Culture as a Sign of the Past

[peristaltor]

Back in college, I worked as a student manager at By George, the cafeteria beneath the Undergraduate Library. One morning on my way to open the joint, I stumbled upon an interesting bit of paper. It gave me reading material for the walk

Comments

[cobalt999]

My god, what if you're buried inside the car and need to get off at an early stop?

I've always found the Japanese both remarkable and incomprehensible. One of my long-standing questions asks how, exactly, they came to be such an advanced industrial civilization in a sea of relatively undeveloped Asian neighbors. Add to that their bizarre density management, their schizophrenic clash of traditional and modern, their contradictory embrace of the serene and the epileptic, and on, and on. I'm not sure I would even understand the Japanese were I one myself.

[naruvonwilkins]

You pay attention to how many stops you're going to have to go when you get onboard, and don't filter too far back. If you wait, and stay at the edge, you're fine. These tricks are quick - you learn in just a few trips.

[darksasami]

You make some terrific points. But you keep using "suru" as an intensifier. I do not think it means what you think it means.

[peristaltor]

I paraphrased a bit from the original cartoon worksheet. The sheet went into the concept of "gaman," specifically noting that there is really comparable nothing in English. "Enduring hardships without complaint" would be close. The sheet specifically noted "suru" as intensifying the level of endurance. "Gaman suru" was "patient endurance like a warrior." Maybe "suru" has more to do with the warrior class? Dunno.

This was, as I said, a cartoon from 60 years ago that I saw twenty years ago. I don't remember anything else language-wise from that cartoon, but I committed "gaman suru" to memory. It struck my funnybone.

Again, I'm no expert in the Japanese language. It's entirely posible the word has gone out of favor (along with the warrior class) or changed meanings.

But, oh, boy, did that guy laugh! I got something right.

[darksasami]

Ok.

Just so you know, "suru" is the word "to be" or "to do."

[peristaltor]

Y'know, from a Zen perspective, that kinda makes sense.

Ordinary people have gaman; a warrior is gaman. That poetically raises endurance to a whole 'nuther level.

Just speculation.