Greetings
My principal delivered a rousing speech at our close of the term ceremony today. Predictably, it involved exhorting the students to be polite members of society, illuminating the meaning of the word “greeting,” and a fishing anecdote. (I know I’m being sarcastic - but I should really give my principal fair credit - he’s actually quite good at public speaking, and I usually enjoy his orations. He’s also got a great voice for speech, so he’s easy to listen to. And he seriously almost never uses filler sounds. In short, he’s a pro.) Anyway, my base school is pretty militant about greetings and formalities. One of the higher compliments you can pay to the baseball team, for instance, is to say that they always greet you flawlessly. (While most teams love it when you tell them they play well or have excellent sportsmanship, greetings are the top for us.) Anyway, I learned that the kanji for “greeting” are not 常用漢字 (jyouyou kanji), or part of the standardized set of Chinese characters for use in everyday life, and are in fact 当て字 (ateji), or phonetic equivalents. But they do have appropriate meanings.
挨拶する = あいさつする = aisatsu suru = to greet
挨 or ひらく (開く) + 拶 or せまる (迫る)
So…if I understood properly, and correct me if I’m wrong, the meaning of the phonetic equivalent characters is “to open up” and “to draw near.” My principal spoke of it in terms that made me imagine it as opening a connection between one person and another. It was cheesy, but effective. Then the little anecdote about fishing came up. Basically, 2 guys go fishing. They can’t even catch a single fish. At the end of the day, one guy expresses his frustration at the situation. The other guy concludes that it was a pretty great day regardless of the lack of fish, because he spent it with his friend. Awww. Yes, it was a bit of a Chicken Soup for the Japanese High School Student kind of speech, but I think that’s purposeful. Lots of the announcements (and homeroom activity surveys, even) had to do with bullying, internet crime, and other stuff. I don’t think it’s a particularly bad problem at this school in particular, really. But I think it’s precious that the teachers try to instill proper attitudes about life in the kids during assemblies. Ha ha. Anyway, school’s out for summer! (For the students. Not the teachers.) 