September 29th, 2009
You probably were intrigued by the idiom 虫の知らせ “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 “bugs”. Well, this is all I needed to start a new serie of posts!
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October 29th, 2008
It seems pretty futile to even try to keep on updating this blog in these dark days. Needless to say, it’s time to invest your time even more wisely to up the ante. I might consider to temporarily change the main topic if the time invested in doing so is justified. See you at the other end of this dark tunnel.
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November 11th, 2006
へのへのもへじ is more than likely the oldest japanese 絵文字 “émoji“. “An emo-what ?!”. émoji is a 絵 “drawing” made of 文字 “characters”. In other words, it is equivalent of the smileys used in chat messaging : 
. However, you don’t need to turn your head to decipher 絵文字 “the japanese smileys”. For instance, the equivalent of is ^_^ .
Let’s go back to へのへのもへじ “hénohénomohéji“. It is a 顔 “face” made of the following 平仮名 “japanese characters” : へ “hé” for the eyebrows and the mouth, の “no” for the eyes, も “mo” for the nose, and じ “ji” for the face with two drops of sweat (my guess). For a long time it used to be へへののもへじ “héhénonomohéji” but you will agree that this one is more difficult to pronounce correctly. There are plenty of faces made of 平仮名 “japanese characters” like the spouse of mister Hénohénomohéji : へめへめくこひ “héméhémékukohi” !
Mr Hénohénomohéji is working in the fields. His job is to scare the crows. Well, he is trying. For his defence we shall say that is deaf-mute and planted into the ground. You probably guessed that it is a 案山子 “scarecrow”. It is interesting to note that the 漢字 “chino-japanese characters” used for かかし “scarecrow” : 案 “proposal, suggestion”, 山 “mountain” and 子 “child”. Is it that scarecrows are some kind of mountain guide ? In fact, it is a bit more complicated than that.
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October 8th, 2006
Photo：Museum of chimera
(C) Emoto Hajime
This is the second edition of the “Imaginary creatures of Japan” serie of articles that I have launched with an article on 河童 “Kappa”. This time we will discover a very interesting creature named 槌の子 “tsuchi no ko” or バチヘビ “short tailed snake” in the Tohoku region (north-east).
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