JAPANESE SMILEYS

By Ed Jacob

STUFF THEY DON'T TEACH YOU IN JAPANESE SCHOOL
You'd think that a culture that invented a language meant to be read from top to bottom rather than left to right would have embraced the western style emoticon (a.k.a. email smiley) because it fits so perfectly with a vertical writing system. But during the 1980s, Japanese who received emails with :-) in them were so confused by them that they went out and invented a whole new set that could be read from left to right. Known as kao ma-ku (lit. face marks) Japanese smileys have been adapted to Japanese body language, gestures, and ideas. Here are some of the most popular:

(^_^) The basic smiley face (egao). Note that it is made with a straight line for the mouth because there are no keyboard characters that curve up.

(;_;) A crying face (naki). The semicolons represent eyes with teardrops coming out of them.

(^_^;) Nervousness (hiyaase). The semicolon represents beads of sweat.

(*^_^*) Blushing and happy (niko!). The asterisks represent blush marks.

(^_^;>) Embarrassment (hazukashii). This one is a little difficult to understand, but the "greater than" sign represents your bent arm as you scratch your head, something that Japanese people often do when they are self-conscious.

(^_^)b Thumbs up.

m(__)m I'm sorry/Thank you (gomen nasai/arigatou). This symbol depicts a person doing a seated bow. The "m's" are hands and the brackets and underscores are the top of the head rather than a face.

(-_-)zzz I'm tired (nemui).

(*_*) Surprise or shock (maitta).

(>_<) Pain/failure (itami or shippai). The "greater than/less than" signs represent your eyes shut tight as you grimace in agony.

(^_^)V Peace/Good news (niko).

(^0^) Happiness (ureshii).

(^_^)/~ Bye Bye (bai bai). The slash and tilde represent your arm waving a handkerchief.

(^_-) Wink (uinku).

(^3^) Kiss (chu)

p(^^)q Good luck/Go for it (gambatte). The "p" and "q" represent your clenched fists held in front of you.

There are literally hundreds of kao ma-ku. To see more of them, check out: http://staff.aist.go.jp/k.harigaya/doc/kao_lis.html (Japanese only

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