Japanese Slang. Peter ConstantineЧитать онлайн книгу.
through windows. The easiest, many argue, is the bathroom window, dubbed in thief jargon as either hachinosu (nest of the bee) or hachisu (bee's nest). Few of them have locks, and if they are shut from the inside a brisk jolt with a baita, a metal staff whose ends have been chiseled down to a sharp point, will spring the frame open. Brigands who hinge their choice of mansion on the size and approachability of this window are classed by their peers as haiy (hot-water enterers).
Some thieves prefer to target the mansion's larger porch or balcony windows. These thieves travel light, their tool bags sporting a simple rope to climb to the balcony and a small diamond glass cutter to remove window panes. The jargon calls these masters sugarahazushi, sugara being the secretive reversal of garasu (glass), while hazushi means “remover.” More obscurely they are murakumo (cloud masses).
When doors are obstructed and windows barred, the amakiri (heaven cutters) spring into action. Using wrenches, electric saws, or even concrete blasters, they cut, kick, saw, or boost their way through the roof. The police call these thieves yanetsutai (roof enterers) and hai (scramblers),but the men and women who brave the slippery tiles and shaky corrugated roofings give each other more elevated names. The younger ones are the nyanzoku (meow gang), known also more morbidly as the nennen koz (sleep sleep little boy); they hope to tiptoe soundlessly through the children's room upstairs without startling an infant. Older professionals prefer the even more macabre sagarigumo (descending spider). They hook their ropes to the frame of the skylight and silently glide down into the house. The roof robbers define their descent into the upper rooms as ten kara yuku (coming from heaven). The idea of combining the heavens with burglary caught on, and soon roof specialists were inventing one grandiloquent name after another: tenzutai (enterers from heaven), tengaishi (heavenly-canopy masters), tenshi (heaven masters), and tengari and tongari (heaven hunters). Other names that have been passed down from generation to generation are watarikomi (cross-and-enterer), neyahaguri (roof ripper), tatsu (dragon), nezumimekuri (ripping mice), and kamisori (“razorblades,” or looters who cut into the roof). The brand of roof thief who works exclusively at night is the goishita (dark down). Men and women who access roofs by shimmying up telephone poles call themselves denshin (telegrams) and denshinkasegi (telegram breadwinners). Tokyo's Chinese jargon circles donated their own mellifluous word, teiauchintsu.
• Aitsu wa tengaishi dakara, doa no akekata wa shiran yo. He's a roof specialist, so he has no idea about opening doors.
• Ano goishita-tachi wa kanojo no ie de nusumeru mono wa minna nusunjimatta y da. Those night thieves just emptied her house.
• Aitsu watarikomi no kuse ni ochite ashi o otta rashii ze. Although he's a roof specialist, he fell and broke his leg.
• Teiauchintsu ni wa aitsu wa chitto futorisugi da ze. D yatte nobore'tte yn da yo? He's too fat for a telephone pole specialist. How the hell is he gonna climb up there?
Older thieves and those who prefer to keep both feet firmly on the ground specialize in what ethnic Chinese gangsters call ryahiyatan (swatting insects on the wall). They use a pick or sledgehammer to swat their way through the wall. In plain street-Japanese this is known as beka o barashikamaru, “disposing of the wall in order to crawl in” (beka is an inversion of kabe, “wall”). In some circles, wall breaking is also known as beka naseru (doing the wall), beka tsukeru (fixing the wall), and mado ga mieru (“the window is visible,” because a hole has just been blasted into the wall). The racket of the hammering triggered the expression mimibarashi (tearing off the ears). Some gangsters maintain that the burglar's ears are being torn off, others that it is the mansion's, in that the building's main structure is its head, the windows its eyes, and the smashed walls its ears.
In the wild sixties and seventies wall breaking came to be called, dramatically, harakiri. The image was that of modern wall breakers plunging their drills and chainsaws into the soft belly of a home, much as elegant classical heroes and heroines turned noble daggers on themselves. The generation of the eighties, a more internationalized set of thieves, upgraded the harakiri idea with a twist of English. The most fashionable name for wall breaker, they decided, was to be beriishi (belly master).
If doors, locks, windows, and roof tiles prove too formidable for a pack of thieves, they solemnly declare the case to be yawai, ornery (from yabai, “dangerous”), and turn on their heels and march out of the garden. In a more unfortunate scenario, in which a light suddenly goes on in response to the sound of walls being pulverized or glass being shattered, the robbers will gasp the classical jargon term wakatono (young lord, i.e. “drat, someone is in after all”) and make a dash for the gate.
When the robbers are in the mansion the job officially begins. The period stretching from the criminals' arrival to their loot-laden departure is called yama (mountain). This delicate metaphor suggests that the thieves, like pilgrims climbing mountains to reach blessed shrines, have to first drudge their way up the steep slope of breaking and entering before they can snatch the spoils from the peak. A younger synonym for the high-charged stealing period, used by trendy burglar novices in Tokyo and Osaka, is ingu. This strange term that leaves older criminals baffled, is none other than the English gerundive suffix “ing.”
“We lifted it from English words like dingu (doing), suchiiruingu (stealing), robbingu (robbing),” the youngsters explain.
• Yama no saich. ni mono oto o taterun ja n zo! Don't make a sound while we're on the job!
• Oi yab, isoge yo! Yama ni sanjippun ij kakeru mon ja n ze! Shit, man, move it! We shouldn't be on the job more than thirty minutes!
• Shh! Ingu no saich. ni shaberun ja n! Shh! Don't talk on the job!
• Ingu no saich. ni nanka warui yokan ga shiyagaru. I've been having a bad feeling about this job since we started it.
As the burglars move to the “mountain” portion of their crime, they will perform atari, the very last precautionary check before their feet hit the mansion's polished parquet. If all is well, they will plunge like swords into the inner sanctum of the home, the yasa (from saya, “sheath”). With their flashlights they sneak from room to room searching for loot. This is opaquely described as miagari sashite miru (our bodies are moving up in search of). On this initial round nothing is touched. The aim is to “bite the platform” (dai o kamu), to flavor the spoils, mentally balancing their portability against their potential market value. “If we had to choose, should we take the TV-video set, the CD player with remote, or that gigantic Kamakura vase?” the bandits ask themselves. Another burning question is whether the articles being considered are abuiabu (the real thing). When thieves come across prospective bounty that is of contestable value, the connoisseur of the group does a quick atari o tsukeru (attaching a hit). He or she will carefully scratch, bite, lick, or prod the item to test its authenticity. A thief who bumps into an expensive object and sends it crashing to the floor, is accused of buriya, the jargon word for smashing stealable commodities on the job.
• Chikush! Koko ni wa nani hitotsu abuiabu ga ari'ya shin! Shit! Absolutely nothing here's genuine!
• Oi, kore ga honmono ka chitto atari tsukete miru beki da ze. Hey, check this piece to see if it's real.
• Aitsu o tsurete ikun' dattara, burya ni ki o tsuketa h ga ii ze! If you're gonna take him along, make sure he doesn't trash the place!
Some modern looters are only interested in hard yen. Unperturbed, they will march right past rich bibelots and strings of Picassos and make a beeline for the safe, for what they call mamono (the real thing). These looters are the shimabarashi (island breakers), otomodachi (friends), namashi (cash masters), sannokkan (money exchangers), and more recently maniishi (money masters). In money-master jargon the safe is musume, the daughter. A safe, like a cherished daughter, they explain, is a household's most prized and jealously-guarded possession. If