• Introduction
• Haikus
• Sakura
• Kanjis
• Ramens
• Conclusion

There is a haiku medley with its description and the name of the author (haijin) in the pink box at the top left of your screen. Don't hesitate to click on the button !

What is a haiku? A haiku doesn't just describe things, it requires the author's detachment. It usually expresses a feeling. It is a kind of snapshot. It expresses an emotion, a fleeting feeling, the haiku cannot be worked on, it is quick and concise. However, it doesn't exclude humour and figures of speech, but all this must be used sparingly. It should be read in one breath, preferably aloud. It is thought-provoking. It is a poem that isn't written, but lived.
There are several types of haiku, those that evoke the seasons, those that deal with human weaknesses. But there are also humorous and satirical poems, called Senryu.
Haiku are generally written in three lines, for example :
"Spring rain
All things
Beautifies (Chiyo-ni)"
It must have a caesura and 17 mores (syllables) divided into three parts 5-7-5 :
ha-tsu shi-gu-re (5) => The first rain
sa-ru mo ko-mi-no wo (7) => The monkey also wants
ho-shi-ge na-ri (5) => A little coat. A haiku must have as its main theme a season of which it evokes the presence in an implicit or explicit way, but one must end up understanding the theme.
The haijin (the poet), through this short text, tries to capture a moment of everyday life. He doesn't give free expression to his feelings, but seeks to awaken a sensitivity with the help of a reality (often associated with the natural world) which may seem banal to the reader.
Finally, the syntax of a haiku should be simple.

Map showing cherry blossoms in Japan from 1953 to 2020
The animation scrolls day after day during tree months of blossom (on March, April, May), every year. The blossoms is represented by a pink circle.

What is a sakura ? The transience of the sakura's bloom has been used for centuries as a metaphor to emphasise the ephemeral nature of both beauty and life. The sakura is thus used to explain the important Japanese aesthetic concept of mono no aware (which can be translated as "sensitivity to the ephemeral").
The cherry blossom is one of the most significant natural events in spring in Japan. Traditionally associated with the Hanami festivities, the cherry blossom is a very important symbol for the Japanese. Much more than a simple flower, it is part of a centuries-old philosophical trend and is today the emblem of an entire nation.
Although today we take advantage of it to picnic and spend a pleasant moment with our loved ones, it is important to know that it was not always like this. For a long time, cherry blossom viewing was considered more of a philosophical activity than a simple moment of relaxation when the weather was fine.
With an average lifespan of two weeks, sakura trees are the very embodiment of the ephemeral. Their petals can only be admired for a very short period of time, and their lightning passage on earth undoubtedly sends the admirer back to his or her own mortality. It is this mirror effect that encourages introspection and has made hanami a popular calendar event for artists and philosophers throughout history.

Here is a list of random kanji. Don't hesitate to click on the button if you find the exercise too easy, there is a lot to know !

What is a kanji? Kanjisa (漢字) are signs derived from Chinese characters whose role is to write a part of the Japanese language. A kanji represents one or more "readings". Kanji readings are derived either from ancient Chinese languages or from the original Japanese language (Yamato kotoba), which is not related to the Chinese languages.
Mastering Kanji takes time, especially given the large number of signs used in practice and the fact that a significant proportion of them have several readings at their disposal. The Japanese language is atonic, and the compilation of kanji gave rise to numerous homophones. Only the writing is authentic. For this reason - and for other historical and cultural reasons - it would not be possible today to abolish kanji and establish a purely phonetic script. But the language is still evolving, and contemporary means of communication are not hindered in Japan. On the contrary, kanji have advantages: they are condensed information.
This script remains very limited and is not really learned by the people. This is why simplified scripts were created. This group of two new alphabets (hiragana and katakana) will be called "kana".
Hiragana derives from a set of kanji used in a purely phonetic way. In the past, there were many more hiraganas (almost three hundred). For a given syllable, these syllabic characters were used interchangeably, until the orthographic reform of 1900 which reduced the number to one character per syllable. These phonetic characters were written in cursive style, and the character as a whole underwent a very strong stylisation of the strokes. Hiragana was accessible to women (they were called onnate, the women's hand), who only had access to elementary education: major works of the Heian period (794-1185) were thus written by women in hiragana.
The katakanas have a parallel origin: they result from a deliberate simplification of man'yōgana for the use of monastery students, and date from the ninth century (early Heian period). They were formed by retaining for each syllable only a few simple, easily traced strokes characteristic of a particular man'yōgana, hence their name kata (片, 'partial, fragment'). These strokes were later somewhat distorted by cursive tracing. Because of their origin, katagana are visually much simpler than hiragana, and faster to draw.
The two syllabaries (hiragana and katakana) make it possible to note all of the existing sounds of the Japanese language (which could be written with these syllabaries alone). However, the numerous homonyms present in Japanese would make it difficult to understand the meaning of certain words; hence the interest of kanji.

いらっしゃいませ (“Irasshaimase” means welcome.)
The dishes are rated out of five stars and are classified accordingly, click on them to have their description and take your pick !

What is a ramen? Ramen is basically a dish of noodles, accompanied by a soup that gives them flavour. It is an essential part of Japanese gastronomy, which has the particularity of being constantly renewed over the last few decades.
This popular dish, which remains a simple and nutritious way of eating noodles, was originally influenced by Chinese culinary traditions. It was eaten in the trading ports of Japan in the mid-19th century, prepared by Chinese who worked as dockers or cooks at the time.
At the beginning of the 20th century, by adding soy sauce and dashi, the Japanese created ramen, which quickly became popular. After the Second World War, in a quest for renewal and with the advent of instant noodles, ramen became a real success and spread to the Japanese islands. From then on, there was a wide variety of ramen and the ingredients were many and original, depending on the season and the region, but also on the meats used. This diversity and craze around ramen has given rise to a permanent national competition, always positive, which favours "kodawari", the attention to detail that makes the difference in the composition and creation of a ramen.