Japanese Slang
Published by Tuttle Publishing, an imprint of Periplus Editions (HK) Ltd., with editorial offices at 364 Innovation Drive, North Clarendon, VT 05759 U.S.A. and 61 Tai Seng Avenue, #02-12, Singapore 534167.
Copyright© 1994 Charles E. Tuttle Publishing Company, Inc.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
LCC Card No. 94-60020
ISBN: 978-1-4629-0477-8 (ebook)
First edition, 1994
Distributed by:
North America, Latin America & Europe
Tuttle Publishing
364 Innovation Drive, North Clarendon, VT 05759-9436
Tel: (802) 773 8930; Fax: (802) 773 6993
Email; [email protected]
Japan
Tuttle Publishing
Yaekari Bldg., 3F, 5-4-12 Osaki, Shinagawa-ku
Tokyo 141 0032
Tel: (03) 5437 0171; Fax: (03) 5437 0755
Email: [email protected]
Asia Pacific
Berkeley Books Pte. Ltd.
61 Tai Seng Avenue, #02-12, Singapore 534167
Tel; (65) 6280 1330; Fax: (65) 6280 6290
Email: [email protected]
1 0 09 08 07 06 12 11 10 9 8 7
Printed in Singapore
TUTTLE PUBLISHING® is a registered trademark of Tuttle Publishing, a division of Periplus Editions (HK) Ltd.
Contents
When Things Go Wrong
Working the Crowd
At the Station
Organs of the Tokyo Back Alleys
Organs of the Outbacks
At a Fish Auction
Dice Throwers
Modern Parlors
Women and Wine
Acknowledgments
I WOULD like to express my deepest gratitude to the many individuals who over the years have provided me with the candid cultural information and the plain-spoken language data that were necessary for this book. I am especially grateful for the frankness with which they faced my grueling interrogations and for their generosity in offering to discuss private, personal, and often sensitive aspects of their life and work. Because of the delicate nature of their trade, many of the individuals who have contributed most to this book, have wished to remain incognito.
Among my American friends, I owe the greatest thanks to Burton Pike for his encouragement and inspiration, and for his constant advice and help. I am also grateful to my literary agent, Raphael Pallais, whose interest in medieval Japan proved to be most valuable, and to my editor Sally Schwager, whose profound knowledge of Japanese language and culture has been of great help.
I am grateful to Mark Peterson for sharing his intimate knowledge of the ins and outs of the New York street scene and its language. His analytic discussions of American street life helped me put my Japanese data into a Western perspective.
Among my Japanese friends, I owe special thanks to K. Inoue for the hours of sifting, dissecting, and analyzing the stacks of information that came pouring in, and to W. Ishida for our many frank discussions and for the many investigations that she tackled on my behalf. I am also thankful to N. Ichizono for her generous help, and to T. Yoshioka for her enthusiasm, encouragement, and for the fact-finding expeditions that she undertook.
I am especially grateful to the individuals who helped me in my research into slang expressions of ethnic Korean and Chinese extraction: I would like to thank L. Kim, S. Yang, and
