Japanese. Usagi (兎) = Rabbit. The character comes from a pictograph of a rabbit. Often written in
katakana or in
hiragana instead.
Kotowaza (
Japanese expressions) related to usagi:
Kotowaza: Usagi shi sureba kitsune kore wo kanashimu.
Literal translation: If a rabbit dies, a
fox mourns this.
What it means: When a group member dies, those within the group (friends and relatives)
mourn.
Kotowaza: Usagi no nobori-zaka.
Literal translation: Rabbit's uphill.
What it means: When
events happen at a fast and steady pace.
Kotowaza: Usagi no fun. / Usagi no kuso.
Literal translation: Rabbit's dung.
What it means: An analogy for when events happen
intermittently and progress is slow. The
kotowaza comes from the fact that rabbit dungs are small round dots.
Usagi is also an animal in the
Chinese Zodiac, which was introduced to Japan by
Buddhists.
Also the
rabbit on the moon is supposed to be making an immortality medicine using a hammer according to
Japanese culture. Recently some have been calling it a
mochi instead of a medicine.
Once upon a time,
a group of Japanese Zen Buddhist monks really liked to eat rabbits but were in a
moral dilemma because it is was against their religion to eat land animals.
To
circumvent this problem, rabbits became classified as birds, considering the fact that
rabbits have long ears. With this classification, the monks were
Ok for a
rabbit meal.
This stuck with
Japanese culture, and to this day, rabbits are still counted as 1wa, 2wa, 3wa... as if they are birds, as opposed to the usual counting standard of non-bird small animals, which is 1piki, 2hiki, 3piki...