Moderately Interesting Japanese Episode 6: Come at Me, Bro (Fighting Words)
Above: the average Japanese workplace, actual footage
The other day, I was copied in an email in which my boss was a bit ticked off that someone hadnât recorded the hours they had worked for the month, and he told them this:Â
éŠăæŽăŁăŠćŸ
ăŁăŠăïŒïŒïŒ
Kubi wo aratte, mattero!!!
Wash your neck and wait!!!
Did my boss think this personâs neck was dirty? What is he waiting for?Â
Today, I thought Iâd introduce a few phrases that revolve around fights/battles.
1. Kubi wo arau (wash your neck)
I daresay that just about everybody knows about the old samurai tradition of committing seppuku or harakiri, and how the samurai would drag a knife through his gut. But did you also know that there was always a man standing beside him prepared to behead him in the event that he couldnât go through with it?
Before seppuku and before any public executions, the body must be purified. In particular, because beheadings and hangings were the preferred method of execution in Japan for centuries, it was very important to wash your neck. So if someone tells you to wash your neck, it means your time has come.Â
Itâs most commonly used just like my boss said,
éŠăæŽăŁăŠćŸ
ăŁăŠăïŒ
Kubi wo aratte mattero!
Wash your neck and wait!
2. Kenka wo uru (sell a fight)
The first time I heard this, I actually laughed because the idea of âsellingâ a fight was humorous to me. But if you can imagine picking a fight by saying outrageous things with just as much passion as a man on a soapbox selling snake oil, the expression makes plenty of sense.Â
The expression is most often used like this:
ă±ăłă«ćŁČăŁăŠăăźăăăăïŒïŒÂ
Kenka utten noka, kora?! (Note: âuttenâ is a more casual way to say âutte iruâ
âYou tryin to start somethin, huh?!â
3. Kenka wo kau (buy a fight)
Obviously, if someoneâs selling something, youâre gonna have to buy it!Â
The usage of this expression isnât as set as its companion âkenka wo uruâ is, but I usually see it in some variation of:
ă±ăłă«ăćŁČăŁăŠăăȘăăèČ·ăă
Kenka wo utteru nara, kau zo
If youâre selling a fight, Iâll buy it!
(Or, for a more natural English expression, âIf youâre starting a fight, Iâll finish it!â)
4. Omae no kubi da (itâs your neck)
This expression goes back to Japanâs history of beheading and hanging as the standard methods of execution. It can mean that someone is fired from their job, or itâs a warning like the English âyouâre risking your neckâ or âitâs on your head.â
Example for âyouâre firedâ
Wife: ăăăăăăăïŒă©ăăăŠăăăȘă«æ©ăćž°ăŁăŠăăăźïŒ
Husband: éŠă«ăȘăŁăă
Wife: ăăŁïŒéŠïŒ
Husband: ăăéŠă
Wife: Oh, welcome back! Why are you home so early?
Husband: I got fired. (Literally, âit became my neckâ)
Wife: What? Fired? (Literally, âneck?â)
Husband: Yeah, fired. (Literally, âneckâ)
Example for warnings
ăăźă”ăăăèšç»ăŻăćăèăăăăă怱æăăăăćăźéŠă ă
Kono fuzaketa keikaku ha omae ga kangaeta kara, shippai shitara omae no kubi da zo.
Youâre the one who thought up this stupid plan, so if it fails itâs on your head.
5. Sukedachi itasu (to be the helping sword)
This is probably one of my favorite expressions in Japanese. I have a lot of favorite expressions, but I mean it with this one.Â
ć©ć€Șć (sukedachi) is composed of the following two words:
ć© (suke) help, assistance
You likely know the verb ć©ăă (tasukeru, to help, to aid),Â
For some linguistic reason, the âtaâ of it falls off in some cases. You see this most commonly in male names. âSasuke,â âShinnosuke,â and any other name that ends in âsukeâ can be written with ć© at the end.
ć€Șć (tachi/dachi) literally âthick blade,âÂ
The tachi was a blade slightly larger and more curved than a katana.Â
There was also the kodachi, which was too big to be called a knife and too small to be called a sword.Â
Sukedachi refers to a person who would provide backup in a fight. Itâs the âIâve got your backâ of Japanese, and this expression has been around since the Muromachi Era (early 14th century). You add the verb suru or its humble form itasu to create the phrase âIâll be the helping sword.â
Nowadays, people arenât running around with swords vowing to avenge their friend should they fall in battle, yet this expression is still used with surprising frequency. I actually hear it at work at least once a week.Â
Senpai: ăă°ăăăŻă©ă€ăąăłăă«è±èȘă§ăźçșèĄšæ±ăăăăŠăăăă©ăäżșăźè±èȘă«èȘ俥ăăȘăă
Kohai: 性äžć€«ăŁăăïŒćïŒćčŽăąăĄăȘă«ă§çćŠăăăăăć°ăŁăăć©ć€ȘćăăăïŒ
Senpai: Shoot, the clientâs asking for the presentation to be in English, but I have no confidence in my English.
Kohai: Relax! I studied abroad in America for a year, so if you need help I got your back!
Sukedachi itasu is used for comedic effect. You sound like youâre a samurai willing to lay your life on the line for your friend, when really youâre just talking about helping your friend with a presentation haha.Â
You should try using this in the next conversation you have in Japanese. I guarantee your Japanese friends will be impressed!
Ask a random Japanese person where they think the word bibiru comes from, and theyâll almost invariably tell you that they think itâs slang. Japanese has an interesting feature in which you can slap a ă(ru) on to a noun or onomatopoeia and transform it into a verb, sort of like how you can slap an -ed or -ing on a noun in English and turn it into a verb.Â
Some slang verbs commonly used in Japanese are:
ă°ă°ă guguru (abbreviation of âgoogleâ plus âruâ), âto google somethingâ
ă”ăă saboru (abbreviation of âsabotageâ plus âruâ), âto skip work/schoolâ
However, bibiru isnât the slang that many Japanese people think it is. It has been around since the Heian Era (9th century AD)! âBibiâ is the sound of armor plates clashing together on the battlefield, and bibiru is to feel the rush of fear a warrior feels as he watches the enemy surge towards him.
This expression can be used like this:
ç»ć±±ăźéäžă«çȘç¶ă«ăŻăăćșăŠăăŠăăĄăăăłăłăŁăă
Tozan no tochuu ni totsuzen ni kuma ga detekite, chou bibitta.
Halfway through climbing the mountain, a bear came out of nowhere and I freaked.
7. Ashi wo arau (to wash your feet)
This expression provides an interesting insight into Japanese culture. In English, if you get involved in an unpleasant event and you want never to think of it again, you âwash your handsâ of it. For example, âI decided to wash my hands of crime when I was sent to jail.â
In Japanese, this sentence would literally be âI decided to wash my feet of crime when I was sent to jail.â
How is it that English and Japanese can have such similar expressions that use polar opposite appendages?
Well, first you have to recall the great importance Japanese culture puts on separating ć
(uchi) and ć€ (soto). Literally âinsideâ and âoutsideâ respectively, uchi and soto are how people and the world in general are categorized and separated in the mind.Â
Yourself (uchi) vs. others (soto)
Your home (uchi) vs. outside the home (soto)
Family (uchi) vs. strangers (soto)
Your own village (uchi) vs. another village (soto)
Japan (uchi) vs. other countries (soto)
This is such an internalized thought process that when I bring up the concepts of âuchiâ and âsoto,â most Japanese people are very startled because they have gone their whole lives unaware that they were looking at the world this way.Â
Anyways, one of the most important tenets of uchi and soto is that the uchi is pure, soto is impure, and that impure things from soto are never to be brought into uchi. âImpureâ can refer to anything unclean both in the physical and metaphorical sense, like tracking in dirt on your shoes or committing a crime.Â
As Iâm sure you know, it is customary to remove your shoes before entering a home in Japan. This tradition stems from the practical necessity of removing shoes to keep from ruining tatami mats with dirt, water, or scuffing, but the other reason is that you have left your home (uchi) and gone to soto, and your shoes have touched the impure soto. In order to keep impurities from getting into your home, you must take off your shoes before entering it.Â
So to get back to the âashi wo arauâ expression, the concept behind it is that, if you do something impure in soto (such as getting into a fight and hurting someone, or anything else you regret), that impurity remains on your feet and you must rid yourself of that impurity before moving on and returning to your uchi.Â
That was a bit of a long and winding explanation, but I hope it made sense. Maybe Iâll make an entire Moderately Interesting Japanese post on uchi and soto in the future if people are interested, because itâs a very deep topic that provides great insight into Japanese culture.Â
