In Japanese, nouns often lack distinctions between singular and plural, thus a single word (spoken or written) can stand for one of something…or lots of somethings of a particular type: Japanese is efficient in that way, but then since it has enough squiggles and doohickies to remember, it’s good to take a break from the other squiggles and doohickies that indicate singularity, plurality…typos, and all of that. I was aware of this, but never really thought about it, as generally don’t go around thinking about the structure of written or spoken Japanese. I did think of it, briefly, as I also tried to think of something to say about this image. If you were to write the word “Geisha” in Kanji (the most…um…involved of Japan’s 3 writing systems) you’d only need two symbols, representing the two syllables. This mode of syllable-based expression spans all 3 of Japan’s writing systems: hiragana, katakana, and kanji. Each writing system is pretty fond of a particular aspect of speech/communication. Kanji…which gives you those two syllables for “geisha” is particularly well-suited for the expression of nouns, Japanese personal names, and the root forms of verbs and adjectives. Hiragana, one of the other two writing systems, is really good for inflectional endings, adjectives, and verbs; articles are also rendered in Hiragana. Katakana, the third system is used primarily for the expression of non-Japanese words. The easiest way to tell the difference between them is simple. Kanji looks like its Chinese antecedent. Hiragana looks like its Chinese antecedent with a curvature of the spine (quite a large number of Hiragana characters resemble hunch-back cats, and things like that) and Kanji has a habit of looking vaguely Korean in its simplicity, though it doesn’t have those circle-things that Korean writing is so enamored with. When you’re learning Japanese, you generally learn Hiragana and Katakana first: Kanji is one of those writing systems taught on a need-to-know basis; and according to rumor, there are kanji-characters that even Japanese people don’t know. I brought all of this up because in the kanji writing system, the word “geisha” spelled with two really pretty syllables, translates, literally to “art-doer.” I just love literal translations! The woman on a wall (shared with a dragon and a hockey fan) doesn’t look much like an art-doer, though I could be wrong. There’s something about her that reminds me of…well…the late Amy Winehouse by way of an even later art-doer who was already old, by the time 14th-century Okinawa kicked into full swing. This anomalous geisha is apparently fond of baseball in general and the Chicago Cubs in particular. Whether or not she’s a Cubs fan is almost immaterial, since she at least has a Chicago Cubs fan. That counts for something. Right? This anomalous geisha (with a Chicago-sports souvenir fan) is also a very atypical geisha. In the geisha tradition, one wears stylized white makeup (with a really nice pattern on the nape of the neck) and there is no cleavage. The absence of powdery-white face-makup, and the presence of mammary-distraction (for some) is the surest sign that this isn’t your traditional nice-girl performance hostess. The post-modern geisha depicted here is the third part of a viaduct-spanning image that involves a rather self-satisfied dragon, and a very Ukiyō-e hockey fan. She’s not your traditional geisha; she’s in possession of her very own baseball fan, and she has something of an underbite. In short, she a marvel, and there’s probably a really-complicated way to write exactly what she is, in Japanese…but as most of my Japanese is relegated to memorized sushi-bar menus, I won’t attempt to express what she is in a language other than English. As always: thank you for viewing and reading, and commenting, and I hope you’re all having a great day.