# "和" には争いをやめるという意味もあります



## ionavideo

I'm having a difficult time understanding this sentence, which is in a report about the nonprofit 'Table for Two' organization.

The previous sentences say: "Also, traditional Japanese food has been designated by UNESCO as an Intangible Cultural Heritage, which is now drawing worldwide attention. The healthy menu choices proposed by TFT include ‘preparing things in season,’ ‘moderate eating’ (eight-tenths full), along with Japanese cuisine."

I think the first character, 'wa' refers to Japan or Japanese food, but it also means harmony or peace. 
The closest I can come up with is something like:

"Having (wa) means giving up fighting."

And it's a play on the character 'wa' because that means peace and harmony, or Japanese food.


----------



## karlalou

ionavideo said:


> "Having (wa) means giving up fighting."
> 
> And it's a play on the character 'wa' because that means peace and harmony, or Japanese food.


I agree with you that 和 does not directly have the meaning of stopping fighting, and that it basically means harmony and also peace that it equals to have no fighting. Strictly speaking, it can go as far as to mean 'subside' as part of the verb, 和らぐ.

But it doesn't mean 'food' though 和食(wa-syoku) means Japanese food. Here 和 means Japanese, and 食(syoku) is the one that means food. 
Again, 和 doesn't directly mean Japan or Japanese, but it's a tradition from the ancient time that we symbolically use 和 for our country.


----------



## ionavideo

Thank you for your explanation. I will work on the general idea of "Harmony means giving up fighting." The only problem is that the rest of the paragraph is about food, and so this sentence does not make sense in the context.


----------



## Flaminius

In fact 和 can mean giving up fighting (cf. 和議, 講和; negociating the terms of truce).  Still, you might want to use more straightforward "peace" in translation.  It looks like a vague hint at providing food contributes to conflict prevention.


----------



## ionavideo

Yes, it does seem to suggest providing food helps to stop fighting. That is what TFT does; they provide school lunches in economically poor areas. Still, my translation is very awkward. I need to improve it. Thanks for the suggestion.


----------



## frequency

Do you mean,


ionavideo said:


> "Also, traditional Japanese food has been designated by UNESCO....along with Japanese cuisine."


after this one, your text says
"和" には争いをやめるという意味もあります。？

Your text suddenly stars explaining the meaning that Kanji 和 has. I think this isn't related to the explanation of the Japanese cuisine（和食）they are going to provide. But I'm not sure very much. Am I on the right track?
The sentence says _(Kanji) 和 has the meaning of cessation of/giving up fighting._ And this definition would be true.
和


----------



## ionavideo

Y


frequency said:


> Do you mean,
> 
> after this one, your text says
> "和" には争いをやめるという意味もあります。？
> 
> Your text suddenly stars explaining the meaning that Kanji 和 has. I think this isn't related to the explanation of the Japanese cuisine（和食）they are going to provide. But I'm not sure very much. Am I on the right track?
> The sentence says _(Kanji) 和 has the meaning of cessation of/giving up fighting._ And this definition would be true.
> 和


Yes, you are right. I am translating a Japanese report into English. So just look at the Japanese characters and ignore the English. In your opinion, what does the sentence in Japanese mean?


----------



## ionavideo

I'm thinking I might use this English to convey the meaning of the Japanese:
"In order to have peace, we must first dispel conflict."


----------



## frequency

I think that sentence sounds unnatural to you because it suddenly starts talking about a different thing. But it really says about one of the meanings kanji 和 has. Suddenly the topic veers/derails. This sometimes happens in Japanese essays but in English it doesn't verh much.

If I were you, I'd say
_Kanji 和 is often used in our words that denote peace, and also in the words describing the actions to give up/stop a fight. This kanji is shared (used) in the word 和食ーJapanese cuisine._
Edit this as necessary.

What the writer is implying in that sentence is, Don't you think it's wonderful the word 和食 has the kanji 和 which means "peace"?


----------



## ionavideo

Very insightful, Frequency. I especially like the 'wonderful word wa' idea. Thank you very much.


----------

