02.06
Japundit has an interesting post about how the Japanese are not satisfied with only one word for rice. There are many ways to say rice in Japanese, including several not mentioned in the article.
I remember once at my high school, the teacher was translating something involving “rice” from English to Japanese, and he translated it as gohan, (??), which is cooked rice that you eat, instead of kome, (?), which is uncooked rice. Since I have to pretend that I don’t know Japanese, even though the students know I do, I had to wait until after the lesson to correct him. The students didn’t get the correct information, but his delicate “face” was preserved. 
(Just another case of how blindly following a set of arbitrary rules is rather idiotic and counterproductive at times, but I digress…)
Rice, like tea, is a connoisseur’s dream come true in Japan. Rice is actually a grass plant, of which there are thousands of varieties throughout the world. In Japan, the most famous rice is from Niigata Prefecture (???). It is called koshi hikari, (?????). Interestingly enough, the same rice plant has been exported to other countries, including the United States, so you might have seen a container of “American Koshihikari” at your local supermarket. If you get the chance, give it a try. Although I am not familiar with the variety grown in California, the koshihikari in Japan is wonderful.
For More Information
- Check out Wikipedia’s article on Japanese Rice.
- Japan-guide.com has information on Japanese rice, though it is not as detailed as the Wikipedia article.
- Here is a list of many popular Japanese dishes, including rice, complete with pictures! Also from japan-guide.com.
If they are that anal about it, they could always translate it “cooked rice” and “uncooked rice”. Of course that has no functional meaning in the target language (English), but it’s not like anyone there is really interested in learning English. The ones that are leave the country to study. But then, you already know this.
And just want to say thanks again for this gigantic text. It’s so relaxing for my old eyes. Oh, for my younger days when my eyes were better.
Re: #2: Thanks for your feedback. You use IE, right? As I think I told you before, I think this is unique to Internet Explorer. But I was surprised when I got on IE6 and saw that the sidebar “float” problem was happening again. I naively thought this had gone away, but I never check my site on IE. Actually, when I checked my site on IE, the text didn’t look that big. What size do you have your default text set on? On every browser I tested on, the default text is tiny! Anyway, I am going to try to fix this again, but it is hard for me to keep tabs on IE, since I rarely use it, other than for quick emailing at work.
I guess it is time to change my site a bit, anyway…
@Killdeer; (Re: #1): Well, first of all, I’m not sure why you say there is “no functional difference” between cooked and uncooked rice. If you really think that, then I will fix you a bowl of uncooked rice next time I see you. Clearly, there is a difference: cooked rice is edible, and uncooked rice is not.
I understand where you are coming from, but frankly, I don’t agree that this is a case of Japanese being “anal” about rice. The point of the article I linked to was that every social group has its own values and frame of reference, which determines how its language develops. For the Japanese, tea and rice are very important commodities, and they have taken great pains to categorize them. I also think there are a couple of historical reasons why there are so many words for “rice” in Japanese.
First of all, for centuries, rice was used as a form of payment. As you may be aware, the rank of a samurai or government official was measured by the amount of rice he was alotted each year. The more rice you received, the higher your prestige and power. Here is a Wikipedia article about this. If you study Japanese history, you will often hear about how many koku an official received. This was traditionally defined as the amount of rice one person could eat in a year. Obviously, the more rice an official received, the more people he could feed, which meant that he could support more servants and retainers. This was a very important legal and financial matter, so it was handled with all the care that a standard legal contract would receive today.
Also, as you know very well, various local dialects and regions developed their own words and expressions for rice. As I wrote in this article, there are thousands of varieties of rice plants, and people have always valued the subtle difference of taste and texture among rice plants throughout Japan. That’s why people pay more for higher grade rice. It is no different that preferring a vintage or wine, or a cut of meat, or even a flavor of soda that you think is more delicious or refreshing. (Or how about ramen…or digestive biscuits???)
Personally, when I buy rice, I want to know where it came from, and what grade it is. The same goes for tea. Just because people back home might think “tea is tea,” that doesn’t make it true. There are even more kinds of tea than rice, and I definitely have preferences!
Regarding the last part, about Japanese people not wanting to study English: We’ve had this discussion so many times, and we have been “in the trenches,” but for the benefit of anyone reading this, let me just say this. I agree that most Japanese are not serious about learning English, no matter how much they claim to like English. But there are some people who really want to learn. And not everybody can pick up and leave. We were lucky in that regard. In this day of Youtube and podcasts, you can achieve a high level of fluency without leaving home, if you study smart. (This guy is a good example!) That is where they usually fail. (As do most people who try to learn languages.) Learning a language is as much a journey of the heart as it is an exercise in memorization.
Everyone complains that Japanese are too vague, but then when they try to be specific, people criticize that, too. No one gets more frustrated here than me, but in this case, don’t you think you might be being a bit too hard on them?