Comme ça du Japon

While I was strolling around 川崎 (Kawasaki) “Kawasaki”, which will be the subject of the next podcast, I found an interesting Kanji that I didn’t know of : 蛤 (Hamaguri). It is made of the combination of Kanji for 虫 (Mushi) “Insect” and 合 (Gô) “joint”. Given that the classification of animal species is far from being consistent, it is useless to look for an insect. Looking up in my japanese dictionary reveals that this Kanji is used for clam and that it is read はまぐり (Hamaguri). This reading is due to the fact that due to its color and shape, the japanese clam is sometimes called 浜栗 (HamaGuri) “the seashore chestnut (seashore + chestnut)”.

We still don’t know why the Kanji is made of Insect and Joint. The japanese Kanji dictionary explains that the clam is a sort of “insect” (at least thought as such a long time ago) with two shells that 合う (AU) “fit” perfectly, in other words a shell ?! If we search a little bit more, we learn that the 蝶番 (ChôTsuGai) “hinge” of each shell has an unique shape. This particularity is what makes challenging the seashells puzzle known as 貝合わせ (KaiAWaSe) “coquillage + put together”. It is still traditionnaly played during the japanese new year.