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June 21, 2009

i-ro-ha #5 "ho"



Some of my favorite words start with "ho".
So for today's edition of "i-ro-ha" you may learn more about me than Japan.

For example:
hon = book
hondana = bookcase ... some people say you can judge a person's personality from their bookshelves...in that case, I could have all sorts of personalities!

hoshi = star
Tonight is cloudy, so no stars. Well...not very many stars can be seen in this city anyways...
(by the way the book you can sort of see in the picture... has been with me for about 30 years)

...

hochoucho = E major ... Chopin's Etude No3. in E major "Vhanson de l'adieu" Op.10-3 is one of my          
                      favorites...(I like Fujiko Hemming's piano performance.  She is a pianist who I will post        
                      about  someday.)
...

"ho" is also the sound of relief... when you say "hotto shita" it means "I am relieved."

...

Another word that starts with "ho" is "honki", which means "earnest" or "seriousness".
In kanji, written by poet and calligrapher Aida Mitsuo (last name comes first in Japanese), it looks like this
The meaning of the kanji for "hon" means "real" (also is the same kanji for book!)
"ki" means "mind, spirit" (also means atmosphere).

...honki...

This is from the cover of a book my dear friend  Blossom gave to me a few years ago...
(book design by happy and happy, book published by bunka shuppan kyoku)

The title of the book "Honki" comes from a poem in the book also featured on the above cover.

This book contains English translations but for the sake of copyright and stuff...here is my own translation of the poem:

Earnestly


Anythings is fine - just be sure to do it earnestly
It will be fun - if you do it earnestly
You won't get tired - if you do it earnestly
And even if you do get tired - it will be a refreshing kind of tired


As you might be able to tell from the above cover, Aida Mitsuo's form of calligraphy looks care free and not confined to strict rules...

So, in the same vein, without thinking too much, yet being earnest...my attempt at writing the letters for the word "hotaru" which means "firefly"...  posing with my firefly stationery!

Here's a sentence using some words we learned today...
本気でやればほっとするでしょう。
Honki de yareba hotto surudeshou.
If you try in earnest, you will surely be relieved.

Now I must earnestly go and make (a late) dinner!

Hope you all had a great weekend!

16 comments:

Jelica said...

Great post, Tulsa! Very informative and, well, earnest :)

Greetings to you from a sad, rainy Budapest! (what happened to our summer?!)

I_am_Tulsa said...

Hi Jelica! I think we stole your summer and you stole our rainy season! It was supposed to rain a lot more than it actually did today...very strange...o_O

Jelica said...

By the way, I tagged you for the five favorite things meme, check it out on our blog.

Lori ann said...

I loved this post Tulsa! I copied down all your words to practice. And I'm going to give them to my daughter, because her boyfriend is living in Japan at the moment. He is going to be surprised when she texts him today!
Oh, and i LOVE your firefly stationary, i have a thing for pretty papers!

alaine@éclectique said...

Hmmm, bookish.

I like your hotaru and the night pic.

I'm going to YouTube to search for Fujiko Hemming.

Ruslan said...

What a cool post, Tulsa! I liked the 'earnest' part as well.

alaine@éclectique said...

Tulsa, I found Fujiko and thankyou for the referral!! I've just listened to 9 beautiful minutes of Chopin's (my favourite) Concerto #2 in F Minor with the Moscow Philharmonic. What a gem!

I_am_Tulsa said...

Jelica, I have checked the questions and will answer them when I get home tonight! This is the first time I have ever been tagged for a meme! I'm so excited! I loved your answers too, I learned so much!

Lori, I am happy to be of service! ;-) I know, pretty papers are a fetish!

Alaine, yep, I suppose I have been bookish for a long time:-)
I am so happy that you found her on youtube (the internet amazes me....)!

Ruslan, thank you always for your kind words!
Hope you have a glorious week!

Delwyn said...

Hi there Tulsa

I kept thinking of the words 'Honky tonk' all through your post - that ho lesson was working on me...

You are a hoshi...

Happy Days

Butternut Squash said...

Love this! It's both artful and informative. You put so much culture into each letter.

Earnestly, it's a motto for loving life.

Polly said...

Great post, only I gave up all hope of ever learning Japanese, it's way too complicated.

If you can tell someone's personality by looking at their books then mine is very eclectic!

I_am_Tulsa said...

Delwyn, I thought about honky tonk too! you probably know this, but honki and honky sound slightly different. (The "o" in honki is like Santa Clause's "ho ho ho".)
If I'm a hoshi then you are hoshi too!

Butternut Squash, thank you! I enjoy writing this "series".

Polly, I have no idea if it is true, but I suppose my personality would be quite eclectic too!
Like I said before, if you really want to learn Japanese, there are other better ways to do it! I think just remembering some of the words that you particularly like is actually quite neat...why don't you try that for a while? Thank you for stopping by!

Lucys Lounge said...

i'm going to put that saying on my black board. we too are having great wheather in ireland and not being used to it. it makes me very sluggish.
thanks again for the japanese lesson. they're great.

I_am_Tulsa said...

Dee, thank you! Very strange weather! I'm normally used to hot temperatures, but this year is getting to be kind of hard for me to cope with already! Hope it starts to rain soon in both of our countries!

Merisi said...

Beautiful and very educational, in the best sense! The image of the dark night sky with the "Stars" book is prizeless.

I love learning about Japanese letters with you, thank you for taking the time to gather all this information for us!

I_am_Tulsa said...

Merisi, a photo being praised by you is like sunshine peeking though the clouds...thank you!

and it is my pleasure to do this series of posts. I enjoy the questions and comments and that helps me think of ideas for new posts!