Julia Viacheslavovna Lipnitskaia's mom in Japan (calcifer13) wrote in linguaphiles,
  • Mood: productive
Hello linguaphilies,

In Japanese, we have this expression;

Chabu dai wo hikkuri kaesu.

means getting very angry.

The phrase "chabudai wo hikkuri kaesui" literally means to flip a chabudai over.　Chabudai is a small round dining table (see below)


and this chabudai usually is used in a small room on tatami mat floor. So those who use chabudai as dinner table more likely a poor family. For instance, one example, that I want you to visualize is as follows;

A father of a poor family suddenly gets into a rage while the whole family member are eating dinner. The eldest son would say something inappropriate, then the father falls into a rage and he turns over the chabudai, the dinner table. Japan used to be very poor before, so chabudai was a dinner table which had been used by most of the people.

It is a good phrase because it represents a Japanese old custom as a part of Confucianism. The father is the most powerful one in the family and he gets angry even for a tiny little thing because he is already very tired working whole day, and the son is usually very rebellious and he has also built up the stress.

Do you have some equivalent expression in you country? Something along the casual daily scene that explains your original culture well.
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