Elective affinities: Japanese bonds of affection
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One of my favorite expressions of ineffability in Chinese is yǒuyuán 有緣, which is what two people feel when they are drawn together by some inexplicable, indisputable attraction. Considerations of beauty and practicality are not what matter. They simply are fated / predestined to be together. They have an undeniable affinity for each other.
I first gained a serious appreciation for the idea of affinity in college when I read Die Wahlverwandtschaften (Elective Affinities), the third novel of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832). The concept was taken up in chemistry (Robert Boyle [1627-1691] — check out his hair!), then sociology (Max Weber [1864-1920]), then in psychology to describe the magnetism between individuals, and in dozens of other fields (commerce, finance, and law; religion and belief; science and technology; business; music; literature; history; mathematics; language studies; etc.). Needless to say, "affinity" is a powerful, productive concept, just as it is an actual force in relations between entities in the microcosm and macrocosm.
Those are preliminary observations to introduce this thought-provoking Japanese article:
"Japanese bonds of affection Pockmarks Are Dimples: Japanese Proverbs and Idioms About Love, Family, and Friendship", Richard Medhurst, nippon.com (8/23/24):
Someone for Everyone
Love can be forgiving in Japanese sayings, although that does not mean it will always last forever.
あばたもえくぼ — Abata mo ekubo. According to the old saying “even pockmarks are dimples,” as someone who is smitten can see marks or scars, perhaps left by smallpox, as cute facial features.
割れ鍋に綴じ蓋 — Warenabe ni tojibuta. There is someone out there for everyone, just as there is “a perfect lid for any cracked pot.”
縁は異なもの味なもの — En wa i na mono aji na mono. Roughly, “love is a strange and fascinating thing.” Here, en, the mysterious force that brings people together romantically, is translated simply as “love.”
秋風が立つ — Akikaze ga tatsu. When “an autumn wind blows,” the chill air means that affections are waning. This is associated with common word play between aki (autumn) and akiru (to lose interest).
Like Parent, Like Child?
Opinions are split on whether children are like their parents, while other sayings consider how parents influence their children’s lives.
蛙の子は蛙 — Kaeru no ko wa kaeru. “A frog’s child is a frog,” according to one view, as children resemble their parents in character and ability, and take the same path through life. The proverb is used particularly to say that ordinary people will not have extraordinary offspring.
瓜の蔓に茄子はならぬ — Uri no tsuru ni nasu wa naranu. Similarly, “eggplants don’t grow on gourd vines,” with the same association with predictable traits.
鳶が鷹を生む — Tobi ga taka o umu. However, “a kite gives birth to a hawk” goes against the two previous sayings by imagining an outstanding child of an ordinary parent; here the hawk is seen as superior to the kite.
親の光は七光 — Oya no hikari wa nana hikari. “A parent’s light is seven lights” is a way of saying that if a parent has a high social position or is famous, it is a great help to the child in achieving success, with the “seven lights” representing the many benefits available to the child. The phrase may be seen in the shortened form oya no nana hikari, or “a parent’s seven lights.”
可愛い子には旅をさせよ — Kawaii ko ni wa tabi o saseyo. “Send a beloved child on a journey” is a proverb offering parental advice. It suggests that rather than pampering children at home, it is better to send them out to travel so that they experience the harshness of the world, and thereby grow.
Turning Red
The last set of sayings covers friendship, including how such relationships come about, and how they shape us.
類は友を呼ぶ — Rui wa tomo o yobu. Deriving from the Yijing (Book of Changes), this phrase is awkward to translate directly, but means something like “birds of a feather flock together.” It suggests that people with similar likes or interests naturally become friends with each other. It may be used positively—or sometimes negatively, for those with undesirable shared qualities.
朱に交われば赤くなる — Shu ni majiwareba akaku naru. “Mix with vermilion and you turn red” focuses on how friends influence each other. Again, this could be seen as a good thing if the friends are nice people, or bad if someone falls in with the wrong crowd.
竹馬の友 — Chikuba no tomo. “Bamboo horse friends” is used to describe buddies who have been close since the childhood days when they played together with toy horses made from bamboo.
There is so much deep wisdom and truth embodied in these humble Japanese sayings, especially the one about en 縁: edge, fate, brink, relation, chance, connection, karma, bond, destiny, love, affinity.
Selected (!) readings
- roy porat, "Layers of Ineffability in the Zhuangzi: Why Language Should Not Be Trusted", New Visions of the Zhuangzi (2015).
- Philip J. Ivanhoe, "Zhuangzi on Skepticism, Skill, and the Ineffable Dao", Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Vol. 61, No. 4 (Winter, 1993), 639-654.
[Thanks to Don Keyser]
ivc said,
August 24, 2024 @ 7:16 am
I have heard of a term of quantum consciousness for this kind of human relationship.
David Johnson said,
August 24, 2024 @ 6:58 pm
Thanks for this, Victor. It made me think. I feel an intuitive sympathetic understanding of these sayings, like most people—except for *en*. I *think* I have an intuitive understanding of various haiku, but there are usually allusions or resonances that I will be unaware of. And when we get to, say, Japanese Neo-Confucian writings, I have no intuitive grasp at all. The most sophisticated intellectual levels are where the gaps between cultures are widest.
Jonathan Smith said,
August 25, 2024 @ 9:23 am
There was an earlier post about Japanese expressions for some paranormal phenomena wherein the expressions were actually about coincidence / psychic connection and belong here…
There was also a recent article on bbc.com about Korean inyeon which amusingly stated that "it's likely that the idea of 'predestiny' was built into the original Chinese. […] [t]he word's equivalent, for instance, is mìng yùn in Mandarin […]" To be fair it also has good info including the connection to Buddhism and specifically Sanskrit hetuprataya. IDK if (the ancestor of Mand.) yīnyuán 因缘 was a calque per se but it seems possible…
Early literal and metaphorical meaning(s) of yuán 缘 also of interest… "edgings" on clothing is one such application. Not 'climb' despite normal translations of "緣木求魚" (Mencius) and the like… yán 沿 is a very similar word ('follow/trace along edges' etc…) and the two are homophones in e.g. Taiwanese.
A G said,
August 25, 2024 @ 11:30 am
Beautiful post! Thank you
Josh R. said,
August 26, 2024 @ 9:33 pm
Let me try to explicate 縁 "en". (I'm using this character throughout, but it should be noted that it is a specifically Japanese variation of the original character 缘.)
So the character itself derives from 彖, representing a pig with a hanging belly, and 糸, representing "thread, string". The original meaning was therefore "fringe", as in multiple threads hanging down from a piece of cloth.
I am not entirely sure if the metaphoric meaning of "knock-on effects" arose independently, but as Jonathan Smith notes, the word was adapted for the compound 因縁, coined as a calque for hetu-prataya.
Philosophical digression! What does 因縁/hetu-prataya even mean? 因 represents "direct causes." 縁, then, represents indirect causes. In other words, the multi-thread "fringe" of knock-on effects of a particular cause.
So, for example, the 因 of how I met my wife is that she was sitting next to a friend of mine at a bar, two seats down from me, they began talking, and then our respective groups began to drink and talk together. That's the direct cause. But our meeting was also facilitated by various 縁, or the effects of indirect causes: two of my friends decided to go to the bar, and they invited me; my future wife mistakenly thought it was her shift to work at a nearby jazz bar, and when she realized she didn't have to work, she invited a friend of hers to go out, and said friend suggested the bar where we met.
因縁, then, refers to all the direct and indirect causes of any event. We can see here how 縁 starts to take on the valences of "fate, destiny."
Okay, so in the 6th century, 因縁 gets imported to Japan along with Buddhism. And 縁 ends up attached to the native Japanese word "yukari", meaning some kind of connection or involvement. This reinforces the sense of "fate", but also the sense of relation, leading to its use in Japan in senses involving marriage, and the relations thereof. Thus, you have 縁談 endan, proposal for arranged marriage (lit. "discussion of 縁). The old term for divorce was 離縁 rien, the separation of 縁. To cut ties from a family member is to 縁を切る en wo kiru, to cut 縁.
In general, at least in the Japanese sense, 縁 en suggests a connection, with appreciation for the varied and diverse confluence of probabilities and coincidences that led to it.