Tanabata and Second Postcard Contest!

So I’m going away this weekend to Sapporo, the main city of Hokkaido, Japan’s northern island. (Right now I’m in Hakodate, which is a city in southern Hokkaido). I won’t be bringing my laptop with me, so that means no blogging, so I’m going to leave you with a nice long post to read and another postcard contest! Yay!

First off, Tanabata! It’s like Halloween, only in July! :D Candy and children’s subsequent hyperactive joy abounds!

Tanabata is every July 7th here in Japan. The day is based on a legend about Orihime, a daughter of a god, and her lover, Hikoboshi. The story goes that Orihime was very serious girl. She would wake up every day and go weave cloth on her loom (the fabric of the universe? A tie for Dad?). She did this all day every day. Eventually her father decided that she should be married. So he searched the universe for an appropriate suitor.

He found Hikoboshi, a cow farmer on the far side of the Milky Way. (No, seriously.)(It actually only translates as a really bad pun. The literal Japanese name for the Milky Way is the River of the Heavens, so the cow and milk connection isn’t there). Anyway, Hikoboshi was just as serious and dedicated to his work as Orihime, so the father decided they were a good match. Hikoboshi and Orihime got married.

What dear old dad didn’t count on was them liking each other so much that they decided to hang out together all the time and never work. He got pretty cross about this (it meant he wasn’t getting anymore ties made of the fabric of the universe, and he really liked those) and decided to break up the marriage. The two weren’t allowed to see each other anymore. Naturally, Orihime cried her eyes out every day, and the subsequent guilt trip her father went through made him willing to compromise.

The final solution was that Orihime and Hikoboshi could see each other one day a year (don’t ask me how they kept track of days and years when they weren’t on a planet). Anyway, that day is July 7th, Tanabata, and the belief is that wishes, like Orihime and Hikoboshi’s wish to be together, will be fulfilled on this day.

What the Japanese do to celebrate is put the branches of bamboo up outside the doors of shops and decorate them with paper and origami ornaments. They also write wishes on colorful pieces of paper and hang them up. I snapped a couple pictures of these on my way home today.


In the afternoon and evening, kids dress up in yukata (like what I got to try on in my kimono class) and go around the places that have the Tanabata branches, sing a song, and receive candy.

Random google image of some kids on Tanabata

I’m seriously wishing I was a kid right now. Or that I at least had a kid in my host family I could walk around with.

So that’s Tanabata for you. :)

Now onto the second post card contest!

If you won a postcard last time, you can’t win one again, but you can still participate if you like!

This time I’m going to provide a list of English words… but in their Japanese forms. There a fewer sounds in Japanese, so a lot of English words get approximated. Like my name, for example. It’s Veronica, but since there is no “v” sound, I go by Beronika here, which is close enough. Smith College is even more interesting. In Japanese, Smith is Sumisu.

So here’s the challenge—figure out the original English words for these Japanese words. You can’t use a dictionary in any form this time. You just have to try and sound it out on your own. I’ve got one tip though to make it a smidge less difficult.

Tip: There is no “L” sound in Japanese, so it is approximated with their “R” sound. (i.e. re may actually be le, or it may just be re).

Send me an e-mail with as many answers as you can get (no dictionaries, no googling, no nothing! Nothing but you and the words!) and next Thursday (Late Wednesday evening for y’all) I’ll figure out who got the most correct, and the top three will win postcards! (What kind of postcards will come in a later post). My e-mail is vfalconi@smith.edu.

I hope you’re ready, because here’s your list. (I included some pronunciation clarifications in parentheses). Some of it’s food, some of it’s places, some of it’s random other stuff. Good luck!

1.Remon (Raymon)
2.Sakkaa (Sawkaw)
3.Hoteru (hotayru)
4.Bosuton
5.Chipusu
6.Hanbaagaa
7.Bideo
8.shatsu
9.Koohii
10.Chiken
11.Nyuuyooku
12.Pasuta
13.haihiiru
14.Sarada
15.Aisu kurimu
16.Kamera
17.Kariforunia
18.Chokoreeto (chokorayto)
19.Terebi
20.Supootsu