Want to add some Japanese color to your language? Try these sayings.

Are you studying Japanese? I've been speaking Japanese for decades, but I still need to study. This year I tried to add some proverbs to my vocabulary. Some of them work well in English, too. Want to speak more colorfully? Maybe you would enjoy popping these into conversations.

Here are some Japanese proverbs to borrow, just to make conversation a little bit more exotic.

Why stop someone from comparing apples and oranges when you can shrug enigmatically and say, “The moon and snapping turtles”? (tsuki to suppon)
Don’t urge someone to be practical; simply say, “Dumplings outweigh flowers.” (hana yori dango)
You can encourage people to smile and be nice, or you can say “No one shoots arrows at happy faces.” (warau kao ni ya tatazu)
Milk and cookies go together. Salt and pepper complement each other. How about “Plum trees and nightingales”? (ume ni uguisu)
Have you seen the dragon motif on a certain brand of Japanese beer? That’s a “kirin”. You can call a young person with a bright future a rising star, or you can call him/her “dragon pup”. (kirin ji)
One more!
Why say “many a slip between the cup and the lip” when you could say, “Even when they’re winning, samurai keep their helmets on.” (katte kabuto no o wo shimeyo)

Proverbs are like potato chips to me. Once I get started on them, it's hard to stop.

A Question for Travelers

Once upon a time, in a book about journaling, I found a great question. Here it is. "The next time you visit a foreign country, look around and ask yourself this: what do these people know that I don't know?"

Here is one answer about the people of Japan: they know how to wrap anything, from a simple box to a dozen loose, fresh eggs. Two clanking bottles of sake? No problem. A watermelon? No problem. A picnic? Of course.

Their solution is older than paper shopping bags, more environmentally-friendly than plastic, more flexible than a basket. Their traditional wrapper is flexible enough to cover any shape, and it can be used again and again. What is it? Japanese traditional wrapping is a square of cloth called a furoshiki. If you already speak a little Japanese, you may recognize the word furo (bath) in furoshiki. One of its traditional uses was to wrap up everything needed for a bath--soap, shampoo, a towel, a basin, shaving equipment, a hair dryer. These days, furoshiki are more often used as elegants cloths for wrapping gifts.

Books abound on clever and beautiful ways to wrap a gift in a furoshiki. The etiquette for the recipient after duly admiring the presentation and the gift it encloses is to return the furoshiki to the giver, who will use it over and over until it wears out. Unlike wrapping paper, it doesn't crease and there is no tape to peel away. Also unlike paper or plastic, the furoshiki may have a monetary value much higher than the gift it enclose, so returning it is the right thing to do.

There is a lot of wisdom to be found in the folkways of Japan, and the ingenuity of the furoshiki is one of my favorite discoveries.