Oniko's Glossary of Japanese Words

Glossary of Japanese Words
Reference Pages Index -- Oniko Goes To Japan Main Page

bento
jinja
kanji
manga
nokyo
nokyocho
ryokan
tera

bento

A bento is a box lunch in Japan. Traditionally made by housewives for husbands and kids, nowadays the word most commonly refers to the box lunches that can be picked up at most restaurants and convenience stores. Typically, these are mostly rice with a meat and a vegetable side. This is a pretty good way to fill your gut inexpensively; bentos can be bought at most railway and subway stations when you're on the move, and then eaten on the train.

The Japanese writing system is a conglomerate of three writing styles: two set alphabets -- called hiragana and katagana -- and kanji, which is the name for the Chinese characters that have been absorbed and adapted for Japanese use. The kanji are the biggest stumbling block not only for foreigners trying to read Japanese, but for Japanese school children also. They have to learn the kanji the same way foreigners do... one at a time, slowly. The average newspaper in Japan requires you to know about two-thousand different kanji in order to read it competently; but a traveler in japan can survive with a much smaller vocabulary. For more, see the Japan Survival Guide - Important Kanji To Know.

Japanese comic books, available in a variety of formats and mostly in black and white.

A person at large temples and shrines that will stamp a special book, called a nokyocho, to prove that you visited the sacred site.

A special book that is stamped by larger temples and shrines to prove that you've visited them. You can usually buy these books -- in a variety of styles -- at any religious site that has a nokyo, which is the person who actually stamps your book. Each "stamp" takes up one whole page of the book, and consists of three red stamps placed in the lower left corner, smack in the middle, and the upper right corner of the page; the nokyo will then take a brush and black ink and add the temple or shrine's name, a diety's name, the nokyo's own name, and the date that the book was marked. As of August, 1999, these marks cost 300 yen each to have done.

Traditional Japanese hotel.

Buddhist temple.

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All illustrations in these pages are copyright (c)2002 Garth Haslam, and shouldn't be used without his permission. Contact him at: comix@sonic.net