MaruMAːShort-shortsːWordChain
A Game of Inter-cultural Communication Word-Chain[edit]
There is this thing called people you just can't hang out very comfortably with.
To me Saralegui is one of that. But it's not because we differ so much over very fundamental stuff, or because we don't have the chance to talk very often. Nor is it because we're different ages, or that we get to be too far apart in our intellect. If that should be the case, there's no way I can have any kind of a relationship with Wolf, or hang out with Murata during the holidays.[1]
Only, I guess, between Saralegui and me, the lives we've spent up till the day are just too different.
For me, the basics of having fun has been CATCH-BALL, and the upgraded version of that is BASEBALL.
But for him, I guess the basics of having fun is the ins and outs of being a leader, and the upgraded version states affairs and politics.
"That's not true Yuuri, thinking about states affairs all day long is too much even for me. I do take my breaks, and I do take the time to look at beautiful things for enjoyment, and look at funny things to have a laugh. And I exercise. If I don't do that occasionally I would be like a fat evil politician. What do you do for fun usually? It happens I'm thinking of knowing more about foreign recreations."
So I took him along into the opens with my MITT and BALL. And it ended with him hitting his head with the easy-to-catch slow ball[2] I've thrown.
God, how is that even possible? Can it be that he's mistaking baseball for SOCCER?
And just as I expected, we were stopped by a retinue of his because it "was too dangerous" after only one throw. And they said it was ok if we just rolled the ball around.
So we did CATCH-BALL rolling the ball around. But that didn't count as CATCH-BALL already, it was just picking stray balls back. As a result, our SPORTS ended in five minutes.
For other options on how to pass the time, the only things left were either taking walks in the gardens he'd prided in, or un-eventfully drinking tea back indoors.
That's--not--fun--at--all--.
And when you happen to be stuck in a coffin with a person from that category, the options of things left to do get much more limited.
"....Never thought they'd take this long and we just stay hidden and keep waiting."
"You know, the last ones never turn up easily (in hide-and-seeks). But I guess when our adventures are retold by the children of future times, the pursuing party would no doubt be giving up much sooner, like no time has passed."
"Right, it's the kind of editings they have on VARIETY shows."
"And there would be added anecdotes of swords cutting into the coffin and missing us by a hair's breadth and such."
"Ah, like 'and a thinnest string of blood appears on his cheek...'?"
"Yea, excatly like that."
But the people chasing us just went on searching in completely wrong places. And they were getting farther away from the coffin we were hiding in.
For goodness's sake, where on earth is that they're looking? What kind of stupid makes a person hide behind drawn-up CURTAINs? Aren't their feet going to be left exposed and clear to be seen?
"Ah-uh, I'm getting bored."
"It's a good thing the coffin is large enough. After all if it's small we'd be packed and miserable. The last time I got into one of these there were cheeks and noses all pressed together and....."
"Eh? Yuuri, did you say you have been in a coffin before?"
"Eh? Ah, um, it's nothing, That was another story[3]."
But for right now, I was hiding with King Saralegui of Small Shimaron, the two of us in a coffin, with pursuing parties circling the place with apparently no intention to leave. And after it became clear we were in no danger of being found, all tensions were gone and I began to feel unbearably sleepy.
"It's too peaceful I could fall asleep. We need some Hima-tsubushi[4] to do."
"Some Hitsu-mabushi[5]?"
"Not that, Hima-tsubushi."
Is there any chance they should have the renowned Nagoya dish here in Small Shimaron? No, it must have been that "unanimity" or "homonym" thing. Like with sweets and rain[6], whips and ignorance[7], or the Saitama Seibu Lions and the Detroit Lions. The last ones are both lions, but they compete in different sports.
"By the way what does HITSU-MABUSHI mean in Shimaron?"
"It's a proverb advising against luxurious clothing and excessive spending, and encouraging simplicity and thrift. It comes from a tale of a man in hiding, who gets discovered by the soldiers all because he is grinding a herb of high value called Hitsu and sprinkling it onto himself."
"Woah, the 'Mabusu' word is practically the same as ours[8]."
"That reminds me, Yuuri, of a perfect Hitsu-mabushi."
Saralegui said with a voice completely unsuitable for when you're in the middle of a hide-and-seek situation. I could see his smile even by the dim light from the cracks.
"Let's do the Shiri-nuki."
"Shiri-nuki[9]?"
"That's right. We say a word, and use its last syllable for the first syllable of a next word, so that they're linked."
"Oh, right, so, in Small Shimaron a Shiri-tori is called a Shiri-nuki."
For a moment it had felt a little like I was a villager encountering a Kappa[10]. But this might actually turn out a nice time-killing thing to do. It could be my chance ro learn some new words from another culture, like I did just now, and it only takes a head and a mouth to play. If things go well and the game continues nicely, it might keep me from falling asleep.
"Then let's start from me. Let me think, Shiri-nuKi......the Gold Thing and the Silver Thing[11]."
"What 'thing' are we talking about?"
"Well that part is never told in the story. But it goes like this: A man hides in the woods, and accidentally meets a fairy of the lake, the fairy asks him if he wants the gold Thing or the silver Thing, but he gets greedy and answered 'I want you', and that's when he is caught by the soldiers chasing him."
"Wow, courting while he's hiding. The fairy must be everything his type. Well, it's Ka for me...ka, ka.....the Hidden Ball Trick[12]."
"Hidden ball trick?"
But Saralegui didn't ask more about the meaning of the phrase I'd said, and went on to the next word in the chain.
"MA for me. Then.....Mario and Luigi[13]."
It seemed that somehow this was not going to be a COMMUNICATION after all. The inter-cultural info was only going one way.
"Mario and Luigi.....what does that mean? Don't tell me it's a tragedy where a man and a woman both drink poison and become zombies[14]."
"It's not. It's a story of two men hiding in sewer pipes. They eat a legendary mushroom which is said to give you another life, but the mushroom turns out to be poisonous, and they're discovered though they've been hiding."
".....Uh it that so. Well then it's To, Trade[15]!"
"And the next Do. Umm, ah, Three Years in the Mud[16]."
By this time something was catching my attention. But it doesn't do to speculate just as it suits you. I needed to do some confirming.
"Well, for what it's worth I'll ask anyway, what is this mud thing about?"
"Three years in the mud? It's a tragedy of a man who is for some reason hiding himself from the army, and spends a year in the water, two under the ground, and three in the mud. But despite all efforts he gets caught on his sixth year of hiding anyway. Isn't it awe-inspiring, that he should hide buried in the mud for three years. It's such an unhuman deed. Perhaps the man who inspired this story really wasn't human in race."
I felt my strength was draining away from the back of my neck, and leaned onto the coffin board feebly.
"Sara.....are you by any chance hoping I should get caught by them?"
"Eh? Yuuri, you certainly aren't expecting never to be found? Doesn't it take all the thrills away if you just hide and never get caught?"
There is a thing called people you just can't hang out very comfortably with.
Though the basics of having fun has always been CATCH-BALL for me, but, perhaps for him, those basics lie in HIDE-AND-SEEK, the game of hiding with a predestined result of being found.
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References[edit]
- ↑ The word Yuu-chan uses for Wolf here is our good old friend the "付き合う" (つきあう, tsu-ki-a-u), which is a verb that can mean everything from "associating with" "getting along with" "accompanying somebody (to do something)", to "DATING THEM". And the word he uses for Murata is "連む" (つるむ, tsu-ru-mu) which means to hang out with someone; although there is another word reading tsu-ru-mu with different kanji (which means we can say it's a different word) that means "to mate" for animals, which your translator isn't sure if people tend to associate with the people word or not.(PLZ ADD INFO IF YOU HAVE INSIGHT ON THIS!) Then at both the beginning and end of the story he uses "遊びにくい相手" (あそびにくいあいて, asobi-nikui-aite) to describe Saralegui, which means someone you have trouble playing with; but if we look harder "相手"(a-i-te) is a word that can mean "someone you do something together with", "an opponent (in matches etc.)" and sometimes "people you do business with" or "people (often children etc.) you have to deal with or look after", and sometimes it can also have a romantic/sexual meaning (but basically it's a word for any second party in something you do). Just board a ship and sail and you're safe people, because sensei is so teasing us here :)))
- ↑ 山なりボール, I'm not familiar with baseball but 山なりmeans "making an arched curve".
- ↑ Sensei might be referring to the novels and the MAnime being parallel universes :P
- ↑ Things to kill the time, 暇つぶし.
- ↑ ひつまぶし. My dictionary says it's a kind of rice dish where there are "eel fillets cooked over charcoal with soy flavoured sauce, cut in small pieces and serve on rice". And my other dictionary says that you normally have the first serving as it comes, and the second with some seasoning like scallion and wasabi, and the third with both the seasoning and green tea poured on to soak everything(making it into a Chaduke which is cooked rice with green tea poured on it), and they're famous from Nagoya City. Anyway it's sensei's good old word-play-and-neta combo :P
- ↑ Both reading "ame" but with different accent in Japanese.
- ↑ Both reading "muchi" but with different accent. Also "AME + MUCHI" means the carrot-and-stick policy.
- ↑ まぶす, mabusu, a verb which means to smear or sprinkle fine powders or choppings onto something. It's worth bringing up that even though everything comes in Japanese for us who are [s]reading[/s] trying to read the stories, making especially any word play fairly hard to deliver, but somehow what the characters are saying is always mirrored with the other world's mazoku language/common (human?) language which is a lot like the mazoku language.
- ↑ Yuuri probably is briefly confused/alarmed because there's no time-killing game called Shiri-nuki, and the word sounds like something entirely different to him. In fact the Japanese Word Chain is called Shiri-tori, and this is sensei's little joky twist. See the next note for Shiri-nuki.
- ↑ Google took me to a Japanese folk tale "尻ぬき河童"(shiri-nuki-kappa), which in turn brings me to find out that Kappas are in a habit of seeking to pull a thing called Shirikodama(尻子玉, it's also spelled as Shirigodama) out of people's anuses. In all this, it might help us to know that "nuku"(抜く) is the verb for "pull" and "nuki" is a conjugation of that verb; and it might not help so much to know that according to legend, whoever gets their Shirikodama pulled out would become cowardly.
- ↑ 金の何か銀の何か, kinn-no-nanika-to-ginn-no-nanika, which starts with a "Ki". Also, it's one way of playing to start the game with the word "shiri-tori" itself in Japanese Word Chains. But Wiki says you can also start with other random words.
- ↑ 隠し球, kakushi-dama.
- ↑ マリオとルイージと, mario-to-ruiji-to. Super Mario neta.
- ↑ Isn't that the plot of Romero & Argent....?
- ↑ トレード, toreedo.
- ↑ 泥の中にも三年, doro-no-naka-ni-mo-sann-nenn. It seems to be a twist out of the proverb "石の上にも三年"(three years on the rock), which means if you sit on it for 3 years even a rock would become warm and thus encourages perseverance. Also in Japanese Word Chains you lose and end the game when your word or phrase ends with an "nn"(ん), because it's different from the "n" in "na", "ni", "nu", "ne", and "no" from "row NA" and there are nearly no words in Japanese starting with an "nn".
