Japanese Tanka from Kyoto, it’s a beautiful love song

階段を　　　　　　ka i da n wo

二段跳びして　　　ni da n to bi shi te

上がりゆく　　　　a ga ri yu ku

待ち合わせのなき　ma chi a wa se no na ki

北大路駅　　　　　ki ta o u ji e ki

This poem was written by a young female poet, within Kyoto. Her name is Mikako Umenai, who is a famous poet. I lived in Kyoto around my young days so I love this poem. “Tanka 短歌” has rhythm of 5, 7, 5, 7, and 7 sounds. This is a rule of Tanka and a beautiful rhythm for Japanese people. First, I would like to tell you the meaning of these Japanese words.

階段　　　　　　　stairway

二段跳び　　　　　double jumping

上がりゆく　　　　going up

待ち合わせのなき　without a promise of meeting

北大路駅　　　　　Kitaoji station

Kitaoji station is located in Northern Kyoto city and this station is metro. This poem expresses that the poet is going up stairs from the underground. You may feel some fresh feelings from this poem.

She was a university student at the time. And in this case, she didn’t have a promise to meet with someone there. In my understanding, “someone” means a boyfriend in this case. So, maybe, she wanted to have a promise to meet someone but she didn’t have that unfortunately. 

Around when she was living in Kyoto, I was also living in Kyoto as a student. So I can understand what she wanted to say well. Kyoto is a students’ town, so there are many young couples here and there. I can say, if you are walking in the town alone, you may feel a bit lonely. Because she must have been living in Kyoto alone. And, that’s why this poet wanted to have a promise of dating at this time. I understand this way.

She didn’t have a promise to meet someone, therefore she wrote this poem. I think this poem expresses her feelings very well. And, therefore I can say this poem is very beautiful.

“Mayonaka no door” from the 1970s in Japan

“Mayonaka 真夜中” is a Japanese word and “door” is English. Japanese often name the title of the song this way. It’s confusing. Although, they spell “Doa ドア” not “door” in Japan. I mean, this is a foreign word for Japanese people.

When I listened to this song, I was a junior high school student back then. In schools, there had been storms in classrooms, because some bad boys belonged to any class. And I didn’t know what it means to love a female yet. The lyrics of this song are a bit complicated.

In this song, she is listening to music from the record. Do you know what “record” is? It’s a black disk to record music. There were no iPhones, CD-players and Amazon yet around those days.

“Mayonaka no door,” it means “door at midnight.” 

She left her lover but she is still thinking that he may come to her. She imagines her lover is standing over the door, while she is listening to music in her room. It’s midnight, therefore she feels lonely. No matter how much she hopes he comes again, nobody emerges from the door.

“Stay with me, mayonaka no door wo tataki”

Japanese singer Miki Matsubara sang this way. She was born in 1959, and passed away in 2004 unfortunately. This song was a big hit in 1979 in Japan. Those days, the Japanese economy was growing quickly. Whereas, we had many environmental problems domestically. There were many bad students in schools and also you saw many political conflicts in society. Although, Japan was lively and we were enjoying ourselves everyday, as I.

What do Japanese people call beer in Japanese?

There are many imported foreign words in Japan. Those words came mainly from English or Portuguese. Of course, the Japanese Kanji are based on Chinese characters, however I can say the Japanese Kanji is a little brother of Chinese Kanji.

The Japanese language has Katakana which is a type of Japanese character. When you are learning Japanese, you will definitely be confused about Katakana. Because Katakana has a similar shape as Hiragana, as a literature. For example,

Hiragana : か ka

Katakana : カ ka

Hiragana : せ se

Katakana : セ se

If you are a primary learner, you will definitely be confused by these two types of Japanese literature. Okay, let’s see how to spell “beer” in Japanese.

English : beer

Japanese : ビール biilu

“ビール” is a foreign word based on beer in English. But both pronunciations are quite different. So, when I traveled in the US before, I experienced a very interesting “affair”.

On that trip, I went to a food court with my friend. It was in Los Angeles. We were going to have lunch, so I ordered noodles at the fast food shop. After I ordered, my friend ordered, “One noodles and one beer”. He intended to say “beer” but the shop owner understood the word as "beef". “Beer” and “ビール”. Japanese Katakana is very confusing. My friend was surprised to see beef on the noodle to be served.

Take care.