I needed to look up something within a XHTML specification over at the W3 Consortium website. So I went to the XHTML2 Working Group Home Page. I was greeted with various encoding issues. Trademarks showing up as â„¢ character sequences. Now, normally when you see a page with an  or â at the start of a strange sequence you can be fairly certain it is a Unicode encoding, typically UTF-8. So at first I thought my auto-detect within Firefox was not turned on, checked it, no, it was definitely on. Selected Unicode as encoding myself and, indeed, the page displayed normally. So I checked the page's source. I was lovingly greeted by the following:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?>

I am sure most of you can appreciate the delightful irony that the organization that has a multitude of XML-based standards and specifications, which almost always use UTF-8 as default encoding, encode a page wrongly. Yes, mistakes are human, but to see something like this on the W3C site...

One of the reasons why I enjoy buddhism so much is the occasional (and sometimes even frequent) making fun of being too serious:

いざさらば
雪見に転ぶ（ゆきみにころぶ）
所まで（ところまで）

A typical 俳諧の連歌 consisting of a 5, 7, 5 metre by Matsuo Bashō (松尾 芭蕉).

This could be translated as such:

Now then, lets go out
to enjoy the snow... until
I slip and fall!

The movie 'House of Flying Daggers (<span lang="zh">十面埋伏</span>)' contains a song sung by Zhang Ziyi (<span lang="zh">章子怡</span>) called 'The Beauty Song (<span lang="zh">佳人曲</span>)':

北方有佳人，绝世而独立。
一顾倾人城，在顾倾人国。
宁不知倾城与倾国。
佳人难再得。

Which translates to something like the following:

In the north there is a beauty: Surpassing the world, she stands alone.
A glance from her will overthrow a city; A second glance will overthrow the State.
Don't I know she can overthrow the city and the State?
But such a beauty cannot be found again!

This is a poem by the Han Dynasty poet Li Yannian (<span lang="zh">李延年</span>).

In the radical classification system called Kang Xi after the Chinese emperor Kang Xi we find 214 radicals. At position 188 we have the radical nicknamed 'bone' (<span lang="ja">骨</span> - hone). It is part of the group of radicals consisting out of 10 strokes (<span lang="ja">部首</span> - bushu).

The above image shows the character 'bone' in four fonts for the three languages of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean. The fonts used are STSong (Chinese), MingLiu (Chinese), MS Mincho (Japanese) and Batang (Korean). As can be seen the Chinese font is the only one that squares off the top image's corner on the left-hand side. The other Chinese font and the Japanese and Korean font do so on the right-hand side.

I raised this issue on the Unicode list since the Unicode character charts have three points where 'bone' is encoded, to note: CJK Radicals Supplement 0x2ee3 (left-hand side), Kangxi Radicals 0x2fbb (right-hand side), and CJK Unified Ideographs 0x9aa8 (left-hand side).

I wonder if the discrepancy is a wrongly written letter during buddhist studies which was taken from China to Japan and subsequently later exported to Korea.

The song Kung Wala Ka by Hale. Obviously my translation still needs work.

natapos na ang lahát (already/finished/ended everything)
nandito pa rin ako (it's-here yet also/likewise/too I/me)

hetong nakatulala (?)
sa mundó, sa mundó (the world, the world)
hindi mo maisip (you can't see)
hindi mo makikita (you can't see)
mga pang'arap ko (I daydream about you)
para sa'yo, para sa'yo (for you, for you)

oh hindi ko maisip kung wala ka (oh I'm not complete without you)
oh sa buhay ko (oh in my life)

nariyan ka pa ba (are you there yet?)
hindi ka na ma tanaw (I don't see you)
kung mayro'n bang daraanang (if/when have (got) ... ...)
pa s'ulong, pa s'ulong (going onward, going onward)

oh hindi ko maisip kung wala ka (oh I'm not complete without you)
oh sa buhay ko (oh in my life)

sundan mo ang (follow me/you/your ...)
pag himig na lulan (on/if/when ...)
na aking pinagtatanto

sundan mo ang pag himig ko (follow me/you/your .. on/if/when melody/mood my)

oh hindi ko maisip kung wala ka (oh I'm not complete without you)
oh sa buhay ko (oh in my life)

This song is the theme of Kingdom Hearts 2 - Japanese version. The song is written and sung by Utada Hikaru (<span lang="ja">宇多田ヒカル</span>).

The I need more affection than you know phrase is a sample in reverse.

I need more affection than you know
思い出せば遙か遙か (omoidaseba haruka haruka)
未来はどこまでも輝いてた (mirai wa --I need more affection than you know--
dokomademo kagayaiteta)
きれいな青空の下で (kirei na aozora no shita de)
僕らは少しだけ怯えていた (bokura wa --I need more affection than you know--
sukoshi dake obieteita)

かしい色に窓が染まる (natsukashii iro ni mado ga somaru)

前を向いてればまた会えますか (mae wo muitereba mata ae masu ka)
未来はどこへでも続いてるんだ (mirai wa --I need more affection than you
know-- doko he demo tsuduiterunda)
大きな看板の下で (ooki na kanban no shita de)
時代の移ろいを見ていたいな (jidai no --I need more affection than you know--
utsuroi wo mite itai na)

二度と会えぬ人に場所に (nido to aenu hito ni basho ni)
窓を開ける (mado wo akeru)

思い出せば遙か遙か (omoidaseba haruka haruka)
未来はどこまでも輝いてた (mirai wa --I need more affection than you know--
dokomademo kagayaiteta)
きれいな青空の下で (kirei na aozora no shita de)
僕らはいつまでも眠っていた(bokura wa --I need more affection than you know--
itsumademo nemutte ita)

ずっと前に好きだった人 (zutto mae ni suki datta hito)
冬に子供が生まれるそうだ (fuyu ni kodomo ga umareru sou da)
昔からの決まり事を (mukashi kara no kimari koto wo)
たまに疑いたくなるよ (tama ni utagai taku naru yo)
ずっと忘れられなかったの (zutto wasurerare nakatta no)
年賀状は写真付かな (nengajou wa shashin tsuka na)
わたしたちに出来なかったことを (watashi-tachi ni dekina katta koto wo)
とても懐かしく思うよ (totemo natsukashiku omou yo)
I need more affection than you know

In Zen buddhism we are often in contact with the mondous (read as mondo, with a long ending o). A mondou is a Japanese word standing for a dialogue, or rather a rapid-fire question and answer session, that tries to push the student closer to enlightenment (nirvana, <span lang="ja">涅槃</span> - nehan). Mondou in kanji is <span lang="ja">問答</span> (<span lang="ja">もんどう</span>). One can easily see mon (<span lang="ja">問</span>) from problem/question and kotae (<span lang="ja">答</span>), read in this case as dou, which is solution/answer.

風が吹いて　痛い　消えない思い
何を持っていこうか　集めて一つ
二度とない　二度とない　捨てるなんて馬鹿みたい
無邪気になって　イメージ
As the wind blows, these painful memories won't disappear.
What were you thinking as you collected the old songs into one?
There is no second chance. There is no second chance. I know how foolish I look
The image of becoming innocent

きっとそれは終わらない
きっとそれは終わらない
This definitely isn't over
This definitely isn't over

愛の胸　焦がせ 線の夢 渡れ
縦横無尽　駆けて　手に掴む世界
雲がちぎれて　日がまた落ちて
ひとりのパレードが　動きだす
The flaming sight of my passion crossing a thousand dreams
passing over the inhuman beasts I seize the world in my hands
The clouds scatter, and the sun sets again.
This one-man parade starts to move

母権 基地術 審判 上昇 明暗 遭遇 生命 相愛
Adventure, Lucky Days, Trials, Climbing, Light and Darkness, Encounters, Life, Mutual Love

もしも言ってしまうなら　あなたの髪を
嗅いで　吸って　もっと　寄せ合う言葉
ワカラナイ　ワカラナイ　うわべだけじゃわからない
だからもっと深くしたい　したい
なんて夢みたい
なんて夢みたい
愛の胸　焦がせ　千の夢　渡れ
縦横無尽　駆けて　巡り逢う奇跡
雲がちぎれて　日がまた落ちて
ふたつのパレードが夜空に溶けて
誰もが持っている　ポケットに沈めた夜がある
そいつを灯すように　手を伸ばしては泳ぐ人
見つけられたならいい　あなたの景色と同じもの
愛の胸　焦がせ　千の夢　渡れ
縦横無尽　駆けて　手に掴む世界
雲がちぎれて　日がまた落ちて
未完成のパレードでどこまでも
冒険　吉日　心拍　上昇　明暗　遭遇　生命　相愛

ZSH in its released forms has no support at all for use of Unicode. In the CVS there are some changes to making this work as it should.

Which means finally able to use Nihongo on the command line. Yay.

The guys at Square are amazing with some ideas.

The Hymn of the Fayth in Final Fantasy X is as follows:

イ エ ユ イ
ノ ボ メ ノ
レ ン ミ リ
ヨ ジュ ヨ ゴ

ハ サ テ カ ナ エ
ク タ マ エ

Or in romaji:

i e yu i
no bo me no
re n mi ri
yo ju yo go

ha sa te ka na e
ku ta ma e

Now, this means nothing in Japanese, but when you read the first part top to bottom, left to right, syllable by syllable you get:

inoreyo ebonju yumemiyo inoriko

祈れよ エボンジュ 夢見よ 祈り子

Pray! Ebon Ju (Yu Yevon in the English edition) Dream! Child of Prayer (Fayth).

The second part is read by reading every other syllable for the first two words:

hatenaku sakae tamae

果てなく栄え給え

In the end, grant prosperity.