humor Archives - understand-culture

The Pillow

A rakugo performance begins with the makura , the pillow. The storyteller opens with small talk and short jokes before the actual story. In a guide for beginners in the magazine of the Agency for Cultural Affairs, a writer from the National Engei Hall explains: Makura o futte kankyaku no kimochi ga yawaraida tokoro de, hanashika wa hondai ni hairimasu. “When the makura has put the audience at ease, the storyteller enters the main story.”

A Kyoto City guide calls the makura the warm-up before the story. With it, the storyteller finds out what that day’s audience likes.

Ohitashi

Ohitashi, boiled greens, is a joke reply to hōrensō, spinach, written for the boss. Its syllables stand for okoru na, hitei suru na, tasukero, shiji o dase: do not get angry, do not reject, help, give instructions. In 2021, the news site Abema Times credited it to a Twitter user.

Crossing on Red Together

Akashingō minna de watareba kowakunai: if everyone crosses on a red light together, it is not scary. The line began as a dark gag by the comedy duo Two Beat, Beat Takeshi and Beat Kiyoshi. It was printed in a book of their jokes in 1980.

Japanese Wikipedia explains the phrase this way. Even something that is forbidden can be done without psychological resistance when it is done as a group. The phrase entered the eighth edition of the dictionary Sanseidō Kokugo Jiten in 2021.

Kyoto Compliments

Okosan, piano jōzu ni naraharimashita nā (お子さん、ピアノ上手にならはりましたなぁ): your child has become good at the piano. In Kyoto, this is said to be a neighbor’s way of asking for the playing to stop.

Hiroi ouchi de sodachihatta n ya nē (広いお家で育ちはったんやねぇ): you must have grown up in a big house. Said to mean that a voice is too loud.

The news site J-CAST gave both examples in 2025.

The Apology King

The film Shazai no ōsama (The Apology King) opened in Japan on September 28, 2013. Abe Sadao plays Kuroshima Yuzuru, who runs the Tokyo Apology Center and helps clients out of trouble by apologizing. In the end, he saves Japan with the ultimate apology, one that goes beyond dogeza, kneeling with the forehead to the ground.

The film was directed by Mizuta Nobuo from a screenplay by Kudō Kankurō. It earned 2.18 billion yen.

Anonymous Verses

In the eighth month of 1334, an anonymous text was posted on the riverbank at Nijō in Kyoto. It opens: Konogoro miyako ni hayaru mono, youchi, gōtō, nise rinji. What is in fashion in the capital these days: night raids, robbery, forged imperial orders. It mocks the disorder under the new Kenmu government. Its only surviving copy is in the Kenmu nenkanki.

In 1853, a comic verse is said to have mocked the arrival of Perry’s ships: Taihei no nemuri o samasu jōkisen, tatta shihai de yoru mo nerarezu. Jōkisen, a fine tea, wakes us from the sleep of peace. Just four cups, and no sleep at night. Jōkisen sounds like the word for steamship.

Salaryman Senryū

Since 1987, the life insurer Dai-ichi Life has invited the public to send in senryū, short comic verses, about life as an office worker. The 28th contest received 40,138 entries. A verse from 1998 reads: Kosuto daun sakebu anta ga kosuto daka. The one shouting for cost cuts is the one who costs too much.

The first-place verse of 2020 reads: Kaisha e wa kuru na to jōshi, ike to tsuma. My boss says do not come to the office. My wife says go.

Reading the Air as a Game

In 2008, the game company G-mode began releasing Kūki yomi (Reading the Air), a game that diagnoses how well the player reads the air. Later versions appeared for the Nintendo Switch and the PlayStation 4. G-mode says that more than ten million people have played the series.

Teachers of Blunders

In October 2014, TV Asahi began broadcasting Shikujiri Sensei: Ore mitai ni naru na!! (Teacher of Blunders: Don’t Become Like Me!!). In each episode, a celebrity who once failed badly teaches a class in a mock school.

The guest teacher explains the lessons drawn from that failure, so that the students can avoid making the same mistake.

Tea Over Rice in Kyoto

A popular belief holds that when a Kyoto host asks a guest, Bubuzuke demo dō dosu? (How about some rice with tea?), the real message is “Please go home.” The rakugo story Kyō no chazuke plays on the offer. An Osaka merchant is always offered rice with tea by a Kyoto customer’s wife but never served it. One day he arrives at lunchtime, determined to eat it.

The writer Nakamura Kiyoshi calls the “go home” custom an invention.