ハイサイ！

[mistakenolive]

Hi and welcome! It's cool to have someone so knowledgeable around. Speaking of which, I have some questions..
1. You mentioned Arthur/Rory being based on shisa-I never knew Japan had it's own lion-dogs! I had assumed the stone lion-dog object in the game was suppose to be Chinese, but is it actually supposed to be a shisa?
2. What exactly is the Stone tablet? Anything famous or IRL? Any idea what it says, if it's legible to you? (Graphic on the webpage I linked is kinda small, lol) I'd be happy to know what other signs mean too, but there's a lot in game and I don't know if you want to commit the time to that, lol. I'm just curious and would love to know more context of objects, if you have any to volunteer.

Thanks, and again welcome!

 

[Hatsushimo]

Hi and welcome! It's cool to have someone so knowledgeable around. Speaking of which, I have some questions..
1. You mentioned Arthur/Rory being based on shisa-I never knew Japan had it's own lion-dogs! I had assumed the stone lion-dog object in the game was suppose to be Chinese, but is it actually supposed to be a shisa?
2. What exactly is the Stone tablet? Anything famous or IRL? Any idea what it says, if it's legible to you? (Graphic on the webpage I linked is kinda small, lol) I'd be happy to know what other signs mean too, but there's a lot in game and I don't know if you want to commit the time to that, lol. I'm just curious and would love to know more context of objects, if you have any to volunteer.

Thanks, and again welcome!

Thank you for your kind welcome! I'm happy to answer your questions to the best of my ability.

1. Yes! Arthur (アーサー) is definitely a Shisa (シーサー; notice the spelling similarity?) parody. His house has two "lion-dog statues" side-by-side and his music of choice is K.K. Faire (ハイサイけけ in Japanese), which is based on traditional Ryukyuan music. The beach flooring and jungle background are also references to the tropical nature of Okinawa, while the Chinese architectural style of his home's exterior is a reference to Chinese influence over traditional Ryukyuan architecture. His catchphrase is even ナハッ (Nahah), as a reference to Naha, capital city of Okinawa prefecture! (Perhaps that's where "capital" came from in his English counterpart...?)
   
   However! The lion-dog statues are not, in fact, Shisa. They are based on the very similar Shishi. Shisa are differentiated from Shishi in that they are exclusively Ryukyuan. In Ryukyuan culture, Shisa virtually always come in pairs -- the left shisa has a closed mouth "to keep good spirits in", while the right shisa has an open mouth "to scare off evil spirits". It is for this reason that Arthur has two statues in his house rather than just one. There are no shisa statues in Atsumori/ACNH to my knowledge, so that was their closest replacement, nahah.
   
   
2. The stone tablet is a 石碑 (sekihi), which translates as "stone monument" or even "stele" in English. Markers like these exist all over Japan to commemorate various things, including but not limited to gravesites -- of course, they're not explicitly Japanese in origin (as many cultures have equivalent monuments), but the design definitely resembles the Japanese ones most closely. As to the text, I'm not sure what it says, either, haha. It's a bit too blurry for me to decipher without really sitting down to think about it, and AC does have a penchant for having text on signs that looks like it says something in a given language, but doesn't, haha.
   
   Maybe someday I'll sit down and write up a guide for what the various Japanese items say/may be saying, but for now the thing I'm most interested in bringing to the attention of western players is the way in which the personalities differ in the JP script!

 

[Cutesy]

Welcome to the forum! Your knowledge and love of Japan is super inspiring!!! I majored in Japanese and Chinese back in college, but due to some personal issues I’ve very unfortunately lost interest slowly over the years.

Seeing how you passionately explain the Japanese references in AC reminds me of my old self and is definitely a bit of a wake up call. Please continue giving it your all!

 

[Hatsushimo]

Welcome to the forum! Your knowledge and love of Japan is super inspiring!!! I majored in Japanese and Chinese back in college, but due to some personal issues I’ve very unfortunately lost interest slowly over the years.

Seeing how you passionately explain the Japanese references in AC reminds me of my old self and is definitely a bit of a wake up call. Please continue giving it your all!

You flatter me with your kind words...thank you very much for your praises. There's a lot that's wonderful about Japanese culture (like all cultures, really), and I just can't get enough of learning about it and the language.

Although I'm sorry for the circumstances which led you to lose motivations in your studies, I'm happy that if, even in a small way, my dorkiness could inadvertently inspire a bit of healthy introspection for you and your journey. I'll keep doing my (ganbari)best, and hope sincerely for you to do the same. Best wishes, and thank you for the heartfelt welcome!!

 

[Luciaaaa]

Welcome!

 

[Hatsushimo]

Welcome!

Thank you very much!

 

[The Hidden Owl]

Haisai!! Welcome to TBT!

I was just in Okinawa last fall semester and I cannot wait to go back. Japan is such a great place. I hope you get to go back soon ^^

 

[Hatsushimo]

Haisai!! Welcome to TBT!

I was just in Okinawa last fall semester and I cannot wait to go back. Japan is such a great place. I hope you get to go back soon ^^

Haisai~ Thank you very much for your kind welcome!

Whoah! A fellow traveller of Okinawa. I'd love to hear about where in the prefecture you went, sometime. And thank you very much -- I can't wait to be home in Japan, heheh.

Post automatically merged: May 22, 2020

I studied abroad in Tokyo a few years back but didn't get the chance to visit any of the animal hotspots on my bucketlist (fox village, Nara park, cat island, the hotsprings with monkeys, etc) so I originally called my island きつね村 and planned to make it full of wolves. But then I got Lopez in my campsite and I didn't know AC had deer since there weren't any in wild world but I fell in love with the design so I restarted 2 weeks in, and named my island after Nara to tide me over until I can finally visit the real thing IRL I prefer cats and wolves but I live in the east coast and we have TONS of deer so I love them too (I'm sure Philly is the same)

I just realised I hadn't responded to your previous message! I'll do that now.

I do hope that, when you return to Japan, you're able to visit all of them -- Rabbit Island (Okunoshima) is worth considering too, if you like rabbits (and a whole lot of them)!

And thanks for telling me the story of your village; I'm happy the reset was worth it -- I haven't really played much AC since Wild World myself, so all of the improvements (and massive expansion of the villager cast!) have been a delight to get used to.

 

[chrisbeta03]

はじめまして、はつしもさん！！私は３年前に日本に住んでいました。神奈川県に住んでいました。日本の丁寧な人と美味しい食べ物が恋しいです。2年間日本語を勉強しましたが、私の知識は少ないです。卒業して1日後に日本に戻りたいです。このフォーラムに日本代表をご紹介いただきありがとうございます。よろしくお願いします。

 

[mistakenolive]

Thank you for your kind welcome! I'm happy to answer your questions to the best of my ability.

1. Yes! Arthur (アーサー) is definitely a Shisa (シーサー; notice the spelling similarity?) parody. His house has two "lion-dog statues" side-by-side and his music of choice is K.K. Faire (ハイサイけけ in Japanese), which is based on traditional Ryukyuan music. The beach flooring and jungle background are also references to the tropical nature of Okinawa, while the Chinese architectural style of his home's exterior is a reference to Chinese influence over traditional Ryukyuan architecture. His catchphrase is even ナハッ (Nahah), as a reference to Naha, capital city of Okinawa prefecture! (Perhaps that's where "capital" came from in his English counterpart...?)
   
   However! The lion-dog statues are not, in fact, Shisa. They are based on the very similar Shishi. Shisa are differentiated from Shishi in that they are exclusively Ryukyuan. In Ryukyuan culture, Shisa virtually always come in pairs -- the left shisa has a closed mouth "to keep good spirits in", while the right shisa has an open mouth "to scare off evil spirits". It is for this reason that Arthur has two statues in his house rather than just one. There are no shisa statues in Atsumori/ACNH to my knowledge, so that was their closest replacement, nahah.
   
   
2. The stone tablet is a 石碑 (sekihi), which translates as "stone monument" or even "stele" in English. Markers like these exist all over Japan to commemorate various things, including but not limited to gravesites -- of course, they're not explicitly Japanese in origin (as many cultures have equivalent monuments), but the design definitely resembles the Japanese ones most closely. As to the text, I'm not sure what it says, either, haha. It's a bit too blurry for me to decipher without really sitting down to think about it, and AC does have a penchant for having text on signs that looks like it says something in a given language, but doesn't, haha.
   
   Maybe someday I'll sit down and write up a guide for what the various Japanese items say/may be saying, but for now the thing I'm most interested in bringing to the attention of western players is the way in which the personalities differ in the JP script!

Sorry for not responding earlier, and thank you for the answers!

For some dumb reason it never clicked where I've heard haisai before, and that KK Faire's Japanese name is haisaikeke. Hai Sai Oji-san! I love Shoukichi Kina, first heard of him when I... acquired the Peppermint Teahouse CD. For YEARS I've dreamed of an AMV of Jing Jing set to Samurai Champloo, but I have no real knowledge about video editing to make it happen.