Japanese & Chinese Page
Hi! This is a page in Japanese encoding to display the Japanese and Chinese characters that appear on various Zappa items. This will certainly not display correctly on all browsers, but if you're interested in reading Japanese you will have a browser equipped with Japanese language support, and if you do, it should work fine. The encoding used is Shift-JIS - in Microsoft Internet Explorer, select Japanese (Shift-JIS) under Language, in the View menu. In order to maximise the chances of this page to actually work, I've stripped it of all font formatting - it probably looks ugly, but information is not knowledge, knowledge is not wisdom, wisdom is not truth, and truth is not beauty. And this is the Zappa Patio, giving you detailed information :)
(Mandarin (Pûtonghuà 普通話) Chinese tranlisterations in pinyin 拼音, with level tone indicated by an underlined vowel and dipping tone with circumflex (^). Rising and falling tones are indicated by grave (´) and acute (`) accents, but, believe it or not, when I tested this page in Netscape all the Japanese displayed correctly but not the simple grave accent! It displayed as a question mark instead. Cantonese transliterations unfortunately follow no suit at all for the time being.)
- 聖糞 - the Chinese "holy shit" characters on the Barking Pumpkin logo. Mandarin Chinese reading shènghuà. The first character means "holy" and the second means "shit", but those words are not used together in the Chinese language - that is, a Chinese reader would understand that it says "holy shit", or "sacred feces" or whatever, but wouldn't know what to make of that.
- 不乱苦雑派 - the furanku zapa characters on the back cover of Zoot Allures. (These are characters of Chinese origin, but used here the Japanese way.) These characters mean "no", "confusion", "distress" (fu-ran-ku), "miscellanous" and "groups" (za-pa) - it's not a real Japanese sentence, but if it were, it could mean "[through] many groups without confusion and distress"
-
葉雑 - the zapa
characters on the Japanese hanko 判子 seal on the Zoot Allures
cover, written from right to left. If you don't recognise them, it's because the old seal
script is a bit different from the modern form. (These are characters of Chinese
origin, but used here the Japanese way.) Approximate translation: miscellaneous leaves" (Zappa's tobacco leaves,
perhaps?). From Noriyuki Tsunofuri, in the original alt.fan.frank-zappa FAQ (still on-line; last
touched in 1995):
Regarding the origin: the Mothers did concert tour in Japan, early 1976. It was the last tour as "The Mothers" and only Japanese tour of FZ. The Mothers performed once in Kyoto University, and hanko and name-plate were presented to FZ from student committee. FZ used the hanko on the front and words of the name-plate on the back cover. (according to the liner notes of MSI's edition of "Zoot Allures'')
FZ must be impressed people of Kyoto. They welcomed FZ in various unusual way. FZ performed superbly and the Kyoto concert became legendary among Japanese fan.
- フランク ・ザッパ - the regular Japanese way to write "Frank Zappa", in the katakana 片仮名 syllable alphabet, typically used to write non-Japanese words. This is what it says on the obi 帯 on a Japanese Zappa album.
- 日本青年館 - Nihon-Seinenkan, a bootleg title - the name of the venue. They (Nihon-Seinenkan - not the bootleggers!) have a web site at http://www.nippon-seinenkan.or.jp.
- 功夫 - the Chinese characters for "Kung Fu" (a track on The Lost Episodes). Pinyin spelling gongfu; meaning skill, hard work, meritorious action, martial art. The "kung" spelling derives from the old Wade-Giles romanisation system, rarely used today, and the reasoning behind it <lingo> was that what is written in pinyin as K and G were not /k/ and /g/ sounds as much as /k/ sounds with and without aspiration, written as K' and K, respectively.</lingo> (Of course, that also depends on where in China you are.)
- 気にしない - ki ni shinai, Japanese for "never mind", from the backing vocals in "Dancin' Fool". (The ki 気 is the mind, shinai しない is "don't", and ni に is a particle marking ki 気 as indirect object.)
- 春光乍洩 - the original title of Wong Kar-Wai's 王家衛 HAPPY TOGETHER, a film which featured two Zappa songs, "Chunga's Revenge" and "I Have Been in You". In Chinese, it means "Spring Light Leaking" - pronounced in Cantonese as Ceon1 Gwong1 Zaa3 Sit3 (Chunguang Shàxiè in Mandarin). See the soundtrack album, 春光乍洩 音樂原聲帶.
The Christmas 1999 Compilations
As most people don't know, Ryko and Videoarts Music released six Zappa compilations in Japan on December 22 1999, on the theme of letting six Japanese rock stars compile their own Zappa album. Here are the titles in Japanese:
- Panta from 頭脳警察 Meets フランク・ザッパ (Ryko VACK 1175)
- エル・マロ Meets フランク・ザッパ (Ryko VACK 1176)
- 山本精一/ATR/Hilah from ボアダムス Meets フランク・ザッパ (Ryko VACK 1177)
- 下山淳, ex-ルースターズ, Meets フランク・ザッパ (Ryko VACK 1178)
- 谷中敦 from 東京スカパラダイスオーケストラ Meets フランク・ザッパ (Ryko VACK 1179)
- Sugizo Meets フランク・ザッパ (Ryko VACK 1180)
And here's what Videoarts Music had to say about them on their web site:
こんなベストをまっていた！！
ザッパにリスペクト 国内アーティストによる選曲第一弾6種■フランク・ザッパの7回忌＆国内化から30年を記念して、ザッパをリスペクトし続ける日本のアーティストがそれぞれの思いを込めて、60タイトルを超える作品の中から、自分のベスト・アルバムをつくった！
■PANTA（頭脳警察）は、日本語によるロックをはじめて世の中に広めたバンドの代表格です。その後、下山淳のいたザ・ルースターズのパブ・ロック、ガレージ・ロックが、やがてホコ天ロックと呼ばれた音楽シーンに繋がっていき、ボアダムスが海外で評価されたことで日本でのノイズ・シーンを認識させ、エル・マロがクラブ・シーンとロックの融合を試み、谷中敦のバリトンサックスが唸る東京スカパラダイスオーケストラがワールド・ミュージックへの入口を広げ、そしてギタリストSUGIZＯを生み出したあのバンドがロックをポップ・シーンに引き上げていきました。これは、今までのコンピレーションとは差別化を謀り、ザッパを知らないいろんな人が興味を持ちやすいように、ザッパの音楽性をわかりやすく、ジャンルをその選曲者に当てはめ、色濃く、深く、ザッパの音楽への理解を高めるためのコンピレーション・アルバムです。レーベル／事務所などの権利問題を超えた、フランク・ザッパだから出来た日本独自企画です。
■あらゆる音楽の要素（ジャンル）を網羅したザッパの多様性を選曲者の個性や音楽性でそのまま選曲に反映された、そのアーティストが好きなら見える！ザッパのいいとこ取り！凝縮！！
■もう『変態っ！』なんて言わせない！！驚くほどザッパの音楽はこんなにも現在の音楽シーンと共鳴していた！
■フロント・ジャケットは選曲者の顔で迫ります！
■監修：八木康夫
●ザッパ初来日時（1976年）で交流も深く日本のミュージシャンからの支持も厚い、八木 康夫氏の監修
●国内アーティストによる選曲コンピレーション・アルバム・シリーズ化
●１アーティストにつき1枚を制作。トータル6枚を同時発売
●各アルバムに選曲者と八木 康夫氏による対談式インタビューを掲載。
●八木康夫氏による共通解説。
●全タイトルのジャケ写を入れた投げ込みを作成。
●ジャケ写は選曲者がザッパのヒゲ扮装をするなどトリビュート的要素も感じられるもので企画。