Caws Radio

That's great, but kanji cook?

This term I am taking a course in Kanji, and after two classes I am beginning to question the intelligence of those crazy Japanese. Never before have I heard of such a confusing and ultimately unecessary alphabet. Japan already has two alphabets they crafted with their own hands, and these seem to work just fine for all their language needs, but they still hang on to this complex set of Chinese characters. This is the best analogy I can come up with to try to convey the baffling concept of kanji: Imagine Americans incorporating ancient cave drawings into everyday writing. Instead of writing the 'o' in "gasoline", you would draw an intricate picture of a figure standing next to a smoking fireplace. The picture represents the sound 'o' but also the sound 'ba" and the phrase "Bob's your uncle". So why not just use the letter 'o'? For two very good reasons: #1, because cave drawings are old, and old things are important, and #2, because writing everything in modern letters would be too simple. I'm dead fucking serious. These are the only explanations I have obtained for why Japanese people use kanji characters.

But, hey, it's not my country, and I'm just glad I was able to write this whole entry with the warm, friendly, 26 letters of my alphabet.