Konbini:
“Convenience store.” A ubiquitous aspect of Japanese life, conbinis are the place to go to for all of life’s essentials: food, snacks, drinks, supplies, and porn with the genitals blurred out.
Inaka:
“Countryside”, the rural districts of Japan, as determined and measured by the meters between Konbinis. If you can walk 10 meters without passing a Lawson’s, Family Mart, AM-PM, 7-11, or Coco, you are officially in inaka. Levels of inaka are also classified by the best fast food chain one has. As follows: Not Inaka (Wendy’s), Partially Inaka (McDonald’s), Pretty Inaka (KFC), Damned Inaka (MosBurger), Ridiculously Fucking Inaka (none). The inaka is distinguished by its expanses of rice paddies, unpopulated schools, small villages, lack of young people, and extremely sexually frustrated single people.
Kana:
The native Japanese writing system, used alongside kanji, the kana are the two phonetic syllabifies: hiragana and katakana. The former is used to write Japanese words and provide grammar references in sentences, like verb endings and particles. Katakana is used to bastardize foreign loan words, so that rather than being embarrassingly productive, foreigners are forced to spend hours sounding out katakana words they encounter, trying desperately to figure out which of their own words it is. For example, “hanbaagu [Hand bag],” “chiizu [Cheese]“, “Cohi [coffee]“, “tobago [cigerette]” or “Pooru [Pool]“. Many Japanese words are also written in katakana, to the further torment of foreigners.
Kanji:
“Han Chinese Characters.” The system of writing borrowed from China, kanji are some 2,000 ideographs that have both phonetic and semiotic components called “radicals” (such as water, wheat stalk, mouth, fire, person, etc) that reveal much about the culture that invented them. For instance, ethno linguists have determined that the fauna of China when the characters were first invented consisted largely of window panes with spider legs and spiky boxes wearing hats.
Oishii:
“Delicious.” The word has an interesting history, as for centuries it served merely as an abstract concept, as none of the raw or overcooked food in Japan could even remotely be described as “oishii.” Oishii thus could only be defined as something that didn’t exist. [How can you digest this word when people use it while eating 'live octopus' or ‘squid’?]
Namachu:
Techinically speaking it is just beer. But it is widely used for ‘draft beer’, but one can have any type of ‘beeru’ depending on his/her wishes. [balcko beeru, beer brownu, essence beeru]
Yatta! :
“Did it!” The Japanese equivalent of “woo hoo!” employed upon completion of a task, particularly effective in the bathroom for you. [In cold, in a small bath room where you can only stand or just stand and do nothing more than wetting your body... you can say, "yatta!"]
Nomikai/Enkai: “Work party”, a time for Japanese people to get together with co-workers and unwind over a few drinks (note that in Japan, “a few drinks” is the equivalent of a kegger). Since what occurs at an enkai will never be mentioned again, enkais often involve employees drunkenly telling off their boss, asking ridiculously personal questions. Perhaps, virtually identical to office Christmas parties in America, except no one get fired on Monday.
[To be Continued... see part3]
