Japanese Slang (50 page)

•   
A
a, m
tamaran'! Bancha ga d
shite mo hitsuy
ja!
I can't bear it any more! I need some green tea!

•   
Kono mugicha chotto nonde goran! Aji wa ikaga ka na?
Take a swig of this barley tea! How's it taste?

•   
Washi no heya ni kinasai—gyokuro o furumatte agey
.
Come to my room—I'll treat you to some top-notch tea.

The early priests categorized the monastic pitfalls into three grades, and titled them
sanyoku no
(the three kingly desires). The first temptation was
jikiniku
(meat gobbling), the desire for tasty meat dishes. A close second was the craving for alcoholic beverages. The third and most dangerous of the kingly desires is
sokushin j
butsu
(bringing one's body to Buddhahood), the secret monastic term for orgasm.

When a worldly priest cannot escape for a ribald night on the town, he might opt for what clerical slang calls
shumazuch
,
“a manual head-rub” (penile head, that is), also known as
shumag
zu,
“a pleasant manual head-rub.”

•   
Omae naka de shumazucho shiten dar
? Toire ni ikitain dakara hayaku dete kure yo!
What are you doing in there, a manual head-rub? Hurry up and come out, I need to use the toilet!

•   
Saikin kare wa kao iro warui kedo, shumag
zu no shisugi no sei ja nai ka na.
He's been kinda pale lately. My guess is he's been doing too much pleasant manual head-rubbing.

Aroused priests trapped by the strict Buddhist demand for celibacy flooded their slang with chaste religious expressions that could double as covert references to self-stimulation.
Jiraku,
“self pleasure,” is an abbreviation of
jijuh
raku,
“relishing the pleasure which accompanies the realization of the eternal truth.”
Kaku sanmai ni iru
means “entering the state of enlightenment” (meditating by centering all one's thoughts on one object), and
j
rakugajo
means “eternal bliss.”