A Tale for the Time Being (60 page)

33
. 
kikokushijo
(
)—repatriated children.

34
. 
ijime
(
)—bullying.

35
. 
bent
ō
(
)—lunchbox.

36
. 
Iyada! Gaijin kusai
—Gross! She stinks like a foreigner!

37
. 
Bimbo kusai
—She stinks like a poor person!

38
. 
kurage
(
)—jellyfish; lit. “water” +
“mother.”

39
. 
osechi ry
ō
ri
(
)—special cold New Year’s dinner, made in advance and served in a multitiered lunchbox.

40
. Jpn.
setsuna
(
), from the Sanskrit
ks
ā
na
(Appendix A).

41
. For some thoughts on D
ō
gen and quantum mechanics, see Appendix B.

42
. 
hikikomori
(
)—recluse, a person who refuses to leave
the house.

43
. 
ō
eru
—abbreviation for “office ladies.”

44
. 
sent
ō
(
)—public
baths.

45
. 
okusan
(
)—wife. The character
oku
(
) means “interior,” or “inside,” as of a house. With honorific
-san,
it’s a formal way of
addressing a married woman.

46
. 
butsubutsu
(
)—bumps, a spotty rash.

47
. 
tondemonai
—it’s nothing.

48
. 
Yasutani-kun wa rusu desu yo
—Yasutani is absent.

49
. 
enoki
(
)—a small white mushroom with a round little
cap on a long, threadlike stem that grows in clusters in the dark and never sees the light of day.

50
. 
kotatsu
—a low table with a heating element underneath and a blanket to keep in the warmth.

51
. 
Sore! Sore da yo!
—That! That’s it!

52
. 
furiitaa
—a freelance worker, from the English
free
+ German
arbeiter
.

53
. Probably
kar
ō
shi
(
),
“death from overwork”—a phenomenon in the 1980s at the height of the Japanese bubble economy.