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<\/a><\/p>\nClearly the drawings translate this Japanese text into “Loading Zone. Five minute maximum.”<\/p>\n
As to this one:<\/p>\n
I was grabbing a soda at the local Circle K for the two hour drive out to Kansai Airport for our flight to Tokyo. \u00a0Further to my texts and discussions with my brother and mom about “Gahn\u00a0Bar\u00a0Ay!” I thought about my less than rudimentary Japanese language skills. \u00a0But I think I’m getting the hang of it.<\/p>\n
I think it was in the year 2000 that I first came to Japan. My brother, an East Asian Studies scholar, was wearing multiple hats that trip as a family member, translator, and tour guide. One of my fondest memories was discussing with him over dinner the kanji characters we’d encountered and how baffled I was by it all. That said, I told him at least I could identify the post offices as their kanji looked like three ninjas. Anytime we’d pass one I’d read the sign like a four-year-old and announce, “Ninja-ninja-ninja! That means Post Office!”<\/p>\n
I told Mom this story on the flight over from the US and mentioned I really wanted to snap a photo outside a three ninja post office to send to Steve; I wasn’t sure he’d even remember this silly little moment on our trip as it meant a lot to me but probably just felt like one more example of his country bumpkin brother gawking at the city lights. So imagine my surprise and disappointment as mom and I strolled the streets of Kyoto and came across a post office only to discover a) there’s a lot more than three kanji characters on the sign and b) maybe only one of those characters appears ninja-ish to me and definitely not three in a row.<\/p>\n
It seems unlikely they changed the kanji so I wonder what I saw or why I remember so clearly the ninja-ninja-ninja story.<\/p>\n
My Japanese language skills now are therefore less than a toddler, less than even a twenty month old newborn just learning to form words.<\/p>\n
But I take some solace in that I cracked the kanji code for these signs just outside my hotel. Much like the non-Dick-San bike pictographs, the drawings helped in the first sign… and my ill-advised rubric of viewing kanji as hieroglyphics to puzzle out meaning informs the second.<\/p>\n
Clearly the drawings translate this Japanese text into “Loading Zone. Five minute maximum.”<\/p>\n As to this one:<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n