Valentine felids

February 14, 2011 • 5:13 am

It’s Valentine’s Day, and I hope you’ve bought presents for That Special Someone, even if it’s only a felid.  To celebrate, we’re featuring three cat-themed contributions from our readers.

The internet is awash with photos of pairs of kittehs sleeping in the shape of a heart, but we have our own, sent all the way from Sumatra by alert reader David Pearton:

I am currently working with an orangutan research project in Bukit Lawang, Sumatra (Indonesia) and we have acquired a number of cats (as so often seems to happen in these places).  As the weather is up at 30deg C and 90% humidity the cats spend a lot of time “resting” – I don’t know why they tend to do it in piles in the heat, but c’est la vie.  I thought you might enjoy this pic I took the other day – Jack is the black and white (named after Jack Sparrow because of the eye patch) and the black one is Will (Smith).  You can see Will’s tail is malformed, an inherited trait that seems to affect to some degree at least 60% of the cats I’ve seen in Indonesia. I’m not sure of the mutation but it seems to be variably penetrant and leads to shortened (sometimes dramatically) and kinked tails.  I’ve seen some where the tail is kinked up to 160 degrees.

And our Official Japanese Correspondent, Yokohamamama, contributes a box of cat-themed chocolates sold in Japan for Valentine’s Day (see her new post on Valentine’s Day in Japan.)  The custom on V-day in Japan is the opposite of that in America: ladies must give candy and valentines to their men.  Lucky is the dude who gets these:

And, finally, a Valentine Video. Yokohamamama has also done us the favor of translating the third Japanese commercial for the Jalan travel agency, featuring the randy, tie-clad bizness cat Nyaran.  (We’ve had two pervious videos and Y’s analysis of them: here and here.)  If you don’t speak Japanese, you’ll probably be a bit curious about what’s going on in this video, even though it’s funny:

I had been greatly puzzled by this commercial.  Who was this hawt Persian kitteh that Nyaran was dreaming of?  Did he have a date with her, or had he been stood up, accounting for the two empty bathrobes?   Our correspondent clears up the mystery, showing that the video is truly appropriate for Valentine’s Day, for Nytaran is preparing for a Big Date:

This episode in Jalan Travel’s continuing Nyaran Saga is titled “Nyaran no Dato no Shitami no Maki”, or “Nyaran’s Preliminary Inspection Episode”

Nyran has come to a new hotel to check out the amenities in preparation for a Hawt Date before he takes his girlfriend (although it’s not entirely clear in this commercial whether the Hawt Persian has already agreed to go out with him, or he’s just hoping that if he can find someplace suitably cool enough that she *will* go out with him… but in any case, the date has not yet happened…)

“Watashi wa Nyaran”  (I am Nyaran)

“Kyou wa Hoteru ni Dato no shitami ni kitan nyo da!”  (Today I’ve come to the hotel for a preliminary inspection before a date!)

“Dewa, sassoku!”  (Well, I’ll check immediately!)

“…Futari de tabete…”  (…we can eat together…)

“…futari de momowarete…”  (…get a massage together….)

“…Dakiyosete…!”  (…hug each other…!!)

“Maji *ya-bai nyo da—!”  (“This is seriously *amazing!”  …*Another, more usual, meaning of “yabai” is “risky” or “dangerous”.  If you substitute that meaning, along with Nyaran’s agitated voice in the video at that point, you get the impression that he’s gotten carried away with his own imaginings…especially given what he says next—)

“Me, me, me!”…kore ga todome no… yakei” (Hem. . hem. . .hem. . And this is the piece de resistance… the nightscape!”)  [Thanks to reader Tim Martin for correcting this line.]

Those last two lines as he sits in his robe looking at the Tokyo nightscape…and the camera flashes to two robes hanging in the bathroom (in preparation, presumably )

As Nyaran looks out the window in his robe, the words on the screen say:  “Nichijou wo hanareru.  Shiawase.”  (Let go of the everyday life.  Happiness.)
Finally we hear the female announcer saying “Mada, koko ni nai, deai”, an ad campaign for Recruit that means something like “We meet needs you don’t know you have yet”.

This is a Western-style hotel, clearly, so there’s not as much to deconstruct, so to speak, in this commercial.  The main thing is—Nyaran is anticipating a date; he hasn’t been stood up.

Official Japanese Correspondent

24 thoughts on “Valentine felids”

  1. Kitty Lurve….
    He looks very smart in that bow-tie! Never liked them myself & only ever had top wear one twice I think, & then they were tied for me by other people so he must be one dexterous puddy-tat.

    1. Oh yes–he got that bathrobe on and tied the belt, too:-))

      I wonder, parenthetically, whether the black cat Will in the top photo (kawaiii!) isn’t also a bob-tail, like Nyaran? Bobtails sometimes have 1/4 or half-length tails with a big kink in them just like that…

  4. I love it when evolution blogs and Japanese stuff come together.

    One correction though- Nyaran’s last line is “kore ga todome no… yakei”, meaning “And this is the piece de resistance… the nightscape!”

    1. Wait– did he say “todome ROU” or “todome no”? I heard “todomerou”…which sounded like “stop that”. Hang on! Now I have to go have another listen!

      1. I hear it definitively as “todome no.”

        Also, “todomeru” is not the word you use to tell yourself to stop doing something. Phrases that would be used include “yamero!”, “yose!,” or even “shikkari shiro!” if you were going for a “get a grip!” type of phrase. So “todomeru” is not even the right word. But “todome no yakei” makes perfect sense, grammatically and given the context.

        1. That explains why it sounded slightly weird to me– you’re right. “yamerou” or “shikkari shirou” is what I would say (or have always heard), too. This is what comes of picking things up willy-nilly and not studying grammar… ;-))

    2. Oooh! I think you’re right! He gets so over-excited at the end, that it’s a little hard to make out what he’s saying! Should have double-checked that online–the dictionary I normally use is sometimes incomplete. It gave “finishing blow” for todome, which didn’t quite make sense to me. But the online dictionary I use also has “clincher”–which would’ve made sense, though I like your version “piece de resistance”!(please excuse the lack of accents grave and aigue there–can’t remember the html of the top of my head). Also–I initially heard “todomerou”, so went with the verb form… even though it bugged me. Thanks!

      1. Ah, you responded while I was responding!

        Yeah, the ‘clincher’ meaning is a metaphorical extension of the original ‘finishing blow’ meaning (which comes from ‘stopping’ your opponent’s breath). Poetic, in a macabre sort of way.

        Glad to be of service!

        1. Aaahh–and you replied while I was replying again! Right–once I saw an extended definition, I could see where that meaning came from. Should just use the online dictionary instead of the Sanseido’s…

          It is a rather poetic phrase– similar to “breathtaking” (though not a translation of that word).

    1. Yup! Tokyo Tower in the background–so that room has a really great view ;-)) I *love* the little bathrobes… I want to know how they get Nyaran to sit still long enough to get that bathrobe on, tie it neatly, and *keep* it on…

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