki sumo wrestler in the 80s, but as a high school student he aimed to become a lawyer, and was offered a scholarship from Syracuse University for music studies. His adopted name was inspired by Konishiki Yasokichi I who came from the same training stable in the Meiji Era.

2. Tony Laszlo (US)

Fun facts: Tony Laszlo is most famous as the main character of his wife Saori Oguri’s ダーリンは外国人 (My Darling is a Foreigner) manga series. The series has sold millions of copies, bringing the issue of international marriages into the homes of many native Japanese. Tony is a freelance journalist in Japan. The Darling series is being made into a movie coming out this April.

3. Dave Spector (US)

Fun facts: Dave Spector studied abroad at Sophia University (上智大学, making him my 先輩) in 1972. He makes no attempt to hide that his performance on TV in Japan is to satisfy Japanese stereotypes of foreigners, which is why he dyes his hair blonde and wears color contacts. He is famously quoted as saying, “…since I’m making half a million dollars a year, I’m very happy to be a panda. I’d be a much lower animal. I’d be like a sloth, or something, or a hedgehog, you know, for that money. So it doesn’t bother me at all.”

4. Patrick Harlan (AKA Pakkun, US)

Fun facts: Patrick Harlan graduated from Harvard University with a degree in comparative religion. He first visited Japan in 1993 and passed the JLPT 1 exam in 1995. He is best known for hosting the English program 英語でしゃべらナイト [Eigo de Shabera Night] and is a member of a traditional Japanese manzai comedy duo.

5. Thane Camus (US)

Fun facts: Thane Camus graduated from a board school in Yokohama in the late 80s. He attended university in the States but dropped out because of homesickness. He began a career as a TV personality in Japan, and now runs a talent agency that specializes in foreign professionals.

6. George Williams (International Man of Mystery)

Fun facts: George Williams is from Tokyo, the son of a British father and Japanese mother. He started out as a radio personality, but moved on to MTV Japan and can now be seen all over the place, with different colored hair and styles each time.

7. Daniel Kahl (US)

Fun facts: Daniel Kahl is an actor, presenter, comedian famous for speaking Yamagata-ben, a particularly strong Japanese dialect comparable to a deep southern American accent. Daniel is to thank for the Ninja Gaiden series translated into English!

(He comes in about 6:10, not so supportive of Arudou Debito’s onsen lawsuit.)

8. Arudou Debito (Formerly David Christopher Aldwinckle, US)

Fun facts: Arudou Debito, a naturalized Japanese citizen, is probably the most controversial figure in the expat community in Japan. Love him or hate him, he’s well known and has made a life for himself in Japan, having even gone through divorce. Debito graduated with a master’s degree from UCSD in International Relations and Pacific Studies, and now lives in Hokkaido where he teaches at Hokkaido Information University where he hold the position of associate professor. Alex Kerr openly criticized Debito for his methods, and Debito holds a grudge against Tony Laszlo (above).

9. Kaoru Miki (Born Colin Restall, UK)

Fun fact: Kaoru Miki, like Debito, is a naturalized Japanese citizen. He translates software into English, and was featured in Newsweek as a “new face of Japan”. He runs the blog Libation Kowloon.

10. Danny Choo (UK)

Fun facts: Danny Choo, the son of famous shoe designer Jimmy Choo, runs a successful blog about sexual-themed anime figurines, among other enterprises. His claim to fame across the expat board is as the dancing Tokyo storm trooper. He has been featured on BBC and CNN.

The title is slightly misleading in that the list is based on the criteria of (1) success [relative to my interpretation], (2) fame, (3) relative integration into Japanese society, and (4) how recently popular they are. Certainly there are more famous expats, more successful expats, and much more integrated expats in Japan.

This article is a submission for the Japan Blog Matsuri hosted by Muza-chan’s Gate to Japan.

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I have another “What the textbooks don’t teach” post coming up soon, but today I’d just like to share some more fun Japanese mnemonics.

傷がずきずき疼く。 [きずがずきずきうずく。] The wound throbbed with pain.

渋谷はたしかに渋いや！ [しぶやはたしかにしぶいや！] Shibuya really is “bitter”. (This one is my creation, and I’m quite fond of it having mixed in some Osaka-ben. I don’t think we could really use this sentence, as 渋い typically refers to the taste of a bitter persimmon, or tea that has stewed too long, or rough wine. It can also mean austere, or gloomy.)

居酒屋にはいさかいがいっぱい。 [いざかやにはいさかいがいっぱい。] There’s a lot of bickering in an izakaya. (This is another one of my own creations.)

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I always make a point of telling my undergrad students that the difficulty of learning a language is relative. I give them an example, typically using kanjigo (漢字語) – 信号無視 (shingou-mushi) versus 신호무시 (shino-mushi). Literally, it means “traffic signal ignore”. I then compare it to its English equivalent – ‘run a red light’. It’s a very different construction!

So, I thought I’d post a similar example for learners on the opposite side of the spectrum. Of course, this is all common sense, and I’m sure most learners already considered this in the beginning of their language journey, but it’s still a quick, fun look from a linguistic bird’s-eye view.

Consider the following two sentences:
German: Anne ist eine sehr attraktive Frau.
Japanese: アンさんはとてもきれいな女性です。

Clearly, it’s much easier for the native English speaker to wrap their head around the German version, assuming zero knowledge of either language. Actually, with cognates like ‘ist’ and ‘attraktive’ and the common name ‘Anne’, without having studied German at all a native English speaker would be able to guess the fundamental meaning of the sentence – “Anne is attractive.” Add to that the word Frau, which has made its way into the English dialect, and the only word that might trip up a native English speaker is ’sehr’. When you learn that ’sehr’ means ‘very’, it’s not a difficult sentence to memorize at all.

Now look at the Japanese sentence. First off, the characters are different. The name has a title appended to it (or else we might be committing a faux pas), and there are no cognates. There’s a copula at the end of the sentence, and no article. The Japanese version has a lot more to process.

I’m not trying to put anyone off from studying Japanese – Quite the opposite, actually. If you can get through Japanese, you can pretty much rest assured with the confidence that you can learn any language.

Special note: Did you know that the Japanese slang word チュッス [used as a greeting by, for example, fellow high school tennis club members] comes from the German word Tschüß [meaning "see ya"]? Tschüß itself is said to be derived from Adieu (‘Ad-jöh’ –> ‘atschöh’ –> ‘tschöh’ –> ‘tschüß’). Just a fun example of the flow of language across borders.

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Get it while it’s hot:

There’s a seller on Amazon.com who’s selling the Complete Gokusen DVD set (all 3 seasons) for just $27.75.

Gokusen is one of my favorite Japanese “dramas” (it’s actually more of a “serial comedy”), and offers loads of “real” Japanese to learn from. Best of all – It’s genuinely funny. Not to mention Nakama Yukie is my favorite Japanese actress.

Get it while it’s available!

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Almost exactly a year ago I touched a little bit upon what the textbooks don’t teach you, with examples like 中途半端 (ちゅうとはんぱ, half-assed) and ド素人 (どしろうと, newbie). There are still countless examples of this kind of real Japanese, and I’d like to get back into them here, time permitting.

For now, I’d just like to list a couple of observations about Japanese that I’ve written down in my notepad.

Similarities between Japanese and English concerning abstract uses of language

Although Japanese and English are vastly different systems of language, there are certain words that adopt similar abstract properties across the language divide. Here are a few examples, with the important words in bold:

彼の姿は闇の中に吸い込まれていった。
The man was swallowed up in darkness.

Although slightly different (’swallow up’ versus ’suck in’), there’s a similar idea that darkness is the active agent consuming an object.

母がどんなに苦しんだかと思うと心が痛む。
It pains me to think of how much my mother suffered.

Clearly, there is a similarity in mental anguish where, despite a lack of a physical property, we still describe the feeling as ‘pain’.

彼の望みは砕かれた。
He had his hopes crushed.

In both Japanese and English, hopes and desires have the potential to be crushed, despite their lack of physical properties.

Wordplay as a mnemonic device

If you’re looking for a way to remember the words for ’satellite’ and ‘hygiene/sanitation’, 衛星 and 衛生 are so similar that it’s only logical to link them together. Think of it like this – To make a good 衛星 the scientists and laboratory must maintain clean 衛生. If you’re worried about mixing up the Kanji, just remember that ’satellite’ obviously needs a sun included. Both words are pronounced えいせい.

A funny saying

英雄色を好む。
All great men are great lovers.

There’s no way I could leave that one out of the “Victory Manual”.

A funny cultural observation

I found the following sentence in the Kenkyusha ‘Green Goddess’ Japanese-English dictionary:

日本人はノックしてトイレがふさがっているかどうか確かめるが、アメリカ人はドアの下を見て確かめる。
Japanese confirm that the toilet is occupied by knocking on the door, while Americans look under the door.

That makes Americans sound so perverted! It may just be me, but I take a locked door to mean the toilet is occupied. Public toilets typically remain slightly ajar when the door is unlocked, so if it’s shut all the way we can assume that it’s occupied. Knocking seems redundant.

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