I just read an excellent Japanese-instructional post about もったいない and 申し訳ない. The author then relates what her parents used to say when she would be wasteful (もったいない) and not finish her rice. They would say
「お百姓様に申し訳ない」
That is, they would apologize very politely to the farmer (who had worked so hard to harvest those grains).
This reminded me that, while in Japan, a fellow expat gaijin told me the adage that is the title of this blogpost. Thus, I try never to spill rice when I'm pouring it, and I always try to finish every grain.
(... even though I have no idea if this is an actual saying or not.)
4 comments:
What I heard from my mom and grandma is that "every grain of rice is a dripping sweat of a farmer who made an effort to produce the grain. So we shouldn't waste it." Well, the concept is the same. It's just a difference of metaphors.
I think I like the first one better. The less I think of the rice grains as farmer's sweat, the better. ^_^
How did u manage on the JLPT 2 test? It's 2010 already.. :D :D
Did u pass it?
MeLLonHeAd: It's 2019 already... well, actually almost 2020. I did NOT pass the N2 test in 2009. And after a long absence from study, I barely managed to pass the N3 this year (2019). I'll explain soon.
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