Kanji & Japanese

Kanji are ideograms, that is, symbols used to represent things or ideas.

Kanji were developed in China in the 14th century BC, and then introduced to Japan at about 4th century AD.

Once in Japan, kanji were used to write Japanese phonetically, without regard to the original character’s meanings in Chinese language. That’s why kanji may coincide in Chinese and Japanese, but don’t necessarily mean the same thing.

Kanji are generally combined in groups, to form single more complex concepts.

Let’s see how this works, using the character that means “woman” as an example. Criteria that have been used to create these combinations seem very interesting to me, as they expose the inner thought of human mind… and show us that we are not so far away from ancient Japanese people.

The information above and the pictures below have been taken from the book “Illustrated Japanese Characters”, printed in Japan by JTB Publishing, Inc.

JFK: "We choose to go to the Moon"

I bring here a great political speech, delivered by J.F. Kennedy at Rice University in Houston, Texas, on september 12, 1962.

As Kennedy points out at the beginning, he comes to this place as an “honorary visiting professor”, to give the first lecture of the course.

And he makes use of this opportunity, to justify the exploration of the space (and, implicitly, the giant cost that comes along with it), in a very intelligent way.

The video is a bit long (though the speech itself, given the importance of the matter treated, can be considered as a short one). The essential of the speech can be found inside the 5 minutes time ranging from 4:00 to 9:20.

"We choose to go to the Moon in this decade, and do the other things; not because they are easy, but because they are hard. Because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills…"

Intro to Mathematics

Last august I bought this book, with the crazy hope of learning some math. I’ve already read it, but my level of math keeps being close to zero (or below). What did I expect for $ 7,98?

At least, I’ve discovered the lost link between native Australians and modern computers:

Seinfeld rents a car

I’ve never had any trouble renting a car. Every time I’ve made a reservation, the car was there and ready to go. But, in case someone should have some day a problem with a reservation, please find below the appropriate answer... taken from the sit-com “Seinfeld”, one of my favorites.

See, you know how to take the reservation, you just don’t know how to hold the reservation. And that’s really the most important part of the reservation… the holding. Anybody can just take them…

Rogers & Astaire: Swing Time

Making the impossible seem easy...

Sleepless in Seattle

A funny scene from the movie "Sleepless in Seattle":

Start

Today I’m starting a new blog, which will be written in English. As it's not my own language, readers should expect to find frequent mistakes, so I hope your understanding for this; any advice on grammar issues from English-speaking people, will be appreciated.

I don´t have a clear purpose with this blog, other than to use a bit what has become the language of the world, in a world-wide environment. It’s just an experiment, I don’t know where this blog is going to get. It might last, it might not, who knows... But as long as it gets, welcome everybody.