Fauns and one-eyed goblins

[rachelmanija]

We have all left Shunkoin and Kyoto, either to return to Los Angeles or spend some time elsewhere in Japan. Another student, Cari, and I are now on Miyajima, an island off the coast of Hiroshima. It's only accessible by ferry, and in the morning people who live on the island take the ferry to work or high school. The island is larger than I

Comments

[desperance]

(The word for 'four' sounds like the word for 'death.')

Also in China, also in Korea. You'd think somebody would've noticed. (The cheap hotel in Seoul just didn't have a fourth floor, to save people freaking out in the lift; the expensive hotel did of course have a fourth floor, but the lift numbers went 1 - 2 - 3 - F - 5. Which I thought was really clever, actually.)

[lnhammer]

Well, the Japanese and Koreans borrowed the word for 4 from the Chinese. So it's more that the contagion was spread around.

---L.