burakumin: Literally means "people of the village" but refers to people descended from persons who were ostracized as social outcasts and discriminated against, based on their occupations that involved animal slaughtering, leather making, disposal of bodies and related work, or due to alleged criminal activity. Such ostracism was in part, related to Buddhist sanctions against killing. Now used as a derogatory term along with the term eta, which means "dirty," it has been replaced by dowa which means "equal of harmony."

dake: Just, only.

haiku: A Japanese verse form, rendered in English as 3 unrhymed lines of 5, 7, 5 syllables respectively, often on some subject of nature.

hakujin: Caucasian(s); white(s).

hana: A Japanese card game using playing cards with floral patterns, often a gambling game; also, nose; flower.

hanamichi: Passage through audience to stage.

hazukashii: Embarrassed, ashamed, shy.

Issei: First-generation Japanese immigrant in America.

kenjinkai: Association of people who came from the same prefecture in Japan.

mochi: Japanese rice cake.

mochigome: Rice used for making mochi.

mochitsuki: Rice cake making.

mushiatsui: Humid; sultry.

musubi: Rice ball.

nani: What?

ryouka: Gabled roof.

sambasan: Midwife.

shoji: A translucent sliding panel of rice paper on a wooden frame, used in Japanese homes as a partition or door.

shoyu: Soy sauce.

usu: Mortar that can be used for making pounded rice cakes (mochi).