Read A Tale for the Time Being Online
Authors: Ruth Ozeki
142
.
shibui
(
)—cool, chic.
143
.
moe
(
)—sprouting, budding. Slang for an adorable,
crushworthy manga-type girl.
144
.
bish
ō
nen
(
)—beautiful youth, beautiful boy.
145
. A club or bar with bishonen hosts who serve drinks and entertain female customers.
146
. Beauty, you walk on corpses of dead men you mock. / Among your stores of gems, Horror is not the least . . .
147
.
Tetsu no Ame
(
)—Typhoon of Steel (also Battle of
Okinawa), which resulted in the highest number of casualties in the Pacific Theater during World War II. More than 100,000 Japanese troops were killed or captured, or committed suicide. Allied
casualties numbered over 65,000. Somewhere between 42,000 and 150,000 Okinawan civilians were also killed or wounded, or committed suicide (between one-tenth and one-third of the indigenous
Okinawan population).
148
.
chikan
(
)—masher, molester. A man who sexually
gropes a woman in public.
149
.
Sensei no saigo yo. Hayaku okaeri
.—Sensei’s last moments. Come quickly.
150
.
kyakuhiki
(
)—a tout; lit. “customer” +
“pulling.”
151
.
zangy
ō
(
)—overtime.
152
.
Yokkata
.
Ma ni atta ne.
—I’m glad . . . You made it in time.
153
.
seiza
(
)—formal kneeling posture.
154
.
Hai, Sensei. D
ō
zo
—Here, Sensei. Please . . .
155
.
matsugo-no-mizu
(
)—last-minute water.
156
.
sakasamizu
(
)—upside-down water. Normally a bath
is filled with hot water first, and then the cold is added.
157
. mu-mu (
?)—not, naught, nothing, nil, non-, un-.
158
.
muy
ū
(
?)—nonbeing.
159
.
y
ū
(
?)—being,
existence, antonym of mu.