So I'm watching the show
鍵のかかった部屋 and in the second episode there's one scene where a man reveals that he used to be a burglar.
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| Super glad I found 字幕 because let me tell you, the speed and vocab is outside my 聞き取れble zone |
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The detective (who recently had a prized collection
of watches stolen by a burglar) is taken aback, so the guy quickly says,
"はい。いや。でも今は足を洗いました。"
I'd never heard the phrase before
but due to context and its similarity to an English phrase with similar
context, I guessed it meant something like 'I've washed my hands of
that'.
But why feet? When you do something you usually
do it with your hands, don't you? You 'get your hands dirty', right? I
typed 足を洗う由来 into Google and got this little blurb from the
go-gen allguide, which I'll translate here:
"From Buddhism. When a monk returned to the temple after walking
barefoot as per his ascetic practice, washing the mud from his feet
symbolized washing away the worldly desires of the secular world and
purifying oneself to enter work as a Buddhist. As such the phrase meant
"to quit one's evil deeds". The meaning has shifted in recent times to
mean "to quit an occupation", whether that occupation is immoral or not.
There is a theory that that phrase refers to Jesus Christ, who washed
his disciples' feet and said "Wash one another's feet and trust one
another like a brother" 「互いに足を洗うことで、信頼関係を結びなさい」. However meanings vary greatly and the association is not generally accepted."
Of course it's said that the origin of "wash one's hands of X" is
also biblical and refers to Pontius Pilate's disassociating himself with
the crucifixion of Christ.
Looking at the two phrases now, they actually seem not as similar
as I immediately thought. 足を洗った (in the case of something bad) makes it
sound like you've done something wrong, but you no longer do it. "Wash
my hand's of" sounds like you've continuously struggled to stop the said
wrong, but have since given up and want no part of it. Or something.
I'm gonna get back to watching the show because I'm just confusing myself.
＊＊EDIT＊＊
OK, here's another interesting phrase: お前とは経験値が違う （おまえとはけいけん・ちがちがう, where 経験値 = "experience point (in an RPG, etc.); exp"
I want to use this in real life.
