Editorial Cartoons
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Sometimes I take a look at the Japanese newspaper comics to see if I can figure out what they mean. This is a comic called “Gokigen-san” which translates really roughly as “Mr. Mood.” I think it’s put together by Kizaki Noboru. See if you can help me figure it out. Click on it for a larger version, as always. In the cartoon, as far as I can tell, Mr. Mood is listening in on a conversation nearby and relaying it to his friend.
Not much is happening in Frame 1, so let’s move along.
Frame 2. Mr. Mood repeats a series of foreign words that are used a lot when discussing current events and news items. 「サブプライムショック ヘッジファンド ハイリスク」 transliterates to “Sub-prime Shock, Hedge-fund, High risk.” The man he’s speaking with replies 「みな横文字だな」, or literally “It’s all horizontal words.” That translates to something like “It’s all Greek to me.” (Japanese can also be written horizontally, the reference just serves to point out the source language’s Western / European origin.)
Frame 3. Mr. Mood excitedly tells his friend 「日本語がでました」, or “Wait, they’re speaking Japanese now.” To which his friend replies 「なんだって」 or “So what are they saying?”
Frame 4. Mr. Mood uses a series of compound kanji words. 「円高 株安 日本売り」 which means “Strong yen, cheap stocks, Japan on sale.”
Comic information. Ehime Newspaper. Wednesday, 5 December 2007. Ed. #44726. Page 11, Region Section. 愛媛新聞２００７年（平成19年）12月5日水曜日第４４７２６ページ11地方.
Here’s where I’m confused. The stuff that I’ve seen in the news about the foreign words weren’t really particularly bad news for Japan. In fact, it seemed like Japan was taking the all-too-common cues from Western media outlets and pointing out doom and gloom stories from the American press in particular. Sub-prime shock refers to the recent problems with the American housing market - whereby people who really couldn’t afford mortgages were allowed to get into debt thanks to (in my opinion) completely absurd government intervention. Now things are cramping because wallets are being opened and everyone’s thinking it wasn’t such a hot idea. Hindsight 20/20. (Though the “victims” the first time around are once again “victims.” I don’t get that. Don’t buy things you can’t pay for, folks.) It’s important to know about, though, since several presidential candidates have plans to bail these people out. I don’t want my taxes going to subsidize financially ignorant peoples’ risky mortgages, but that’s me. I think they should lose their houses and live within their means, as mean as that sounds. Anyway, I digress. The hedge-fund and high risk things are a bit more vague to me, but I haven’t heard anything bad for Japan…so why did that translate to selling Japan in spite of a strong yen and cheap stocks? I don’t get it! Someone help me!
What I originally liked about this was the fact that the foreign loan words caused confusion. I’ve seen a lot of stuff lately about how the use of foreign words is trendy, but counterproductive because it muddles issues rather than clarifies them. Especially in the instances where perfectly good Japanese words exist. I agree to some degree with that idea. Nothing frustrates me more as an English speaker than having to learn reworked Japan-appropriated English words that have different meanings. Ha ha. Maybe that’s what this is parodying? The disconnect? I dunno. Help! What does it mean? What’s the message?