父：山水画、どっちがいいかな。
娘：それは、高い方が段違いにいいわ。
Danchigai
Chichi: Sansui ga, dotchiga ii ka na.
Musume: Sore wa, takai hoo ga danchigai ni iiwa.
Father: I wonder which landscape painting is better.
Daughter: There's no comparison. The more expensive one is far better.
The expression danchigai conveys the idea that two things are so different that there is no comparison between them.
When I was on vacation in China with my family recently, we visited Suzhou, the city of canals, as it is known locally. My father told us he had always wanted to visit Han Shan Temple there because the Chinese poetry he studied at junior high school had made such an impression on him. There is a poem about Han Shan Temple that almost all Japanese students study at school. Our guide said he had always thought it strange that so many Japanese visit this temple. Kono otera ni kuru hito wa, Chuugoku-jin yori Nihon-jin no hoo ga danchigai ni ooi n' desu yo (There are far more Japanese than Chinese who visit this temple). It just goes to show how uniform the education of Japanese people is. We were told that these days Japanese group tours even visit the temple to ring the bell on New Year's Eve.
We also met the head priest of the temple. He was 70 years old and really looked the Dart He told us that he was trying to raise donations to have the temple rebuilt. However, he didn't just accept donations. He wrote hanging calligraphy scrolls for people in return. My father decided to make a donation, and the priest wrote some of my father's favorite words for him, writing my father's name down the side. Kore wa, hoka no omiyage ni kurabetara danchigai ni kachi ga arimasu ne (If you compare this with other souvenirs, it's worth far more), my daughter said. "It's the only scroll like it in the world."
Otera no naka wa hoteru ni kuraberu to danchigai ni samui (The interior of the temple was much colder than the hotel), but the 70-year-old priest was standing there smiling as he held the calligraphy brush in his hand. My father told him that he himself was 79 years old, and the priest replied, "That makes you my elder brother" and shook his hand. Watashi mo sho wa suki dakedo, kanchoo-san wa danchigai ni joozu da yo (I like calligraphy too, but you're a hundred times better than me), my father told him. I'm sure this was his favorite souvenir from this trip.