From a single kanji reading today, I learned the following:
(1) 狸 are real and not exclusively mythological creatures. Presumably, their powers have been greatly exaggerated, though. In my defense, my primary reference to date has been Ghibli and Mario.
(2) I am not going to have a hard time remembering the meaning of 金玉. Or its etymology.
(3) I should really, really watch Gintama.
Learning kanji is the best.
14 comments
Wait you thought tanukis were not real?
My tutor sees them all the time when he goes camping in the mountains (which he does a lot).
Also there are war stories about tanuki helping Japanese soldiers in battle. Even a Russian general supposedly wrote one such account in Russian. Now all that stuff isn’t real of course.
猪 (wild boar) are also real and you can encounter them in Japan, as well as 猿 (snow monkey)
Now I wanna try and trick you that 天狗 are real but that’s something a 天狗 would do.
Also do you know? My tutor told me that in old Japanese newspapers and such, people had written all kinds of things that they saw such as fireballs and other supernatural stuff. People used to hallucinate more and think it was real before modern scientific times.
Yes, watch Gintama the first couple episodes are a little rough compared to the rest but it’s a great show.
And I think you need to learn more about the world you live in if you didn’t know Tanuki’s aka Japanese racoon dogs were real. I don’t say that to be mean. It just means there are a lot of animals you probably don’t know about.
OP led me [here](https://mag.japaaan.com/archives/84996), for he is Spartacus.
To be fair, Japanese folklore does much the same thing with foxes, which I can personally assure you are real. But yes lmao, you learned about a new animal today! Incidentally, narwhals are also real.
How about kamoshika? Also cute and real.
Isn’t it usually written in kana? Or is that the actual animal vs the mythical creatures
Check out 有頂天家族 Uchotenkazoku. It’s all about 狸. And it’s great.
I have recently learned 金 and 玉, and so imagine my joy when I learn the combined 金玉 😆
😹
Fair warning that Gintama has completely different kanji meaning *silver soul* (銀魂)
The other day I learned that the kanji for ひとごみ is 人混み or 人込み. I’ve used this word for *years* but exclusively in conversation. I’d never seen it written. I always thought the ごみ part was from the word for “trash.” I was like “ok yeah, I could see how crowds could be seen as like an absolutely trash dump of people,” and just rolled with that for *5 years*
The not real tanuki are called 化け狸 in full
I’ve seen a tanuki pattering about in western tokyo.
the one that got me was 撮影. I knew the word from verbal warnings (don’t take video of this cinema screen) and I knew the individual kanji meanings (写真を撮る、etc) so I understood what the written word meant. Somehow I never connected the two in my mind though
I remember when I had my first beer