Wednesday, February 28, 2007

Today's kanji : 神


Today's kanji is .

The blue part describes "altar / shrine".
The red part describes "lightning".

That's, so to speak, lightning in the shrine.

Can you guess the meaning?

See the comments page for the answer!

8 comments:

  1. "That’s, so to speak, lightning in the shrine."

    神 means "god".

    For example...
    神様 (kamisama) : god
    神社 (jinja) : shrine
    神話 (shinwa) : myth, fable

    There is a famous expression with 神様 (kamisama) for service industry.

    「お客様は神様です。」
    (okyakusama wa kamisama desu.)

    That means “the customer is always right.”
    I’ve heard that in the U.S. (?), they say “The customer is king.”
    Is that right!?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Akiko-san,

    Yes, that's right! If my memory's correct, it's first used by the famous marketing guru, Michael Porter.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thank you for the information!

    When I read your comments, I searched about お客様は神様です(okyakusama wa kamisama desu).
    The expression is from a famous singer Haruo Minami!!

    I didn't know that...
    I guessed that Japanese expression is from marketing business, too... (^ ^;)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Akiko-san,

    It's interesting! It seems that people tend to make the best use of the prevalent phrases. It indicates which generation a person is belong to when he or she uses particular phrases or slang of the time.

    Have a nice weekend!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anonymous8:23 PM

    Omoshiroi ne! Thanks, Akiko-sensei.

    I have one question, though: is that kami the same kami as in Kaminarimon?

    ReplyDelete
  6. Paige,

    Thank you for your comments!
    I was very glad to find your comments. (^ ^)

    The kanji for kaminarimon is different from the kanji 神(kami, god).
    Kaminarimon is 雷門 in kanji.
    雷 means "thunder" and 門 means (as you know) "gate".

    ReplyDelete
  7. Anonymous4:15 AM

    Thanks, Akiko, I like this page. Simple and memorable word. Pls allow me to quote your words in the article.

    - Arief

    ReplyDelete
  8. Anonymous1:36 AM

    whats is the kanji for the "God Michael"?

    ReplyDelete