The Last Samurai

She said I could ask as many questions as I wanted because it was my birthday. I said who is my father? Sibylla said she was sorry, but she could not tell me. She said he was a travel writer and she had only met him once.

I think maybe he is somebody famous.

21 March, 1993

Today we each picked a character. We are going to do this every day until we know them all. There are 1945 and I already know three so if we do two a day we will know them all in 971 days. I wanted to do 20 a day because then we would be finished in three months but Sibylla said no it would be terrible to wake up thinking we had to do 20 whereas we could always do more if we felt like it.

Sibylla picked JIN person/hito person. JIN is the exogenous Chinese lexeme and hito is an indigenous Japanese lexeme.

I picked

yaku flute 17-stroke radical for musical instrument

Unfortunately Halpern does not seem to have any characters that use the radical.

After we had thoroughly mastered our characters I asked Sibylla where she met my father. Apparently Sibylla met my father at a party. Everyone at the party wanted to talk to him but he decided to talk to Sibylla and when she decided to leave the party he decided to leave too.

22 March, 1993

Sibylla picked DAI TAI (big)/ō/(big) and she wanted me to pick TAI huge/futo(i) (thick) because it would be easy to remember.

I picked

JI (imperial seal). I said if I could have

JI (that) she could have but she said we could do them tomorrow.

After breakfast I started going through Sugata Sanshiro. I coloured in Sugata Sanshiro wherever it appeared and also the characters for judo and jujitsu in the second half of the book. The ones I picked have not come up yet.

Today I asked Sibylla about my father but she said she did not want to talk about it. I said at least tell me his first name but she said No. I said she could just tell me the letter it starts with but she said No.

23 March, 1993

TAI huge/futo(i) (thick)

JI (that)

24 March, 1993

Today Sibylla picked SUI (water)/mizu (water). This time she wanted me to pick HYŌ (ice)/kōri (ice)/hi (ice)/kō(ru) (freeze)(!). I said I thought that was boring because it was almost exactly like mizu and Sibylla said that was the whole point. I said if she wanted to pick boring characters she could but I was picking

SŌ (algae, seaweed; elegant expression, rhetorical flourish)/mo (algae, duckweed, seaweed)

I said I would learn if we could also learn

KEN (cocoon)/mayu (cocoon)

25 March, 1993

HYŌ (ice)/kōri (ice)/hi (ice)/kō(ru) (freeze)

KEN (cocoon)/mayu (cocoon)

26 March, 1993

BOKU MOKU (tree, wood)/ki (tree, wood)

taiboku (gigantic tree)

SUI (jade green, emerald green, verdure; kingfisher)

27 March, 1993

SHIN (thick woods)/mori (thick woods)

shinshin deeply forested

KI (turtle, tortoise)/kame (turtle, tortoise)

After we had thoroughly mastered our characters we went to the library. I have been trying all week to find out my father’s name but Sibylla will not even tell me the first letter. I decided to borrow Kon Tiki.

28 March, 1993

Sibylla and I had another argument today about characters. Sibylla said if she picked KA (fire)/hi (fire) and I picked EN (flame,

blaze)/honō (flame, blaze) and if we bore in mind the fact that was the radical magarigawa for river we would understand in an intuitive way why SAI/wazawa(i) meant natural calamity/disaster and we would then see why jinsai was a manmade calamity and kasai was fire or conflagration. I said is Thor Heyerdahl my father? Sibylla said certainly not. I said well if you want to pick all those characters you can, are you picking them? Sibylla said aren’t you? I said if she got four including the radical for river I wanted

EI (shade, gloom)/kage(ri) (shade, gloom)

kanae (ritual cauldron, tripod vessel)/TEI (triangular)

BŌ (toad, frog) and

KO (tiger)/tora (tiger)

I said so are you picking four, and Sibylla said yes because she could not wait four days for the term jinsai which was obviously an indispensable euphemism for small child. I said in that case I wanted

GYAKU (cruel, savage, tyrannical, oppressive)/ shiita (geru) (oppress, persecute, tyrannise, grind down)

instead of

BŌ (toad, frog).

Sibylla said Dozo, jinsai. She obviously thought this was very funny.

29 March. Today I finished Kon Tiki. I have decided to learn how to clean a fish.

30 March. Today Sibylla and I practised cleaning a fish. Sibylla was rather annoyed because I did not want to eat it.

31 March. I have started reading Into the Heart of Borneo. I wanted to practise cleaning a chicken but Sibylla said she was not in the mood. We went to Ohio Fried Chicken instead.

1 April. Sibylla still did not feel like cleaning a chicken today. I asked if my father’s name was Ludo and she said no. I asked if it was David and she said no. I asked if it was Steven and she said no. I said well what is it then and she said Rumpelstiltskin. Then she suggested we go out to Ohio Fried Chicken. I asked if it was really Rumpelstiltskin and she said no.

2 April. Today I finished Into the Heart of Borneo. I have decided to practise sleeping on the floor. I have started Arabian Sands.

3 April. Today I was still reading Arabian Sands. It was interesting. The Bedou do not wear shoes. This is to harden their feet. I asked Sibylla if we could clean a chicken today and she said No.

25 April

I have read Kon Tiki, Into the Heart of Borneo, Arabian Sands, Journey into Danger!, Quest for Adventure!, The Snow Leopard, In Patagonia, Amazon Nights, To Caucasus, Tents on the Steppe, Igloo Winter, With Camel and Compass, Among Pygmies and After Alexander. Today I asked Sibylla if she ever read any of them. She was watching Seven Samurai and I thought she might drop a clue while her mind was otherwise occupied. It was at the part where Kyuzo fights the other samurai. She said she had read In Patagonia. After Kyuzo killed the other samurai she burst out laughing. She said she had never even met Bruce Chatwin. I asked if she had ever met any of the others. She turned and looked at me without a word and then she looked back at the TV.

I am a bit fed up with these Japanese characters as none of them turn up in Sugata Sanshiro. We have mastered 98 so far. A few of Sibylla’s characters have turned up but not one of mine. Also I have looked up most of the characters in the book now and some of them are not even in the dictionary! It is extremely frustrating.