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With all the threads on "ki" I wanted to share an interesting thing I found the other day. I live in Japan and the other day waiting in the dentist's office I was reading some of the books that were left out in the waiting room. There was an educational comic book that dealt with the situation of world hunger. A Japanese kid was magically transplanted to a country where there were starving children who explained their situation to him. One boy explained that they try to move as little as possible or they will lose "ki rokyu" of "ki power" due to their being so hungry.

I was thinking of how one might translate that sentence, but clearly none of the possible translations would include any kind of mystical meaning or any kind of meaning that would not be readily apparent to a Japanese elementary school student. I wonder if too many people are trapped by fantastical ideas of what ki might be.

Charles Hill

Quote:

Charles Hill wrote:

Hi Charles:

I think it's fairly common to state that you "have no qi/ki" if you didn't eat breakfast, for example, and run out of energy. Speaking of cartoons, when I was a kid there were some Japanese comics that had these characters who had bowl-like indentations on their heads that they had to keep filled with water (from the rivers or ponds that they came from?), so they had to be careful and keep their posture upright or they would lose their power if the water tipped out. I often wondered if that idea of leaning over would weaken your powers was related to ki beliefs. Anyone ever seen these characters?

FWIW

Mike

Many, MANY years ago when I first came to Japan I heard a great pick-up line...directed at me <happy, happy, joy, joy> :D

It was: "Our KI's mesh".

I have no idea if this Japanese woman made it up or if it is a translation of a common Japanese pick-up line.

--Michael

Quote:

Michael Stuempel wrote:

You should have said, "Ki's met!" or "Ki's me, you fool".

Quote:

Mike Sigman wrote:

Speaking of cartoons, when I was a kid there were some Japanese comics that had these characters who had bowl-like indentations on their heads that they had to keep filled with water (from the rivers or ponds that they came from?), so they had to be careful and keep their posture upright or they would lose their power if the water tipped out. I often wondered if that idea of leaning over would weaken your powers was related to ki beliefs. Anyone ever seen these characters?

You're talking about the mythical "kappa" creature:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kappa_(mythical_creature)

As far as the use of the term "ki" in everyday Japanese language, here's something I wrote up a while back:

http://www.aikiweb.com/language/ki_phrases.html

Quote:

Michael Stuempel wrote:

Nope -- not made up at all. Most likely, it was "ki ga au." Interesting enough, the "au" comes from "ai" as in "aikido"...

-- Jun

Quote:

Jun Akiyama wrote:

Nope -- not made up at all. Most likely, it was "ki ga au." Interesting enough, the "au" comes from "ai" as in "aikido"...

Thanks Jun...I guess I wasn't as unique as I had hoped, but at least she went through the trouble of trying to translate it for me :p

--Michael :D :cool:

So I went to the Wikipedia link Jun posted regarding kappa, and didn't find anything there. Googled, and came up with the following at about.com:

http://japanese.about.com/library/weekly/aa110400.htm

Scroll down and you'll find some info on the creature; including interesting tidbits such as "Kappa are known for dragging people into the water and pulling out their livers through their anuses."

The next mythical creature/beast/ghost on the list happens to be "rokurokubi," which made me think of my ex-wife...

Quote:

Jun Akiyama wrote:

As far as the use of the term "ki" in everyday Japanese language, here's something I wrote up a while back:

http://www.aikiweb.com/language/ki_phrases.html

Nice! How about "Denki"? In both Japanese and Chinese, qi/ki is ubiquitous and part of many words, indicating (a.) its importance in cultural/daily concepts and (b.) the original vagueness of this catch-all concept, IMO.

Regards,

Mike

Quote:

John Kuo wrote:

So I went to the Wikipedia link Jun posted regarding kappa, and didn't find anything there.

The closing parenthesis was left off of the URL. It's fixed above now.

-- Jun

Quote:

Mike Sigman wrote:

You should have said, "Ki's met!" or "Ki's me, you fool".

Maxi Priest's 1992 release For Real on Charisma Records was subtitled Honki. With the ki idiom being used so much in the language, it's like trying to tell a fish about water.