Re: Metaphors
don't know a whole lot about japanese, but asian in general, tends to use lots of metaphor in their normal communication. reminded me of a star trek episode where capt picard and crew encountered an alien race whose language is pure metaphor. the translator couldn't translate.
if you look at the name of the taiji form sequence, then you have things like "Buddha's warrior pounds mortar", "Jade maiden working her loom", "white crane spread wings" and so on (why couldn't aikido techniques have names like that, since ikkyo, nikkyo,...etc are kinda boring). who would have thought those describe movements of a form? now if you put those sort of things into bad, non rhyme poems, then you got a bunch of doka that talked about god, kami and so on and so forth. bloody confusing! which got folks who really want to believe in things interpret as loving and harmony, when he could have discuss about how to pound you into the pavement and make you one with the earth.
|