When I lived in Japan 10+ years ago, I was living in Jujō. I keep a very food memory of the place and remember it as a pretty average working-class or middle-class suburb. However, very often when I’d tell Japanese people that I lived in Jujō, they’d find that very funny and surprising.
Does Jujō had some sort of a reputation?
Or is it that I maybe mispronounced the word and said something funny instead? Seems like Jujo with a short o means “up a tree”? Would people have been laughing because I’d say “I live up a tree” instead of “I live in Jujō”? I really hope it’s not that, because, I might die of embarrassment with a 10 years delay.
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Maybe adding “市” afterwards would mitigate any contextual misunderstandings? Saying it without it most likely lead to people misunderstanding you.
Jujo can mean 十畳, a ten-tatami room. Perhaps they misunderstood that you lived in a very small apartment.
I lived in Mukojima, a “shita machi” area largely populated by burakumin and it would evoke cries of wonder, That’s before they built the Sky Tree tower. I guess Japanese expect foreigners to live in Ikebukuro.
Are you saying じゅじょう? Or じゅうじょう? Have to ask because you’re being inconsistent with your romanization and you’d hardly be the first foreigner who couldn’t pronounce the name of where he lived.
樹上 jujo- “up a tree”
十条 ju-jo- “a place in Tokyo Kita ward, or Kyoto Minami ward”
Pronounce the “ju” a little bit longer next time!
Was this before or after they asked if you can eat natto or use chopsticks?
Would not be surprised if most of their confusion came from the long/short vowel pronunciation inconsistencies though.