Iwa ni Hana

There is a word that I always encourage people who are studying Chinese and Japanese to ask every native speaker they come across for a definition in his or her own words, and that word is 縁. 縁 is pronounced as yuan in Chinese and en or enishi in Japanese (for the purpose of this post I will refer to it as en since I will be mostly making references to Japanese works). Chances are, you will find that the individual you ask will often turn out to have his or her own definition ready at hand that go beyond the usual definitions found in dictionaries.

The short version of my own definition would be “meaningful chance,” whereas the long version would be:

Meaningful chance that tracks you down with military precision like a missile, across vast expanse of time and infinite space, in order to throw you into the ambit of a specific person or a thing, whom or which you may be either meeting for the first time, or meeting again against all odds, in order to facilitate a result that may or may not come about.

En is different from “fate” – which is known as 命運 [ming yun] in Chinese and 運命[unmei] in Japanese. Fate happens for a certainty. En is less decisive – it is only a precondition (or a set of preconditions) that has the potential to facilitate a certain result.

Note also that I say meaningful chance – it is not random chance for no discernible purpose. When people talk about en, it is always implied that there is some deeper purpose or meaning. What comes to you by virtue of en is always something that leaves a footprint in your life.

Perhaps I should illustrate this with more examples:

Engi demo nai yo

A while ago, I was watching a silent Japanese film made in 1933. It is called Passing Fancy (出来ごころ) and was directed by the (then) young Ozu Yasujiro (小津安二郎). The idiomatic phrase 縁起でもないよ [engi demo nai yo] appeared twice in the film:

1) A foolish man wears formal summer clothes to court a girl. On his way out, his neighbours see him and jokingly ask if he is going to someone’s funeral. He rebukes them by saying “engi demo nai yo”.

2) The same foolish man jokes how lucky that he has formal clothes for summer in the event that his son (who is ill) should die. A neighbour hears it and rebukes him by saying “engi de mo nai yo”.

Engi demo nai yo means “don’t do/say such an unlucky thing”. I think it is fair to think of engi as “force of attraction”. In Japan, magical charms are known as 縁起物 [engimono]. An example of this would be 招き猫 [maneki neko] (see Wikipedia entry here). You can put a maneki neko in front of your shop to attract customers and profits. Critics of engimono may call it superstition, because it is like saying that taking an umbrella with you when you go out will attract the sky to rain, but you get the idea.

In light of the above, I think a good way to differentiate engi and en would be something like:

Engi: If you put ingredients A, B and C (of which you have control) in place, resultant D (of which you have no control) may come.

En: If ingredients A, B and C (of which you have no control) are there, resultant D (of which you have control) may come.

On a side note, the same word 緣起 [yuan qi] means something different in Chinese. It means the beginning of a course of relationship that was facilitated by en. Its opposite 緣盡 [yuan jin] means the end of a course of relationship that was facilitated by en.

“Kizuna” and “kusare en” in Skip Beat!

In the anime/manga series Skip Beat! (I won’t summarize the story here as there are plenty of summaries on the web), Mogami Kyouko and Fuwa Shou are said to have 絆 [kizuna] between them. What, you may ask, is kizuna? I think you can think of it as “indestructible en“.

As mentioned above, en is the gathering of ingredients A, B and C (of which you have no control) that have the potential to facilitate resultant D (of which you have control). You are free to ignore A, B and C, and they may or may come again in your life. Kizuna is not transient like that. With kizuna, no matter how many times you ignore ingredients A, B and C, they always have a mysterious way of coming back to you nonetheless, probably each time with stronger force than ever. However, you still have a choice to do or not do something about resultant D. Kizuna is not “fate” in the sense that the result must happen.

Mogami Kyouko herself also describes her past relationship with Fuwa Shou as 腐れ縁 [kusare en]. Kusare means “rot,” and kusare en is a bad, rotten en that is hard to walk away from.

Wordplay in Ai no Kusabi

The title of the classic novel series and OVA anime 間の楔 [ai no kusabi] consists two kinds of wordplay in classical Japanese poetry:

1) 掛詞 [kakekotoba]

This means using a word that sounds the same as another word with a different meaning. Both words respectively make sense in the context of poem, allowing therefore at least two interpretations of the poem. (See Wikipedia entry here.)

2) 縁語 [engo]

This means using a word that is closely associated in meaning with and sounds nearly the same as another word. Both words respectively make sense in the context of poem, therefore enriching the meaning of the poem.

Having said that, the title Ai no Kusabi consists of wordplay as explained below:

i) The use of ai is an example of kakekotoba:

It reads as “space” (間) but the sound of ai also alludes to “love” (愛).

ii) The use of kusabi is an example of engo:

楔 [kusabi] means “wedge,” but its pronunciation is evocative of 腐れ縁 [kusare en] (see mentioned above). The word kusare en is also said to be derived from 鏈り縁 [kusari en]. Kusari means “chain” and kusari en means “en that connects you to someone like a chain”. (This may explain way the 2009 remake promo video has so many chains.)

When I first read the new slogan they have for the 2009 remake, I was curious as to their choice of words. The slogan goes like this:

因果律(うんめい)という名の修羅が始まる
Ingaritsu (unmei) to iu na no shura ga hajimaru
A demon by the name of the law of cause and effect (fate) begins

The interesting thing is that 因果律 is usually read as ingaritsu, but here they force you to pronounce it as unmei with the furigana attached, so that even though they write the word for “law of cause and effect,” they pronounce the word as “fate”. (This kind of “forced” pronunciation can be seen from time to time in advertisements, sci-fi novels and shoujo manga. But I shall reserve this topic for another post. )

I wonder what they may be getting up to with a slogan like that. I have always thought that the “demon” in the story of Ai no Kusabi is really en (or more specifically kusare en), which as I explained above is very different from “cause and effect” and “fate”. I guess we shall see about that.

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Caveat emptor: The above is only my interpretation of en. I have heard other interpretations such as (in the words of a Japanese friend): “En is all that falls outside direct cause and effect. It is inclusive of indirect cause and effect, fate, random chance or meaningful chance. In other words, everything outside direct cause and effect that you cannot explain in a logical way is en.”

So feel free to come up with your own definition of en, and feel free to let me know what yours may be.