Vox Populi, Vox Dei is a daily column that runs on Page 1 of the vernacular Asahi Shimbun.
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Japanese poetry has several examples of elaborate word play. Take this haiku poem, for example: "From noon/ A little shadow appears/ In the peak of the cloud." The original Japanese version is written in a combination of kanji characters and phonetic kana "letters." But when this haiku is rendered entirely into kana, it becomes a clever play on words, seven of which represent small creatures—"hiru" (leech), "ka" (mosquito), "hachi" (bee), "tokage" (lizard), "ari" (ant), "kumo" (spider) and "nomi" (flea), in that order.
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