--- In [email protected], "stevemissemiko"
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> This one's got me stumped. I watched the move "Spirited Away"
> recently. I believe the Japanese title is "Sen to Chihiro
> kamikakushi". I watched the movie in Japanese with English
> Subtitles. There was one scene where a question was asked - it
> sounded like "Bansai ga nani". The caption read "What is a
> foreman?". My questions is "Bansai" - does this really mean
foreman
> (supervisor/boss/leader)? I can't find it in any of my
> dictionaries. Elsewhere in the movie, I hear the same word used
and
> always - it means "foreman". Thx..
I haven't watched the anime, but I did some digging and I think I've
got the answer to your question.
The character you are talking about is the frog in the bath house,
right? It's called "bandai gaeru" (bandai frog) .
"Bandai" doesn't mean "foreman". It literally means "duty stand",
which actually is (or should I say was?) the high seat in a "sentou"
(publich bath house) where the manager sits to keep an eye on the
changing rooms and the bathrooms for men and women.
Traditionally, there is only one big room in a "sentou", and there
is a partition wall in the middle to separate "otoko-yu" (men's
bath) and "onna-yu" (women's bath).
The "bandai" is located at the one end of the wall near the entrance
(or the lobby) so he/she can look over both "otoko-yu" and "onna-yu".
In that movie, the manager who sits on "bandai" is a frog, so he's
called "bandai gaeru" or "bandai" for short.
They employed "foreman" for him, because there's no word
for "bandai" in English. I guess the translaters had a hard time
with this one.
"Sentous" are getting fewer and fewer and I think the
traditional "bandai" is disappearing too.
Kamui
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