stamps in Japan

movies

2012-01-30T06:47:00.000-08:00

Did a little stamp trading on Saturday, learned a lot about how to better organize my collection. Heard one other thing which perplexed me: my stamp friend watches movies while he works on his collection. My immediate reaction was that I cannot do that - when I watch a movie, I want to give it my full attention. And when I work on stamps, I give them my full attention.

That night, I sat down in the living room to do some long-neglected work on my collection. As luck would have it, my family started watching a movie (yes, I should have done it in my room). Forrest Gump. It had been a long while since I had seen it and I found myself watching portions of it, then doing stamps, and so on, back and forth.

Might have to try that again.

... and hello USA

2012-01-19T07:49:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year from Kansas. We shipped almost 130 boxes by sea and landed safely in Kansas. I have already gone to a meeting of the local stamp club and it was quite nice.

More importantly I set up my first trade - a lot of my Japanese duplicate stamps for Chinese and Taiwanese stamps. Strange but good setting, an old family style bakery four times as big as any donut shop in Japan. We two stamp traders were the only customers until the local yakkers came in, eyeing the stamp action from afar as they drank coffee and talked about the weather and football.

Anyway, my stamp world has expanded rapidly and it looks like much more to come.

Good-bye Japan...

2011-12-01T21:12:00.000-08:00

...and hello USofA. Yes, we finally made it, and are now spending our first night in an apartment here in Kansas (one state below my home of Nebraska).

More notes once things have settled down a bit. I made it over with most of my stamp albums but had to leave one in Japan at the last minute, will bring it over next time I am in Japan.

leaving Japan

2011-11-13T03:41:00.000-08:00

Less than two weeks left in Japan, and every day seems to get shorter (and the list of things to do gets longer!).

We sent 115 boxes by surface mail out of Yokohama but should have sent more. We are now sending the few remaining boxes via Japan Post. I saw these recent stamp releases at the local post office. I am looking forward to finding collectors in the US who want Japanese stamps.

Don't forget 節水 !!

2011-10-09T20:42:00.000-07:00

I love this stamp, from a while back in Taiwan, encouraging people to reduce both water and electric usage. Save our natural resources!

Here in Japan, because of the threat of power blackouts from Tokyo's over-reliance on the nuclear plant which was damaged by a tsunami which followed the March 11 earthquake, everyone has become quite conscious about saving electricity.

That is great and I am happy to see so many examples in everyday life. But I think that feeling will fade soon. It is always good to conserve electricity, not just due to a temporary threat of black-out. And the same with water.

2011-10-05T05:40:00.000-07:00

Shinjuku stamp center

2011-10-05T05:34:00.000-07:00

it was so close all these years and I only just discovered it. I stumbled upon a small stamp shop in Nakano Broadway amid all the manga and anime and characters and such. Not much there for me, but the attendant was quite nice and drew me a map to Shinjuku Stamp Center.

Made it there within a week. Several small dealers all gathered in one space, too much to take in on my short visit. But I found the sold-by-weight Japanese commemoratives featured in the last post.....

stamps by weight

2011-10-02T19:24:00.000-07:00

I love this idea -- buying postage stamps in bulk by weight, rather than by number. Nothing valuable in the bag, but hundreds and hundreds of commemoratives, good for trading with people from other countries. The only problem, of course, is time, the time needed to soak the stamps off the paper / envelopes.

I just finished the last 100 or so in the bag, so I'll be heading to 新宿切手センター again before long.

trading postage stamps (2)

2011-08-18T20:53:00.001-07:00

I have weekly English lessons with a wonderful Japanese grandmother. She lives near one of the US military bases in town and took lessons for years from the wives of US military men. We have studied together about two years.

About a year ago, the subject of collecting used postage stamps came up. It turns out her husband (like many Japanese men of his generation) was an amateur collector years back. She told her grandson about my collection and he seemed interested. So I started giving her stamps to give to them each lesson. It is just my overstock, extra copies, and I give two of each stamp -- that way grandfather and grandson won't argue over who gets each stamp.

A little while back, the grandson (at grandmother's urging, no doubt) made a small gift for me -- he drew this on a hand-held fan and I quite liked it. For English-language readers, it basically says "thanks for the stamps. I especially like stamps with animals on them".

Unfortunately, most of my extras are boring pictures (for kids): boring dead people, boring buildings. But I am trying to slip in an animal or two among the buildings and portraits.

viva la france!

2011-08-11T19:42:00.001-07:00

Had meant to post this one on or near July 14 for Bastille Day but it slipped through the cracks (work work work).

I received a nice assortment of older French stamps from an American with whom I trade stamps. I have a strange feeling all the time, as I have many older stamps in my collection from when I was a child, and that collection is buried in my father's basement in the US. Now I am getting a second collection going, all over here in Japan. I am waiting for the day when I can finally unite these two collections.

日本語 hints:

slip through the cracks = fall by the wayside - something I thought about doing but never accomplished

strange hobbies

2011-07-17T04:44:00.000-07:00

The number of martial artists who collect postage stamps is surely quite small. I am one of those few. It was a childhood hobby (stamp collecting) which I resurrected about three decades later when my daughter seemed interested.

Oh, she was quite interested....for a few months. She still likes to sift through the new arrivals and pick out the best ones, but that is as far as it goes. So her interest has faded, but I am continuing.

Japanese hints (sorry, no kanji -- my japanese character input seems to have temporarily quit.....)

martial artist = budoka, (budo-baka may be more accurate), bujutsuka

resurrected = brought back to life or, more loosely, started again

decade = 10 years

sift through = sort through, pick and choose from among a large group

62 yen stamps

2011-06-25T04:57:00.000-07:00

Had a sudden deluge of 62-yen stamps, a short-lived series in Japanese stamp history. As usual, nothing rare, but certainly some of them were uncommon for amateur collectors like me.

Anybody who wants to do some stamp trading, please get in touch with me!!

little time for stamps

2011-04-10T06:20:00.000-07:00

Not much has changed since last post. Tokyo life is about the same after the earthquake and tsunami - supplies of various goods go up and down but it is generally easier to find almost everything. The focus is still on areas that are having real hardship -- as it should be.

Meanwhile I set aside a few minutes here and there to work on the stamps. But right now, there are too many other pressing projects.

There is no special meaning to the bird stamps. Nor did I set out to start a bird-based collection. These are just a group I put together by chance.

日本語 hints:
easy vocabulary this time, the only hard word might be "pressing"
pressing - in this context, the meaning is "very important, something I need to do right now"

no time for stamps

2011-04-03T17:50:00.000-07:00

These are hard days with no time for stamps. I am finding a couple here and there but right now, everyone is focused on returning to normal lives after the earthquake / tsunami / radiation.

We have it easy in Tokyo where the damage was light. We only have to deal with inconvenience here, trying to buy things for everyday life.

Meanwhile, I will offer a few vocabulary words related to earthquakes:

日本語 hints:

放射能 radiation, radioactivity
震源地 epicenter
余震 aftershock

earthquake

2011-03-16T21:06:00.000-07:00

Of course everyone knows about the terrible earthquake that struck Japan last week, and the damage from the tsunami which followed. And now we are all worried about nuclear radiation or fallout.

Last Sunday we met some friends and I got a few new stamps, birds from Hong Kong, and they have become a kind of symbol of hope for me. Let's all hope the situation improves soon and that more people can be saved.

日本語 hints
an earthquake strikes - this is the usual collocation, noun + verb
震源地　= epicenter
余震　　= aftershock

no time, no time!!

2011-02-25T20:25:00.001-08:00

so many stamps calling out for my attention, but no time to give them the attention they deserve. Why didn't I spend more time with my collection when I was much younger, and had so much more time?

This picture is from a couple months back. I was sorting out duplicates, searching for things to send out to people in trade. If you know anyone who might like to trade used postage stamps with me, help us get in touch!

日本語 hints:
duplicates = extra copies

old French stamps

2011-02-17T15:21:00.000-08:00

Just a short post today -

Here is a selection of old French stamps I received in trade for a set of (mostly) Japanese stamps. Of course the bright colors and interesting designs of modern stamps are interesting, but sometimes I prefer the simple - perhaps elegant? - designs of older stamps.

日本語 hints:

elegant - most people know this word, but be careful about pronunciation: elegant vs. arrogant. "Elegant" = 上品、優雅、and so on -- very positive. But "arrogant" has very negative connotations: 横柄、無礼 and so on. So be careful when saying something like "The French are elegant"!!

fami-resu

2011-02-13T20:55:00.000-08:00

My family enjoyed the three-day holiday or long weekend very much.

One day we walked to a nearby "family restaurant" in the snow, which was quite nice. It may have been a little selfish, but I worked on stamps while there. On a prior visit, my daughter and I worked on our collections separately, but this time only I was doing the stamps. And though I should have talked with my daughter more, I have to admit that I made some big steps, bringing a small measure of order into my massive pile of Japanese postage stamps waiting to be put in albums.

日本語の hints:

ファミレス...I have no idea how to translate this. Short for family restaurant, of course (no one says "fami-resu" outside of Japan). But I have never used the phrase "family restaurant" in my life. We just give the name of a big chain, like "Denny's" or "iHOP" or "Perkins".

連休 Notice this can be "long weekend" or "3-day holiday", but the "day" is singular. We cannot say "3-days holiday", even though it seems natural since it is plural.

Too Many Stamps????

2011-02-11T04:50:00.000-08:00

Maybe Japan issues more stamps than any other country. That is fine for me for now, because I am still in the stage of simply collecting everything, no specialization yet.

But the sheer number of stamps can be overwhelming. Especially the 記念 or anniversary stamps – they really seem endless. And sometimes the events they commemorate seem a bit…trivial.

Here are two of my favorites. The 9th Annual Congress on Edible Mushrooms??? The Kagoshima Int’l Conference on Volcanoes is a bit more understandable. But still, you have to wonder who makes the decision: Hey, let’s make a stamp for the 9th Annual Congress on Edible Mushrooms???

This is not a complaint – I love living in a country so full of stamps. But it is hard keeping up with the endless releases of new stamps.

日本語 hints
overwhelming = 圧倒的, too much
commemorate = 記念する
trivial = small and unimportant, maybe ささいな or ありふれた??
edible = can eat it, 毒性がなくて、食べられる
complaint = 不満、愚痴

still at it

2011-01-09T22:56:00.000-08:00

My daughter's renewed interested in working on her stamp collection continues, much to my relief and happiness.

Today is a national holiday and tomorrow it is finally back to work for real. I had a few light days last week, but things get busy as usual from tomorrow.

We got quite a lot of stamp work done over the long holidays. But as usual, I find myself wishing for just one more day.

日本語 hints:
renewed - something started again. This is an easy word to recognize when reading, but not to use as output in conversation.

starting again

2011-01-05T21:34:00.001-08:00

After a several-month hiatus, my daughter has decided she wants to work on her stamp collection again.

Of course, she has been gathering stamps all along (pilfering from among my new arrivals). But now we are going back to the beginning and re-organizing her album, complete with new artwork and categories.

日本語 hints:

hiatus = a period of no activity, 交渉、仕事などの中断、休止

pilfer = steal, ちょろまかす、くすねる

Most definitions taken or altered from my Canon wordtank v90

Cleaning Up Canada

2010-12-29T01:31:00.000-08:00

Well, the long (and much awaited) winter holiday is upon us. Last week was the peak of the season for me, with a couple 13-hour working days, all day spent working on Dec. 23 (Emperor's Birthday), all day on Christmas Eve, even a little work on Christmas day itself - generally unthinkable in North America / Europe / etc.

Anyway, now it's time to catch up on a lot of unfinished business. It may have been a full year ago - I bought a few bags full of Canadian stamps (all unsoaked, ugh). I did a lot of work with them right away and have been trading off the extras over the past year -- but hundreds more have been waiting for some attention.

I finally got them all sorted and prepared the extras for trading, and feel great relief at getting caught up at last.

Other stamps news: my daughter and I made it to the stamp museum on their last business day of the year, just before closing time, quite nice. And today she surprised me by asking to work on stamps - it has been awhile since she showed much interest.

日本語 hints
13-hour working days: notice it is not 13-hourS working days, because the phrase "13-hour" is treated as a single word, modifying the noun. I worked 13 hours, but it was a 13-hour working day.

Emperor - note that 天皇 is Emperor (the person himself), not Imperial (related to the person)

two scary guys

2010-12-20T06:11:00.000-08:00

Quite a deluge of stamps coming lately, and a drought of posts in this blog.

They continue to come in small batches from friends, acquaintances, co-workers past and present - once again, thank you all.

And sometimes they come in larger batches - two letters full of stamps awaiting my return from work tonight, one from the US (french stamps), and one from Australia.

I foresee much stamp work over the coming New Year's holidays....

日本語 hints:

deluge = a very large amount (usually a liquid)

drought = an extreme shortage (usually of water) 物の不足、欠乏、湿気不足

foresee = forecast, anticipate, 予感、予見、見越す

dinner and stamps

2010-12-15T04:57:00.000-08:00

Earlier this week, my daughter and I went to a so-called "Family Restaurant" for dinner. She worked on her homework and I worked on stamps.

Actually, I worked on my Starbucks coffee mug. I had a few stamps in the old one. I took them out, rearranged, and added many more stamps.

I love the idea of a reusable / refillable coffee mug, but I think Starbucks should give more than a 20-yen discount when you bring it in.

two cats

2010-12-12T21:53:00.000-08:00

I have never been a fan of Hello Kitty. But who couldn't like this stamp?

Recently I have been getting used postage stamps from more and more people - it seems the word is spreading, and more people are taking that extra moment to snip a stamp off an envelope and save it for me (big thanks to all of you!!).

Someday I will move back to the US from Japan, and I will really miss this feeling. Of course I want the stamps, but it is also good talk with people. And this can be a perfect conversation starter.

日本語 hints:

be a fan of = like (are you a fan of this blog?)

the word is spreading = more people know about something (i.e. that I am collection used postage stamps)

snip = cut off, 切り取る

from friends of a friend

2010-12-06T17:19:00.000-08:00

There I was in the park, practicing praying mantis fist gong fu, when stamps appeared before me.

My friend had received small packages on behalf of another person in his "guest house" here in Tokyo and was good enough to rescue the stamps after giving her the contents.

After that, a praying mantis appeared before me. It was pretty wild. I was practicing a mantis form when I noticed something drop to the ground from the trees high above. Sure enough, it was a praying mantis. We communed a while, then I returned her to the tree trunk and she scurried away upward.

What a fine day of unexpected happenings.

日本語 hints:

praying mantis gong fu =　蟷螂拳

commune = 親しく語り合う

tree trunk = 木のから

scurry = あわてて走る

Those crazy Chinese comments...

2010-12-02T15:59:00.000-08:00

Every blogger wants their blog to be read, I suppose, but we don't really know how many people are reading it. Or thinking about what is written. So comments are always welcome.

I don't get many comments on this blog (hint! hint!), so I get pretty excited when the Blogger Dashboard tells me there is a new comment waiting.

I got one a little while back. It was written in Chinese so I put my budding translation skills to the test. It didn't seem to relate directly to the post, but I was happy for some comment action.

Then I got another, and another - a couple dozen, all in Chinese, none apparently directly commenting on the posts in the blog. Hmmmm. I was suspicious of some kind of spam so I put them on the back burner. Later, I found that at least one of them had a link to an unsavory site. Also, truth be told, I found that my translation skills were not yet up to the task.

I have finally cornered a couple friends and asked for their help, and they all deserve big thanks. You'll soon be reading my very rough translations of this sudden flood of Chinese comments, with great thanks to those who offered their translations. In some cases, I will be modifying theirs slightly, rather than attempting my own.

Here is the bottom line: all comments are welcome, in whatever language, so long as they have some actual bearing on the posted material in the blog and are not solicitations to other websites / blogs.

and some bad news

2010-11-08T18:59:00.000-08:00

Yes, from the same auction... someone started collecting in the 70s. Before they got smart in the 80s (buying sheets of unused stamps), they collected used stamps....and glued them into a notebook.

Probably nothing valuable so no great loss, but still disappointing. later, if I have time, I will see which ones - if any - can be soaked off, but I am not expecting great results.

More good news

2010-11-07T09:48:00.000-08:00

The good news continues. From the same auction listed above -- piles and piles of used US postage stamps. Nothing valuable whatsoever - but all good for trading with people outside the US.

The downside, however, is that they are all still attached to corners of envelopes. That means hours and hours of soaking, peeling, drying, and flattening.

Anyway, the collection is growing...

Good news....

2010-11-04T18:21:00.000-07:00

Yes, good news indeed.

At my suggestion, my father has been watching for used postage stamps at local auctions, where he often looks for antiques.

Usually, if stamps are advertised at an auction, the collectors come and the prices go high.

But once in a while, you get lucky. The stamps are not advertised, and no one is interested in them.

He paid a single dollar (maybe 80 Japanese yen at current exchange rates) for a box full of old stamps, including many sheets. Someone had collected used stamps for years and then began buying new sheets at the post office. But they didn't take good care of them, and some of the sheets are stuck together. However, many are in great shape. Hundreds of dollars of unused stamps at face value, probably a little higher in actual value.

I have never actively searched for valuable stamps, and have only sought used / cancelled stamps so far. But I welcome these additions, sheets and sheets of stamps, the stuff "real" collectors go after (though probably quite common, not so valuable).

I won't be expecting any more such lucky finds in the future, but I will be keeping my eyes open at auctions in the future.

long lost stamp album

2010-11-04T08:32:00.000-07:00

It is FINALLY time for a vacation in the US! This one is long overdue. And it is already over halfway finished.

One high point was finding my long-lost stamp album from about 30 years ago, when I first started collecting used postage stamps. It is now hopelessly out-of-date, but it has great sentimental value to me, taking me back to long afternoons in my grandmother's basement with stamps spread out everywhere.

On our last trip to the US, two years ago, I had just gotten interested in stamps again. I dug out that old album, buried in a closet, and reveled in the hundreds of pages. But my memory was blurred - a friend of someone in the family might have wanted to start collecting stamps, and I might have said they could have my old album....

So for the past year, I have been waiting and hoping.

And yes, I found it again, buried under the mountains of books I have stored in the basement. I won't be bringing it back to Japan, but now I know where it is for certain and that it will be waiting for me.

Actually, there were many more stamp-related surprises this visit....stay tuned for upcoming posts.

日本語 hints:
* out-of-date = too old, unfashionable, 時代遅れ
* sentimental value = 感情価値
* dug out = 掘り出した
* revel in = ....を大いに楽しむ／喜ぶ

Stamps from Work

2010-10-25T21:36:00.000-07:00

As a young boy, I collected stamps in Omaha, Nebraska. One of my parents' co-workers at Mutual of Omaha received many letters from overseas and was kind enough to save all of them for me. I had no idea what a great resource she was at the time.

I have no such easy source of large numbers of stamps from other countries just now, so I take what I can get. i was quite happy to receive two new ones for my collection from a co-worker last week. Both are probably common in their countries of origin (UK, Japan), but both were new stamps for me and are much appreciated.

These days, I suppose all overseas correspondence at Mutual of Omaha is conducted via email. I suppose that is good for paper reduction and the environment and all, but I think the concurrent loss of stamps is a tough blow to collectors.

日本語 hints

Mutual of Omaha - A large insurance company (保険会社) based in, well, Omaha Nebraska

a shell in the hand

2010-10-19T06:02:00.000-07:00

Just doing some catching up...

Two days of TOEIC in Yokohama (just done). Three days of an email course in Yotsuya last week, and two days of a meetings course in Chiba. And so on, moving back in time. No time for stamps these days.

But tonight I have a slight breather and can make a small offering - a shell in my daughter's hand, actually from about a year ago.
日本語 hints

a breather = a small rest, or a break in the busy schedule. 一息つく？？

More to come...

trading postage stamps

2010-10-09T19:42:00.000-07:00

No big happenings in my stamp world lately, just moving forward slowly.

I continue to slowly expand the scope of the collection. I am not ready to focus on a single topic or country yet.

Many people have already told me it is time (it is past time!) to narrow my focus, but for now I just want to gather stamps and trade stamps.

Any readers interested in trading, please leave a comment with your email ( I will not publish your email address on the blog, of course).

collect lots of stamps

2010-09-16T05:26:00.001-07:00

The English alphabet has 26 characters. Learning those is tough for little kids – remember how you used to make the letter “s” backwards all the time, or how you had trouble with “b” and “d”?

Actually, there are 52 characters, because we have both capital letters (upper case) and lower case letters. Note: right now I am only talking about writing the letters in English, not spelling the words.

Learning to write characters in Japanese is about double that, because there are two sets of phonetic characters which represent sounds, hiragana and katakana, with 56 (?) characters each.

Oh, yeah, then there are the kanji characters which represent words or ideas. There are a few more of those, maybe 20,000 or so – though most people use only about 2000 kanji in everyday life.

Learning so many characters requires a lot of time and practice. So, from the first year of elementary school, Japanese children practice writing kanji every day in class and at home. And it is not enough just to write the characters – they must be written correctly, with each stroke made in a particular order and direction. All of that means lots of writing practice.

Here is a page from one of my daughter’s notebooks (she is in second grade, by the way). The character is 切, which can be read in two different ways (oh, yes, most kanji have multiple readings and meanings, complicating the situation even further, but that is a different topic).

One of them is “setsu” as in “shinsetsu” 親切, being nice to someone. Or, from her notebook, “Be nice to elderly people”. By the way, next week we have a national holiday for 敬老の日: Be nice to elderly people day.

Another reading is “ki” as in “kitte” 切手, or postage stamp. Or, as in her example, “Collect lots of stamps”.

日本語 hints:
-- characters = 文字
-- backward character =鏡文字
-- capital letters = 大文字 = upper case letters
-- lower case letters = 小文字
-- phonetic characters = 音声文字 (?)
-- kanji = Japanese characters (for English users). Chinese characters are hanzi, 汉字 and these are usually different from the kanji characters used in Japan.

Laos stamps

2010-09-09T18:18:00.001-07:00

Recently a friend left Japan and moved to Laos, where he seems much more content. We have exchanged postcards and I have thus begun a small collection of recent stamps from Laos (more on those later).

The stamp above is not from my collection but was on display at the Tokyo Stamp Museum, part of an exhibition on animal stamps.

日本語 hints:
- content: has two meanings. In this sentence, it is an adjective meaning satisfied, 満足している. It can also be a noun, as in 内容、中身.

- exhibition: 展覧会、展示会, like a show or display

apologies and promises

2010-09-08T19:14:00.001-07:00

Sorry for the long delays between posts recently, will be working hard to get back on track soon.

places you don't expect to find stamps

2010-08-31T06:43:00.000-07:00

This week is dedicated to a visit to Tokyo (from Beijing) by my Chinese martial arts teacher, Liu Jing Ru.

You can read more about him and Chinese martial arts at my other blog.

Anyway, after today's practice (ba gua zhang), I noticed something in the lobby - a poster with enlarged pictures of stamps on it, all about dancing. It could have come straight from the stamp museum, but it was in fact an advertisement promoting a dance event here in Tokyo.

kirie, art made from cutting stamps

2010-07-22T07:11:00.000-07:00

Yes, another kirie 切り絵 post....We visited the stamp museum again last weekend. Every third Sunday, they have a free session of kiri-e, so we tried it out and my daughter was surprisingly interested. Of course these are all stamps which are heavily over-stocked at the museum, hundreds or thousands of spares of each one.

catching up

2010-07-14T22:19:00.001-07:00

Sorry for no posts lately....you've heard THAT before.

Work, work and work. But also some occasional good late-night work on my stamp collection.

One problem with the blog - I am getting a lot of comments, all in Chinese. And they often don't seem to match the content of the blog posts....then I noticed that one of them comes from an address with a link to a rather...unsavory....website in Taiwan.

To any legitimate posters of comments - please give me some time to verify the content before I put the comments on the blog to be seen by all.

Finally, while comments in Chinese are OK, how about some comments in English as well?

trading stamps

2010-06-25T19:41:00.001-07:00

Last week I had an unexpected knock on the door.

Stamps from China! Praise to the mail carrier!

One of my long-term goals is to set up a network of stamp trading partners from various countries. Each of us has many duplicate stamps from the countries where we live. Why not swap those duplicates with each other?

I have lots of extras from Japan but almost no stamps from Country A. Someone living in Country A has lots of extras from their country, but few Japanese stamps. So it is perfect.

It helps to have a go-between, someone to act as intermediary. I am willing to take the risk of sending the first batch of stamps (what if the other person keeps the stamps but doesn’t send any back in return? Or what if they send stamps in poor condition?).

That is especially helpful when working across languages. I have had one very successful trade with an American. Gee, we both use English, no problem. And we had a good intermediary, someone who knew us both and introduced us.

Mr. H does not use English, but my Chinese is good enough at intermediate level (OK OK low intermediate…). Still, it was quite reassuring to have an introduction from someone who knows us both well and who is quite good in both languages.

I sent him a selection from Japan and other countries and he was quite satisfied. His selection for me was all Chinese stamps, just fine by me. Experienced collectors of Chiense postage stamps would not find much excitement in those Mr. H sent me, but I am just beginning to build my collection of Chinese stamps, so I was quite thrilled.

Likewise, the stamps which I sent him were not especially valuable or hard to find…for a person living in Japan. I think it is not so easy for him to get these stamps while living in his country.

I should mention a bit more about our intermediary, Mr. Wu, who was my tai ji quan instructor while I lived in China. Early every morning, we met and taught each other (English for him, tai ji quan for me). How could I have imagined at that time that I would, 10 years later, return to my childhood hobby and begin collecting postage stamps again?

日本語 hints:
unexpected = something unplanned, 思いがけない

duplicate = an extra copy (NOTE: this can be an adjective, noun, or verb)

swap = trade

go-between , intermediary = …の間の仲介

intermediate = 中級

reassuring = 安心させる

experienced = 経験を積んだ

thrilled = very happy about something. This is one of many –ED / _ING adjectives I have included. thrilled – thrilling; reassured – reassuring; sastisfied – satisfying, etc.

taijiquan = 太極拳, sometimes called “tai chi” in English

stamp art (2)

2010-06-14T17:54:00.001-07:00

Here are a couple more pictures from the cut stamp art // kirie (切り絵) exhibition near my home. It is hard to see in the pictures from my camera, but the level of detail in the actual works is amazing.

Kirie can be made from any kind of paper – you cut strips of paper and arrange them in colorful patterns. When looked at from afar, they are quite beautiful. To me, they become even more beautiful when studied up-close. Then you can see how strips of individual stamps were placed together to make larger sections of color.

But I don’t think that kirie made from used postage stamps are very common. I hope to try it out with my daughter soon – they have a monthly session at the Tokyo Stamp Museum.

日本語 hints:

- exhibition = 展覧会、展示会
- from afar = from far away, from a distance
- up-close = well…up close. “close up” is frequently used (and mis-used!) in katakana English, but not “up-close”

Stamp Art

2010-06-08T06:16:00.000-07:00

A couple months ago, I was wandering around the vendors' stalls at the Tokyo Stamp Museum when I noticed someone...it took me a while to place the face, then it hit me -- the security guard at a local community center.

I often go to martial arts practice at the community center and never got a word out of any of the security guards there. I suppose foreigners walking around with swords are not easy targets for conversation.

I must have passed by his post hundreds of times over the years, and not a word passed between us. And here he was, at the stamp museum. After a pause, I ventured a few words. Turns out he is a long-term stamp collector.

Since that time, we have exchanged words each time I visit the community center.

A couple weeks back, he tipped me off about an exhibition in the lobby: works of art made by cutting and arranging postage stamps (切り絵). I should post again later with more details, the name of the artist, and so on.

日本語hints
security guard = 警備員
martial arts = 武道、武術
tip someone off = tell them, give them information

Another stamp museum

2010-05-06T21:57:00.000-07:00

Well sort of. I took my daughter to the “stamp show” at the Communications Museum near Tokyo Station. It was not what I expected, but the day turned out fairly well.

I had images of many dealers offering a wide variety of stamps and collecting equipment. Instead, there were a very small number of dealers with fairly limited inventory. But my daughter and I both dug deeply in the “10 stamps for 100 yen” basket and emerged with smiles.

These are the unwanted cast-offs from the dealer. Nothing valuable, to be sure, but much of interest to both my daughter and I. She stuck with her interests – large colorful stamps with animals and wildlife. Those, and old Soviet space glory stamps.

As for me, I scooped up a couple dozen oldies from countries which are under-represented in my collection, many countries from South America and Africa.

While at the museum we poked around all three floors but mostly we stuck with stamp stuff. For me, one of the most interesting exhibits was a collection of regional toys, specific to various prefectures in Japan, which have been featured on the annual New Years stamps (see photos).

We’ll probably go again next year, but with a better idea of what to expect, and more small change for the stamp basket.

Socialist Glory (2): Color

2010-04-22T17:19:00.000-07:00

Every time I get a new pile of stamps, my daughter goes through them and gets first pick. I get the leftovers.

How does she choose? Bright colors are good, and things from nature: flowers, animals, more flowers. Anime characters. Maybe another flower (Japan issues so many flower stamps….) She grabs every stamp she likes and has built quite a backlog of unsorted stamps. The work of sorting them and putting them into albums is not as exciting as grabbing the stamps that grab her.

Recently I started trading with someone in the US and got a very nice batch of oldies, some 120+ years old. All old stamps, none colorful, none of interest to my daughter. My friend in Sweden just sent an assortment of recent Swedish stamps – all colorful, all nature-related. I am debating whether or not to show them to my daughter…

The stamp above is full of color. Not so interesting, really – oh boy, tractors in the fields! Workers unite! Yar! But it was issued in 1975 – China was still in the throes of the Cultural Revolution. It was not a colorful time in China – everyone wore drab Mao suits in subdued blues and greys.

And here is a stamp positively brimming over with vivid colors. I would like to know more about how such a colorful stamp was issued at that time in Chinese history.

日本語 hints:
- get first pick = to have the first choice, the initial selection
- leftovers = 残り物 – usually used for food (i.e. curry rice tonight, curry rice tomorrow morning, curry rice again the next night…)
- anime = anime. Like sushi and manga, this word is now used globally as part of English
- backlog = 未処理分, unfinished work, things left over to do
- something grabs me = it gets my attention (this stamp grabbed me); つかむ
- batch = a group, an assortment
- Cultural Revolution = 文化大革命
- drab = colorless, unexciting
- Mao suit = 人民服上下 (Mao = 毛沢東)
- subdued = 色等が和らげられた、地味な
- brimming over with xxx = completely full of; あふれている
- vivid = bright and splendid; 色があざやかな

二宮尊徳

2010-04-03T09:34:00.001-07:00

I was walking around Tokyo after an all-day tai ji quan (太極拳) seminar and in the best of moods. I stumbled across a pair of statues, as seen in these pictures. So very different, this pair of famous figures from Japanese history.

西郷隆盛 Saigo Takamori, sometimes referred to as the “last true samurai”. He has had a sudden surge in popularity due to an NHK drama. I recently found a flyer for a mysteriously Saigo Takamori-themed shop in my mailbox.

Recently, I use him and 虻 chan in juxtaposition when teaching about non-verbal communication. His famous statue in Ueno Park never moves, has no facial expression, no hand gestures, etc. (= common communication style among my first-time students). Then there is Abu-Chan, one half of the xxx duo. She is a model of ample use of facial expression, hand gestures, and so on. So I use those two as opposite ends of a continuum.

二宮尊徳 Ninomiya Sontoku – his statues are often found in front of Japanese elementary schools – always reading a book while walking with a load of wood. = hard worker and earnest student. I read once that, while in abject poverty, he collected the grains of rice forgotten or discarded by others, and planted them on tiny plots of abandoned land. From those humble beginnings he rose to become a much admired and respected agricultural leader.

What does all this have to do with stamps? I was thinking about my current approach to collecting. I am gathering the discarded leftovers of others. I thrill to find a marked-down album with a few spare pages that a stamp dealer no longer needs. I thrill even more when walking home after purchasing a box with thousands of stamps from around the world for a very low price.

For the dealers, these are just unneeded duplicates with little or no value. But to me, they are the beginning of a new collection of stamps and have great satisfaction and value.

I wouldn’t begin to compare myself to Ninomiya Sontoku and his accomplishments, but the minor parallel - collecting the unwanted leftovers from someone else and creating something with them – struck me.

日本語 hints
stumble across = find unexpectedly
a surge in popularity = suddenly becoming much more popular
flyer = ちらし
juxtaposition = putting two opposites together, 並列
facial expression = 表情
continuum = spectrum, range, or 連続体 (but this is for math…)
statue = 象、彫像, etc.
poverty = having no money, 貧乏、貧困 (abject = extreme)
leftover = 残り物
purchase = buy
discarded = thrown away, not needed
duplicate = extra (unwanted) copy of something (this is adjective or 形容詞. This word can also be a verb with the same spelling but different pronunciation.

restraint

2010-03-18T17:46:00.000-07:00

Why do you collect stamps? Every stamp collector hears this question again and again. As for me, I like gathering things, the thrill of finding and collecting. And the more sober joy of organizing.

Lately I have had to develop a new talent and to find joy in it: restraint. That is, holding back or saying no.

Many collectors are specialized, focusing or narrowing their range. Not me. I am still content with simply gathering large numbers of stamps from every country, every time period.

Just gathering, getting, collecting, those things provide my reward.

Now I have found places where I can cheaply buy very large numbers of used stamps which I don’t have yet. Every dealer has bags of leftovers and duplicates. They want to do some house cleaning. I want some quick acquisitions. I have the spare time to soak the stamps off the envelopes. That keeps my costs down and my interest high.

But once it starts, it seems there is no end. Just one more bag, all these stamps from ABC country. Oh, I will never find that pair from XYZ again! I must buy it now! and so on…

I was sorely tempted the other day by a stack of old albums half-filled with remainders and duplicates from many countries which are – for my collection just now – quite obscure. The selling price was good enough just for the albums, so it was almost like the stamps were free. But the albums were a different size from the others I have.

And more importantly I had to learn to say no. There will always be more leftovers, more duplicates. If too many stamps come too easily, much of the joy of collecting is gone. That’s why the (otherwise dull and dreary) work of soaking the stamps off the envelopes appeals to me.

I was so close….teetering on the brink…but I had to be firm and resolute. Despite the generous reduction in price offered by the dealer, I had to say no. Standing there, seeing the stamps and albums in front of me, I still wanted them badly. But as I walked away, I felt a sense of … not quite happiness, but relief.

Self-control. Restraint. Waiting. These are also valuable parts of the collecting experience.

stamp girl

2010-03-07T15:37:00.001-08:00

my daughter hard at work on her collection....

half a century and more

2010-03-04T04:47:00.001-08:00

Some months back, my stamp collection got a boost from an unexpected donation by one of my students.

This collection had belonged to someone living not far from me at all. He traveled about SE Asia for his work and collected stamps here and there in addition to the Japanese stamps he gathered.

1958. Well before I was born. Over half a century ago, like a time capsule buried by one person, waiting to be opened by another. He has passed away. I wonder if he ever imagined a non-Japanese would be sorting through his stamps!

Unfortunately the album itself was no longer usable, though the stamps it contained were a windfall.

Thank you and thank you again.

日本語hints
get a boost = receive more of something
unexpected = 思いがけない
century = 100 years (centimeter, 100 cents = one dollar, centipede = ムカデ, etc.)
time capsule = well.... タイムカプセル
windfall = 思いがけず手に入った (two times for omoigakenai....)

Canada stamps (1)

2010-02-27T17:57:00.001-08:00

Last visit to the stamp museum in Tokyo, I scored a nice collection of common Canadian stamps in an album – just the overstock from one of the dealers. None of the stamps were particularly special, but I had very few stamps from Canada and wanted to boost my collection a bit.

Besides, the price was right and the album and stamps came together. I moved the stamps to one of my albums and gave the just-purchased album to my daughter for her collection.

Until now, she has just had a couple pages in one of my albums, but now she has her own album. This is very important to a six-year-old!

There were basically two types of stamps – long series of profiles, and outdoors / nature / wildlife. You can guess which ones my daughter wanted for her collection.

Anyway, I am not a huge Olympics fan, but congratulations to Canada for hosting a successful Winter Olympics.

日本語 hints:
scored = got, bought, purchased – it is a bit informal

overstock = extra copies or duplicates they don’t need, 供給過剰

boost = add to, improve -- also a bit informal

the price was right = in this case it means the price was low, it was a good deal

just- Notice that we can put “just-“ in front of almost any verb, together with a dash

you can guess = you probably know

Olympics – Notice that the word is usually plural (複数) by itself, but is often singular (単数) when used together with another word: Olympic games, Olympic sport, etc. vs. the Olympics

I want to trade for more Chinese stamps

2010-02-15T05:19:00.000-08:00

New Year Stamps

2010-02-07T05:48:00.001-08:00

I spent much of my New Year’s holiday working on stamps – soaking thousands of stamps off envelopes, and drying them, and flattening them. I haven’t yet put them into my album as I am trying to reorganize and I don’t want to move them all again in the future.

In the beginning, I just put them in an album in ascending order from 1 yen to 1000 yen. But now, having bought a catalog of all Japanese stamps ever issued, I see that I am in way over my head. I will likely follow its system: grouping by themes such as furusato, commemoratives, and so on. Then, it arranges chronologically within each theme. Fine enough, but now I have to move and shuffle about three billion stamps.

It was so simple when I was young. Maybe 30 years back, I had a giant Harris album with little Xeroxed pictures of every stamp in the world (or so it seemed). Find the country, find the picture, put a hinge on the stamp and stick it on the page. So neat and orderly!

So far I have four albums with no end in sight (and all those thousands I bought just before the new year…). I suppose that is part of the joy of it all – imposing order upon chaos. Strange connection, but it seems that is what my latest favorite TV show, Deadwood, was all about – the director was interested in how chaos is transformed into civilization. (Deadwood was one of the last Wild West towns in the US and had a brief period of near-anarchy before it was formally brought into the US.

Well, heavy themes aside, you can find in the picture my themes over the New Year holiday: postage stamp work (drying on the plates), good beer, and daidai citrus fruit to mix with shochu alcohol. Hmmm, it is getting late at night and cold in my room. Maybe it is time to heat some water and shochu….

日本語 hints:
ascending order – moving up from smaller to bigger = 昇順

in way over my head – the project is much too difficult (お手上げ！)

chronologically – in order by year = 時系列順

Xerox -- the name of a photocopier company. The word is now used as noun AND verb in English (similar to new internet-related verbs like ぐぐる or うぃきる?)

hinge – in this context, a small item which is used to stick the stamp into an album without damaging the stamp

imposing order upon chaos – tough one. “impose” is something like 果たす or 押し付ける. Chaos = 無秩序 or 混乱状態. Order = something like 秩序. So this phrase means to change chaos into an orderly situation.

anarchy – 無政府

焼酎 – This is best left as “shochu” in English, maybe together with “Japanese distilled spirits” to stress that the alcohol content is higher than the more-commonly known お酒 or sake. Using both E and J together is often best for unique Japanese foods and drinks.

pay to work

2010-02-03T05:51:00.001-08:00

Most people get paid for the work they do. Some people don’t. In my case, I am paying to do work.

Not all the time, but certainly so in the case of stamps.

Until very recently, I took pride in never paying for stamps, not being concerned with their monetary value. I collect used stamps and just enjoy the collecting. I am not searching for particularly valuable or collectible stamps.

So I have been quite satisfied with the flow of used stamps I get from here and there (though I would like to start trading with other amateur collectors!). But the other day, when visiting the Stamp Museum, I changed tactics – I found two bags full of used Japanese stamps at one of the private vendors’ stalls. The price was low so I snapped them up and everything was great…

…until I realized how much work I was in store for. The reason they were so cheap was that (a) none were rare (b) all were still attached to the corners of envelopes, meaning I had hours and hours of work ahead of me.

I have been soaking, peeling, drying, and flattening stamps for weeks now and have finally finished all the stamps – in the smaller of the two bags!

But I have no complaints – this work is fun for me and I am forging ahead with my collection of Japanese stamps. Another one of the private dealers had some bags of Canadian stamps – also common and still attached to the corners of envelopes. I have had my eye on them and will probably pick them up next time.

Thankfully the bags are much smaller…

日本語 hints:
take pride in = be proud of something I do

vendor = someone who sells things (by the way, do you know what 自動販売機 is in English? vending machine

snap something up = buy it quickly, buy it on the spot

how much work I was in store for = how much work was waiting for me

to forge ahead = to make great or rapid progress

to have your eye on something = to be watching it (or, in this case, to be waiting to buy it)

2010-01-23T07:02:00.000-08:00

New Zealand 5

2010-01-20T16:49:00.000-08:00

Setting up this photo got me thinking about numbers and prefixes (接頭語), which are a good way to build vocabulary. Let’s start with the number 5, and its prefix, penta, which comes from the Greek word for 5, pente.

Pentagon = a 5-sided figure (五角形), and doubles as the building which houses the highest levels of the US military and has the shape of, well, a pentagon.

Pentathlon = an Olympic sport in which athletes compete in five different events. (below from Wikipedia) : the ancient Greek Olympic competition consisted of 5 events which were thought to be essential to soldiers at the time – long jump, javelin throw (槍投げ), discus throw (円盤投げ), a foot race, and wrestling.

Pentathlete = ５種競技選手, the person who competes in five events.

Modern Pentathlon was created by Pierre de Courbetin, the Father of the Modern Olympics. Its five events were considered essential to soldiers of the late 19th Century – epee fencing, pistol shooting, swimming, equestrian (horse-riding), and cross-country running (i.e. long-distance running).

In the 1964 Tokyo Olympics a women’s pentathlon event was introduced. The pentathlon was replaced by the heptathlon (7 events, another prefix, hepta = 7) in the 1984 Olympics.

My dictionary has a seemingly endless list of arcane penta- words, most of them seldom if ever used outside the confines of science.

Another prefix related to the number 5 is quint, but we’ll have to save that for another post.

By the way, do you know how say ヒトデ or 海星 in English?

Socialist Glory (1)

2010-01-06T16:51:00.001-08:00

Sometimes I really love old stamps like these from China, full of images promoting workers, farmers, proletarians of all types. Maybe it is because I come from an area in the US known for its agricultural prowess. I'll have to dig around and find some stamps celebrating the American farmer. But at the moment, none spring to mind.

日本語 hints

socialist - 社会主義者 Related words = socialism, socialized medicine.

promote - In this context, the meaning is 促進する. Promote can also mean to raise someone to a new/ higher level or position within a company or organization (昇進する) but it is more common to talk about being promoted, using the passive voice or 受動態. Related words = promotion, promotional.

proletarian - well, プロレタリア（の） or, for the more formal types, 無産階級者

agriculture = farming, 農業、農耕 Related words = agriculture, cultivate, cultivation.

prowess = skill, as in 優れた能力. This word also suggests bravery (勇気), so I use it half-jokingly.

dig around = search for, probably in a very messy place, like my room (messy = 散らかった, full of papers and things).

spring to mind = 思いや考えを頭に浮かぶ (alc)

Yokohama Stamps

2009-12-29T04:43:00.001-08:00

Yokohama stamps

Just a selection from the 150th stamps for the opening of Yokohama, in celebration of several days’ work in Yokohama. It was nice to get out of the Tokyo grind. I have few chances to go, but I always enjoy my visits to Yokohama. The only disappointing thing on the most recent job was not being able eat lunch in Chinatown!

Below is some relevant text from the infomapjapan.com website:

In 1859, Yokohama opened its port to Commodore Perry and his "Black Ships", ending Japan's national isolation policy and making the city the base for foreign trade in Japan. This year marks the 150th anniversary of this event and to commemorate this momentous occasion, the city of Yokohama is sponsoring "EXPO Y150". This special exposition will focus on the history and attractions of the city and will be based on Yokohama's three symbols - the sea, city and nature.

日本語hints:
the grind = the usual pattern. To “get out of the grind” is to break the pattern, to do something (and therefore interesting)

relevant = related, connected 関係がある
isolation policy = 鎖国
momemtous = very important, historic

Martha Washington 1 1/2

2009-12-21T22:42:00.001-08:00

So far all the American Presidents have been men. And their wives are called First Ladies. Martha Washington was the wife of the first US President, George Washington, and is thus known as the first First Lady.

I first noticed this stamp because of the unusual denomination, 1 1/2 cents. Much later, I went to Wikipedia for some quick research about her and was quite surprised. She married at age 18 to a man two decades her senior (38). He was well-off and left her well-to-do when he passed away less than a decade later.

Martha and George married when both were 27. They had no children together but raised the two children from Martha's first marriage, although both of them died well before their parents. She was initially opposed to George becoming President and refused to attend the Inauguration ceremonies.

She inherited many slaves from her first husband. George Washington was also a slave owner, though he later decided that slavery was repugnant and freed all his slaves shortly before his death.

Also from Wikipedia:
In 1902 Martha Washington became the first American woman to be commemorated by a U.S. postage stamp. It was an 8 cent stamp. In 1923, a second stamp was issued in her honor, a 4 cent. The third Martha Washington stamp, of 1½¢ denomination, was issued in 1938.

日本語 hints
decade = ten years
well-off and well-to do: both phrases mean wealthy, having much money, being rich
pass away = a formal way to say "die"
Inauguration = 大統領の就任式
slave = 奴隷
repugnant = disgusting, とても嫌な

Japanese stamp museum

2009-12-19T07:35:00.001-08:00

I have lived in Tokyo for 15 years and have used the circular / loop line around the city, the Yamanote line, regularly throughout that time. So I have seen the stamp museum (切手博物館) near Mejiro Station endless times from the train and I have wondered about it for quite a while.

There seem to be museums everywhere for everything in Tokyo. One of my favorites is the parasite museum, near Meguro Station, about 20 minutes away on the same Yamanote line. Nothing like witnessing a six-meter long tapeworm together with your date!

Anyway, I finally made it to the stamp museum for the first time. It was a short visit, but well worth it. The staff were all friendly and treated me like a normal visitor. My only complaint was the high cost to photocopy a page -but I must admit it was wonderful to be surrounded by so many stamp-related materials. Otherwise, I was extremely pleased with my visit in every way. Perhaps the most interesting thing to me was the speed with which workers were filing stamps away in the albums of the massive collection.

I look forward to my next visit and hope I will have more time to talk with the friendly staff and learn more about stamp collecting in Japan.

日本語hints:

parasite - 寄生虫 we can talk about one animal living off another - or about older children who stay at home too long, surviving off their parents

tapeworm -　サナダムシ

complaint - 文句 note that this differs from "claim", which is highly overused in Japan

massive - 巨大、大量の

Japanese oldies

2009-12-09T16:41:00.001-08:00

Here is a selection of older Japanese stamps I received recently. Quite a few of them are attractive, but two in particular make a nice pair.

Start with the red stamp which is the third stamp in the second row / middle row. It shows an airplane (a bomber, I first imagined) flying over a pagoda – perhaps symbolic of new technology emerging from traditional culture?

Then look at the first stamp in the third row / bottom row. It is another airplane (another bomber?), but this one is passing in front of a giant Buddha statue – perhaps capturing the post-War mood in Japan?

Another interesting point for me was the denomination – several of the stamps were marked in 銭 or sen, much older in use (and smaller in value) than the currently-used 円 or ￥ , yen. I don’t see the Japanese kanji character for 銭 very often these days. I used to see it every night when I went to the 銭湯 or public bath, but those are closing down all over Japan.

Please note that I used the phrase “Japanese kanji character” in this case. Almost all Japanese people will call these “Chinese characters” because the Japanese system of writing was imported from China. In a Japanese cultural context, that makes sense.

But in an English-speaking context, that is very confusing. The characters used for writing in China – 汉字 or hanzi in Chinese – are “Chinese characters” to an English speaker. Sometimes they are written the same as Japanese characters, sometimes not. There are even more differences now than in the past due to the simplification of characters on the mainland.

The Japanese character 銭 is now written as 钱 on the mainland, and it is pronounced “qian” with a rising tone. It is seen and heard commonly in the very useful Chinese phrase “多少钱?”. This is read “duo shao qian” and is used for asking how much something costs.

日本語 hints
- row = 列、横列、行列 (horizontal, or across)
- column = 列、縦列 (vertical, or up and down)
- bomber = an airplane which carries and drops bombs (爆撃機)
- pagoda = 塔 The word “pagoda” is actually a loan word from Portugeuse into English.
- symbolic = 象徴
- simplification = making things easier or simpler; 簡単化 By the way, “simplified characters” can be called 簡体字\
- mainland (China) = 大陸 , used to refer to China separate from Taiwan (Taiwan does not use simplified characters)

Hungary stamps

2009-11-23T04:08:00.000-08:00

This began as a short writing on the boring stamps of Hungary. By chance, I came across a large number of stamps from Hungary, all issued some years ago. I sorted them by denomination as usual. There were buildings, buildings, and more buildings. This really cemented my image of Eastern European countries issuing large numbers of boring stamps, basically featuring peoples’ faces or, well, buildings.

But I found a few exceptions, such as this series of airplane stamps. Curiously, all of them are biplanes, with two sets of wings. That was about it for Hungarian stamps, so far as I knew.

On a lark, I did some googling and found that recent stamps from Hungary are much more colorful and varied in theme. A particularly interesting recent release is a stamp commemorating the 200th anniversary of the birth of Louis Braille, who developed the system by which blind people can read text by passing their fingers over raised dots. The Hungarian stamp includes writing in Braille – as does a US commemorative coin to be released this year.

日本語hints:
boring – you probably know the meaning of this word (つまらない、退屈), but be sure to separate boring vs. bored. –ed adjectives (interested, overwhelmed) describe how you or I feel, while –ing adjectives (interesting, overwhelming) describe the cause or source of the feeling (the movie was interesting; the blog was boring). For example: I read a boring blog, and so I felt bored.

cement an image: “cement” can sometimes be used as a verb, meaning to solidify or to fix permanently

biplane: 複葉機, an airplane with two sets of wings (see the stamps). Yes, there is also such thing as a triplane (三葉飛行機), though I have not found any pictured on Hungarian stamps so far. But this does bring us to the exciting topic of number-related prefixes (接頭語、接頭辞). “bi” and “di” can both be used for “two” – bicycle, bilateral discussions. “tri” can be used for “three” – tricycle, triangle. There is an old George Carlin joke involving “bi” and “try”, but we’ll leave that aside for now.

“on a lark” = on a whim, just for fun, no special reason. Online dictionaries give me いたずらで or other meanings which don’t feel quite right. I think it is used more commonly as なんとなく.

commemorate: 記念する

Braille: 点字、点字法

dendrobium

2009-11-14T21:01:00.000-08:00

Here are three stamps from The Philippines which caught my eye. The one in the center is a dendrobium. Some years back, I was teaching a person who had greatly surprised me by sharing that his hobby was gardening (on the balcony of his apartment). I expressed interest in his flowers, and he brought me a dendrobium cut from his own plant. I thought that was quite nice.

Back to the Philippines - I have recently come across a fairly large collection of older Philippines stamps, one spanning several decades. I was delighted to have so many more stamps from the Philippines, as I had very few before this. But there was one problem: how to arrange them.

Many people arrange their stamps chronologically. But I have no information about the years most of my stamps were issued (nor time to research it). So I have been arranging them in ascending order by denomination: starting with the smallest and moving to the largest.

But on the stamps from the Philippines, I found several denominations: "cents", "s", "p", "centavos", and the word "koreo". I emailed a friend and got a quick response: "koreo" means "postage stamp" in Tagalog. "P" is for "pesos", which are larger than centavos / cents / "s".

More Philppines stamp photos to come...

日本語 hints:
dendrobium: a type of orchid or 欄
catch someone's eye: get one's attention
balcony = ベランダ
to span several decades: a decade = 10 years, so this collection has about 30 years' worth of stamps
chronological: in order by year, from oldest to most recent (年代順?)
in ascending order: from smallest to largest
denomination: 種類 or 単位、金額
tagalog: one of the main languages used in the Philippines

Russian memories

2009-10-25T06:26:00.000-07:00

40 years back, the Russians launched this stamp, not long after I had appeared on the planet. Can you feel the Socialist glory with all those shades and hues of red?

This stamp came to me a couple weeks back, the lone Russian stamp in a pile of stamps from (mostly) Southeast Asian countries. How it got into the pile, I will never know. But it took me back to my junior high school days.

I was the penultimate geek, the introverted smart kid with no social skills whatsoever. Over the years, I naturally bonded with others who did not fit in. One of my good friends was YS, whose family had just arrived from Russia. This would have been the late 70s, I think, not a time known for the open-mindedness of middle school students in Texas.

He was a smart kid and well-motivated but had no friends besides me. We rode the bus together and one day a bunch of local rednecks-in-the-making were trying to start trouble with him as we got off the bus. This was a couple years before I would dive into Gandhi, MLK Jr., and Thoreau, but I knew something was wrong and that I needed to do something.

I stood next to my friend and interposed my body between him and those who would taunt or strike him. I have no idea why they didn't try to attack me at that point. Neither of us said anything back to them. He just kept walking and I kept shielding him with my body. Finally they got bored and left us alone.

We never talked about that incident. There were much more important things to talk about, such as classes in school and the stamps he had smuggled out of Russia. Hard to believe today, but apparently it was a big deal at that time. Still, it can be tough to separate a boy from his stamps.

He gave me a couple and they briefly rekindled my interest in stamp collecting, which had fizzled by the time I moved from Nebraska to Texas. These were classic Russian space program stamps, unusual in size and a rarity for me.

They lie buried somewhere in a mountain of books and papers and other debris in my father's basement in Nebraska. Seeing this stamp, I need to get back to Nebraska and dig those others out.

two more from Africa

2009-10-23T06:54:00.000-07:00

Zambia this time, not one of the usual places I get stamps from. Both are self-reflexive, stamps about stamp collecting, which is a first for me. It would be really fitting to get the actual stamps shown on these stamps, and put them all together. And then if there were a stamp of the stamps OF the stamps...doubly self-reflexive?

it seems there was a kind of stamp collectors' gathering in London in 1990 (almost two decades ago...) - I can't imagine whether it would have been exciting or dreary.

日本語 hints:
self-reflexive: 自己を映し出す (maybe self-referential is better: 文字／作品が自己に言及した - from Canon dictionary

decade = ten years. Note other deca / deci / 10 -related words like decathlon (Olympic sport with 10 events), deciliter. By the way, when my wife was 10 months pregnant, she wore デカパン. So deca- or deci- is a prefix (接頭語、接頭辞) related to the number ten.

dreary = dull and boring

two from Africa

2009-10-10T05:12:00.000-07:00

I have only a handful of stamps from African nations, but just ran across several at once. Here is a pair from Ghana. And an unusual pair at that - the Queen of England together with a fertility doll?? It was random chance, how they came to me.

日本語 hints
only a handful = a very small number of
run across = find by accident; and unplanned discovery
fertility doll....someone help me here. I find things like 生産力 and 豊穣 in the dictionary, but that doesn't feel right.

Also, notice that "pair", even though it contains two items, is treated as singular for grammar purposes: This pair of stamps IS from Ghana.

more Chinese birds

2009-10-06T07:04:00.000-07:00

Here are a couple more bird stamps from China which caught my eye lately. I don't have a regular source for Chinese stamps yet, so they come in on a highly irregular basis. When I lived in China in 1999, lots of people were collecting stamps. I sometimes brought stamps over from Japan and everybody wanted them. Now when I ask my Chinese friends if they know anyone who wants to trade stamps with me, the answer is always the same: no.

日本語 hints:

Today's vocabulary is not too tough. Only one thing stands out: the prices of the stamps, 1.6 元 and 2 元. Almost all Japanese people give　元 a Japanese reading, "gen", even when speaking English. But no English speaker would ever understand this. It would be better (no, correct) to use the Chinese "yuan", which is spoken in a rising, second tone. It sounds a bit like the English word "you" and the letter "n" but spoken quickly: you-en. Or, more simply, it would also be correct to use "RMB", the internationally known abbreviation for 人民币, or ren min bi, another way to express the currency in China.

There, now we have two nice vocabulary words:
abbreviation = 頭文字
currency = 通貨, the unit of money used in a country. The currency in Japan is the yen.

nature vs. politics

2009-09-30T19:21:00.000-07:00

This stamp collecting thing was ostensibly for my daughter and I to do something together, though her enthusiasm has faded over the weeks.

From the start, she was drawn to brightly colored stamps with pictures of nature: flowers, animals, and the like. And she had no interest whatsoever in stamps with political themes, like flags or portraits of politicians.

America seems to put out an endless array of politically-oriented stamps. Flags and flags and flags - and none of these have any interest for my daughter.

Hey, if you were six years old, which of the stamps in this picture would you choose?

日本語 hints:
ostensibly = 表面上
enthusiasm = 熱狂、強い興味 Note that this is a noun; the adjective is enthusiastic. (She was enthusiastic about stamp collecting)
political -- this is an adjective, be sure not to mix it with nouns like politics or politician
an endless array = a very large number of
"if you were....would" is a very useful expression

Georgia on my Mind

2009-09-23T16:30:00.000-07:00

Currently, I get most of my stamps in a random fashion, a few here and a few there. I am not actively searching or organizing along one theme. Right now, I welcome all stamps. But as the collection grows, it will be time to focus and prune. I may move toward collecting sets.

This stamp is obviously from a set of stamps for the 50 states. I only have two of them so far, so I have my work cut out for me. Georgia is not really a state I would have preferred to start with. I have never been a big fan of the Southern states, though I can see why other people are.

日本語 hints:
in a random fashion = not planned, by chance

theme --- be careful about pronunciation - this should be one syllable (音節), not two. The vowel sound is a long "e" (it rhymes with "dream" and "steam") and the last sound is the consonant (子音) "m". So be careful about the typical Japanese katakana pronunciation, te-ma.

prune = usually a noun, a kind of food, 干しスモモ

have my work cut out for me = I have started a big job, I have a lot of work to do

have never been a big fan of = have never liked very much

Frog and dragonfly

2009-09-11T20:58:00.000-07:00

Here is a pair of Japanese stamps that caught my eye, a frog and dragonfly. There may be more in the series, but I only have these two so far. The frog reminds me of some frogs I met near 生駒 on a small mountain. The dragonfly reminds me of the end of every summer, when there are suddenly dragonflies flying everywhere. I also remember the Nagoya Expo. I took part in a kendo demonstration there and I watched the dragonflies buzzing about a nearby pond before my match. I liked how they were almost completely still, then suddenly burst forward with speed - much like kendo, I thought. I tried to have that feeling during my match, but I lost to my friend and old nemesis from Canada. But many of the teachers watching said I scored a nice 面 men shot to open the match.

日本語 hints:
catch one's eye = get someone's attention
dragonfly = 蜻蛉 (should be clear from context, but..)
A reminds me of B = makes me think of something
Nagoya Expo = 名古屋万博
kendo = kendo
my old nemesis = 昔からの敵
面 = men (everyone in the world who practices kendo uses the Japanese words)

3 Australian birds

2009-09-02T17:10:00.000-07:00

I got back into stamp collecting primarily as a way to do something together with my daughter. She was quite interested for a short while but her interest has been waning lately. Still, every time we get new stamps, she helps me sort them and chooses which ones she wants to keep for her collection (I get the leftovers).

She has always preferred brightly colored stamps with plants or animals on them. That means I have a lot of stamps with politicians and flags and monuments on them! Anyway, here are three birds from our Australia page. Australia seems to issue a large proportion of nature-related stamps like these.

One other thing - notice that the value is given as "20c" or "40c" - only the letter "c", not the cent mark I am used to, a lower case "c" with a vertical line running through it.

日本語hints:
get back into = become interested in again
interest has been waning = losing some interest, not as exciting as before
leftovers = 残り物, usually used for food but can be almost anything
vertical = 縦 (and horizontal = 横)

American music stamps set

2009-08-27T17:13:00.000-07:00

Here is a great set of stamps from about 15 years back, celebrating the contributions of African-American musicians to American culture. I wouldn't mind enlarging a couple of these (Billie comes to mind) to hang on the wall as pictures. Some years back I taught a course using Billie Holiday's lyrics for English study. It was more difficult than I expected but was a good experience overall.

日本語 hints:
enlarge = to make larger, 拡大する the opposite is reduce, to make smaller. Your photocopy machine might have buttons like this

lyrics = the words to a song, 歌詞

Dick Bruna stamps

2009-08-25T23:43:00.000-07:00

I keep finding more and more of these Dick Bruna stamps (only from Japan so far). I have never been a big Dick Bruna fan, but as my daughter went through the mandatory Miffy phase I had to get more comfortable with his style. One picture shows those I have collected so far; the other shows three stamps with unusual shapes.

Many thanks to The Venerable Chofu Ladies, from whom several of these stamps were received.

日本語 hints:
have never been a big xxx fan - そんなに好きではありません
mandatory - not optional, not a choice, 義務的な、強制的な (?)
go through a phase

Red bird from China

2009-08-24T00:42:00.000-07:00

Here is another Chinese stamp I like - sorry the picture is blurry. I am still getting used to a new camera.

There is a type of art in China which uses scissors to cut exquisite pieces of art with minute detail. Almost 20 years ago, my then-tai ji quan teacher brought back some of these works for us in her classes. I have always treasured mine, so I was pleased to find a stamp showing the same type of artwork.

日本語 hints:
blurry = out of focus, ぼやけた (?)
exquisite = この上なくすぐれた、優雅な、等

Notice that "treasure" is used as a verb here - 大事にする、重んじる

bugs in Japan

2009-08-23T05:14:00.000-07:00

These are part of a larger series - only two come to mind at the moment. I am not a big bug guy, but my daughter loves bug stamps, so I am looking for more. I will expand this set as I can. Maybe the praying mantis is a bug???? See the first post. Meanwhile, it is a great time for bugs in Japan, with locusts/ cicadas buzzing about night and day, and spiders spinning their webs at night from our laundry poles to the neighbor's house.

日本語 hints
bug = 昆虫　 and more. Strictly speaking, an INSECT has 6 legs. BUGS might have 4,6, 8, even 100 legs.
praying mantis =　蟷螂
locust and cicada = 蝉 in easy English, though my Nebraska friend assures me that the locust and the cicada are distinct.

Japanese Flower Stamps (1)

2009-08-21T23:23:00.001-07:00

This will probably be a long series of posts since there are so many postage stamps with flowers on them in Japan. I chose these two because they were among a large assortment of stamps I got recently from employees at company S. I have been involved with the company as an English teacher for close to 15 years but have not been active lately. I was visiting last week as a substitute teacher. On a lark, I emailed in the afternoon and told them about my collecting stamps with my daughter and asked for a few used stamps. That very evening, I was given several dozen stamps, to my surprise and delight.

日本語 hints
substitute teacher = 代理先生
on a lark = an idiom meaning by chance, without much planning, without expecting much. Similar to "on a whim".
dozen = 12

Chinese stamps

2009-08-21T23:03:00.000-07:00

I love this pair of stamps from 1980 in China. The Cultural Revolution had ended a few years before and stamps like these could be seen. They also give a hint about the rapid growth of the Chinese economy, as they are in denominations of 4分 and 8 分, but recently almost nothing is priced so cheaply; everything is in 元. There might be a total of 4 stamps in the set - I am still searching.

日本語 hints
Cultural Revolution = 文化大革命
denomination =

martial arts stamps

2009-08-21T18:07:00.000-07:00

Here are four martial arts- related stamps from my collection. I chose these for my first post because my real passion is practicing martial arts. One is a Japanese stamp showing a woman with a naginata - one of the Japanese budo which I practice. Another is from Hong Kong and shows an older man practicing tai ji quan. The other two show praying mantis - and I have some interest in tang lang quan (螳螂拳). I have never seen a stamp with someone practicing the praying mantis style of fighting!