LoVE iS iN tHe aiR

It’s February and they said the month is synonym with the month of love. Why? Because people celebrate Valentine’s Day on February. Just as a reminder to all Muslims out there (including me in here), don’t ever, ever celebrate valentine! Because originally valentine is objected to celebrate the degradation of Islam.

And talking about love gives me some ideas for this post. I’ve came across this lovey dovey things since forever, I mean philosophically and theoretically. The question like;

What’s the difference between ‘like’ and ‘love’?

Because obviously saying ‘I like you’ is different than saying ‘I love you’
And even in Malay language we’ve been constantly discussing about issues like;

What’s the difference between ‘suka’ and ’cinta’

And again people will particularly be careful whether to say ‘saya sayang awak’ or ‘saya cinta awak’ (in this case maybe ‘sayang’ and ’cinta’ are more confusing)

Talking about these 2 languages reminds me of an Arabic class few months back when I was supposed to present a topic about ‘al-hubb’ (love). Well, lucky me there’s only one word stands for love in Arabic language unless there are other synonyms I haven’t heard before. But of course there are other derivatives such as ‘mahabbah’, ‘mawaddah’ etc. What I want to emphasize here is that at the end of the day people will still go for

‘ana uhibbuki’ (subjected to female)
‘ana uhibbuka’ (subjected to male) or even
‘uhibbul umm’ (I love mum)

But now ladies and gentlemen, I’m neither going to present my opinion from the English language perspective nor Malay language perspective nor Arabic language. This time around LET’S GO FOR JAPANESE!! (Winks)

In Japanese there are 2 major words which mean love; ‘ai’ and ‘koi’. While as words to express love or to confess they have ‘suki’ and ‘aishiteru’. Well, if you come across these while reading mangas or watching Japanese dramas

‘kimi ga daisuki’ (I like you)
‘aishiteru’ (I love you) it’s often said as short without subject or object highlighted

Obviously ‘aishiteru’ is a derivative of ‘ai’ itself while ‘suki’ is indirectly usually associated with ‘koi’. So let’s see the difference between ‘ai’ and ‘koi’

Japanese people like to refer to their kanji characters. When we look at the kanji word ‘shitagokoro’ which means low heart (hasad dengki/tidak berhati perut), basically ‘shita’ means under while ‘kokoro’ is heart. Then ‘kokoro’ is spelled with the radical ‘koi’ situated at the base of the kanji. With this 'koi' is said to have ulterior motive. But when we look at the kanji ‘ai’ there’s radical ‘koi’ in the middle of the kanji. Literally said ‘ai’ is actually surrounding ‘koi’.

Whoops. Are these too complicated for you? Sorry. Let’s go for another opinion.

‘jou’ means compassion (sympathy, empathy, concern, kindness, consideration, care). And as conjugative word in Japanese they often used ‘aijou’ but not ‘koijou’. Literally said ‘ai’ has more compassion than ‘koi’

This also won’t do? Ok let’s see the simpler opinion. Some people say ‘aishiteru’ is often used as the top of ‘suki’. As my personal opinion, the Japanese often used ‘koibito’ as referred to couple who are in love, but they never say ‘aibito’. As to conclude, how am I to say this? Even if it’s not ‘koi’ anymore, and even if you’re not like ‘suki’ or anything, if you’re able to live normally, I thought that was ‘ai’. For example when people got married, for sure they won’t use ‘daisuki’ anymore because they are no longer ‘koibito’. The feeling of love has gotten even stronger and able to be nurtured for the rest of the marriage and that is ‘ai’.

P/s: Wonder where did I come out with such ideas? Actually this topic of ‘suki’, ‘koi’ and ‘ai’ was brought forth by Kanjani 8 during one of their concert in Tokyo in 2007. The credit goes to BAKA NO SEKAI SUBTEAM for the fansub. Thanks! (winks)