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Richard Medhurst📚️🇯🇵

@richardmedh.bsky.social

590 followers 110 following 730 posts

Brit in Yokohama, translator at https://www.nippon.com/en/ Translator of The Essential Akutagawa (Sep 2025) Interested in Japanese language, literature, and history.

www.nippon.com

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Richard Medhurst📚️🇯🇵 @richardmedh.bsky.social · Apr 3

New Akutagawa collection coming in September. I was working on this for some time.

The Essential Akutagawa: Twenty-Two Short Stories by Japan's Master Storyteller
By Ryunosuke Akutagawa
New translations and an introduction by Richard Medhurst
Published by Tuttle

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Richard Medhurst📚️🇯🇵 @richardmedh.bsky.social · 10h

It's good to have a beer targeting intellectuals.

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Richard Medhurst📚️🇯🇵 @richardmedh.bsky.social · 21h

It's the kind of question I see and suddenly want to know the answer myself.

Richard Medhurst📚️🇯🇵 @richardmedh.bsky.social · 21h

I had a quick search around in Japanese, but couldn't find any significant connection, so safe to ignore, I think.

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Richard Medhurst📚️🇯🇵 @richardmedh.bsky.social · 1d

One fun kanji fact I like is that the 午 in 午前 (morning) and 午後 (afternoon) means "horse," as the old hour of the horse was around noon.
www.nippon.com/en/japan-dat...

The Year of the Horse: Galloping into 2026

As 2026 is the Year of the Horse, we introduce the connections these animals have with Japan’s shrines, as well as various sayings associated with them.

www.nippon.com

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Richard Medhurst📚️🇯🇵 @richardmedh.bsky.social · 1d

Thank you, Bear, for protecting Maruzen.

A bear sculpture outside Maruzen, Tokyo.

Richard Medhurst📚️🇯🇵 @richardmedh.bsky.social · 1d

I just had to track it down. The Essential Akutagawa on sale in Maruzen, Tokyo. On sale in other places too.

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Richard Medhurst📚️🇯🇵 @richardmedh.bsky.social · 1d

Takoyaki is Osaka's famous callus-based dish.

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Richard Medhurst📚️🇯🇵 @richardmedh.bsky.social · 1d

On a train filled with Good Ale ads now, but I'll spare you that.

Richard Medhurst📚️🇯🇵 @richardmedh.bsky.social · 2d

I think it would be more polite if we changed YOLO to YOLOshiku onegaishimasu.

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Richard Medhurst📚️🇯🇵 @richardmedh.bsky.social · 3d

Beer wars heating up.

Cans reading "Sapporo Extra Think" and "Kirin Good Ale."

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Richard Medhurst📚️🇯🇵 @richardmedh.bsky.social · 5d

A longer quotation on translation.
www.goodreads.com/quotes/95472...

I remember a conversation which we had once about translating. Hugo knew nothing about translating, but when he learnt that I was a translator he wanted to know what it was like. I remember him going on and on, asking questions such as: What do you mean when you say that you think the meaning in French? How do you know you’re thinking it in French? If you see a picture in your mind how do you know it’s a French picture? Or is it that you say the French word to yourself? What do you see when you see that the translation is exactly right? Are you imagining what someone else would think, seeing it for the first time? Or is it a kind of feeling? What kind of feeling? Can’t you describe it more closely? And so on and so on, with a fantastic patience. This sometimes became very exasperating. What seemed to me to be the simplest utterance soon became, under the repeated pressure of Hugo’s ‘You mean’, a dark and confused saying of which I no longer myself knew the meaning. The activity of translating, which had seemed the plainest thing in the world, turned out to be an act so complex and extraordinary that it was puzzling to see how any human being could perform it.

Richard Medhurst📚️🇯🇵 @richardmedh.bsky.social · 5d

The main character in "Under the Net" is a translator, by the way, so there are a few relevant quotes here and there.

“I just enjoy translating, it's like opening one's mouth and hearing someone else's voice emerge.”

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Richard Medhurst📚️🇯🇵 @richardmedh.bsky.social · 5d

I admit I haven't read that much Iris Murdoch, but I didn't know she could write this kind of light, breezy comedy. Her debut novel, great fun to read.

"Under the Net" by Iris Murdoch

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Richard Medhurst📚️🇯🇵 @richardmedh.bsky.social · 5d

Sounds good. Everyone wants to see the real Japan.

Richard Medhurst📚️🇯🇵 @richardmedh.bsky.social · 5d

I used to like taking a glance at the most-read stories on NHK news, but this seems to have disappeared with the recent update.
news.web.nhk/newsweb

news.web.nhk

Richard Medhurst📚️🇯🇵 @richardmedh.bsky.social · 5d

As it comes up in my job from time to time, I'm much more confident about naming members of Japan's imperial family than the British royal family. I made a rare click on a Prince William story, and saw his kids for the first time in a while. Getting quite big.

Richard Medhurst📚️🇯🇵 @richardmedh.bsky.social · 7d

My dentist gives me a percentage for how much plaque I have, which really feels like the gamification of cleaning your teeth.

Richard Medhurst📚️🇯🇵 @richardmedh.bsky.social · 7d

The Essential Akutagawa is rolling out around the world. A friend told me he saw a copy in Kinokuniya Singapore.

Richard Medhurst📚️🇯🇵 @richardmedh.bsky.social · 7d

Twice as long, soft as a song toilet paper.

Richard Medhurst📚️🇯🇵 @richardmedh.bsky.social · 8d

Next up to read, some Oe Kenzaburo.

Reposted by Richard Medhurst📚️🇯🇵

Elizabeth Tasker @elizabethtasker.bsky.social · 10d

This box contains a model of the Hayabusa2 spacecraft. Although frankly, it looks like a case for body parts. Nobody ever touches it 😐

Too fragile for the overhead bins, we have to purchase an oversized luggage seat. This also meant I had pre-boarding with my spacecraft child!

A metallic box is strapped into the middle seat in an aeroplane.

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Richard Medhurst📚️🇯🇵 @richardmedh.bsky.social · 10d

Famous last words every time: I seem to have got over it quite quickly this time.

Richard Medhurst📚️🇯🇵 @richardmedh.bsky.social · 11d

Program explaining literature (to JHS students?) on NHK now. Here's a scene from Akutagawa's Du Zichun. (Great story, in my new collection of Akutagawa translations.)

Du Zichun cowers on a mountain as he's threatened by a huge heavenly general.

Richard Medhurst📚️🇯🇵 @richardmedh.bsky.social · 12d

There's a Japanese museum called MOA Museum of Art and I wondered if MOA stood for "Museum of Art." Thanks, Japan Guide for clearing up that it actually comes from "Mokichi Okada Association." Although a little disappointing.

www.japan-guide.com/e/e6306.html

MOA Museum of Art

Visitor guide for the MOA Museum of Art in Atami.

www.japan-guide.com

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Richard Medhurst📚️🇯🇵 @richardmedh.bsky.social · 12d

Just had the thought that Hearn was an early example of a foreigner sharing "weird Japan" stories with the world. (In a sense.)