When you ask someone learning Japanese what their least favourite part of the language is. Some may sigh and explain they aren’t really fond of Kanji. Others will start to cry a little, and between the desperate sobs mutter something about those ‘stupid symbols’. Others may start to froth at the mouth before shrieking and running out of a nearby window. That also means ‘the writing system’.

Of course, not everyone struggles with learning just under 2,000 different symbols, with multiple readings and thousands and thousands of combinations with each other. But I do, and thus I am justified in ranting senselessly about them. I am hoping that by writing angry blog posts, perhaps someone important in Japan will suddenly exclaim ‘hey guys just maybe we made this too hard let’s chill out for a bit, then invent a form of writing that involves pictures of animals’ or something.

So the following Kanji are pretty much jerks. Don’t associate with them or trust them with your money or keys as they will stab you in the back the second you drop your guard. You are running a risk just reading them on this blog! If it all gets too scary just forcefully punch your monitor! That’ll teach them! It’ll also teach me to write them! (disclaimer: I’m not replacing your monitor).

I mean look at that beast. This means ‘thanks‘ or ‘gratitude‘ as a noun. But who on earth would want to thank anyone for this Kanji. Look at the one on the right. The last thing I want to do after learning to write that out is thank anyone. Unless finding the original creator and sealing him in a cave counts as thanks.

This means ‘tourist’. If Kanji were real living things and they could talk and throw parties, this is how it would go;

山：Oh hey everyone welcome to the ‘Kanji that aren’t crazy hard to write or remember party’ how are you all.
信：I’m pretty good.
何：Hey is there any punch I am parched!
観：Hey everyone sorry I’m late I was busy strangling kittens! Sorry I’m alone but nobody likes me on account of all the kitten strangling! So what’s going on at this party? Oh hey punch! Well I’m just going to go ahead and drink it all. Oh sorry 何 did you want some? That’s okay I have plenty of kittens blood! Also I can associate on an intellectual level with Sarah Palin.

Yeah that’s right first kanji from tourist that is how you come across at parties if you were sentient. But you’re not, you’re just a symbol in the Japanese writing system. But you’re still a jerk. This one is crazy annoying to remember as it’s pretty important – tourism is big in Japan. Don’t worry if you can’t remember it though, apparently ツーリスト (tsu-risuto) is a real word! TAKE THAT 観!

Imagine if you were asked to recall this kanji from memory. How would you feel? Surprised? That’s fitting as this word means ‘to be surprised’ but I can understand if you thought it meant ‘To torture one’s enemies with crazy memory pattern tests.” This is one of the hardest Kanji I’ve had to learn for university and the most bizarrely annoying thing about it is it’s not that uncommon! You might actually see this in day to day life! Why can’t we just replace it with ‘ :o ‘ which does the same job!

Okay guys, time for an explanation: I started revising for my exams at full pace today, and all three of these Kanji caused me grief as I couldn’t recall how to write them. But now that I’ve written about them meanly, perhaps they will stick in my mind! They better do, because if they don’t I’m going to give up and become a professional unicyclist.

Expect a sane update in the coming week. Happy 2009, everyone.

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