Kiss up, kick down

The Yama Sakura exercise was -- for the most part -- pretty boring, so my Japanese counterparts and I filled time talking about four-character sayings. For example, 目茶苦茶 (eye/tea/bitter/tea) is an idiom referring to "a big mess." Infinite military applications, that one.

English has these as well, though we don't think of them as such. For example, "killing two birds with one stone" translates as "isseki, ni-chou" (一隻二条). And in the Army there's one that goes "kiss up, kick down," that describes how toxic leaders get ahead.

So together we came up with a Japanese translation for that: 弱虐強助. Jyaku-gyaku kyou-jo. "Abuse the weak; help the strong." We all think it's hilarious.

Even if nothing else comes from the past two weeks here, I'll at least have that.