Hello from Joy o' Kanji! 

I hope the new year is treating you well so far! For me it's been good but odd. Quite unthinkably, I published just one essay and one Radical Note in January. Fortunately, there was an excellent reason for that. I spent the month doing a whopping 70 essay revisions. 

This is a very big deal. Imagine not doing your laundry for 10 years and then trying to catch up in a month. Imagine not balancing your checkbook in all that time and then scrambling to make the numbers tidy.

Those scenarios may not be realistic, but this one is because it's from my real life. Imagine having the New Yorker come each week, then adding each new super-long issue to the top of a mountain that consists entirely of other unopened New Yorkers. The mountain distresses you deeply because you have no desire to read those thousands of pages but you also can't consider throwing them out, so the best you can do is pretend to be virtuous by ripping out articles of interest and sorting them by category, as if you'll actually read those pieces someday. Only ... it's tedious even to rip and sort, so you don't even do that much. 

Then a holiday comes around and you manage to tear apart five issues. "There!" you think. "That wasn't so bad. If I deal with two issues a week while I'm waiting for the tea kettle to whistle, I'll demolish the pile by the end of the year. But wait. A new issue comes every week. Okay, then, I'll do three a week. Or three a month. Or dozens on holidays." 

You do nothing. The mountain topples and forms a baby mountain at its side. 

You feel like Sisyphus in relation to these mountains.

You constantly make deals with yourself, disgusted by your own bad faith. The phrase "bargaining with the devil" comes to mind, which means that you're both the devil and at the devil's mercy, except that's not really what the phrase means. But forget that. It feels as though it fits.

Now shift the scenario to essay revisions. In the decade since I began Joy o' Kanji, Breen, Sears, and JapanesePod101.com have all changed their URLs (creating a bevy of dead links in my earlier essays). Lots of web pages to which I linked in essays have since disappeared. Halpern and Henshall have issued new books, using different numbers for each kanji. All that has required adjustments.

Worse—so very much worse—Henshall utterly changed his etymologies. If his original edition said that a particular kanji had to do with growing tangerines in the desert, the newer version asserts that the same kanji was about epic battles between rhinos and kangaroos. Of course, not a single etymology involves any of those things, but that's the degree to which the explanations have changed.

So I gamely set about rewriting all the Henshall etymologies in older essays, and as I knocked three dozen off my list I thought, "Well, at least that's done, and I'll never have to redo those." Then I realized that some essays provide old Henshall etymologies for characters with a significant relationship to the star kanji. And all Radical Notes draw extensively on etymological stories that Henshall himself has now discarded.  

There's more to this madness, but I think you have a decent picture. By not writing much new stuff, I cleared out time to do 13 revisions in December and the aforementioned 70 in January. I still have a long list to tackle, but I really miss writing essays and JOK posts, so I'm resuming a normal schedule, hoping that if I focus on essays with fewer keywords, I can make time every Wednesday for revisions.

And so the bargaining with the devil begins again!

When I was lost in the slog of revisions, it made me really happy to come upon a picture that I have no memory of taking during a trip to Shodoshima years ago:

Why didn't I include this in essay 1028 on 猿 (monkey)?! No idea.​ As I've sensed again and again in recent weeks, it's quite hard to reconstruct past thinking. Anyway, the monkey looks like he's caught between the proverbial rock and hard place, which somehow feels appropriate right now!

An Exciting Announcement!

Enough negativity! I told you last month that I was revising these essays in anticipation of a very special occasion that I would reveal this month. That time has come! You probably know that Joy o' Kanji has partnered with Kanshudo and that Kanshudo founder Jonathan Kirk has done a brilliant job of creating games to help you solidify your grasp of essay content, including vocabulary and sentences.

Now Kanshudo is selling all the Joy o' Kanji essays! You can buy them individually, taking advantage of a smooth and extremely intuitive navigation process while also enjoying all the good things Kanshudo has to offer. A million thanks to Jonathan for bringing Joy o' Kanji to a wider audience.

At the Joy o' Kanji collection on Kanshudo, you'll find displays such as this one:

An explanation of the icons in order of appearance:

1. Cloud with arrow: This is where you purchase an essay.

2. Box within box: This will be for flashcards and will be live soon.

3. Pacman: That takes you to the game menu, where you'll find four or five games available. (If you mouse over them and they light up, they're ready for you.) The availability of the fifth one, Sentence Builder, depends on whether or not I've uploaded sentences from the essays to Kanshudo. A general guideline is that I've done this for recent essays and for the three free essays, not for most others.
4. Eyeball: This page provides a detailed look at the kanji in question, including Jonathan's mnemonic, a stroke-order diagram, readings, and a synopsis of the Joy o' Kanji essay.

From Here On

Here's what you'll find in the rest of this newsletter:

• New Essay
• Revised Essays
• A Passage About Popular Pronunciations
• A New Testimonial
• A Kanji Connection to the News
• Radical Note 39 on 子, the "Child" Radical
• When the Cat's Away ...
• Previous Contest
• Help for a Good Friend of Joy o' Kanji
• Ulrike's Mnemonics
• New Contest
• Valentine's Day Lovebirds
• Special Deal for February
• Ways to Play
• Wearable Joy o' Kanji

New Essay

Revised Essays

As always when it comes to revisions, if you've bought the essays before or if you have a subscription, you can download new versions for free.

Currently, the first four pages of the Essays section feature not only the latest essay but also recent revisions, as you can see from the following images. (The "Revision" label disappears after two weeks, which is why you don't see that word in the last two screenshots.) The bottom of each image has a horizontal line, then a color code, and finally a series of little numbers. The bracketed number indicates which page you're seeing. Clicking on an image will take you to the appropriate page.

A Passage About Popular Pronunciations

For a long time I was confused about one aspect of 慣用音 (かんようおん), the "popularly accepted pronunciation of a kanji." I've now added a paragraph to explain that puzzling situation. You'll find the new passage in both the Glossary (first section) and Guide to the PDFs (section 1.c.). The paragraph (which is identical in each case) starts with "I've been puzzled ..."

A New Testimonial

I recently began an in-depth and very enjoyable email exchange with a man in Malta (my first Maltese friend!) who seems to know every language ever invented! I adore one passage in an email of his, and he graciously allowed me to share the comments as a Testimonial. Here's what he said:

A Kanji Connection to the News

I don't know how to present this next tidbit without coming across as highly insensitive. After all, there's nothing joyful about the coronavirus reality and threat. Still, when my language partner and I studied a Japanese map of China to figure out where Wuhan was, I couldn't help feeling excited when I realized that the city name is rendered as 武漢, which the Japanese read as ぶかん. The second kanji is of course the initial one in 漢字 (かんじ: kanji)!

Why would that be? As I've since learned, the cities of Wuchang (武昌), Hanyang (漢陽), and Hanko (漢口) were consolidated in 1949 into what is now 武漢. How cool! Of course, that reduced the number of places with 漢 in their names.

Radical Note 39 on 子, the "Child" Radical

As you know, 2020 is the Year of the Rat, and the Chinese represent this zodiacal rat with 子 (read as ね in Japanese). How did 子 come to mean "sign of the rat"? I think it's curious that someone chose to associate children with rodents! It's hard to find answers about this, but my proofreader muses that it makes sense to associate 子 with rats as that animal is known for reproducing prolifically.

To prepare for the Rat's arrival, I published Radical Note 39 on 子, the "child" radical, which includes these images, the first of which features back-to-back instances of the radical:

The second image is by Chris Acheson, who has braved frigid temperatures while taking great kanji photos! The name 十字街 looks as if it would mean "town of 10 characters" but doesn't. 

Check out this free resource to learn why the town is called that and to see how children got inside 学 (10: study), 字 (28: character), 季 (448: season), 孤 (1229: solitary), and five more Joyo kanji that feature this on-duty radical.

When the Cat's Away ...

Our celebration of the Year of the Rat continues! On our auxiliary merchandise site Kanji Kaimono, Ellie Fidler Kanji Designs is selling not one but two works showcasing our furry friends:

I love how the tail points the way to the kanji! The non-Joyo 鼠 can mean "mouse" or "rat" and has the kun-yomi ねずみ.

The work above, with two animals, is titled "Year of the Rat." The one below, with a solitary rodent, is "Year of the Rat 2"!

Previous Contest

The Year of the Rat inspired Paolo Marino to create this wonderful image, which I shared last month as part of the contest:

To win the contest, people had to tell me the following:

1. What is the kanji?

2. What does it signify here?

3. Bonus question: Why is the animal dressed that way?

I guess everyone loved the image as much as I did (how couldn't they?!) because several people entered the contest. Congratulations to the winners, Maria Micaela Reina and Tilak Bhattacharjee!

They knew we were seeing a rendering of 子, the zodiacal rat. Furthermore, Paolo cleverly dressed the animal in armor because it's not just the Year of the Rat. It's more specifically a yang metal Year of the Rat.  

Here's how I've explained that in Radical Note 39, where this armored rat has found a permanent home: The zodiac signs, which repeat every 12 years, are part of a more complex 60-year system called the sexagenary cycle. Each of the 60 years has a name consisting of two Chinese characters. The initial character comes from a counting system that starts with 甲, 乙, 丙, 丁 (1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th) up through 癸 (10th), a non-Joyo kanji. Those numbers also correspond to five elements (wood, fire, earth, metal, and water), each associated with yang and yin in alternate years.

So 2020 is a “yang metal rat” year, rendered in Chinese as 庚子 (with the non-Joyo 庚, "7th").

Help for a Good Friend of Joy o' Kanji

No one should be surprised to see Tilak winning gold again. Over the years, he has consistently conquered these newsletter contests, nonchalantly answering tough questions with great accuracy. When people enjoy success after success, I often feel as if everything they touch turns to gold—as if they float through life with no struggles or disappointments. I was therefore shocked to learn that Tilak has confronted severe health challenges for five years (which explains his absence from a few recent contests). What he needs now is something along the lines of gold (or the 21st-century equivalent).

Before cervical dystonia (a rare neuromusculoskeletal disorder) derailed him, he was doing a postdoctorate in metallurgy in Kyoto, achieving great things. The pain made him abandon his work and return to his native India in search of a treatment. As it turns out, the most effective treatment he has found is in South Korea.
 

Last October he spent time at the YJ Care Clinic in Korea and recovered about 40 percent. He appears in a video with “before” and “after” footage shot at the clinic. His part begins a little way into the video at 2:39.

The clinic costs are quite steep, and the October treatment sessions drained his savings account, so he’s trying to raise US$15,000 through crowdfunding. I’m heartened to see that, as of this moment, 283 people have donated to his campaign, bringing him fairly close to his monetary goal. The campaign lasts for 18 more days.

The crowdfunding campaign (which is through Milaap, India’s largest crowdfunding site) enables people to donate through Paytm (an Indian e-commerce payment system) or through bank transfers. I prefer PayPal, so Tilak set up an account associated with the following email address:             

met.rita06@gmail.com

I hope you can help a fellow kanjiphile. Thank you for your generosity and kindness.

Ulrike's Mnemonics

In January Ulrike published a bounty of mnemonics. She created them for all five Fridays, and she's back to doing five at a time. As if that weren't enough, she threw in two extra mnemonics one week. Her 27 newest memory tricks are for these kanji:

It's always hard to pick my favorites, but these are over-the-top great:

New Contest

One four-kanji compound breaks down as follows:

[natural element] + comment + damage (last 2 kanji) 

The first kanji is for one of these natural elements:

a. fire

b. water

c. earth 

d. wind

e. wood

Which element could team up with "comment" and "damage" to form a meaningful term? 

Bonus question: Which compound am I talking about, and what does it mean?

Winners will receive credit toward two essays, and I'll provide their names in next month's newsletter, along with the answers. Good luck!

Valentine's Day Lovebirds

Royal couples have dominated the news lately, and seeing as how it'll soon be Valentine's Day (a holiday centered on lovebirds), it's a perfect time to meet this "Royal Couple," as Kanji Kaimono vendor Gerry Traucht has titled his photographic work:

Purchase a copy of this print from Kanji Kaimono!

Special Deal for February

This offer is good through February 29, 2020. (Yes, it's a Leap Year!)

Tweet