Oh—you mean nobody home?"
"Yiss, of-a course, Papa-san."
Now, where did she learn that? It dates back to "Twenty-three Skidoo" and other nifties of the eens. Papa-san is still chuckling to himself a couple of kilometers later. Not another sports car is in sight. Nothing to make it certain that we are still on the right road....
"You think this is right, Richi-san?"
"Right? Migi, Papa-san?"
"No, not that kind of right. You see, we have several words in English, all pronounced 'right.'" (What was that I said about haré and haré?) "One means migi, the opposite of hidari. One is spelled w-r-i-t-e, like when you write a letter. Understand?"
"Oh, Papa-san, I'm forget! Day behore yesterday come to my room a retter, Kyobashi aunt and husband—'hat Engrish speaking—maybe unc'? Yiss, Kyobashi aunt anda unc' retter writing, speaking, 'Harro, Papa-san, sank you verree much.'"
"Well, that's certainly nice of your Kyobashi aunt and uncle, Richi-san. You tell them hello for me, please. Now... we have another word, r-i-t-e, but we won't go into that now. When I say, 'Is this right?' I mean are we still on the right road? Is this the road to Hakone?"
"Papa-san, stop. I'm-a risten."
"You'll what?"
"I'm-a risten," says Richi-san, cupping her ear.
That's plain enough. She will ask a question, and listen for the answer. We stop. She hails the nearest person, a woman wearing a kimono.
They bow. The air is filled with greetings and salutations and pleasant amenities. Each chatters at length while the other nods, interjecting occasional "Ah, so?" sounds along with "Ha-ha!" and "So desu ne?"
The minutes pass. Papa-san fills his pipe and smokes. He thumbs idly through the Japanese dictionary and observes that kami means not only the hair Richi-san fears will be all bu-roke by the wind, but also the Romanized spelling kami means deity, paper, the head, and season. Probably to season food, because it also says, "to add one thing to another." This is all very interesting, but meanwhile the other sports cars are somewhere down the highway, collecting points, and we are very probably on the wrong road. Now Richi-san thanks the woman, and the woman thanks her. Both bow several times and repeat, "Sumimasen" which means "I'm sorry to have bothered you." They say, "Sayonara." We finally get under way again.
Richi-san turns to me, her small face glowing with good will.
"Ver-ree kindness, Papa-san! Good-a heart—don' you?"
"Yes, I think she must be a very kind woman, Richi-san, and she has a good heart. But what about the road to Hakone?"
"Oh, Papa-san, Hakone road she don' know." You can lose an awful lot of Sports-Car-Club runs that way, in this charming country....
Take me out
to the
Besuboru game
IN the Japanese spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love, cherry-viewing, and besuboru. If you have been here long enough, you will recognize at a glance that besuboru means just what it says—baseball. The "U's," like so many "U's" in the Japanese language, are as silent as was Mudville on that storied afternoon when the mighty Casey struck out.
Goto-san, Watanabe-san, and practically all of the cousins are ardent besuboru fans and would pass up their beloved Kabuki drama for seats in Korakuen Suta-jiamu—yes, that's "stadium"—on an afternoon when a couple of teams from the Pacific Professional League are crossing bats. Korakuen seats 34,000 people and is by way of being the Ebbettsu Field of Tokyo. Meiji Stadium, or Meiji Boru Guraundo (Ball Ground), can accommodate more than 56,000. And when the last half of the ninth has been played at either place, and the crowd lets out in a welter of screaming trolleys, tootling takushis, and roaring buses—that, my friends, is described in the Japanese dictionary as the rasshuawa, or "rush hour."
Watanabe-san, who looked it up, tells me that the Japanese have been playing baseball ever since two Americans taught students the game in 1873. It is now the leading sport in all Japan, and their players are good enough at it to give our New York Giants and All Stars a very tough time indeed. Kids start playing catch around the kindergarten age, and nobody knows how many mado's have been busted by the Japanese version of sandlot besuboru.
The greatest damage, however, is probably the damage besuboru has done to the English—or American, rather—language, as it is spoken in Tokyo, and as it is written in the Romanized Japanese-English dictionaries. It may be that the Japanese language itself may never recover from these American borrowings. Japanese is supposed to be of Ural-Altaic origin, and as a language is still in the "agglutinative" stage. It borrowed "bourgeois" from the French and made it burujoa. It took the word for bread from the early Portuguese, who called it pan, and adopted it so completely that pan is not even italicized in the Japanese dictionaries. It does things like burudokku for "bulldog," and burusu for "blues." But when besuboru hit Japan a whole new field was opened in semantics.
To save you the trouble of looking them up in your own dictionary, I give you here a glossary of besuboru terms actually compiled from Sanseido's excellent, pocket-size New Concise Japanese-English Dictionary. own:
The sentences illustrating the use of these terms are my
A-uto—this one is easy. Three sutoraiki. and you're a-uto.
A-uto-doroppu—an a-uto-doroppu is thrown slightly overhand, with the boru rolling off the thumb, and is the opposite of an in-doroppu.
Batta—the guy the pitcher hopes will be a sucker for a fast a-uto-doroppu. You know, "Batta appu!"
Battingu—his battingu average last season was .270 pasento.
Benchi—this is where the players sit while waiting their turn at the batta's box.
Daburu—a two besu hit.
Daburu Pu-re—in the old days this perhaps would have been from Tinkeru-san to Eversu-san to Chansu-san. Anyway, two men are a-uto.
Daiyamondo—to paraphrase a song, a daiyamondo is an ojosan's ichiban tomodachi. It is also home plate, first base, second base, third base, pitcher's box, and the outfield.
Deddoboru—this is also a term used in futtoboru, which, as you know, is a game played between two teams of eleven men each. Nothing deader than a deddoboru.
Dokuta—not exactly a besuboru term, unless somebody gets hurt. But sometimes a play is just what the dokuta ordered.
Era—you know this one. No runs, no hittos, no eras.
Fa-in pu-re—by way of praise, it is said that Jiro-san's expert fielding of the boru, and his accurate throw to home plate was a very fa-in pu-re—a fine play, indeed.
Fauro-boru—some of our best friends, it must be admitted, are really fauro-borus.
Fe-a-boru—this is a fair ball, the opposite of a fauro-boru.
Gemu—that which is sometimes called on account of rain or darkness.
Gorufu—an ancient Scottish game, which some prefer to besuboru. But then, it takes all kinds.
Go-sutoppu—this doesn't belong in here, either. It's the traffic signal you encounter after the game, and there seems to be much more sutoppu than go.
Guraundo—where they play besuboru. The real estate.
Gurobu—worn by pitcher and outfielders for catching the besuboru.
Haijanpu—an athletic event in its own right, but in fielding a hot one over his head, a player must make a haijanpu to reach the bora with his gurobu.
Hitto—the smash of the willow that puts the batta safe on first, or better.
Hottokeki—besuboru tickets sell like hottokeikis in the summer season.
Jirinma—this isn't a besuboru word, but one used by many a sports writer. When the