A funeral. The o is honorific. The Japanese almost all opt to be cremated after death. The figure is something like ninety-eight or ninety-nine percent. After the funeral ceremony, family and friends of the deceased will proceed to the crematorium, where the body is incinerated. Once the deceased has been reduced to ashes and bones, loved ones pick up the bones with chopsticks and place them in a jar.

Aunt or middle-aged woman. Obaasan means grandmother. Either way, they are the salt of the earth, and we love them.

"Good morning." We can almost picture the mayor of Hayward, California, trying to get back on track after that debacle at the high school (see arigato gozaimasu), as he strides into the Funabashi mayor's office at nine am sharp and belts out a breezy, "Iowa!"

hot springs bath. Heaven. Absolute heaven. Communal bathing under the stars in a mineral-rich hot springs bath is one of life's great pleasures. Of course, prudish types have steadily tried to ruin the tradition, and now most onsen have separate baths for men and women. But we're old enough to remember the good old days -- half a dozen men and women soaking in a tiny outdoor bath in the hills of Fukushima watching the snow fall and passing a bottle of sake. Perfect ... until someone who had watched "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" one too many times releases the main course from dinner -- roasted Pacific saury -- into the bath. Shrieks, bedlam, naked people running everywhere. Ahh the memories!

Nerd, freak. This word is also a polite way to say "your house," but in the early 1980s, it began morphing into its current, more prevalent meaning. Journalist Akio Nakamori wrote a series of articles in 1983 entitled “The Study of Otaku” (Otaku no Kenkyuu) that talked about the qualities of hardcore anime, manga and video game fans.

Shake. A command used by dog owners to get their pets to raise their paws. On New Year's 2006, the next Year of the Dog, temple grounds nationwide will be teeming with dogs and their owners as they make their first prayer of the year together.

Literally the "holy transit evening." This is a Japanese wake. Some are held at home and others are held at funeral parlors.

Geezer-hunting, old-man-hunting, father-hunting. The practice of young teens beating up and robbing older white-collar men. Sometimes the violence is random. Other times, the men are set up by girls posing as prostitutes. The term has been in use since the mid 1990s.