Japanese Slang (20 page)

In train jargon pockets are known as
p
.
As the thief moves smiling from passenger to passenger, his first task is to spot the wallet or, if that does not work, fall back on his thievish instinct. If that does not work either, he will do
momiwake
(grope and understand), also known more nefariously as
sagari ni kiku
(listening down there), in which fingers run lightly over and about the creases of the victim's trousers. Oddly enough, this is also referred to as
kenjiru
(to make an offering), and
ogamu
(to pray).

•   
Saifu o suru mai ni wa dono p
mo momiwake shinakucha na!
I had to feel up all the pockets before I got my hands on the wallet!

•   
Ima wa rench
minna haba no hiroi pantsu haite yagaru kara sagari ni kiku no wa raku da ze!
Now that everyone's wearing wider pants, listening down there for wallets is easier!

•   
Y
maita ze, j
kyaku minna kenjite mita ga, ii mono nani hitotsu mitsukarya shin
!
Man, I groped every single passenger—absolutely nothing worthwhile!

•   
Ogande, ogande,yatto yatsu no saifu o mitsuketa ze!
I prayed and prayed until I found his wallet!

The most idiosyncratic batch of railroad thieves works out of local trains deep in the provinces. These are young men and women who rummage from car to car doing
kagidasu
(ferreting out), collecting as much plunder as they can. There is no limit to the amount they can collect, because at various strategic points of the journey they open windows and do
nagedasu
(flinging out), which has earned them the
name
nagedashizoku
(fling-out gangs). As the train chortles along one of the group, the
dachi
(short for
tomodachi,
“friend”), follows by car, stopping every so often to collect the wallets, bags, and other valuables off the tracks.

4
Japanese Penises

WHEN VISITING Westerners ask “How do you say penis in Japanese?” or “What's the local word for testicle?” faces turn red, conversations grind to a halt, and bashful friends might even make a dash for the door. Japan's official stance regarding all sexual organs, foreigners often complain, remains “we do not have such words” or “we never say such things.” The persistent linguist, however, will keep prodding his acquaintances until they finally give in and admit that there is a slang word,
chinchin.
“But don't ever use it!”

Unconvinced, the seasoned visitors set off for a seedy downtown bar, where they click on their tape recorders and buy round after round after round of drinks.
Chinchin,
they soon discover, is the mild diminutive of harsher words such as
chinpo
and
chinko,
which also appear in the inverted forms
pochin
and
pochi,
favorites in modern red-light neighborhoods.
Dekachin,
a contraction of
dekai
(hulking) and
chinpo
(penis), is used for the well-hung, and
k
kachin,
meaning erect penis, comes from
k
ka
(elevated) and
chinpo
(penis).
Yokochin
(side penis) is an organ that generally rests horizontally in its shorts, while
sanpachin
is always worn to the left and thus has a tendency to
learn to the side when erect. When a man is wearing boxer shorts or loose swimming trunks and his organ inadvertently pops out, hardened college coeds will point their finger and murmur to each other
yokochin moreru
(the side penis is escaping).
Furuchin
(wagging penis) is an exposed penis.

The madam at the bar sidles over
sotto voce
and whispers that all these penile words came from the tough
chinpoko,
which itself originated from the antediluvian
chinhoko
(life-giving sword).

“In the beginning,” she explains, “there was Chaos, and the mythical Izanami (the male-who-invites), with the help of his incestuous sister Izanagi, (the female-who-invites), dipped his large
chinhoko
into the ocean. The
chinhoko
was then whisked through the air, the spray flew, and the ancient islands of Japan were created. Amazing, isn't it?”

In the tougher bars of Koganech
, near the port of Yokohama, the foreigner comes face to face with some of the earthiest slang Japan has to offer. Here the local criminal element mixes affably with weatherworn masseuses from the nearby red-light parlors by the train station, local Korean truck drivers, liberated students, corner prostitutes who work in the corrugated dives under the elevated tracks, and garbage collectors who stop in, between cans, for a quick swig of hot sake. On some nights a Buddhist priest or two might drop by to spice up the atmosphere with a worldly anecdote. Each group in the bar has its own private lingoes and cants, the
ingo
(hidden words) or
ago
(jaw) impenetrable to outsiders. As the mood becomes more convivial, the secret words flow freely and the foreigner can successfully set pen to paper.

The linguist notices that the women in the bar tend
to refer to male organs as sticks.
Konb
(club),
koneb
(kneading stick),
b
(rod),
surikogi
(wooden pestle), and
kine
(pounder) are used for large and potent organs, while smaller ones are belittled as
kushi
(skewer),
waribashi
(wooden chopstick),
enpitsu
(pencil), and
hari
(needle). If a man is willing but underendowed, unkind sex masseuses will say he has
ikibari,
a lively needle.

•   
Konna
kii konb
hairanai wa!
That big club won't fit in!

•   
Koneb
o massaji suru toki wa anmari sakimade kawa o hippari agecha dame da yo.
When you massage his kneading stick, you shouldn't pull the skin up too high.

•   
Ano otoko atashi no hadaka o mita totan, surikogi odoroku hodo
kiku shichatte!
When that man saw me naked his wooden pestle jumped up!