Moo-Wee - Or how I'm learning Japanese

[Not Afraid]

When we returned from Japan, one of my favorite stories to tell was this one:

Lost in Translation - Part 2

While shopping in Akihabara "Electric Town" we were approached by a woman asking us if we would be on camera, a movie, film (using all of the English words she could think of for what they were about to do). She said "3 minutes" would be all it would take. We agreed and proceeded to wait for the crew to arrive. Meanwhile, she recruited 4 teen Japanese boys to join us. It took longer than 3 minutes for the crew to arrive, but she assured us, most apologetically, that they would get started soon.

The camera, actor, actress in French Maid costume, and sound guys soon surrounded us and we got our lines. We were to say Moo-wee excitedly (with intensity) when we were queued. What does that mean, we asked. We were told, with not a lot of assuredness that "Ummmmm, it means I like manga". Well, OK, then.

We all preformed like Oscar winners, saying MOO-WEE on cue and with intensity. All Californians can act, can't they?

So, later, we are returning to the train station, I look up to see a store called My Way and it dawns on me.........My Way is probably pronounced as moo-wee in Japanese. Hey, maybe somewhere on some late night Japanese infomercial you will see 4 very white faces speaking Japanese.

As a side note, apparently while being filmed, the hood of my raincoat was filling up with water. Later, in a toy store, I sat down rest my weary feet and water suddenly spilled out all over me. I couldn't, for the life of me, figure out what happened. Maybe I was on a trick sofa? It was lime green leather after all. Thankfully H figured it out and we emptied the rest of my little Kappa bowl. (Sorry for the strange reference to Japanese mythology.)

Chris references it as well in his LJ.

So, I have been continuing my curious studies of curious Japanese culture. After seeing the Ecstasy Exhibition at MOCA I started doing a bit more reading about contemporary Japanese artists. The artist Murakami (not the writer) caught my eye for his art, his curatorial ability and his grasp of contemporary Japanese art. So, I bought an exhibition catalog of a show he curated: Little Boy : The Arts of Japan's Exploding Subculture


In the front of the book is a nice little list of Japanese Key Words, some of which I know and other which are new to me. A few of these key words:

Kawaii: "cute"
Kawaiso: "pitiful" related to kawaii
Otaku: "geek" or obsessed fans
Moe: literally "bursting into bud", a rarefied pseudo-love for certain fictional characters and their related embodiments. Pronounced Moo-eee.

WAIT! MOE! MOO-WEE. That's what we were told to say in front of that store in Akihabara! They said it meant "like Manga". Well, sort of.

It turns out we were expressing our "rarefied pseudo-love for certain fictional characters and their related embodiments" in the middle of a street somewhere in Tokyo.

Knowledge comes in strange little trickles and blows.