verba volant scripta manent

Timeless

That amber glow.

It’s nearly time for the Olympics! Here’s a list of vocab. Click here for furigana.

第３１回オリンピック競技大会 - the 31st Olympic Games

五輪 or オリンピック - Olympics

夏季オリンピック - summer Olympics

冬季オリンピック - winter Olympics

オリンピック競技 - Olympic sports

競技場 - stadium

オリンピック聖火 - Olympic flame

聖火トーチ - Olympic torch

聖火リレー - Olympic torch relay

聖火台 - Olympic cauldron

開会式 - opening ceremony

閉会式 - closing ceremony

You can see all the current sports here and read about them as well. If you want furigana, click here instead.

If you’re on instagram, why not follow Team Nippon?

family reunion  年夜饭    nián yè fàn

Dragana @lolypopp3.

This is a map of Asia. North Americans, you may notice this map is not solely comprised of Japan, Korea, China and Thailand. People in the UK, you may notice India is not  a continent. That is, if those of you who generalize entire continents can even pinpoint India on a map. Indians are Asian, gasp! And not all brown skinned people are Indian, also, gasp! There are an alarming amount of people, of all ages, from all backgrounds, who seem to be unable to process this.

I’m ethnically Asian. Since Asia is an extremely large continent, I could be from any number of countries. I am neither from India, China, Korea, Japan or Pakistan, yet not so surprisingly, I am still Asian. 

Yes, there are commonalities across regions, through the conflation of cultures, colonialism, globalization, transnationalism and movement of diasporas. Sometimes these are all the same thing. Rickshaws, rice and curry can be found across the continent. But let’s not overgeneralize. You can also find Buddhists, Catholics, Muslims and Hindus across Asia. Cantonese Speaking Chinese Muslims! English Speaking Indian Jews! 

No, we are not all the same. Orientalism? (Please look up Edward Said for basic concepts) No thank you. 

To the folks wondering about Russia being included, I want to mention that the cultural debates and angst about that has been going on for CENTURIES. While France has been pretty fetishized all the way back from Peter the Great, there is no question that we are not Europe, even with that influence showing really obviously in historical seats of power like St. Petersburg. Nonetheless, the whole country was under control of the Mongols (The Golden Horde) from roughly 1242 to 1480, and that left an enormous Mongolian and Tatar heritage that remains to this day. The ancient Scythians are huge in the cultural imagination as well. And besides… look at the Russians who are outside the standard “Kievan Rus” phenotype (which most folks assume is how all Russians look.) 

Here are three of the 30 distinct ethnic groups in Siberia alone:

Buryat grandfather, photo by Alexander Newby

Evenk children, photo by Evgenia Arbugaeva

//snots and laughs a bit

…I’ll consider that day extremely lucky if I find someone who has no idea how many countries there are in Asia but kindly includes Thailand among the Eastern Asia countries…