004_The write stuff
As you might expect, 木 (tree) is among the first kanji characters that Japanese children learn to write. In these posts, it was the first character that I introduced.
I didn’t grow up in Japan and I’ve only ever taken a few formal Japanese lessons, so I have no idea how orthodox or unorthodox some of my opinions are in the world of kanji. The way kanji are taught in Japan may vary significantly depending on who’s doing the teaching.
Fortunately, this is Canjeez Country! Here, I can state Canjeez facts with brazen impunity. And so I say that historically, a principal purpose of items like 木, 林, and 森 was to use one elementary character (木) to showcase a few Canjeez design basics to the novice. We see one element on its own (木), two elements side by side (林), and three elements presented with one on top and two below (森).
Each one shows you a different way to structure the parts of a glyph and make it look sleek, elegant, and well balanced. This video shows you how to do it.
Precisely because I didn’t grow up in Japan and have only ever taken a few formal Japanese lessons, my own written Canjeez are flabby, unkempt, and rolling drunk—when I can write them at all. It takes great self-discipline and commitment to master the writing of Canjeez.
I grew up near the sea in England and did a lot of surfing. In my teens, I’d occasionally see Surfer magazine from the US. I’d marvel at photos of legends like Gerry Lopez zipping across the face of astoundingly big, scary waves. I feel the same sense of awe when I watch someone writing fluently in Japanese.
After 40 years of earnest, persistent procrastination, I continue to struggle with the baby waves of writing in Japanese, and so when I watch a priest effortlessly dash off an exquisitely beautiful temple signature, it is humbling.
Being able to write so smoothly probably doesn’t seem special to the writers themselves. I have a certain insight into that as I exist in a twilight zone of Japanese linguistic competence, taking for granted some aspects of communicating in Japanese while still being more or less a beginner in others.
I invite you to enter my brain. (It’s Japan, so first please take off your shoes.) When I see 本日, I know that the pronunciation is honjitsu (this day, today). When I see 日本, I know that the pronunciation is Nihon or Nippon (Japan). When you point out to me that these are the same two characters in reverse order, I am surprised.
It really was very recently that I first noticed this seemingly obvious point. It also took me decades to make the intensely thrilling discovery that 社会 (shakai; society) is the mirror image of 会社 (kaisha; company).
Likewise, it’s possible that a few lines back you were thinking: Is the word for Japan written with “eye” and “tree”? If that’s the case, then you weren’t noticing that “eye” (目) has one more line than the first Canjeez of 日本, and “tree” (木) is missing one of the lines in the second Canjeez of 日本.
If you’ve only just started to read Canjeez that’s hardly surprising. These objects are not yet registered in your memory. “And they never will be,” your inner voice may well be saying with a note of irritation.
But give me a couple more posts! Step by step, we are walking in the direction of some key themes: objects of attention, emotional attachment, language acquisition, encoding reality, remembering and forgetting, self and other, inclusion and exclusion, Confucius and Dao, action and non-action, and the very purpose of life.
How many roads must a man walk down? We will answer that question, too. (Hint: 42.)
Surf’s up. Any whippersnapper surfer reading this might be amused to learn that back in the day, we English surfer dudes referred to “stand-up” surfboards as Malibu boards. And the last time I went back to England in the summer, I surfed on a 60-year-old wooden “lie-down” board, braving waves that Gerry Lopez himself might hesitate to tackle.