Shhhhhh

Today in linguistics class, I learned about a difference in the Japanese pronunciation of "sh" and our American pronunciation of "sh".

It's difficult to describe in words, and I can't find good examples online. The Japanese "sh" is tighter, efficient. The American makes "sh" with a less-tense mouth and a lot more air against the teeth. The Japanese version makes your tongue's tip point down as the air becomes strained between the palate and the high-point bump of the folded-down tongue. The American version, the tip of our tongue is higher and kind of rounded, funneling air against and through the teeth.

(I'm using layman's terms above. You don't really want to know the technical terms for these kinds of articulations.)

It's not an important difference, meaning that the meaning with be clear to either Japanese or American if you use the wrong "sh."

When the teacher mentioned this, though, the whole class was kind of astounded. They, like I, had always heard the slight difference, but they'd been unable to pinpoint what made the sh-sounds different. So, for the next five minutes, the teacher continued to speak, but everyone in the class was going "Shhhh, shhhh."

Things Change

I made a small mistake in my previous post about karate. "Karate" in Japanese is written "空手", which means "empty hand." But this is misleading, because originally the word "karate" was written with an old character for China: 唐手. Thus, the name itself once showed clearly that karate had its roots in China, despite being a very Japanese art form.

Things change. History is whitewashed. The roots of an art form are obscured by language. And a grisly story is forgotten (by the victors). I read the following tale in Japan: A Modern History, and was struck at the brutal forgetfulness of it.

In the last decade of the 1500s, Toyotomi Hideyoshi had conquered Japan and united all the regions militarily. Then, with this huge army on his hands, he decided to send them offshore, to Korea. Initially, he'd just aimed to conquer China (!), and he'd thought that Korea would be cool with letting his troops attack from their peninsula. The Koreans said no, that would not be cool. So Hideyoshi made war on the Koreans.

It didn't go well. The Korean military was terrible on dry land, but in the wetlands and on the sea, the Koreans were formidable. Korean boats cut Hideyoshi's armies off from their supplies. Then China swooped in and beat the Japanese back away from Seoul. The Japanese surged once more, but they never even got to Seoul the second time. Hideyoshi died before there was a third surge.

But the Japanese were pretty much disastrous to Koreans. They burned Seoul, they killed (on Hideyoshi's orders) civilians, women, and children, and they cut off each killed Korean's nose. They pickled the noses, tens of thousands of them, in jars and brought them back to Japan. Hideyoshi dumped all these noses into a pile near his own future tomb. The pile became a large hill.

The hill is now called "Mound of Ears." It's a popular place for picnics and cherry-blossom viewing.

Karate Is Japanese

(I wasn't sure whether I should relegate this post to my Japanese blog or not, but I figured the fighting trivia belonged here. So many blogs, so little time...)

A new Karate Kid movie has been in the works for quite some time. Will Smith is helming it, Will Smith's son will be the Kid, and Jackie Chan will be Miyagi-esque. This has a lot of people upset for many reasons. First, their childhood memories will be chewed up into a pulp. Second, Miyagi was Japanese. Third, karate itself is Japanese. Fourth, the original movie helped bring Japanese culture to American attention yadda yadda yadda.

Smith defended his choice of making the Miyagi character Chinese by saying that "fortunately, karate is originally a Chinese art form" in this old news article.

Karate is Japanese. The word itself means "empty hand" in Japanese. This is true, but I had thought it had been a brand new invention created by the Japanese. Not so, apparently. The Japanese took the style from the Ryukyuan people of Okinawa.

Okinawa hangs out in the ocean between China and Japan and was for centuries a way for both countries to trade with each other without having to officially open trade. The Okinawans learned martial arts from the Chinese; they even went to study it in China for a while. The term for the kind of martial art it was at the time is "kenpo."

The Japanese codified it and created the martial art called "karate." I'm sure the details are all very interesting, so you can read about it more at the wiki.

Later, China kind of forgot about the techniques. They had to relearn it from Japan. So to say that it won't matter whether you place your movie about karate in China or Japan is still bullspit, Will Smith. Don't call it Karate Kid is all I'm saying. Call it "The Kenpo Kid" or something. Leave Ralph Macchio out of it.

(On second thought, put Ralph Macchio in it! That would be awesome!)

Miso Oatmeal

I've been on a cheap cooking kick lately. I finally got around to hard-boiling eggs for the week on Sunday; I've had an egg or two every day. I've also been eating steel-cut oats every morning. But even in the reduced-time way to cook them, they still take 25 minutes to make, and that's a lot of my morning. So, Monday night, I made about three servings of oatmeal. I wanted to see how long I could stretch it. I had the second serving today and, after microwaving in water, I thought they tasted just as good as fresh.

Instead of just going with sugary oatmeal, I have been trying to make miso oatmeal. It's not incredible, but, if I get sick of maple syrup in my oats, I can always break it up with miso flavoring.

Miso Oatmeal

steel-cut oats
dashi (Japanese seafood-based powder stock)
miso (red or white)

1. Add oats to a pot, then cover with 2 times as much water as oats.
2. Sprinkle dashi into water and stir. (this is instead of the normal pinch o' salt) The key is not to make it really overwhelming, just a hint of flavor is good.
   
3. Begin simmering. I don't cover it since it usually boils over if I do.
4. Every five minutes, stir.
   
5. After 25 minutes, take off heat and cover.
   
6. Separately, warm up some water (just a couple ladlefuls).
7. When the water is steaming, mix in a spoonful of miso.
8. Add miso mixture to oatmeal. Enjoy.
   

100

My roommate is moving out and I rented a steam cleaner from the supermarket to spruce up the carpet. I started cleaning in my room last night at around 9:15 and cut myself off at 10 out of mercy toward the neighbors. The machine took 2 1/2 gallons of water mixed with a special soap which got incredibly dirty. I was amazed by the amount of dirt that it took off my floor. I was also amazed at the final product. For 28 dollar rental and 12 dollar soap purchase the place is remarkably fresh.

I have now officially begun training in BJJ. Along with that, tango, work, school, studying, and hangin' with the gf I rarely have a free moment, and I'd have to say that I couldn't be happier. I think I blogged before about trying to keep a schedule. I tried it for a month and now it has taken. I haven't applied this technique to any long range planning yet but I now weekly write out my activities.

I will blog about the BJJ options in this area as an assignment from aak, but on Districted. His assignment was to write something that would be helpful to readers who live in this area and that's the only thing I've researched so I can give our eager readers the low down.

I can say how excited I am to be back in training. My back aches and I've been exhausted all day...I'm so happy. I spar, or in BJJ it's "rolling," mostly with the teacher thus far and it's damn painful. It's all grappling on the ground and chess match sort of move-counter move - plus someone smushing your face into the ground (I'm not yet the one doing the smushing). It's amazing rolling with someone advanced when you're a beginner because you think up a given move in the moment that seems smart then he immediately has a counter ready that somehow puts you down. Then another then another and you quickly gain a respect for their experience and knowledge. He knows what I'm going to try before I do. Then he puts his knee on my neck and I need to learn to not panic, breath with what airspace I do have, think of something and implement it. Not succumbing to the panic is a biggie and probably my biggest struggle in training at this point.

Almost-100th Post

Well, now, here's a funny thing. This blog named Hatandcoat, so diffidently updated by its creator, has gone past Districted and has arrived at its 100th post.

Almost.

The Blogger Dashboard reports that Hatandcoat had had 99 posts before this one, but Blogger includes an unfinished, unpublished draft. The draft is, of course, by Hatandcoat. It is titled "What Blogging Feels Like." There is no text other than that.

So I don't feel bad posting this Almost-Hundredth Post. I'll wait for Hatandcoat to look back nostalgically upon the 100 postings, once he deletes "What Blogging Feels Like" and sets down to really write something.

Hatandcoat has a case of writer's block, he says. The lurid details of BJJ dojos may never reach you via this half-alive blog. Things are so desperate, I think I'll suggest a web service that is designed to keep blogs alive. Go to http://www.plinky.com/, Hatandcoat, and seek help.*

As for me, I think I'll write about my food adventures today. (I know my audience.)

For breakfast, I made steel-cut oats the Bittman way. I'd always been suspicious of the 45 minutes steel-cut oats allegedly took, and the Bitten post I linked to above told me my instincts had been correct. After 25 minutes, I cut up a banana for some natural sweetness and put it in the steaming-hot oatmeal. It wasn't quite what I was hoping for, but a dash of maple syrup fixes most things in the morning.

Then I helped move my roommate's boyfriend into a new rental house. It wasn't far away, and it didn't take long. But instead of the normal pizza thank-you meal, I had a pot roast my roommate's mom had brought over for the occasion. (A HUGE roast. I have not seen that much meat since Christmas.) It was nice, although one of the helpers was a vegetarian.

Around 8:30 pm I started making veggie lasagna. Here is the recipe. While slicing the carrots on the mandolin slicer, I gouged my finger above the knuckle on the back, all the way down to the fatty tissue (is that bad?). Other than that, the lasagna-making went smoothly. (As of this edit, it has been 4 hours and it is still bleeding. Is that bad?)

We set up two mousetraps, one really expensive humane one from a hardware store, and one made out of a half-flattened toilet paper tube. I'll let you know which one works, if any. We put bread on the expensive one and peanut butter and cheese on the end of the tube (tying this section in to food).

And finally, near midnight, I hardboiled six eggs by covering them in cold water, salting the water, getting it to boil, and then removing the pan from heat as soon as the boil starts. After 15 minutes, I drained the hot water and poured cold water over the eggs. Unfortunately, I hadn't added any vinegar, so three of the six eggs cracked. I'm hoping the cracked ones will last at least until Tuesday.

*Also, if any readers out there have suggestions for Mr. Hatandcoat as to what he should write, please let him know in the comments.

Things I Learned from My Linguistics Class

• The UN in UNHAPPY is morphologically different from the UN in UNLOCK.
  
  HAPPY = happy
  UNHAPPY = not happy
  
  LOCK = to fasten, to secure (with a lock)
  UNLOCK = to UNDO the fastening of (a lock)
  
  So UN plus an adjective means the opposite of that adjective, but UN plus a verb means to revert back to the state before that verb was done. You can't UNDO something unless it was already done.
  
  
• There is confusion among twenty-year-olds about the past tense of the euphemism for "to ejaculate." Some think the verb is "to come" and therefore the past tense is "came". Others argue vehemently that it is "to cum" and the past tense is "cummed."
  
  I think the noun form can be spelled "cum" and the verb form "come," and I see no reason why the past tense shouldn't be "came." Furthermore, the Japanese slang word is "iku," which means "go," and I like the contrast of Western "coming" and Eastern "going."
  

There are certain uncouth words that should, by now, be standardized into dictionaries: "cum" and "jizz" for example. Mainly because I want to use them in Scrabble.