Profiles in Bushido: Takeda Shingen, “Kai no Tora”

Posted on July 27, 2010 by J Sensei

Takeda Shingen (武田信玄)

1521-1573

Dubbed “The Tiger of Kai” (Kai Province), Takeda Shingen was a legendary military strategist during the Sengoku Jidai (戦国時代), the Civil War Period of Japan that lasted for a century.

Born as the eldest son of a clan boasting descent from the legendary Minamoto clan, he studied Buddhism and received lesser ordination in 1559. “Shingen” was the name given to him by his Buddhist master, and by this name, he would be known throughout Japan.

The Sengoku Jidai was a vicious age where son struggled against father. In Shingen’s case, he not only struggled; at the age of 21, he overthrew his father, Takeda Nobutora, in a bloodless coup. This was said to preempt his father’s making the second son heir instead of Shingen. Nobutora was forced into retirement on the southern border of Kai province under the watchful eye of the Imagawa clan, which had assisted in the coup, and with which Shingen formed a formal alliance.

Shingen launched a campaign of regional expansion, carving out victories against the Murakami clan of Shinano province despite a loss at Uetahara where he lost two of his own generals. Pushed out of Shinano, the Murakami placed themselves at the mercy of the lord of Echigo, who underwent several name changes during his own Buddhist studies, becoming known to history as Uesugi Kenshin, “The Dragon of Echigo,” who would become Shingen’s celebrated rival.

Even amidst a nation in a near constant state of conflict, this feud would prove to be a long series of chess matches between two remarkable military strategists. A series of five battles, fought over a course of eleven years, occurred at the same location: Kawanakajima, a plain at the northern end of Shinano, forming the south of modern-day Nagano. Neither strategist placed all his eggs in one basket, constantly seeking a decisive opportunity to attack while denying the opponent a similar opportunity.

During the fourth battle, a miscommunication was said to have caused Shingen’s bodyguards to have separated from him, allowing Kenshin an opportunity to personally decapitate his opponent (figuratively and literally). Charging on horseback, Kenshin personally attacked Shingen – sitting on a commander’s chair with his war fan, a traditional signalling device for leaders – with his own sword. Shingen used his own war fan (reinforced with metal) to parry the blow. Soon after, Shingen’s bodyguard caught up and, despite a sharp engagement, both Shingen and Kenshin lived to fight another day.

In 1560, Shingen’s ally Imagawa Yoshimoto died in a shocking reversal of fortune against Oda Nobunaga, a fearsome young warlord whose name would be engraved on the wooden block of Japanese history. Shingen moved to seize lands from Yoshimoto’s son while successfully fending off Uesugi Kenshin. During this time, Shingen also oversaw the damming of the Fuji river, one of the main acts of civil engineering of the era.

Fending off an attempt to interfere with his expansion by the Hojo clan, Shingen gained firm control of the lands he had targeted by 1569.

By this time, the rise of Oda Nobunaga had been great indeed, and Shingen was one of the few warlords with the power to challenge the Oda-Tokugawa alliance that was threatening to take over the entirety of Japan. Shingen invaded his enemies’ territory in 1572, but perished while at camp during the campaign. The exact cause has been lost to history and swamped by speculation. Some say he died of an old war wound; some say a sniper shot him; others still say he died of pneumonia.

The Tiger of Kai died at the age of 49, leaving a legend that would long outlive him.

In honor of his longtime foe, Uesugi Kenshin ordered a period of mourning for three days, and refused all entreaties to launch an attack to exploit the situation.

Shingen the Strategist

The motto of Takeda Shingen was 風林火山, read as “fuurin kazan” using the “on-yomi” (phonetic readings) of the kanji. This stood for:

Swift as the wind

Silent as the forest

Fierce as the flame

Sturdy as the mountain

(These are my own translations. – Jeremiah)

These principles are drawn directly from Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War,” which is a difficult text for many to study. (I have written a book called Sun Tzu for the Modern Strategist which tries to make the book much easier to understand for modern readers, but I have not been able to market it very well with so much time taken up with my tutoring. – Jeremiah)

Kai Province boasted arguably the finest cavalry of Japan. Shingen used this cavalry in accordance with these principles, seeking to move swiftly, to conceal his movements until the decisive moment, attack the opponent’s weak point with decisive force, and, when compelled to defend himself, to be as difficult to dislodge as a mountain.

Truly, to call him the Tiger of Kai was no empty compliment.

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Eat, or Be Eaten

Posted on July 23, 2010 by J Sensei

A poster on a humble forum for learning Japanese called Japanese-online.com had a question dating from late June about how to turn an ichidan verb (like taberu, “to eat”) into a potential (can do) verb instead of a passive (done unto you) verb.

Here is my response, slightly modified. The poster had a computer issue where he could not read kana and kanji at the moment, so I have added these for ease of reading for advanced learners.

—

Basically, adding “reru” to the stem of “taberu” (which would be “tabe”) is wrong because “reru” is accounted for; it’s the imperfective form of godan verbs and “sa” type irregular verbs.

For ichidan verbs, it’s “rareru” for BOTH the potential, can do verb tense, AND the passive, done unto someone verb tense.

I mean, that’s just the way it is. You make taberu into a can do verb by turning it into taberareru. That’s the pattern with all ichidan verbs.

I’m sorry, I know you were looking for a way to do this that would be separate from the passive taberareru, but it doesn’t exist. They’re both pronounced and said the same. That’s why context is king when dealing with this kind of thing.

Actually, this is MUCH easier to demonstrate using a negative.

“Hamubaagaa o taberaremasen.”

ハムバーガーをたべられません。

Now, not to get into dropped topics too much but, let’s add the dropped topic:

“(Watashi wa) hamubaagaa o taberaremasen.”

私はハムバーガーをたべられません。

This does not mean, “The hamburger cannot eat me.” The hamburger is the direct object of the verb. The verb is committed by the topic/ subject, who is “watashi” (“I/ me”).

This means, roughly, “I can’t eat the hamburger.”

The problem with reading this as a passive verb is the “o” particle. Here, “o” clearly indicates that the hamburger is the direct object. This means that taberaremasen cannot be the negative of the passive tense. So, it must be the negative of the potential tense. Rather than can do, “watashi” can not.

Let’s try a different formulation.

“Johnny wa hamubaagaa ni taberareta.”

ジョンイーはハムバーガーにたべられた。

This literally says, “Johnny was eaten by the hamburger.”

In this case, the “ni,” which in this case, indicates that “hamburger” is the indirect object of the verb, makes all the difference.

So, as you can see, the particle makes a huge difference in how the verb can be read. It’s a simple matter of process of elimination. Once you have a firm grasp of direct and indirect objects, it’s much harder to confuse these two verb tenses.

—

As a final note, Japanese children will often incorrectly use “reru” instead of “rareru.” They’re kids, not educated adults. Let’s not hold it against them.

Example:

眠れない。。。

“Nemurenai…” (“I can’t sleep…”)

Technically, this should be:

眠られない。。。

“Nemurarenai…”

But little kids don’t talk like that. They take the grammatically incorrect shortcut. Good to know. Not good to copy, unless you’re impersonating a little kid (and are cute enough to get away with it).

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Itadakimasu

Posted on July 20, 2010 by J Sensei

Many of you have probably taken note of the Japanese custom of saying “itadakimasu” before meals. So, what does this mean?

“Itadakimasu” is the polite (-masu) non-past form of “itadaku,” a humble verb for “to receive.” The nuance is as if you are raising something above your head in a humble gesture as you receive it. (As a noun, “itadaku” means “peak/ summit”; the head is the summit of the human body.)

So, “itadakimasu” comes off as “I humbly receive this ___” (with the ___ left unsaid, as it is clear by context, and would be either food or drink, or both).

So, “I humbly receive this meal.”

While some liken it to “saying Grace,” that is thanking God. Itadakimasu is thanking the host.

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The Katana

Posted on July 20, 2010 by J Sensei

Originally, 刀 (かたな、katana) was simply a catch-all term for a blade, meaning, a metallic, bladed object such as a sword or knife.

After the unsuccessful Mongol invasion, samurai had personal experience with being attacked at high speed and at close range. The Mongols, you see, did not just use bows; they also used close combat against any target they could get away with it against. On balance, they had much more success against the samurai with their slow-to-draw 太刀 (たち、tachi) style swords than against Western knights.

Recognizing they had a problem, samurai demanded that swordsmiths produce a sword that was faster to draw. Smiths developed a curved blade which was worn with the edge facing up while still sheathed. This allowed drawing forward and, to a small degree, outward. While the concept of drawing and attacking simultaneously came much, much later, long after battlefield use, the upshot is, a drawn katana is immediately ready for action in several directions.

This sword became recognized as the katana, as distinct from the older tachi, or “long sword” (as distinct from short swords, or tanto, and sidearms, or wakizashi).

In my upcoming eBook, The Allure of Japanese Swords, I give a concise explanation of why swords work that elaborates on the physics of cutting. The katana is in a “sweet spot” combining reach, agility, resilience in the cut, swinging speed, a wide blade, and an exquisitely sharp edge.

The katana is not as long as the yari, or spear; in groups of packed men, the yari was the more practical weapon (and furthermore, the far less expensive one). However, in an individual confrontation, the katana is a work of wonder that is flexible and can be used to overcome any opponent a samurai of the day would have faced in battle.

You can even thrust with a katana (that’s why they have tips), though it’s not the ideal use of the weapon, either.

In Miyamoto Musashi’s The Book of Five Rings, Musashi writes about using real katanas (not toys for training) in real fights. At the time of writing, the long civil wars had come to an end, but duels and at any rate, simple criminal violence, still occurred. He writes about the critical importance of follow-through, the under-appreciated value of the draw cut (cutting by drawing the sword across your opponent’s body), and that you can do lethal damage with far less “force” than is generally assumed.

Put simply, a katana is not an axe. You don’t need to chop your target.

While the katana, and other Japanese swords, deserve all the love they can get, my eBook is meant to be compact and meant to reward you, the reader, for your time.  It is meant to enlighten you about swords without burying you in specialized terminology.

I realized that the best way to communicate my appreciation of Japanese swords is to write in plain English.

The Allure of Japanese Swords will be released on July 30, 2010. The cover will be unveiled soon.

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魂 – Tamashii (Soul)

Posted on July 17, 2010 by J Sensei

Moving Beyond Pop Culture

The other day, I saw one of those things on television that are absolutely maddening to serious students of culture and history.

The ancient Greeks believed that the heart was the source of all thought. – Random Television

Utter baloney. The Greeks invented Western medicine. Even if they had not, no civilized culture could be ignorant of the effects of a stone striking the head on a person’s ability to think clearly (or survive). Thrown, or slung, stones were a ubiquitous element of warfare in ancient times, particularly in rocky places like Greece or Crete.

I do not find it difficult to believe at all that the Greeks spoke of the heart as the source of all thought. Yes – figuratively, the heart is the emotional core, and the emotional core is the source of how an emotional being conceives the universe. The passionate men of the Mediterranean shores did not think of a complete human being as composed of dry logic alone, devoid of emotion or ethics.

The Japanese also follow this line of thought. Samurai wore helmets to protect the head; that is, the rational thinking part of the body. Nonetheless, the 心 – the kokoro, or “heart” – is the figurative emotional core.

The 魂 – tamashii, or “soul” – is something intangible beyond simple emotions. It is the essence, but not the physical essence; it is the spiritual essence of something.

Nonetheless, spiritual essence can also be a metaphor. Put better, Japanese culture does not draw a line between “literal” spiritual essence and “figurative” spiritual essence. Japanese culture speaks only of spiritual essence, period. The rest is left to the imagination.

Ancestral Souls

Japanese families generally have long histories. Remember, while Japan was occupied after the surrender that followed the Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear bombings, Japan was never destroyed as a nation. While Japan suffered long periods of internal disunity, and was invaded by the Mongols in the 14th century, Japan, as a nation, has an unbroken line of history extending to at least the dawn of recorded Japanese history. (The first recorded history made nods towards history prior to that, but we can only take the imperial historians’ word for accuracy in that case.)

When a Japanese person visits a family tomb, he is immediately surrounded by the weight of generations of history pressing upon his existence. He realizes, “I am not alone. I am part of something greater than my individuality.” He realizes that many have come before him; and, barring a successful zombie uprising, many are likely to come after him. He is one, but one of many. For the Japanese mind, this is a sobering thought.

The Japanese family – not the nuclear family, but the extended family – has historically been a vehicle for the transmission of culture and traditions. Neither culture, nor traditions, are tangible in and of themselves, but ritual observance of festivals and holy days (often the same thing) provide tangible manifestations of these things. Even so, completely beyond such manifestations in the real world, culture and traditions are things that are felt. They are invisible, yet they are all around us.

It is in this sense that the Japanese use the word tamashii.

The Katana As Tamashii

The katana, that is, the single-bladed long sword that became the distinctive mark of the samurai after large scale battlefield combat was finally stamped out for over two centuries, has become known as “the soul of the samurai.”

More to the point, the katana is a weapon that represents all of the finest qualities of a warrior: aesthetic beauty, constant readiness, terrible effectiveness in battle, and individual style and personality while remaining part of a distinctive, privileged group.

Of course, not all katana could live up to such lofty ideals; not all samurai could, either. Those that did were all the more treasured because of it.

From the perspective of the swordsmith, the katana that results from his labors represents not only scientific knowledge, but the fine art of craftsmanship and delicate compromises between beauty and utility. To put it simply, katana were touchy to make really well. A successful weapon was the result not just of a particular school of swordsmithing, but of the individual tastes and personality of the individual swordsmith.

Given this, we can easily understand why a katana was said to contain a piece of the swordsmith’s soul. We should not understand this in fantasy terms such as draining the maker’s life force. That is taking a figurative concept and trying to make it literal. Instead, we can appreciate that a masterpiece katana was a labor of love, the pinnacle of one type of craftsmanship, and a physical manifestation of the intangible spiritual qualities of its maker.

Similarly, the katana was not literally the soul of the samurai; it was the representation of the soul of the samurai, a reflection of the samurai self-image to the samurai themselves.

Put simply, the katana was, and remains, the symbol of the samurai.

By understanding that we should not take the word tamashii too literally here, we can understand that the katana is not literally the soul of the samurai, yet by the same token, it truly is the soul of the samurai, for it embodies their spiritual essence: the intangible qualities we cannot see, but can feel in our hearts nonetheless.

Thank you for reading. Also, stay tuned for my upcoming eBook, The Allure of Japanese Swords / 日本刀の魅力 !

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Bloggers At Work

Posted on July 17, 2010 by J Sensei

I’m trying to upgrade the look of this blog (Japanese, Step by Step) so any short term problems are related to that. Thank you for your understanding.

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If Only I Had A Hammer…

Posted on July 15, 2010 by J Sensei

Hammer by Tjcase2

八マーさえあれば…

In Japanese grammar, using さえ (sae) after a noun describes the minimum required.

It is often safer to read Japanese nouns as indicating plurals unless otherwise specified. Here, the inclusion of さえ (sae) indeed specifies that a hammer, that is, only one hammer, would be sufficient.

The verb is ある (aru) in the conditional tense. “If (I) had…”

Therefore:

“If only I had a hammer…”

Put another way:

“If I had even one hammer…”



Alternative, #1

There are two alternatives to さえ (sae).

First, there is でさえ (de sae) after a noun (and after a noun only).

八マーでさえあれば…

This places greater emphasis on the noun. It is like, “If only I had a hammer…”

Yet this does not feel right. Let us change the structure:

八マー無しには、私でさえ家を修理できない。

無し = “nashi,” or “without”

には = “ni wa,” reflective-sounding particles

家 = “ie,” house

修理 = ”ｓｈuri,” or “repair”

できない = “dekinai,” negative of “dekiru” (“cannot do” instead of “can do”)

Therefore:

“Even I can’t fix the house without a hammer.”

Alternatively:

“Even I can’t fix the house without at least one hammer.”

Alternative, #2

八マー無しには、私ですら家を修理できない。

This uses ですら (de sura) instead of でさえ (de sae).

The only practical difference is that “de sura” sounds older and more archaic, and therefore more formal.

As a matter of getting your message across, both have, in practice, the exact same meaning. Both also have the “emphasis factor” that a naked さえ (sae) might not.

Positive Spin

八マーには、私さえ家を修理できる。

In English:

“With a hammer, even I can fix up a house.”

Of course, this places quite a different spin on the abilities of 私 (watashi, i.e. the speaker).

Language is like a tool box. How you use it is up to you. Language need not be a hammer, making every problem look like a nail.  You can choose the right tool for the right job.

Footnote

You don’t want to use があれば or がなければ after 八マー in this example because that would require an unwritten topic. Since 私 is accounted for, you can’t have 私 as both the unwritten topic and an object and still be making sense. Having 私 as the topic alone would make the　さえ、でさえ、ですら constructions much harder to use effectively.

Disclaimer

I am not a native Japanese speaker, so this represents the best work of a non-native, non-professor grunt from the trenches. Feel free to correct any mistakes, non-ideal language, etc., that you find.

Article first published as If Only I Had A Hammer… on Technorati.

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July 09 2010 Moment of Zen

Posted on July 9, 2010 by J Sensei

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Colloquialisms: Uro Uro

Posted on July 5, 2010 by J Sensei

ウロウロ (uro uro)

“Uro uro” is not, technically, a sound effect. It can be written in hiragana rather than katakana as うろうろ because it is a native Japanese colloquialism. However, to differentiate it as a colloquialism, it is often written in katakana anyway, as I am doing here.

Here’s a quick run-down of how “uro uro” is used.

ウロウロする (uro uro suru) is the -suru verb form of “uro uro.”

“To uro uro” is to loiter, to wander aimlessly, and so forth.

If a mouse (鼠、ねずみ, nezumi) is ウロウロする (uro uro suru), the mouse is scurrying about.

If a little blond girl in a pretty pirate outfit is ウロウロする in a mansion searching for pirate treasure, she is roaming about as she searches.

In the above case, the girl was told by another character in the Japanese PS3 version of “Tales of Vesperia” that the mansion was no place for a little girl to be “uro uro suru” (uro uro-ing) in. That is, it was a quite dangerous place for a little girl to be, so she shouldn’t just wander around on her own.

If we used this as an adjective, we could have an ウロウロな話 (uro uro na hanashi), a meandering story, that is, a story that wanders from place to place, seemingly aimlessly.

That is how “uro uro” is used. As it is a commonly known colloquialism in Japan, it will appear in manga, video games, and so forth, without any regard for Japanese language learners.

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Sound Effect: Pika Pika

Posted on July 4, 2010 by J Sensei

ピカピカ (Pika Pika)

This sound effect is the Japanese sound for light glimmering off the surface of an object. Think of it as an audio reference to light rays hitting the human eye.

In other words, it is a human sound that represents the glimmer and glitter of light.

The waxed, bald head of a man may be said to ピカピカ (pika pika) in the light.

A waxed Ferrari ピカピカ (pika pika)’s in the sun.

A gold-colored Mobile Suit may ピカピカ (pika pika) and bring attention to itself.  Clearly, a pilot of such a machine must have a great deal of confidence.

A bright flash of electricity, such as that emitted by a yellow rodent in a video game or anime, may be said to ピカピカ (pika pika) because of the light dazzles the eyes.

Thus, we may read ピカピカ (pika pika) as “dazzle, dazzle” or “glimmer, glimmer” or “sparkle, sparkle” and so forth. Regardless of the English we use to represent the sound, it is the same category of sound in actual Japanese.

Incidentally, “Pikachu” is a combination of two sound effects. The first is “pika pika.” The second is “chuu chuu,” representing the squeaky sound made by mice and other small rodents.

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