Hiniku is the running title of a series of articles I began writing in Japan during my second year doing the JET Program. They were published in the monthly JET newsletter of Nara Prefecture called the Yamato. I originally intended there to be 10 total articles. However, in November of 2006 my daily work combined with the time I was putting into writing my statement of purpose for University of Hawai'i came to a head and I was unable to complete the series.

      Hiniku is a Japanese word that means "biting/sarcastic irony". I chose the title for the article because it was an example of a word that truly fascinated me, as is explained in the first article. Each article intended to take a Japanese word of Chinese origin that had a meaning that doesn't seem to follow from its constituent parts. Take hiniku for example. Hi means 'skin' and niku means 'flesh/meat'. How then did Hiniku come to mean "biting irony"?

      The goal of the series then was to take a new and bizarre Japanese word each month, and relate it, metaphorically, to my life experiences in Japan. The articles were repolished in November of 2007 for publication on the internet.


     Article #1: Hiniku, September 2006
     Article #2: Daiben, October 2006
     Article #3: Kurohakucho, November 2006