Malsai

Malsai: noun. A quite ugly looking miniature tree fashioned in a Japanese manner or at least slightly resembling it. A malsai used to be the traditional counterpart to a bonsai; bonsai obviously being the pretty tree, malsai the ugly one and nonchasai something in the middle. However, after Japan´s Meiji Reforms and its opening up to the West, its industry and economy was strengthened to such an extent that it was no longer profitable to make pots for malsais and nonchasais and so they were quickly disposed of in the process of their making. This eventually led to these words being completely eliminated from the vocabulary of ordinary humans and the tradition was only kept alive by the efforts of Japan´s traditional bonsai-producing families such as the Kaba from Osaka, the Yanagi from Honshu and the Unmei-no-ki from Hokkaido. It is also worth mentioning that some linguists have put forward the idea that malsais should be renamed to mauvaisais, but these propositions were rejected for their obvious attempts at surreptitiously establishing French cultural dominance over the bonsai industry.