Coincidences in Japan

Today’s interesting word of Japanese is guuzen (GOO-zen), which means “coincidence.” I don’t know why, but there seems to be something about Japan that brings out the most unlikely coincidences, at least for me. On several occasions I’ve bumped into people I studied Japanese with at SDSU in Tokyo and Yokohama — quite a feat, considering the fact that I live far from these places myself. The guy who lives next door to us decided to run for mayor of our city of 200,000 and won, so my next-door neighbor just happens to be the mayor. When racing manga/anime Initial D got popular in the U.S., I was surprised to learn that the mountain roads I’d been zooming up and down for years were the setting of the story. But the biggest guuzen of my life would have to be the fact that the city I just happened to come to live in was the home town of Mitsuru Adachi, the creator of Touch, the classic baseball manga that I used to learn Japanese from, and which formed much of my early perception of Japan and its language. What’s more, the artist just happens to share a birthday with my wife, another incredible coincidence.

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