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Recently, when I logged onto JapanesePod101.com to listen to some podcasts, a photo with big, bold, striking kanji stopped me in my tracks.
The lesson was about 過労死 (karōshi), “death by overworking,” but none of those kanji appeared in the photo. I knew 残業 (to remain + work) as zangyō, “overtime.” And I knew 風 (FŪ, kaze) in several ways, often having to do with wind. But how did 風 factor into overtime? And what was 呂敷?
Because the characters appeared in a photo, I couldn’t copy and paste them into Breen, and somehow all other methods of kanji investigation failed me. What would the radical of 呂 be? It couldn’t be 口, could it? (Yes, it could and it is.) I refused to think that was possible, so I didn’t even try looking it up that way, instead preferring (why???) to flail around with utterly ineffective alternative methods. I got nowhere.
Searching for 敷 in Breen finally did the trick, but only after a loooong time, because I had assumed that this character would be a Jōyō kanji, which is true, only Breen hadn’t classified it as such, which hampered my search.
Anyway, I eventually deciphered 風呂敷 as furoshiki, which means “wrapping cloth” or “cloth wrapper,” which is what the ever-so-practical people on the resource-limited Japanese islands have used to wrap presents, purchases, and whatever else might need carrying.
Shibori Omiyage
Credit: Glennis Dolce
Shibori artist Glennis Dolce makes incredible silk shibori cloths for
a variety of applications, including furoshiki.
The kanji for shibori is 絞り.
Once I had that answer in hand, a host of new questions popped up, and they proved so absorbing that I never found a chance to listen to the “death by overwork” podcast that day. Each question sent me off in a new direction. Let’s see if we can follow all the threads without becoming hopelessly tangled in them.
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～What Does a Wrapping Cloth Have to Do with Overworking? …
～If 風呂敷 Is a Cloth Wrapper,
What’s a Large 風呂敷? …
Here’s the most important thread—your Verbal Logic Quiz!
Furoshiki Bottle Wrap
Credit: Glennis Dolce
