Kanji Clinic #45, The Japan Times, October 30, 2003
“Kanji road signs spell out traffic danger”
During my first six years in Japan, I simply refused to drive a car. Just
the thought of it made me queasy. Unlike in the United States--where I
had been zooming around since the age of fifteen--driving in Japan is done
on the left-hand side of the road. Groups of high school students recklessly
pedal bicycles down narrow roads; motor bike riders create their own helter-skelter
lane to the left of automobile traffic; frighteningly tiny first-graders
dash across busy roads en route to school; and mothers perch a pair of
helmet-less toddlers, along with the day’s shopping, on their bicycles.
During my Japanese bus-riding years, about the time I was first beginning
to become serious about kanji learning, I used to have bad dreams: Monster
road signs flashed in front of me with kanji I was unable to decipher,
causing me to hit defenseless pedestrians and bicyclists with my car. Anyone
planning to sit in the driver’s seat in Japan should be prepared to encounter
kanji on road signs. True, some signs--such as “No passing,” “One way,”
“No U-turn,” and speed limits--are kanji-less. These advisories convey
meaning through arrows, slash marks and numbers.
One ubiquitous road sign in Japan, “No Parking,” also lacks kanji, but
be forewarned: Learning to spot this circular blue and red sign is not
enough to keep expensive parking fine stickers from being attached to the
side window of your car. You must also know the kanji version, 駐車禁止
(park-car-prohibit-stop), which pops up on white signboards in neighborhoods
and back roads. 禁止 means “prohibited,” and can also be seen on signs
like 右折禁止 (right-turn-prohibit, “No right turn”) and 進入禁止 (progress-enter-prohibit,
“Do not enter”).
Some two-kanji road signs you will need to understand in order to be a seefutii doraibaa (“safe driver”) in Japan are: 徐行 (gradual-go, “Slow”), 合流 (meet-flow,
“Merge”), 優先 (dominant-precede, “priority”-- as in “バス優先 Bus
priority lane”), 点灯 (ignite-lamp, “Turn on lights”), and 段差 (grade-difference,
“Bump”). 車線 (vehicle-track) means “lane,” and appears in warnings
such as 車線減少 (“Lane narrows”).
道路 (path-road) indicates a “road” and is a building block in kanji
compounds every driver who braves Japan’s expressways (高速道路 high-fast-roads)
can expect to see. Expressway entrances are marked with 有料道路 (exist-fee-roads,
“toll road”) signs, warning that you are about to become a victim of
state-sponsored highway robbery. (e.g., Nagoya to Tokyo, 325 kilometers
on the Tomei Expressway, will set you back 7,100 yen/$65).
速度 (fast-degree) means “speed”--if you see this compound followed by
the hiragana command おとせ！(“Drop it!”) you have been duly reminded
not to put the pedal to the metal. If you persist, you may fall into a
speed trap: Offenders are pulled over by a police officer waving a red
“止まれ” (Stop!) flag in the middle of the road, and then herded into
a police bus parked conveniently nearby to be ticketed (a foreign language
experience you might prefer to avoid).
Another two-character compound kanji novices with Japanese driver’s licenses learn to decipher quickly is the schedule-wrecking 渋滞 (not go smoothly-stagnate, “traffic jam”). 渋滞 is frequently accompanied by the equally dreaded 工事中 (construct-thing- in progress, “Road construction”).
Knowing the four-kanji compound 横断注意 may help you avoid a disastrous
mid-road encounter with a pedestrian: The first two characters (sideways-cut
off) indicate “crossing,” and the last two (pour-mind) mean “Beware.”
You will also notice 注意 at the end of warnings like 雨走行注意 (rain-run-go-beware,
“Rain, drive slowly”) and 落下物有注意 (fall-down-objects-exist-beware,
“Watch for falling objects”). “Pouring your mind” into maneuvering
Japan’s hazard-filled roads is critically important.
Since I stopped being a peepaa doraibaa (“paper driver,” someone who has a license but never drives), my life
has become immeasurably easier. As I taxi my children around town, I try
to keep that most sobering of Japanese road signs, a bright yellow and
red one, in mind: 交通死亡事故現場 (traffic-death-accident-site) is an
all-too-common message to be found alongside the roads I travel every day.
Improve your own odds of arriving safely at your destination--learn to
read all of Japan’s road signs properly.
Please share your kanji driving experiences in Japan (and China) at www.kanjiclinic.com.