三年 さんねん — Three Years

Three years, and the beginner's mind

Three years is a familiar measure in Japanese. 石の上にも三年 — "even on a stone, three years" — says that sitting it out on something cold will warm it in the end: perseverance pays. 桃栗三年柿八年 says peaches and chestnuts take three years to bear fruit, persimmons eight. A 地域おこし協力隊 commission also runs for up to three years, so many cooperators measure their work in the same span. 初心忘るべからず, "do not forget the beginner's mind," comes from 世阿弥, the Noh playwright and theorist of the fifteenth century. He meant more than "remember why you started": at every stage of an art, even in old age, there is a new beginning, and one should remember how clumsy one was. Today the phrase is said at entrance ceremonies, new jobs and anniversaries. The grammar of this lesson is the grammar of looking back: そばから, たりとも, といえども, ながらに and ことだろう.