Rita Menge
—
57,3 puzzles from Japan’s everyday life
Rita Menge
57,3 puzzles from Japan’s everyday life
Curiosities between insanity and wisdom
Königshausen & Neumann
Biographical information of the German National Library
The German National Library lists this publication in the German
national bibliography; Detailed bibliographic data is available
on the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de. ©Publisher Königshausen & Neumann GmbH, Würzburg 2019 Printed on acid-free, age-resistant paper Cover: skh-softics / coverart Cover picture: Tiraimi: Siebenhundertdreiundfünfzig; #127573788 © Fotolia.com All rights reserved
This work including all of its parts is protected by copyright.
Any use outside the narrow limits of copyright law without the
consent of the publisher is inadmissible and punishable.
This applies in particular to reproductions, translations,
microfilming and the storage and processing in electronic systems.
Printed in Germany
ISBN 978-3-8260-8044-9
www.koenigshausen-neumann.de www.libri.de www.buchhandel.de www.buchkatalog.de
For my mother
She is a role model and a great inspiration to all of us.
Contents
Foreword
I decided to translate my book into an English version, because my Japanese friends asked me to do so. Please excuse any grammatical mistakes.
Japan is a mystery. It is simply completely different than any other country, of which also the Japanese themselves are firmly convinced. Even after many years of contact with Japanese culture, you always discovers new mysterious, funny, astonishing, curious and impressive things. Very often it is deplored that one or the other idea cannot be found abroad.
Two years ago I moved back to Japan. I’ve been living in Japan for two years, after a five-year stay in the 1990s and numerous business and leisure travel. When I came back, I quickly realized that almost daily I am confronted with things that are still surprising and often bring a smile to my face. Since many people are interested in Japan, I started to take photos and send them to friends as a quiz. The idea to put this quiz in a book format developed shortly after.
Interestingly, many of my Japanese friends and acquaintances could not solve many of my riddles, which has always led to amusement and amazement on both sides.
You might ask yourself: "Why 57.3 puzzles?" My intention was to provide with this the first puzzle for all interested Japan-fans. The resolution of this entry puzzle follows on the next page. You can look forward to 57 detailed secrets to guess and ponder, hopefully many surprising moments and interesting information while reading the resolutions. The three puzzles behind the comma are covered rather briefly at the beginning of the book and all deal with numbers.
In each case you will find a photo with the associated puzzle on the right page and the resolution with some backgrounds and explanations on the back of the photo.
The lines in italics at the beginning of each chapter serve to briefly elucidate the riddle for hurried readers.
What's up with the numbers five, seven, three that were used in the title?
Seven, five, three in Japanese Shichi, Go, San mark the age when many Japanese children are accompanied by their parents to the Shinto shrine, where they ask together for health and a secure future.
Usually, this shrine visit takes place every year around the 15th of November and especially the mothers and grandmother’s dress in a kimono. Also the children are traditionally dressed, but since a real kimono is very expensive, children's outfitting is usually borrowed on occasions like these. Afterwards, the entire family will visit a photographer to capture these beautiful moments.
The girl on the cover of this book is probably three years old and is on her way to the shrine with her family to celebrate her first feast.
What does this sign mean?
This way, the Japanese make a five-digit tally.
While Germans place four strokes vertically next to each other and place the fifth diagonally across these strokes, the Japanese count in their own way. Thereby they create a Chinese character that has the meaning "correct" or "complete"
What is displayed here in body language?
Japanese express the number seven in this non-verbal way. The one is symbolized by an upraised index finger, the five by opening all the fingers of one hand and from six to nine, individual fingers are placed in the already opened other palm. The number ten is expressed by two open hands. A raised thumb as a symbol for the number one, which is common in Germany, is completely misunderstood. This gesture just means "perfect, good, cool".
What is this?
This is a lockable umbrella holder. Such holders can be found in front of many shops, restaurants, government agencies and public institutions.
"Help, it's raining and I have no umbrella with me." This scenario is simply awful for many Japanese. On no account they want to get wet due to rain.
When the sky is cloudy it is not necessary to carry an umbrella, because if it actually starts to rain, you can buy cheap umbrellas for around € 3.00 in many shops, for example in the very numerous small 24-hour supermarkets. These umbrellas are transparent, which is sometimes very practical, especially when cycling with an umbrella. You can protect yourself by holding the umbrella in front of you and still see everything. Of course, this is forbidden, but sometimes it just has to be. Once you have arrived at your destination, there are now two ways to deal with the wet umbrella. Either you can dry it briefly. For this there are special devices available, through which the umbrella must be repeatedly moved back and forth, or you are asked to put the umbrella in a simple machine, in which it gets a plastic wrap. These measures are designed to keep the walkways in department stores dry, to minimize the risk of slipping and to additionally keep the floors clean.
The second possibility is, for example, at event locations or in some restaurants, to lock the possibly higher-quality umbrella into a holder, as shown in the photo, and to take the metal key with it. This service is of course free.
The crime rate in Japan is very low and theft is relatively rare. But if the umbrellas are all together in just one large umbrella stand, it can happen that someone simply takes one once it rains. This is not considered a theft, because these cheap umbrellas are usually simply left in a different spot when you no longer need them.
The operator of the DyDo vending machines for drinks came up with the idea to offer such lost-and-found umbrellas from the railways as umbrellas