Breen defines 泥棒 as “thief, burglar, robber, theft.” As you can see, “theft” is the last definition, and for good reason. In dozens of Breen’s sample sentences, 泥棒 shows up in the translation as “burglar” (and sometimes “bugler,” thanks to a typo!), but I’m hard-pressed to find sample sentences where 泥棒 means “theft.” Here’s one I did find:
都会では泥棒に気をつけなさい。
Tokai de wa dorobō ni ki o tsukenasai.
Beware of thefts in a big city.都会 (tokai: big city) metropolis + chief city
Oddly, Halpern says 会 here means “chief city.” Usually, it means “to meet.”
気をつける (ki o tsukeru: to be careful)
attention + to attachGood advice, and unfortunately, it feels quite relevant at the moment. I recently met some Japanese women in Barcelona. They live in Italy, and they flew to Spain to meet us. One has been my language partner via email for three years, and this was our first time meeting.
The morning after they arrived, they went to a cafe for breakfast. Before eating, they snapped pictures of themselves, leaving a purse unguarded for perhaps ten seconds. That’s as much time as it took for the bag to disappear. Having a wallet stolen can put such a painful damper on a trip, but they managed to be great sports, and I was really impressed. I think I would have sulked all day.
Donald Richie wrote a famous essay about the “Japanese smile,” the Japanese ability to put on a happy face even after disaster strikes. Others have been skeptical of Richie’s observations on this issue, and I never knew quite what to think. But for the first time, I feel I have firsthand evidence of what Richie meant.
