Tomodachi – Friendship

This town is where Portuguese fishermen fished some Japanese sailors out of the ocean, leading to the opening of Japan. Every other year a Japanese festival takes place here, while on alternating years the festival is held in the sister city in Japan. There are walking tours commemorating all this passing by the house where I’m in, daily. The festival commemorates the bond between Capt. William Whitfield and John Manjiro of Japan, which was formed when Capt. Whitfield rescued Manjiro in 1841. Mr. Manjiro eventually returned to Japan and served an important role as an interpreter and adviser as relations between Japan and the United States were established. This is a festival year in October if you are planning a trip to the Commonwealth.

My love for all things Japanese began in 1998 when I became a Reiki Master. It was completely by chance or kismet that I landed here, similarly to those Japanese fellows of long ago. Studying the Japanese language for twelve years has brought me proudly to the level of …..first grader. Hey, it’s not an easy language to learn.

That tenuous friendship between the Americans and the Japanese that began here and resides in our Museum like a shrine, has been through terrible tragedies. But somehow, subsequent generations have a mutual admiration. Cultures can clash at worst and at best, co exist. Now more than ever the cross pollination between American girls and women and Japanese girls and women is paralleling more than ever.

The meet up of culture and terms though can cause misunderstandings. Some popular words that have been adopted over here in the US that have been ganked from Japanese and are often misused. Some of them even have a much sleazyer or frowned upon connotation than we gaijin, outsiders, may realize.

Take Otaku for instance. It would be wrong to assume that every Japanese girl reads manga and watches anime. It would be wrong to think that everyone who reads manga or watches anime is an otaku. It would also be incorrect to classify any and all facets of Japanese culture to be otaku. Otaku is not a catch all phrase. Otaku specifically refers to a person who is focused on the minutia and details of manga or anime, to the point of a psychosis.

Urban dictionary describes it this way : “Otaku is extremely negative in meaning as it is used to refer to someone who stays at home all the time and doesn’t have a life (no social life, no love life, etc)”. It does not mean a fan or an enthusiast. It can just as easily be used in a sentence to mean stalker or sociopath. What we would call in American colloquialism – creepy. It is better to avoid using the word otaku with an audience of both countries.

From the Kotoba dictionary, a synonym that is classier would be to say that one is a “-phile, or enthusiast” and use the words which mean ‘to be fond of or to find pleasing’. Zuki in Japanese which means ‘fond of’ might be the word you are looking for. In English you would want to say that you are a Japano-phile, which sounds odder to our ears, but translates better.