Essays on Writing and Language in Honor - Sino-Platonic Papers

Schrijtfestschrij?: <strong>Essays</strong> in Horwr of John DeFrancis
Memorizing Kanji: Lessons from Pro
J. Marshall Unger
Department of East Asian Languages and Lf teratures
University of Hawaif
1. An Extraordinary Man
I am puzzled by the fact that so few students of Japanese know
about Harry Loraynee= His book How to Develop a Super-power
Memory (New York: Frederick Fell, 1957) brims over with sound
advice on memorization that has stood the test of time. It's a
minor classic among magicians, amateur and professional. To
quote from the jacket of my first-edition copy:
Tie a string around your finger?
Carry a bulky memo pad?
Shove pieces of paper in your pocket?
Never again will you have to resort to makeshifts in order
to remember an important fact.
Now, at last, with the LORAYNE "LINK-METHOD" OF MEMORY, you
will be able to:
* recall faces and names even years later
* memorize a speech or a scrdpt in minutes
* remearber the lay or play of cards in bridge, gin, poker or
pinochle or other cards games
* memorize the Morse Code in 30 minutes
* remember the entire contents of a magazine
* have a photographic memory for a panel of numbers or objects
* In short, remember prices, details, codes, dates, calories,
facts, routes, events, school work, lectures--anything of
need or interest to you!
Harry Lorayne, who has trained his own memory to the point
where he is acclaimed as having the most phenomenal memory in the
world, has written the most practical, lucid and definite
memory-training book ever written, . . .
Now, as many students of Japanese seem to know instinctive-
ly, the only thing better than being able to count cards inde-
tectably at a Las Vegas blackjack table is being able to memorize
all the joyskanji (and as many others as possible) before set-
ting foottin Japan. To say that they are preoccupied with the
memorization of kanji would hardly do justice to the burgeoning
For John DeFrancis, whose perennial good humor, wide-ranging interests, and
common sense should be a model for us all.