Trivia (まめちしき)

Trivia in Japanese is mamechishiki (まめちしき), or "a little knowledge about beans," which is an interesting way to look at knowing insignificant facts about stuff. One of my roommates is a big Jeopardy! fan and has been watching the show religiously since he was a kid and is in fact very good at trivia. He knows a lot of the others and would be able to be competitive on the show, unlike myself. Unfortunately I have never been very good at remembering all the British kings in succession, or the world countries and capitals, or songs of the 1970's, or religious epithets. I do respect those who have all of that knowledge and the tremendous amount of dedication they put into memorizing all those figures, but my view is that there is a lot of information in this world; we're not computers. My brain certainly doesn't act like one. 

It is very depressing, however, to go to a Trivia Night with friends and not know any of the answers and feel like a total zero; even sometimes when I know the answer (that the Canadian national animal is the beaver) I don't access it in time or get nervous or something and miss it. Just not a trivia guy! Not to derail those who know trivia, but I think it's much more important to apply the important facts of life to applicable situations and learn from the facts we do know than to focus on, you know, *by definition* things that are not that high in importance. 



What I do like are idioms and proverbs/ wise sayings, like "early bird gets the worm," or "spill the beans," except in both Japanese and Chinese they're often expressed in 4-word idioms, so that each phrase just rolls off the tongue and it packs in the maximum amount of meaning into a short amount of words. The most apt recent one has been 高嶺の花 (Takane no hana), literally a flower on a high peak, but basically meaning "someone/something out of one's league" (it's funny how all languages share the same ideas/ concepts) and 言わぬが花 (Iwanu ga hana), meaning, "not speaking is the flower." Totally reflects the Japanese culture of understanding without verbal communication, just by understanding what the other person is feeling through 以心伝心(ishin denshin) (there's another one!), with the slight nuance of "there's some things that are better left unsaid." Notice how the Japanese love proverbs/ idioms with central symbols like heart, (心) and flower (花 ). 

Fantasize on, 

Robert Yan