Free Japanese Slang by Peter Constantine

his large chinhoko into the ocean. The chinhoko was then whisked through the air, the spray flew, and the ancient islands of Japan were created. Amazing, isn't it?”
    In the tougher bars of Koganech, near the port of Yokohama, the foreigner comes face to face with some of the earthiest slang Japan has to offer. Here the local criminal element mixes affably with weatherworn masseuses from the nearby red-light parlors by the train station, local Korean truck drivers, liberated students, corner prostitutes who work in the corrugated dives under the elevated tracks, and garbage collectors who stop in, between cans, for a quick swig of hot sake. On some nights a Buddhist priest or two might drop by to spice up the atmosphere with a worldly anecdote. Each group in the bar has its own private lingoes and cants, the ingo (hidden words) or ago (jaw) impenetrable to outsiders. As the mood becomes more convivial, the secret words flow freely and the foreigner can successfully set pen to paper.
    The linguist notices that the women in the bar tendto refer to male organs as sticks. Konb (club), koneb (kneading stick), b (rod), surikogi (wooden pestle), and kine (pounder) are used for large and potent organs, while smaller ones are belittled as kushi (skewer), waribashi (wooden chopstick), enpitsu (pencil), and hari (needle). If a man is willing but underendowed, unkind sex masseuses will say he has ikibari, a lively needle.
    â€¢Â Â Â  Konnakii konbhairanai wa!
That big club won't fit in!
    â€¢Â Â Â  Konebo massaji suru toki wa anmari sakimade kawa o hippari agecha dame da yo.
When you massage his kneading stick, you shouldn't pull the skin up too high.
    â€¢Â Â Â  Ano otoko atashi no hadaka o mita totan, surikogi odoroku hodokiku shichatte!
When that man saw me naked his wooden pestle jumped up!
    â€¢Â Â Â  Anta kare no chinchikurin na hari mita? Kimochi warui!
Did you see his tiny little needle? Gross!
    â€¢Â Â Â  Kare atashi ni ikebari sawatte hoshii no yo! Gya!
He wanted me to touch his lively needle! Yuck!
    When gruff men refer to their penises with sticklike slang words, the images are meatier and more belligerent: nikub (meat rod), nikubashira (meat pillar), tokobashira (bed pillar), tepp (gun), hoshin (gun barrel), and rosen and roten, both rugged fishermen's words for “oar peg.” Roten was uncovered as a potent slang expression as far back as 1925, when the highbrow Kamigun Kyiku Kai (Kami County Educational Committee), in their linguistic survey Kamigunshi, identified roten as being a common Osaka-portword for penis. Another tough masculine trend is to personify the organ. In the post-World War II years the nasty taunt ket (hairy foreigner) became the fashionable word for penis, and the older street crowd still enjoys using it. Organs, after all, are both hairy and, like foreigners, dangle about on the outside (of society, that is). Equating foreigners with penises, everyone agreed, made sense, and as vaginas were increasingly being called naijin (inside person) on the streets, what could be punnier than calling penises gaijin (outside person), or foreigner.
    Other spirited personifications show the organ as being a feisty, independent apprentice, still bound to its master, who has to struggle hard to keep it in check. Words like deshi (pupil), detchi (apprentice), and detchib (apprentice stick) became the rage. Penises were also referred to as sons: segare (my son), musuko (son), emu (M) the rough school-boy abbreviation of musuko, and san, the Japanese pronunciation of “son.” Sons, the argument goes, are constantly misbehaving. Sometimes one has to even resort to beating them. Cocky words like bizu (sonny) and yanchabzu (naughty little boy), wagamama na bzu (selfish little boy) and htbzu (debauched little boy) became especially popular, as bzu has the added charismaof meaning “priest” and even “a priest's shaven head.”
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