Big in Japan: 15 Japanese characters that you can learn today

by Matthew Firestone on

All this week, Big in Japan is bringing you trade secrets on how to unravel the linguistic enigma that is Japanese…

While most resident foreigners here in Japan can rattle off a good number of key phrases, the true test of linguistic fluency is whether or not they can read traditional Chinese characters or kanji (??? / ???????).

One of three sets of written scripts that comprises Japanese, kanji are – quite frankly – a royal pain in the ass to learn, especially since there are literally thousands and thousands of characters to learn.

Considering that most Japanese students can’t read a newspaper until they reach high school, you can imagine how long it takes Westerners to master the full character set. However, this worthy goal is in fact possible to achieve, and it really is never too late to take the plunge.

Interested in learning a bit of ???????? (nihongo, Japanese)?

Here are 15 easy Japanese kanji that that you can learn to read today:

??????(den / ta, rice field) This character is just like a bird’s-eye view of a rice patty.

????(san / yama, mountain) Do you see the shape of the mountain here?

????(sen / kawa, river) Try to picture the flow of a bending river.

The list goes on…

Japanese characters aren’t impossible to learn, especially if you memorize a few simple mnemonic devices. After all, modern kanji were at one point in time simple drawings, so try to analyze each character, and look for the original inspiration behind the picture.

日　(nichi / hi, sun) Can you see the sun rising about the horizon?

月　(gatsu / tsuki, moon) This character looks like a crescent moon in the sky.

雨　(u / ame, rain) The storm cloud is releasing drops of rain.

海　(kai / umi, ocean) A huge wave is curling and about to break.

火　(ka / hi, fire) Do you see the small campfire here?

油　(yu / abura, oil) Oil is gushing out of a huge tower.

竹　(chiku / take, bamboo) Two chutes of bamboo are blowing in the wind.

木　(moki / ki, tree) A tall tree grows upwards from the ground.

肉　(niku, meat) You’re staring right at a juicy T-bone steak.

鳥　(chou / tori, bird) A large bird is sitting at the top of its nest.

魚　(gyo / sakana, fish) A fish is swimming effortlessly through the sea.

人　(jin / hito, person) Try to picture a person taking a long stride.

Morale of the story: Japanese really isn’t impossible to learn how to read, and you’ll be surprised how quickly you start to see patterns emerging in the characters.

With that said, we here at Big in Japan still recommend that you consult with an actual Japanese person before getting any kanji tattoos that you might one day regret!

** All images are courtesy of the WikiCommons Media Project **

Talking Travel with Rolf Potts, author of the new book “Marco Polo Didn’t Go There”

by Aaron Hotfelder on

Rolf Potts has inspired more people to travel than any writer working today. His first book Vagabonding motivated my first long-term trip, and I’ve run into countless travelers who have said the same thing.

Rolf’s newest book is a collection of stories called Marco Polo Didn’t Go There: Stories and Revelations from One Decade as a Postmodern Travel Writer. He recently took the time to answer a few questions about his newest book, his favorite places in the world, and his upcoming show on the Travel Channel.

1. Your new collection of stories and essays has a rather puzzling title: Marco Polo Didn’t Go There. Where does it come from?

I’ll give it to you straight from the introduction chapter:

[Excerpt]

The title of this book is not my own creation: It is a direct quote from an inmate I met at Bangkok’s women’s prison in January of 1999. At the time I had been a full-time travel writer for less than a month, and I’d been telling people I planned to travel across Asia in the footsteps of Marco Polo.

Looking back, I’m not sure why I found it necessary to say this. I guess I was just following the presumed formula of what travel writers were supposed to do.

Indeed, at the very moment I was setting out from Asia, various travel scribes were researching or publishing books that diligently traced the international footsteps of Captain Cook, Che Guevara, Moses, Sir Richard Burton, William of Rubruck, John Steinbeck, Lewis and Clark, Robinson Crusoe, Ibn Battuta, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Herman Melville. Journeying in the footsteps of others had, it seemed, become the travel-literature equivalent of cover music – as common (and marketable) as Whitney Houston crooning Dolly Parton tunes.

As it turned out, my own “footsteps” ruse lasted less than one month before I found my way into the visiting room of a women’s penitentiary just outside of Bangkok. As unusual as it might sound, visiting Western prisoners was all the rage among backpackers when I’d arrived in Thailand. In cafes and guesthouse bulletin boards along Khao San Road, photocopied notices urged travelers to take a day off and call on prisoners at the various penitentiaries around Bangkok. Figuring this might be an interesting deviation from the standard tourist-circuit activities, I went to the American embassy and received a letter of introduction to an unlucky drug trafficker named Carla.

Brief acts of presumed kindness carry a whiff of narcissism: As I took a series of buses through the snarl of Bangkok traffic to the edge of the city, I imagined Carla to be a weary, desperate woman who would thank mefor the small gift of magazines and the encouragement to keep persevering behind bars. In reality, Carla was a tough, pretty Puerto Rican woman who arrived in the visitor’s room fifteen minutes late smelling like shampoo, and regarded me with ambivalent cordiality. After speaking for a while about her own situation (her fateful decision to make a quick buckdelivering Thai heroin to New Jersey for an acquaintance; her plans upon her release in nine more months), she began to steer the conversation toward me.

“Why did you come to Thailand?” she asked.

“My primary goal is to follow the route of Marco Polo through the Orient.”

“Oh yeah?” Carla said. “Where are you going after Bangkok?”

“North,” I said. “Probably to Chiang Mai for a while.”

“Chiang Mai?” Carla raised a skeptical eyebrow at me. “Marco Polo didn’t go there.”

Though I didn’t know it at the time, this simple observation was to change the way I traveled, far beyond Asia.

2. Are you looking forward to the upcoming book tour? Do you have dates and locales picked out yet?

I’m definitely looking forward to the book tour, as I always enjoy meeting readers and talking to audiences. I’m in the middle of my Kansas leg at the moment, and when that’s finished I’ll continue on to Chicago, New Orleans, Minneapolis, New York, Camden, Portland, Bellingham, Seattle, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. This will take me right up to Thanksgiving.

You can check out the details on the events page at my website.

3. Asking a seasoned traveler which are his favorite places in the world is a bit like asking a mother which is her favorite child. But can you take a shot at sharing some of your favorite countries or cities?

You’re right — it’s always a tough assessment. Since the early days of my international vagabonding I’ve been a big fan of Laos, Burma and Mongolia — though I haven’t been back to any of those countries since 2003. I go to Paris every summer to teach a creative writing workshop at the Paris American Academy, and I’ve really come to love that beautiful city, despite my weak French language skills. Last year I went to Havana and really came to love Cuba. And there are some other places I want to go back and get to know better — Argentina, Ethiopia, India, Australia. The list could go on.

Of course the place I’m really getting to know better these days is Kansas, where I’ve had a little farmhouse on 30 acres since 2005. I’m actually not there very many days a year, but when I am home I learn a lot about slowing down and getting to know one place.

4. Several of the stories in your new book originally appeared on the internet. What do you see as the benefits and drawbacks of writing for an internet audience?

A big benefit in my experience has been narrative flexibility. At places like Salon and World Hum and Slate I’m really able to take stories in my own personal direction, without the space or photo considerations that might come with writing for a glossy travel magazine. These stories also have more reach, since they’re available worldwide and can be accessed as easily now as the day they came out.

As for drawbacks — well, I’ve been writing for online venues for so long that I really can’t think of any, off the top of my head. I’m used to the format, and it works for me

5. Rumor has it you’re working on a new show for the Travel Channel. Can you give us any details about it?

You bet. The working title of the show is “American Pilgrim,” and it takes a look at the travel conditions of the Mayflower Pilgrims. I’m the host, and basically I travel around the United States meeting with the descendants of those first Pilgrims and talking about the challenges they faced. If all goes according to plan, the one-hour show should debut on the Travel Channel on Thanksgiving Day around prime time. I fly to England at the end of this month for a couple days to record voiceover narration.

Of course, people who are familiar with my writing might wonder why I’m doing a show about American cultural history when I’ve established myself as an independent and international travel guy. I wondered the same thing at first, but I guess they wanted a younger host to inject some energy into what might be seen as middle-aged subject matter. It was a good way to get some experience in front of the camera, and I actually had a really great time shooting it. I can’t imagine I’ll turn my career over to television anytime soon — I will always be a writer first and foremost — but I look forward to doing occasional TV documentary work in the future.

Classic road trips: The Oregon Coast

by Anna Brones on

Summer might be over, but it’s never out of season to take a road trip down the Oregon Coast. From summer sunshine to winter storms, following the Oregon’s Pacific coastline by way of Highway 101 provides for spectacular views, quirky stops and more fish and chips than you could ever want. Here’s your quick and dirty guide to making the best of it.

Getting started
Before you take off for the coast, spend a few days exploring Portland. Oregon’s largest city is known for its coffee culture, diverse array of restaurants and excellent microbrews; definitely the ideal place to kick off your road trip. Stop by Powells to pick up a map and even a guidebook to the coast; although driving down 101 is pretty straightforward — just go straight — it’s nice to know what towns you’re going through and where state and county parks are located so you can play on the beach.

Classic coastal cities worth a look

Cannon Beach
Portlanders love weekend trips to the coast, and the most popular route to get there is Highway 26, which takes you to the quaint coastal city of Cannon Beach. Here Ecola State Park and Indian Beach are popular with the surfing crowd; expect many Subarus and VW Vanagons that play double duty as surfboard transport and apres surf tailgate parties. For an authentic eating experience, take time to grab a bowl of chowder or a crab melt at the Ecola Seafood Restaurant; it’s a no frills kind of place, perfect for when you’ve got sandy feet leftover from your beach walk.

Tillamook
There’s really not a whole lot to do in Tillamook; it’s a small town surrounded by farms and on a road trip the smell of cows will certainly permeate your vehicle. But it does have one attraction that draws hundreds of tourists everyday: the Tillamook Cheese Factory. Learn and see just how the famous Oregon cheese is made and when your done, stand in line for free samples. The Tillamook Cheese factory also serves Tillamook ice cream — another Oregon favorite — but as a warning, the scoops are big; make sure your eyes aren’t bigger than your stomach.

Newport
Newport happens to be my personal favorite city on the Oregon Coast. It’s got a good coastal village feel, especially in the summer when the small beach-side cottages fill up with people intent on spending their vacation in a relaxed and charming atmosphere. For the classic coastal ambiance, head to the Historic Bayfront, featuring Oregon’s largest commercial fishing fleet. Along the main drag lie many a fish and chip shop, kitschy souvenir shops and even a Ripley’s Believe it or Not. Newport is also home to the Oregon Coast Aquarium and Oregon’s famous Rogue Brewery (classic beers are the Dead Guy Ale and the Shakespeare Stout).

What to do
The Pacific Coast Highway is known for its amazing views and driving along it is an activity in and of itself. But for the classic Oregon coast road trip, you’re going to want to plan time to stop and do other things. On the northern coast near Astoria, you can cross over the Columbia River and visit Cape Disappointment, the place where the members of the Corps of Discovery — ie the Lewis and Clark expedition — had their first glimpse of the Pacific Ocean.

Towards the central coast, between Florence and Coos Bay, is the Siuslaw National Forest – Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area. Here you’ll find the impressive dunes, sometimes towering to 500 feet, that have been sculpted by the coastal winds. If you’re not a fan of dune buggies, you can still hike up the dunes for incredible views and photo ops of the largest expanse of coastal dunes in North America.

No road trip will be complete without a trip to the Sea Lion Caves. Part tourist trap, part natural curiosity, the Sea Lion Caves are said to be the world’s largest. Located just north of Florence, a visit to the caves allows for a close-up look at sea lions in their natural habitat. The visit entails an 200-foot elevator descent down into the caves where the sound of sea lions is almost deafening — these sea lions have nothing on the ones at San Francisco’s Pier 39.

Accommodations
In the summer, true road-trippers will have their tent and sleeping bags in the back of the car; sleeping next to the beach is a favorite summer pastime. Keep in mind that parks fill up quickly in the summer; either get to the campsite early or make a reservation. But if you’re exploring the coast during more dreary weather, you’re probably not going to want to bear the elements. If time allows, consider renting a cabin, which will allow you to explore the beaches and towns close by and get a better feel for the local community. Another option is renting a yurt, allowing you to get the feel of camping without the hassle of being in a small tent.

Good towns to stay in — because of accommodation availability and things to do nearby — include Astoria, Seaside, Cannon Beach, Newport, Bandon and Coos Bay. Check out the Travel Oregon website for an extensive search engine of coastal accommodations.

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Cockpit Chronicles: Flying around Hanna and Ike

by Kent Wien on

I couldn’t believe my timing. A four-day trip to the Caribbean with Hurricanes Hanna and Ike scheduled to be right in our way for almost every leg.

Would some of the flights get canceled? And if not, how far out of the way would we be flight planned to stay away from these storms?

This job tends to stay interesting if only because no two trips are alike, even if they take you to the same destinations. Some might think there’s a lot of monotony in flying a plane, but even if the destinations remain the same, there are always new challenges such as adverse weather, different ATC requests, or small mechanical issues to contend with. Not to mention the variety of pilots and flight attendants you might be working with.

I pulled up the satellite weather before leaving for the airport, knowing that it would be impossible to see the big picture of this storm once we’re inflight. While our airborne radar can keep us away from the bumps, it can’t give us an idea of the actual conditions until we’re within a few hundred miles or less of the storm.

The first leg, from Boston to Miami wouldn’t be a problem at all. It was the second leg, from Miami to Caracas that might be interesting. Before departing, my guess was that we’d be flight planned south over Cuba and then Jamaica before turning toward Venezuela.

Sure enough, as you can see from this satellite view below, we were sent around the west side of Hanna. The ride from Miami to Caracas turned out to be rather smooth, with almost all of the clouds associated with the outer edge of the storm well below us.


After our layover of 14 hours in Caracas, Hanna was sure to move west, but would it now impact our route of flight to Philadelphia?

I looked at the weather online while watching a little of Hugo Chavez on the T.V. in my room. If I could only speak Spanish, I’m sure it would have been far more interesting. I’m very thankful for the free internet, though, even if it isn’t much faster than a dial up connection at home.

The next morning the leg from Caracas to San Juan had little in the way of weather. We deviated around a few puffy build-ups over Puerto Rico, but the ride was smooth all the way there.

But the San Juan to PHL leg looked more interesting. Was Hanna breaking up? I couldn’t imagine a great ride, even if it looked like the storm was taking a rest off the east coast.

We had the seatbelt sign on for most of our second leg to PHL, but the ride wasn’t too bad. Looking at the satellite picture above, it seemed we managed to find a nice gap between the scattered storm. Four out of six legs finished and we still hadn’t been affected too much by Hanna. But what would Ike look like when we flew south in 36 hours?

We’d be staying downtown in Philadelphia for two nights–a rare long layover–before leaving on the 4th day of the trip early in the morning. Philadelphia has plenty of great things to do, I’m sure, but I couldn’t get past the Reading Terminal, a converted train terminal that has been made into a market in the heart of the city.

If you’ve ever been to Seattle’s Pike Place Market, well, this is all that except larger. Flowers, fresh fish, chocolate, books, spices, vegetables are all for sale, mixed in with a few restaurants selling crepes, gyros and my personal favorite, a turkey sandwich shop. I even had breakfast at a diner run by the Amish. Unfortunately, the diner is only open 4 days of the week.

This market has everything. Even chocolate covered potato chips:

I passed on those.

Hanna was approaching Philadelphia on the morning of our departure, but it wouldn’t arrive until a few hours after we left. It was Ike that was now directly in our way for our leg from PHL to San Juan.

As I was doing the walk-around inspection, one of the rampers asked me how we were going to get to San Juan with Ike right on top of the island.

I told him I was wondering the same thing earlier that morning, but the latest latest satellite view that showed Ike a few hundred miles north of the island. If it were covering the area where we were landing, there’s no way we would have been flying that trip.

I grabbed my iPhone and showed him the current weather. (wasn’t there a commercial about this?)

Essentially, we’d be flying from Hanna to Ike, landing in San Juan, before flying north around Ike again to Boston. Our eventual route of flight to San Juan and then up to Boston looked like this:

We were originally flight planned to pass to the east of Ike before working our way into San Juan. Just 30 minutes north of the storm, ATC gave us the option of passing to the west of the storm. Captain Mark and I saw far more blue sky to the west, so we turned right and worked our way around it, sending messages regularly en-route to our dispatcher to let him know that we were getting a very smooth ride this way.

His perspective is similar to the photo you see above, so he sent us a message which prints out in the cockpit.

“Your view of Ike must be spectacular.” His message said.

But it really wasn’t that impressive. I snapped a few pictures at that moment, which shows how the view from a satellite picture versus actually being there can be very different. In a sense, the dispatcher had a better view of the intensity of the storm, but we had a more detailed understanding of how we could stay out of the rough air with our weather radar and simply avoiding any of the clouds associated with the storm.

Here’s the view from our radar:

And this was the view out the window as we approached Ike. Not really that impressive, is it?

Amazingly, I came across this picture which shows Ike from the International Space Station taken around the same time we were flying around it. It’s hard to imagine a tiny little airplane passing on the left of the storm as seen from that space shot. Note the less clear route to the right in that NASA photo.

Staying to the west of the storm turned out to be a great move. We heard a Continental flight complain about moderate turbulence east of Ike on the air-to-air frequency, but we were in the clear with a smooth ride to the west.

Unfortunately for the flight back to Boston, we would have to go around Ike to the east, since the storm had moved further to the west, closing off our earlier route.

We spent the fi
rst hour in and out of some high clouds, and while the ride was worse, it wasn’t anything more than annoying. I’ve learned from some of the questions submitted to the Plane Answers feature that many passengers are extremely nervous while flying in any kind of bumps. So we really do our best to find a better altitude or different route for a smoother ride, even if it means using more fuel for that leg.

In all, I learned that maybe it’s better to be flying around Ike and Hanna than sitting on the ground in your non-moveable home praying that the storm misses you. I really feel for those people from Haiti to Houston that were affected by these two monster hurricanes.

In the next Cockpit Chronicles, we’ll go to Port-au-Prince Haiti, which may have seen the worst of Hurricane Hanna just a few days earlier.

I’m thankful to live in New Hampshire, a state that rarely sees any significant weather other than the occasional ‘noreaster’ that dumps a few feet of snow. And while Hanna did make it through our area, it only managed to give us a few inches of rain before finally breaking up over the Atlantic.

Cockpit Chronicles takes you along on some of Kent’s trips as an international co-pilot on the Boeing 757 and 767 based in Boston.

Galley Gossip: What is RIGHT with the airlines? (There’s got to be something!)

by Heather Poole on

When I was growing up, my parents taught me that traveling by airplane was a luxury, not a right, and it was a luxury I would not experience until I was 16 years old when I flew to Los Angeles, California with a high school friend (and her mother) on American Airlines for an exciting weekend getaway. I’ll never forget that flight. Then, at 17, I flew to Santa Clara, California, to visit a boyfriend in college on Southwest Airlines. I’ll never forget that flight, either. I couldn’t even believe I was on it. Back then just being on the flight itself was an exciting experience, never mind the drinks and the food and the service, which I don’t even remember. But I’m sure a can of coke and a bag of peanuts were involved.

What I remember most about those two flights was the awe of flying, of looking out the window at the tiny houses below as we climbed up, up, up, until the incredible view became obstructed by something even more magnificent, billowing clouds.

A few years ago I actually met a flight attendant whose very first trip by airplane was to airline headquarters for an interview for the airline he works for now. That flight took place at age of 21. Today, things have changed drastically in the aviation business, and not for the better, if you ask a passenger. Yet the flights are all full, and with more and more children traveling these days. That, alone, makes me wonder, has travel really gotten so bad? Or are our expectations skewed?

“I never got to travel,” said my mother, a flight attendant, who started working for a major US carrier in 1997, three afters I had my wings pinned to my blue lapel. “My first flight was with your father to Hawaii, when I was 21, because your father got stationed there in the navy. I got to go home to Texas once – in three years. And because your father spent most of his time at sea, I spent many holidays alone. That’s just the way it was. We couldn’t afford to travel.”

Now that I’m a flight attendant and have the opportunity to fly for free (in coach), I usually take along my two-year son, who has traveled once a month, at least, since he was born. I always get a kick out of watching him leaning against the window, tapping on the glass, as we fly in and out of the clouds, causing him to exclaim at the top of his lungs, “WOW!” I wonder if he’ll grow up to appreciate the privilege of travel? I do hope that one day he realizes just how lucky he is. How lucky we all are to be able to get from point A to point B for just a few hundred dollars.

As someone who works for a major US carrier, someone who has to deal with the me me me first attitude of the flying public, passengers who expect something for nothing when fuel prices keep rising and ticket prices remain fairly low, I have to say, there’s something wrong with THAT. There’s something wrong when you can purchase a one way ticket from New York to Las Vegas for lower than a cab ride from New York’s JFK international airport to Manhattan. NOT WHEN everyone and their mother (as well as the kids) are traveling on my flight.

Not that I mind that everyone and their mother (along with the kids) are aboard my flight, just the opposite, in fact. Especially when airlines are struggling to stay afloat, when airlines like Alitalia are on the verge of going out of business. However, it’s not easy for me to listen to all the complaining about air travel, particularly about customer service. Seriously, I have hard time believing that flying is all that bad, no matter how much the airline charges per bag, how long the security lines, how small the seats, or how much it costs to purchase a sandwich, or how old the flight attendant. And why does the age of a flight attendant even matter? (This is the 2000’s, is it not?)

After reading letters from readers who responded to the question, What’s wrong with American Airlines? on the Dallas Morning News website, I am forced to pose the question, what is RIGHT with the airlines? I mean whatever happened to the glass is half full mentality? It seems like these days all people want to do is complain, complain about everything, particularly when it comes to bashing airlines and flight attendants. Come on now, there has to be SOMETHING good about air travel, right?