While many people in the area may not be able to do so due to the daily cold wave, I heard the news that the ume (plum) blossoms have begun to bloom here in Aichi Prefecture.
Really? I went to Shiogama Shrine in Tenpaku Ward, which is my personal benchmark for plum blossoms, to do a little reconnaissance. I had assumed that this year’s blooming must be late, but as you can see, it has started.
Under the clear blue winter sky, the flowers were already in full bloom.
The perfect sunny weather must have been perfect for the day, as families visiting the shrine one after another came to the shrine. Shiogama Shrine is known as the god of safe delivery, and many people visit here every day to visit the shrine and pray for safe delivery. It was a morning that made me think, “Is this a paradise?
There is a very beautiful poem about plum blossoms in the “Preface to the Kana-suzu (Preface to the Anthology of Ancient and Modern Japanese Poetry)”.
In the poem, a beautiful flower blooms in Naniwazu, “Winter is over, now it is spring.
（In Naniwazu, this flower has bloomed. (In Naniwazu, this flower bloomed because it was holed up for the winter and now it is spring.)
This poem is said to have been dedicated to Emperor Nintoku (reigned 313-399) by Dr. Wani of Baekje, who came to Japan to rejoice in his ascension to the throne, and to have accompanied the plum blossoms with this waka poem. In the accompanying ancient commentary, the compiler Ki no Kannushi annotates the poem with the words, “Plum blossoms must be said to be in bloom,” indicating that the flower was so beloved at that time that the accession of the emperor was compared to the blooming of the plum tree.
Nevertheless, today’s “Sakuya konohana” at Shiogama Shrine is also wonderful.
On the way down the stairs, there is a small shrine called “Hakuryu Shrine” that you might pass by without noticing it. This shrine has a rare ceramic guardian dog, and I thought to myself, “What a cute little dog…” as I peeked around. As I was peering at them, I saw a madam with a real big dog behind her. It seemed to be a big golden retriever, so big that even madam might have been able to pull on the lead with all her might. However, when she noticed him, she was so surprised to see him rubbing up against a stranger (herself) and spoiling her. He is so cute.
We dropped by Shiogama Shrine on a whim to see if the plum blossoms were in bloom… but the plum blossoms that brought us so many happy items were in full bloom this year, too. That’s all for now.
I had never heard of Cat Day, which was mentioned in yesterday’s blog, but a few people I met yesterday talked about how today is Cat Day, and I was surprised to hear that it is so widely recognized. So what about today, February 23? It is also called “Mt. Fuji Day. Fuji Day”, which is also a word that comes from the Japanese syllabary. Fuji does not belong to any prefecture, and the area above the 8th station is the private property of the Mt.
Fuji is not part of any prefecture, and the summit above the 8th station is privately owned by Mt. I wondered if I would be able to memorize such a silly set of words, but surprisingly, the jokey combination of words remained firmly in my memory, and helped me a lot. I remember getting through it by making up my own slightly embarrassing alliteration that I couldn’t say to others.
I have heard that history classes are now more about digging deeper into historical events, learning the flow of events before and after them, and making students think about why things happened the way they did, rather than memorizing the year numbers. In addition, they are moving in the direction of parallel study of world history and Japanese history, rather than separating the two.
When I was a student, I was not very good at history classes, which required a lot of memorization, and I was not very interested in history itself, and I thought I did not like studying history. However, as I learned using modern and convenient tools, I began to find it interesting. Children today are blessed, aren’t they? Thanks to you, I feel that my aversion to history is gradually disappearing.
For example, there is a sentence “I sighted Thomas’s rights.” If you count the number of letters in the word, it becomes 1776 and 1776 respectively, which is the year when the American Declaration of Independence was adopted. If you count the number of letters in the word, you can remember the year in which the Declaration of Independence was adopted. It includes the name of Thomas Jefferson, who contributed to the Declaration of Independence. Is it just me, or does it seem to take a bit of time to count, and if I remember the English words incorrectly, I’m out of luck? Another year is “I captured south’s flags” 1865, the year the Civil War ended. It seems like a very advanced technique, but I guess different countries have different ways of remembering things. However, it is true that every country has a hard time remembering the year.
In Korean, there seems to be a system of matching the sound with the number, like in Japanese.
Two is pronounced “yi” and four is pronounced “sa,” and “isa” means moving, so 24 is often used as a phone number for movers. Other numbers are 51 “oil” for gas stations, and 2 “y” and 8 “pal” are used for telephone numbers for dentists, etc., because “yippal” = “tooth”.
It seems to be common throughout the world that numbers that are inorganic and difficult to remember can be made meaningful and easy to remember by combining them with other words.
Come to think of it, I used to remember English words that I just couldn’t remember by making up silly alliterations that I couldn’t tell anyone about. I also enjoyed doing that and time would pass by…. I told myself that, aside from the question of how it was pronounced, it would stick in my memory as I recalled it several times, and eventually I would remember the correct pronunciation, so it should be fine.
Now is the season of entrance examinations. In the past, people used to eat “tonkatsu” (pork cutlet) for good luck and to “win”, but the appearance of tonkatsu has been decreasing because of the possibility of stomach upset due to the oil. Recently, bento lunches are being made with the family’s wishes in mind, such as Okura (a kind of okra with a pentagonal shape at the cut end), Saikyo-yaki (grilled fish), and Renkon (a kind of lotus root that gives one a clear outlook and helps one pass the examinations).
To all the students preparing for the examinations, I wish you all to be in good physical condition and to exert yourselves to the fullest.
If you turn on the TV, you will see cats appearing in many commercials and cat programs are aired every week. If you go to a bookstore, you will find that new cat photo books and cat books are published every month, and the “cat corner” is well-stocked. It is truly an age of cats that fills society.
Although it may seem that there is a bit of a traffic jam of “cat” content, statistics show that the number of cats kept by people is growing, and has even surpassed that of dogs, the absolute king of the pet world. The term “Nekonomics” has even been coined, and the economic impact of cats is said to be as much as 2 trillion yen.
The current cat boom, which has even become a social phenomenon, is not a new phenomenon. At least in the Edo period (1603-1867), there was a “cat boom” that far exceeded the current cat boom. Edo people bought cat contents and they were considered the best-selling standard among ukiyoe prints.
There was a history behind how cats came to be literally “cat-adorable” by Edo people.
It is said that Japanese people have long loved cats since Emperor Uda wrote about them in his diary. The Pillow Book also describes Emperor Ichijo’s beloved cat, and Komaro, Minamoto Rinko’s beloved cat, was made completely famous in last year’s historical drama “Hikaru Kimi e” (To the Loving Prince). This Komaro and Komari, a black-and-white cat that was Akiko’s beloved cat, appear as “Rikyu” and “Hansuke” in “Belabo.
Cats, once the pets of nobles and noblemen, gradually became popular among the common people as beneficial animals that could kill rats as time went by, and in the Edo period, cats came to be depicted as part of the scenery in ukiyoe prints. In the late Edo period, cats, which had been integrated into the daily lives of the common people, began to be depicted as the main characters in Ukiyo-e.
In the late Edo period, a painter named Kuniyoshi Utagawa produced a number of Ukiyoe paintings that could be described as “cat-obsessed.
Kuniyoshi was an unrivaled cat lover. His self-portraits are also covered with cats. Kuniyoshi Utagawa depicted the Tokaido Highway with cats from Nihonbashi to Kyoto, named after the stations of the Tokaido Highway. The name of the painting is “Myaukai ko gojusanbiki” (53 cat-owning tours). Jiguchi” is a pun on the word ‘jiguchi,’ and Kuniyoshi painted this work when he was about 50 years old. There are a few puns that do not really fit. A bit forced? But I guess it is OK because of the cat.
Kuniyoshi Utagawa was born after Shigsaburo Tsutaya died, so he does not seem to be able to get on board with the great drama “Belabo,” and in fact, he is not. He teamed up with Kyozan, the younger brother of Santo Kyoden, who was related to Tsutaya Shigesaburo, to market “Oborozuki Neko Zoshi” (Oborozuki Cat Paper), which was a big hit. Among Kuniyoshi’s works, there are even uchiwa (Japanese fans) with the faces of popular Kabuki actors of the time imitated as cats, which gives a glimpse of the enthusiasm of the time.
I don’t know if this will be depicted in “Belabo” or not, but I am looking forward to tomorrow’s broadcast!
Today, the cold weather seems to have eased up a bit, but a warm drink is still essential. To my delight, I was treated to a snack today, which was given to me by a customer. Thank you very much! I don’t think I can stay for just one with its rich chocolate and crunchy texture….
Well, the following news that came to my phone today caught my attention. It is called “AI Inoki: Resurrection on his birthday.
Even if you are not at all interested in professional wrestling like me, you may be thinking, “How are you? One, two, three, dah! I remember seeing and hearing “Inoki’s verse”. Recently, I have heard on the news that there are more and more female fans called “pujoshi,” but the truth is that I, like myself, have no idea how to look at pro wrestling.
Even I know Antonio Inoki. He is so famous when it comes to professional wrestling! He is so famous that even I don’t know what to think of professional wrestling. When he was 13 years old, he moved to Brazil with his family to live on a plantation and was active in the shot put competition when Rikidozan came to see him and scouted him directly. His strength and overwhelming charisma attracted many fans, but he passed away in 2022 at the age of 79.
To someone like me who has no interest in him, he was just an “uncle who slapped people” (sorry to all his fans), but when I looked him up, I found that he left behind a number of wise words. He was not only a slapping uncle.
What will happen if I go down this road? Don’t be afraid, if you are afraid, there is no path.
If you step out, that one foot will become the path, and that one foot will become the way.
Don’t be afraid to go, go, and you will understand.
This quote, which was often featured first in the collection of quotes, is titled “The Way” and seems to be a word that is often used, so you may have seen it before.
I think it is a phrase that says, “Nothing starts when you are lost, so move forward,” but it is a simple phrase that strangely resonates strongly with me. Straightforward words may be a phrase that many of us can relate to.
Surprisingly, it seems that this poem called “The Way” is actually not an original poem by Antonio Inoki, but words of philosopher Tetsuo Kiyosawa (included in his book “Mujyo Danjo”). Incidentally, Antonio Inoki seemed to have mistakenly thought that they were not Kiyosawa’s but “Ikkyu Soujun,” a monk of the Muromachi period who was the model for Ikkyu-san.
Other words include, “If you want children to have dreams, it is adults who should have dreams,” and “Step out of the norm, even if it is just one millimeter. The words of a man who has mastered one path are profound. There are many more, so if you are interested, please check them out.
However, I have a sense of resistance to the idea of using AI to recreate the deceased (although it is still in its infancy), but compared to the AI Hibari Misora, which was very unpopular at the time, I can’t help but think that AI Antonio Inoki might be more acceptable now.
The other day, I received some chocolates from someone who has been very kind to me. The chocolates were so beautiful that I had to dress up and take a picture of them today. Of course I enjoyed the chocolates afterwards, and of course I loved the taste, but the packaging was also wonderful. Thank you for the treat!
Now, today’s tweet is about “guessing activities,” but are you all “guessing”?
To tell you a little about myself, I have been addicted to the “timelesz project” (a.k.a. “Taipro”), which has been a hot topic of conversation recently, for reasons that are beyond my years…. Last week, the day before the final audition for the new members was aired, I was in a state of mind.
I have been a fan of one of the members for the past 7 or 8 years, and I personally feel that I have finally been discovered by the world. I have been visiting the plays she has performed in for a long time, but in the blink of an eye, she has entered a different dimension in terms of the number of followers she has, and I felt a little sad that she has become a distant presence in the world. I had an experience for the first time in my life, such as wondering if this is what people call “nurturing” my “guesses”…lol I will continue to support them from the shadows, even though I feel a mixture of loneliness and hope for their success.
Putting aside the topic of my own “guess life,” the historical drama “Belabo,” which all of us at Fuhkosha are into, is also a story about increasing the number of “guesses.
Tsutaya Shigesaburo (Tsutashige), known for widely distributing “bijin-ga” (pictures of beautiful women), employed ukiyoe artists such as Kitagawa Utamaro to produce and sell large numbers of nishikie (woodblock prints with multiple colors), and one of the central works of these artists was a picture of a beautiful woman. For the people of Edo, beauty prints were literally images of “beautiful women” and were very close to what we see today in idol photo albums and posters. Ukiyoe was a popular media at that time.
Ukiyo-e was a popular medium at that time, and if an artist like Utamaro Kitagawa, who created many pictures of beautiful women, made a big hit, it seemed to generate a craze, such as “I want to be like that courtesan” or “I admire that actor”. However, at that time, there were also beauty paintings of ordinary town girls. They may have been the idols of Edo. When we look into the “guesswork” of these townswomen, we find that they are no different from us 200 years later, so please read on with a laugh.
Let us look into it,
It seems that the original idol was Kasamori Osen, a signboard girl who worked at a water teahouse called “Kagiya” in front of the Kasamori Inari Gate in Yanaka in the 1760s during the Meiwa period. O-Sen, who was a daughter of the teahouse (in essence, a cafe clerk), gained a reputation for being beautiful, and when Harunobu Suzuki, famous for his paintings of beautiful women, drew her, she spread throughout Edo and became very popular. At that time, beauty paintings were like today’s photo albums.
According to one theory, despite the high price of a cup of tea (about 3,000 yen in today’s prices), the shop was so popular that people had to wait in line to get in, so I guess it was like a cafe where you could meet idols around Akihabara in person.
The owner of the key shop became greedy because of the popularity of the tea, and came up with a business plan. He not only sold tea, but also so-called “Osen goods” such as tenugui hand towels, pictured paper, and sugoroku (a Japanese backgammon game) decorated with Osen. These goods sold very well, just as we do nowadays when we spend a lot of money to buy goods of our favorite characters….
In those days, along with Osen, Ofuji, the signboard girl of “Yanagiya,” a toothpick shop in the back of Sensoji Temple, was also popular, and these two plus Oyoshi, the signboard girl of “Tsutaya,” a water tea shop in Nijukenchaya, were known as the “Three Meiwa Beauties. The Edo people’s sense does not seem to have changed this much. Edo people are a bit cute.
However, Osen suddenly disappeared at the peak of her popularity. This led to the theory that she was kidnapped and abducted by a stalker, and her fans were in an uproar.
The fact that rumors like this are going around is proof that there were idol stalkers even back then, but it seems that the truth behind Osen’s disappearance was her marriage. (I laughed out loud here.)
(I had a good laugh here.) She was married to Masanosuke Kurachi, a shogunate bannerman and landowner of Kasamori Inari, and the story of her marriage to a promising elite bureaucrat and her retirement is now legendary. (In fact, Masanosuke even rose to the position of paymaster-gokin magistrate, in charge of the shogunate’s coffers.)
One thing that can be said is that beautiful women are still a treat today, and nothing has changed in the more than 200 years that have passed since then, not even the sad ending to the pure love of idol geeks! That was that.
Such human and commercial patterns related to “guesswork” have apparently not changed for more than 200 years, but the current guesswork market is said to be a whopping 8,000 timid, though I am not the owner of the key shop at Osen no Chaya. I feel that the culture of “guesswork” that has been cultivated for such a long time will never disappear, so I am thinking of getting caught up in the whirlpool.
I am going to be swept up in the whirlpool. (Staff Y)
FUKOSHA holds an appraisal session on the 21st of every month.
This month, it will be held on Friday, February 21st, from 10:00 am ~17:00
No prior notice is required, so please drop by at your convenience.
If you have any items at home or at your parents’ house that you wonder how much they are worth, please bring them in for evaluation only. If you have large items that are difficult to bring in, we will be happy to assess them by photo.
As I mentioned earlier, this year we entered the “rainy water” season of the 24 solar terms on February 18. It is said to be a good time to start preparing for agriculture, and since the middle of the Edo period (1603-1867), it has been a popular custom among commoners to visit the Ise Shrine during “Amamizu”.
It was also around the time of the Hina Festival, which celebrated the healthy growth of girls, and it is said that “if you display hina dolls in Amamizu, you will be blessed with a good marriage”. Originally, hina dolls were used to transfer the bad luck that befell them to the dolls, who would then take the place of the dolls and be washed down the river. Therefore, it was thought to be a good time to display dolls during the rainy season when water was abundant.
I didn’t know such a legend existed, but I have been late in decorating dolls every year, so this year, I decorated them right after the first day of spring. I guess it’s just a matter of feelings, but I decided to decorate them after the rainy season next year. Unless I forget….
Foods that are in season at this time of year are said to be rich in nutrients, and clams are said to be delicious as they store plenty of nutrients in preparation for spawning. The two shells overlap perfectly, symbolizing marital bliss, and soup is an indispensable part of the Hinamatsuri celebration.
In addition to other fish such as yellowtail and Spanish mackerel, I feel that daikon radish and Chinese cabbage also add sweetness to the dish. Personally, I feel that broccoli at this time of year is sweet to the core and delicious! I feel that broccoli is sweet to the core this time of year!
I also need to take vitamin C to stay in good health, but the price of oranges, which I used to buy in large quantities every year, is so high this year that I can’t afford them. I looked beside the store and saw “ponkan” oranges from Shizuoka Prefecture on sale, which made me nostalgic, so I bought some for the first time in a while. My family liked it because it was sweet like an orange and had a refreshing taste with little acidity.
Ponkan” sounded cute, so I looked it up and found that it was a citrus fruit that originated in India. It is believed to have been introduced to Kagoshima in 1896 via China and Taiwan.
The “Pon” in “Ponkan” comes from “Poona,” the name of a place in western India, and “Kan” is said to be named after the citrus fruit “Kan. The variety has been further improved in Japan and many varieties have been created, including the Ota Ponkan, Imazu Ponkan, and Yoshida Ponkan.
I have always been a fan of Onshu Mikan, so I wanted to try a variety of citrus fruits.
I wondered if the “Pon” in Ehime’s “Pon Juice” came from “Ponkan,” but to my surprise, I found out that it came from “Pon,” which means “Japan’s best. Sadatake Hisamatsu, then governor of Ehime Prefecture, is said to be the godfather of the name.
The advertising poster reads, “Pon juice born in Japan and shining in the world,” expressing the hope that it will become the best juice in Japan. It must be common knowledge to people in Ehime Prefecture.
Today, we received Japanese sweets (monaka) from a customer on a business trip. We enjoyed it very much! Thank you very much.
Monaka” is written ‘monaka’ in Chinese characters, but the bean paste of ‘monaka’ is sticky due to the presence of mizuame (starch syrup), and it seems very smooth and easily blends with your tongue, doesn’t it? The thin crust also has a savory aroma the moment you put it in your mouth, and its crispy texture is indescribable, isn’t it? The one I had was also a very nice combination of crispy skin and sweet bean paste.
By the way, “monaka” is a strange name, isn’t it? Why “monaka” and not “saichu”?
Actually, the name “monaka” seems to be a contraction of the name of a confectionery called “monaka no tsuki,” which means “moon in the middle of autumn,” but “monaka” has the meaning of “the center of things” or “the peak of the season,” and “monaka no tsuki” means “full moon in the middle of autumn,” or the full moon of the 15th night. It seems to refer to the full moon on the fifteenth night of the month, the “Mid-Autumn Moon.
This is a story from the Heian period (794-1185), and it seems that “zaichu” took its current form in the middle of the Edo period (1603-1868), when a man named Takemura Ise, who had a store in Yoshiwara, Edo, started selling round rice crackers that looked like a full moon.
It is said that the sembe was similar to the skin of today’s “¡Èmonaka¡É. Later, the ¡Èmonaka manju¡É was created by inserting red bean paste between the ¡Èmonaka moons¡É, and gradually the word ¡Èmanju¡É was abbreviated to ¡Èmaichu¡É. It was not until the Meiji and Taisho eras (1912-1926) that the “monaka” as we know it today was made in a mold, but it became very popular during the Taisho era (1912-1926) and spread to the point where it was made in almost all Japanese confectionery shops.
I had no idea that “monaka” was such an old confectionery, but I munched on it with that in mind…. It was delicious.
The other day, we took out our Hina dolls as announced, but as has become a tradition every year, we made the mistake of not knowing the placement of the three courtesans and the peach and tachibana from the other day. This year, as promised, we made the same mistake again, but we managed to put them up.
Our Hina-san dolls are not so old, but recently I happened to see them at a department store, and I thought that many of them are more compact than before, probably due to the recent housing situation. I wondered if hina decorations have been changing quickly in different times and regions, since they have been so different even in the last few decades.
To begin with, it seems that Ohinasama originated from a style of “Hiina-play” among upper class girls during the Heian period (794-1185). It seems that “playing with dolls” using paper dolls and toys made to resemble household goods was a popular activity. Such scenes appear in essays and stories of the time, and by the Muromachi period (1333-1573), the date of the festival seems to have been fixed at March 3.
In the Edo period (1603-1867), Hinamatsuri became a court event, and was also introduced in the inner chambers of the shogunate. Meanwhile, Hinamatsuri spread to the common people around this time, and a form of celebrating a girl’s first Doll’s Festival by displaying dolls was born. In the early Edo period, there was only one pair of Uchiuri-hina, but by the mid-Edo period, tiered decorations appeared, and the number of dolls and doll implements, including the three courtesans, increased, creating a time when people competed with each other in splendor and splendor. I feel that we are getting closer to the modern style of Hina decorations here.
And after the Meiji period (1868-1912), this style of Hina Matsuri spread widely to rural areas, and it seems to have spread widely to the present day.
You can see such Hina decorations in many places in Japan this time of year, and there are many Hina Festival events held here in Aichi Prefecture and Nagoya City. Here are some of them.
Tokugawa Art Museum Special Exhibition “Owari Tokugawa Family Hina Festival 2025
Period: February 1 (Sat) – April 2 (Wed), 2025
Venue：Tokugawa Art Museum
Seto City] The 24th Hina Festival in Seto, the City of Pottery
Period：February 1, 2025 (Sat) ～ March 9, 2025 (Sun)
Place of the event：Around the Seto warehouse area
The 13th Inuyama Castle Town Ohinasama Tour [Inuyama City
Period: February 10 (Mon) – March 10 (Mon), 2025
Place: Former Isobe Family Residence
Oguchi Town] Oguchi Town Museum of History and Folklore Winter Exhibition “Hinamatsuri (Doll Festival)
Period：January 25, 2025 (Sat) ～ March 9, 2025 (Sun)
Place: Oguchi-cho History and Folklore Museum (3F Hohoemi Plaza, Oguchi-cho Health Culture Center)
Chita City Museum of History and Folklore Collection “Peach Festival Hinamatsuri Exhibition
Period：January 18, 2025 (Sat) ～ March 9, 2025 (Sun)
Place of Exhibition：Chita City Museum of History and Folklore
Okazaki City】Hina Matsuri at the Former Residence of Tadatsugu Honda
Holding period:February 4 (Tue) – March 9 (Sun), 2025
Place of the festival：Former Tadatsugu Honda Residence
Toyota City】Chuma no Ohinasan in Asuke
Period：February 8, 2025 (Sat) ～ March 9, 2025 (Sun)
Venue：Asuke Jyudenken-no-machinami area and Korankei Gorge
Tahara City】Tahara City Museum (Atsumi Local History Museum) Special Exhibition “Hinamatsuri Exhibition
Holding period：February 1 (Sat) to March 16 (Sun), 2025
Place of the exhibition：Atsumi Local History Museum, Tahara City Museum
I could only introduce some of them, but there are quite a lot of events.
Even nowadays, we can see that hina decorations are changing, and it seems that they have been changing from era to era and region to region, but in the response and speed of the changes, “Let’s enjoy hina decorations” is always hidden in every era. Because I was enjoying decorating hina-dolls while struggling to keep up with the changes, lol.
The other day, I was watching the historical drama “Bera-bo” and heard the line “everything went paa”, meaning to be ruined. A family member who was watching it with me asked, “Did they ever say anything about it going poof in the Edo period?” I looked it up. I looked it up, but in the end I didn’t really understand it.
However, as I looked into it, I found out that an unexpected word had been used since the Edo period.
I had thought that “Maji” and “Yabai,” which I had thought were modern youth words, were used in the Edo period.
We hear “yabai” frequently today because it is also used to mean “eclipsing good. I worry that my children and others might not have a good vocabulary because they can get by with just “yabai” to a great extent.
The word “yaba” was originally used to describe an inconvenient or dangerous situation in violation of the law, and the expression “yaba koto” can be found in “Tokaido chu hizakurige,” a comic book written in the Edo period (1603-1867). There are various theories as to why dangerous things are called “yaba,” but there is a theory that the word “yabai” was derived from “yaba,” a shooting range in the Edo period, where people ran illegal stores behind the yaba and were watched by officials, thus giving birth to the word “yabai.
Maji” is still used today to mean ‘serious’ or ‘earnest,’ but in the Edo period it was used as a backstage term by geisha, and was apparently an abbreviation for ”serious. It seems that Kabuki also has lines such as “serious mind,” which makes me laugh a little when I imagine it.
The word “beranme”, which is also used in the title of the drama, is an Edo dialect meaning “out of the ordinary”, and is used today as in “beranme ni takara”, which means “very high”. The Edo dialect is often referred to as “beranme-te” style, which is a corruption of the word “berobo-me.
The Edo dialect was developed in the town people’s society, and it is believed to have been influenced by dialects from various parts of Japan, such as the dialect of the Mikawa region where Tokugawa Ieyasu was born, as well as various other dialects, which mixed together to form the Edo dialect.
It is often referred to as the “e-ization of ai pronunciation,” with “違いない” often becoming “chige-ne” and “iru” “he-ru” “enter,” etc. It seems that the impatient Edo townspeople developed this way of speaking as they spoke quickly.
Since “what are you talking about?” becomes “teyandai,” they must have been in a great hurry.
I thought that the Edo dialect had a lot of rough words, and I wondered if it had survived because the fast-talking Edo tone is more powerful, but it seems that there are many remnants in the words used for infants.
It is said that many infant words such as “nenne” for sleeping, “pompon” for tummy, and “battei” for dirty have their roots in the Edo dialect. All of these words have a gentle sound.
There are many other interesting origins as well, such as “nogure,” “gassatsu,” “bullshit,” and “noroma,” so if you are interested, why don’t you look them up?
