Arabic Proverbs
The title may lead you to expect arabic proverbs, but this episode travels to Japan. Host Tansel is joined by linguist Dr. Kenji Mori and Yuki Tanaka, calling in from Osaka, to explore 七転八起: “Fall seven times, stand up eight.” Their conversation isn’t a language lesson so much as a gentle look at how a saying can make room for setbacks—and offer a way to keep moving.
Kenji points out that the proverb doesn’t simply say “try again.” It counts the falls. In much of East Asian tradition, he explains, seven can mean many times, while eight is one more. The message is that however many times you fall, you get up one more time. Tansel finds comfort in that arithmetic: falling is expected, not treated as proof that you’ve failed. Yuki shares how her grandmother put it: “The eight is the important number. The seven is just life.”
In Japan, the idea also takes a tangible form in the Daruma doll. Yuki describes a round, red figure with a fierce face and a weighted base; push it over, and it wobbles upright again. When someone sets a major goal—such as passing exams, starting a business, or recovering from illness—they may paint in one eye and leave the other blank. When the goal is reached, they paint the second eye. The doll’s persistence makes it a fitting companion for the proverb: it doesn’t avoid falling; it gets back up.
Yuki says Daruma dolls are modeled on Bodhidharma, the monk associated in the conversation with bringing Zen Buddhism to China, whose tradition traveled to Japan. Red, she adds, has long been regarded in Japan as a protective color, warding off illness and bad luck. At New Year, temples hold Daruma markets, where families choose dolls for the year’s wishes. The image is both playful and reassuring: a little guardian that keeps righting itself.
The saying also meets people in the middle of difficulty. Yuki remembers dropping the baton during a school relay at age nine and crying behind the equipment shed. Her grandmother offered the proverb, then a simple next step: pick up the baton next year. Yuki did, running the anchor leg the following year. She remembers her grandmother’s voice more than the medal. Later, she says, friends used the proverb during job hunting, athletes after hard losses, and her father when his small company nearly went bankrupt.
That timing matters. As Kenji observes, the saying is different from a general “try, try again”: it gives the falls their own place in the story. And Yuki says it’s not something people reserve for after success. You say it while you’re still falling. The episode’s closing challenge is small and practical: notice one get-up today. In this Japanese proverb’s quiet accounting, one more rise is enough to turn the count in your favor.
