とうかさん Part II

Now for the second part of とうかさん. I meant to write this a long time ago, but procrastination and other things intervened, and I'm writing this long after the fact. But I suppose if you're reading this, this doesnt bother you so much.

The main reason I wanted to go to this festival was because there was going to be a 盆踊り大会 or bon dance every night at the festival. I've been to a few dances in Hawaii, but never one in Japan. What kind of dances would they perform? Which songs would be played? There were many questions I had, and I was excited to finally experience a real Japan bon dance.

Surprisingly, there was enough of an overlap between Japan and Hawaii that I wasnt completely lost. Of the songs they played, I knew 花火音頭, 昭和音頭, and ドンパン節 to name a few. But as to be expected, the かた that they used to dance here in Japan are very different from the ones in Hawaii. ドンパン節 was the closest to what we do in Hawaii; I had almost no problems with that one. But 昭和 and 花火 were quite different. They clapped when we didnt, or used different poses than what we used. It was a bit difficult to get used to; once you get so used to dancing a certain way, it's hard to break that frame of mind, you know? But you'll forgive me if I say that I quickly picked it up. Naturally though, there were songs that we dont do in Hawaii. A few, like まりと殿様 and 日本チャチャチャ I am vaguely familiar with because I've seen this video before (not quite the same, but similar かた), but there were others that I've never heard before. But it was fun! What struck me was the difference in structure in the dance. I'm not talking about which かた are used where; but how the かた are structured, or which ones are used. (This might get technical, so I wont be mad if you skip the remainder of this paragraph.) The biggest difference was that in Hawaii, we use the moon かた　and あけかざし a lot. You very rarely dance very long without it. But that was not the case here. There was a lot of that hand-holding かた and the open かた (similar to moon, but not round). Another difference that struck me was that they did not respect symmetry in the dance. In Hawaii, if you do something on the right, you do it on the left. And if you repeat, you repeat once on the right, and once on the left. Or when it comes to walking, if a multi-step かた takes you to the right, you repeat towards the left. But here, they did not do that. In Hawaii, there is a かた in which you use your right hand to present and turn around. I automatically assumed that when you switch to your left hand, you go back the way you came; not so in Japan. It was difficult, but after a while, I noticed that they would switch to the left hand, but complete the circle. That was such a curveball. Of course, there were others, but since I dont know the proper names, explaining it is a bit difficult. But trust me, my mind was open to ideas that I have never thought possible in the world of bon dance.

During one of the many breaks, I happened to sit next to an older woman. This was partly coinicidence, but from what she said, I imagine it would have happened anyway. This woman was one of the ladies in the center, which I rightly assumed meant that she was a leader. She mentioned that she had seen me dancing, and was curious as to why I was so good (a lie), and where I was from. I mangled up my response, but she got the gist of what I tried to say: that I was from Hawaii, where we have bon dance too, which is where I learned it. Surprised, she called over a bunch of the other ladies and told them my story. Unfortunately, they didnt introduce themselves, so I have no idea what their names are, but I learned that they're the 日本民謡研究会 or the Society for Research on Japanese Folk Music (lofty, arent we?). They're based out of Nagoya, but there was a branch in Hiroshima. The leader of which, I was amused, looked a bit like the leader of my dance group in Hilo. I would like to join their group, or at least go to a few practices, if only to learn dances that I dont already know, but unfortunately, I did not grab any contact information for them. Googling did give me a hit, but according to the map, it looks like it's a bit out of the ways. Furthermore, I only have a little over a month left. ugh, more decisions to make!

After the dance, I meant to talk to the ladies again, but the following happened. As I was walking towards the ladies, I was approached by several people. Basically, it was the same stuff as usual; Where are you from (ハワイ？！), why can you dance so good, blah blah blah. But one guy was a little...more forceful. He put his hand on my shoulder and said, 「ちょっと話聞かせてくれない？」 or "Can I ask you something?" I put a little more faith in ちょっと because his 話 was anything but ちょっと. After the usual stuff, he asked me directly if I would like to go to some island in the Inland Sea for a real country bon dance. Since it was so far away, I was invited to stay at his wife's parents house. Now, I dont know if it's an American thing, or if it's a Hawaii thing, or what, but generally speaking, I dont stay in the homes of people I'VE NEVER EVEN MET. Dont get me wrong, that was awful nice of him, but really? I had never met the guy before, and I was not about to go to some island in the sea with him. He tried to get me to agree, saying that the bon dances there were unlike any I had ever seen (盆踊りは趣味じゃないですか), and that it would be a great thing to experience. After I said I'd think about it for the millionth time, he gave me his business card, and took my phone number. I must admit, he did have a point; any bon dance in Japan would be different from any I have actually been to, a country one even more so. But to be quite honest, it sounded a little too "Burning Man" or something. I dont want to be murdered or something! I still havent contacted him, but I am thinking that I will have to send him something saying I must decline his invitation. Perhaps if I knew him more, I would go, but a complete stranger is something quite different.

My bon dance experience in Japan was both good and bad. It was good in that I was dancing songs I never would dance in Hawaii. And even the songs we do in Hawaii, we do differently. And dont tell anyone, but it was nice to be complimented by Japanese people. And I was invited to a country bon dance, where I'd probably be doing dances not done anywhere else in Japan. The bad was not getting contact information and being invited by strangers. But that's life, isnt it?

This concludes my blogging regarding とうかさん 2011. Back to our regular programming.

歌詞の翻訳 I

Way back in high school, before I understood a lot of Japanese, I would spend recesses in the Japanese classroom, looking up kanji. Although I was listening to Japanese music since about age eight, I had never known what they were about. But in high school, I was taught how to use a kanji dictionary, so finally, I was able to get at least a fuzzy understanding of what I was singing along to. However, my Japanese teacher was less than enthusiastic about my endeavours. She told me that translating song lyrics was actually really hard, and that it would be better to stick to texts.

I have never forgotten this piece of advice, and actually, I agree with it. The way songs are structured (particularly Japanese songs), sentences can be fragmented into pieces, with one sentence in two different lines, or two sentences in one line. Also, Japanese lyrics tend to mix different speech styles (mostly polite words with casual ones), which can make translation difficult. But most importantly, I'm not fluent in Japanese, so any translation I produce is bound to have errors or oddly worded structures. Knowing all of this, I still every now and then engage in a bit of translation. Because I have a strong interest in what I'm listening to (I like to know if it's a happy song or a sad song), I try just a little bit harder in understanding the words. And if I want to sing it at karaoke, I can go ahead and read the kanji onscreen, instead of reading the furigana. With all this in mind, I translated one of the songs I am just in love with right now, "近づきたくて with YU-A" from the album "K.J. with...". I've already blogged about why I loved this song, so I'm not going to go over that in depth right here. It'll probably find its way into the translation notes anyway. Just so you know, this is probably going to be long post, so I hope you dont have something to do right now.

Let's begin with the translated lyrics. I didnt try to make them fit the meter of the song, so dont take my lyrics with you to karaoke and expect them to fit. I tried to produce English as close to the original Japanese as much as possible, so some sentences are awkwardly long. Finally, I'm going to make two assumptions right now.
1. You have no interest in the music I like/listen to, so you don't need the Japanese lyrics/pronunciation guide.
2. If you are interested in the Japanese lyrics, you can read Japanese, or find a way to read Japanese. それなら、このリンクをクリックしてください。

では、let's begin! YU-A is the girl singer, and she's in pink. KJ is the guy, and in blue.

I Want to Get Closer to You with YU-A

*I want to get closer to, but I cant get closer to you
I just want to hear those two characters, [Love]
Hey, what do you think of me?
I'm, I'm
I'm still waiting now*

From your point of view, am I even now your boyfriend?
Am I a nice, older sempai? Am I a convenient conversation partner?
Even though you're just a girl friend, whenever we would meet,
Gradually, I started to care for you, and then I became someone that liked you
Without knowing I had those kinds of feelings, you would confide in me,
"Lately my boyfriend is like this, and if this keeps up, it looks like we'll break up"
And I would lend an ear, with a messed up state of mind,
I needed to confess to you, but I couldnt say it, not in front of you, with your head down

*repeat

It's the weekend, you're definitely out with your boyfriend
That day, I couldnt get the sight of your pre-breakup face out of my head
It was Saturday night, and the town was as festive as ever, but I was looking at the TV, not paying attention to what was on
By myself, worrying endlessly, at that time, I got your text
"Hey, can you meet me now?" I responded quickly, and flew from my house
Our meeting place was that family restaurant, I could see you sitting in a window seat
All tonight, I wanted to tell you my feelings, clearly and exactly
If not, let's end this relationship, I cant stand it, just being friends

*repeat

Someday, I wonder if we'll be able to share our feelings?
Even though I want to know you more, are we just friends?

I want to hear it
What are you to me? And more importantly, what am I to you?
What the hell
Is it the same as before, that we're just really good friends?
I won't run away
Say it clearly, even if it breaks the friendship we've had until now
I want to get over this
Any more than this, I cant hold back my feelings

Fine I'll just say it now, one word, "Love"...

*repeat

*repeat

Translation notes:

The sentence in the first verse, the one about the confession, was the hardest one for me to translate. In the original Japanese, it says: 切り出せずにいる告白のタイミング　ただうつむいてる君の前に It comes out as gibberish if I translate it literally (naturally), so I had to improvise. My interpretation of this part is that the girl tells the guy that she's going to break up with her boyfriend. If the girl you liked said that, wouldnt you want to tell her that you like her? But the guy cant say it, because she told him that with her head down. When the target is feeling like poo, you should probably not make your move.

The second verse (and in parts of the bridge-y part) have the words ハッキリ (hakkiri) and　ちゃんと (chanto) in them. Depending on how they're used, they can be hard to translate. ハッキリ means "Clearly", as in "Say it clearly" ハッキリ言おう (which is the original lyrics), so that's easy enough. But ちゃんと is a bit harder. Jisho.org defines it as "Perfectly, properly, exactly". But basically, what he's saying is that he needs to express his feelings for the girl, plain and simple. No misunderstandings.

I learned a few interesting words from translating this song. For example, 耳を傾ける means literally, "To incline one's ear", but figuratively means to lend an ear, similar to English. Also, 別れ際 (wakaregiwa), which means "On the verge of breaking up". This is kind of a grammar lesson, because according to my kanji dictionary (need to double check with the grammar one later), Verb +　際 means "on the verge of verb". I'll have to remember that for later use. Also 悶悶 (monmon), which means "Endlessly worrying". With 際, before I take a test, I can say 落ち際じゃけん、悶悶してるよ！ I'm about to fail, so I'm worrying like crazy!

I already knew this one, but I don't know how to use it like a Japanese person. The verb for "to see" and "to hear" are usually written 「見る miru」 and 「聞く kiku」. However, there are two other characters that mean the same in English, and also are read the same way: 「観る」 and 「聴く」. How do they differ? My understanding is, the latter two have a little more oomph in them. That is, when you hear your graduation song, perhaps, or your grandmother's favorite tune, you 聴く them. When you're looking at something real closely, taking note of every inch of it, you're ‘観るing it. If you use 聞く or 見る, you're just listening, or looking, nothing serious involved. How correct my explanation is, I don't know for sure. 聴く was explained to me by a Japanese teacher, but even then, she wasnt very specific (like is it only used in a literary sense, or is it okay to use in a text message?), and I'm extrapolating for 観る. In any case, this is one of the advantages of kanji: To visually indicate the emotiveness of a word. Isnt the Latin alphabet boring that way?

The number of songs I dont understand is still pretty huge, and the so is the number of songs with awesome lyrics. I have no problem finding another song to translate. And since I need to study for the Japanese placement exam for next term, there is a high possibilty that I will do this again. I have also been thinking of translating an English song I like into Japanese. I recently received the Japanese translation for a Korean song I like, and it got me thinking. I have never tried that before, so maybe it is time to start.

Music Review

Most of my friends back in Hawaii dont listen to the same music that I do. And that's the way it's always been, so I've just gotten used to not talking about what I like to listen to. But in the HUSA program, I'm lucky to have found people with similar interests. One of my friends here has posted several music reviews on her blog (which you can read here and here), and I think I'll join her on this bandwagon. Also, I very much believe that these two albums are among the best I've ever heard (as one friend would say, they are "eargasms").

The first album we'll discuss is MBLAQ's "BLAQ Style" album. MBLAQ is a five member KPop group, and I started listening to them by chance, when I saw one of their performances on Youtube. I'll be honest, at first I was like, "Okay, standard KPop fare"; but after listening to more of their songs, and watching their other videos on youtube, I was much more keener on them. When I heard that they were going to release an album this year, I was very excited. Although I was two months late, I finally managed to pick up my copy last month, during my trip to Kyoto.


MBLAQ - Cry

Quite honestly, this is the best KPop album I have ever bought. My favorite song is "Cry", which is the video above. I dont really care for the whole eye makeup thing going on, but as a song, I really do love it. I still have to go look up the lyrics, but from what I gather, it's one of those "Dont break up with me" songs. I have a couple of other songs that I really like on this album, but they're all in Korean, so I have no idea how they're pronounced, so I cant very well tell you them. But that's besides the point. Whenever I play this album, my mood is instantly brightened, and all is better. According to Wikipedia, they're scheduled to make their Japan debut in May, with concerts in Sapporo, Fukuoka, and Osaka, among other places. Am I debating the pros and cons of seeing them in person? ...Maybe.
:D

The second album I'm nuts about is "KJ With...", and as you can imagine, all of the tracks are collarborations between this artist KJ (Kohei Japan) and various other singers. I learned about this album after I subscribed to Pony Canyon's youtube channel. Of all the record labels in Japan, Pony Canyon is pretty small, and I'm not a big fan of a lot of their singers, but I sure am glad I'm subscribed to their channel! From what I gather, Kohei Japan is a rapper, and most of his discography is just that - rap. I'm not into rap. But I really do think I'll change my opinion on that, at least for this album.


近づきたくて with YU-A - KJ feat. YU-A

The video above is the music video for "近づきたくて with YU-A", and is actually the second track I heard from this album. However, it is definitely my favoite track because of its lyrics. The song title translates to something like "I want to get closer to you", and the rest of the song is basically about that. I'm sure we've all been in that position: You're really good friends with this person, and you cant help but think about how happy you would be together. And yet, you're not sure about how they feel about you, and it's driving you crazy. In the song the KJ finally tells the girl, "If we're just going to be friends, let's just end it right now". And I'm not going to lie, that kind of feeling is what I really enjoy. Maybe it's the masochist in me, but as much as I hate it, I also enjoy longing and wanting someone. Is that why I love this song so much? Because it's basically me?

Like I said in the beginning, it's always been the case with me that my friends havent been interested in the same music as me. And it's not wrong to disagree with me as to what constitutes wonderful music. But these two albums are definitely on the list of the top ten best albums I have ever bought. Money well spent, I would say.