You probably were intrigued by the idiom 虫の知らせ (Mushi No Shirase) “the word from the vermin (bug)” that I used in the article announcing that I was back from a long silence. A quick search in my japanese electronic dictionnary revealed that there are a whole lot of idioms related to 虫 (Mushi) “bugs”. Well, this is all I needed to start a new serie of posts!

All these idioms come from the belief that says that we have 3 to 4 “bugs” inside us. Precisely, it comes from 道教 (DôKyô) “Taoism” and is called 三尸 (SanShi) “Three + corpse”. According to this belief, it is said that during the night of the day that falls on 庚申 (KôShin) “the 37th Taoist symbol (Metal Up rank + Monkey)”, these little bugs escape from our body to tip off 天帝 (TenTei) “the Celestial Emperor” about our misconduct. Unfortunately, the Emperor does not like it a bit and this had direct consequences on one’s life expectancy. So, on this particular day, Taoists took the habit of staying up all night to avoid that 虫の知らせ (Mushi No ShiRaSe) “the word from the bugs” reaches out to the Celestial Emperor. To be continued…

It’s been almost a year since I have stopped posting here on Comme ca du Japon. To be honest, I was waiting for some kind of 予兆 (YoChô) “an omen” for the end of this recession in order to restart writing. Sure enough, all the major media outlets did serve us their dose of Prozac on the smallest opportunities; however nobody had the gut to let the champagne flow. Indeed, the newly assigned deleguates 亀井 (KameI) “Kamei”, in charge of reviewing the privatisation of the Japan Postal Service, was barely brave enough to mention it at a press conference. So, if apparently nothing has changed why would I write this post in the first place?

For what it’s worth, on the political side, Japan never knew bigger change in a while. The 民主党 (MinShuTô) “DPJ” won an unheard of victory on 自由民主党 (JiYûMinShuTô) “LDP“, putting an end to 16 years of political hegemony. Obama for the USA, 鳩山 (HatoYama) “HatoYama” for Nippon; the speech remains the same: Change and Hope. To tell the truth, from Obama’s words, we should only remenber “Yes, we can!” and take action!

As the world goes, I have also decided to ignore 虫の知らせ (Mushi No Shirase) “the bad premonitions (litteraly: the word from the vermin)”. As a proof of my new stance on the matter, I have bought a トヨタ　ポルテ (ToYoTa PoRuTe) “Toyota Porté”. Obviously, you will agree that a car is a pretty nifty thing to have when you went to the trouble to get a japanese driving license. I will take on this opportunity to write a series of articles on the subject. Finally and just between us, this is a used car: just like my bank account, there is a limit to Hope…

It’s the intention that really matters. If I can appreciate the intention of the person who gave me this CD, I can’t figure out the intention of the designer Nicolas Maternik. This CD produced by Vox Terrae is a compilation of japanese songs for children played by a group of japanese artists. The lyrics and french translations are printed in the booklet but as you will understand by the end of this post, accuracy was probably a second thought. You can listen to one track on the blog “terrier à Tokyo“. Now, look closely at the picture. Don’t you feel that something is utterly wrong with this CD’s jacket?

Look under the title “Petit Léo au Japon”. There, the red Kanji ! The designer used one of the worst Kanji there could be for such a CD : 死 (Shi) “Death”. I have absolutely no idea how it managed to make such a mistake but I believe that he problably wanted to express 詩 (Shi) “Poetry”. I am flabbergasted that no one ask the japanese artists to verify the final product for inaccuracies.