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Iro-iro means "various."
Follow-up on "a letter from a concerned mother": Dear David, Yes, Mrs. Kobayashi was delighted to know you. She is worm-hearted woman and she takes very good care of her students. Her ex-students drop in on her from time to time and joy talking and having dishes. By the way, I thank you to ask your friend Kelly about universities. Miami is the place that M-san mentioned it's unsafe. While Boston appears the good place to study , and I never thought I would taken an university in Miami. I really appreciate you and Kelly 's advice though, I wonder " the best academic choice " is in need to Y. I do not think she will be a first class musician , and I do not think she studies hard. She says she does, but I have been watching her seventeen years. ( keep this between you and me.) Some people say I should visit US before Y decide her school and place to live. Maybe it is good idea though, I don't take to trip and I do not know what we should see, what we should know in the US. I hear one of Y's class mates who were wanting to study in the US, gave up studying abroad. Since her mother is sick because of too much worrying about daughter's life abroad. My husband and I may be unusual parents. Usually, parents against their children's plan(study abroad), against and against, if they say yes, they would be worry very much. Sorry to my daughter, her parents are very nonki (easygoing, optimistic). Anyway, my husband says " all I can do is sending money" . ------K is warring " don't forget me expecting enter university next ". X-san ************************************************************************
I just got back from the yakitori-ya with me best mate Tim-san the British lad (33) I mentioned in the Natto story zutto mai ni like way back if you'll remember. A typical night. I came back from teaching a class at the public bldg. nearby and Tim's walking through my parking lot because since I live so close to the eki (train station), bloke thinks he can just park his bike under my stairwell. Oy owsabouta bieru I says in my best ozarkian imitation of liverpool English even though he's from oxford and every bit of the elitist about it, though only in a zen sense.\ So we end up (a phrase I had to explain tonite) going to the little yakitori (not, the one that I have promised to burn down) and we're not there thirty minutes when this drunk comes sauntering in with a plastic bag over his head with the eyes cut out. In America this would mean a hold up but here, especially since this is just a mom and no pop peration no larger than your walk-in closet, it just means it's rainin' and this guy's pissed out of his gourd. He takes off the garbage bag, revealing a fifty-something something. All redfaced and rollicking, even I can tell his speech is slurred and so of course the fucker sits down next to me and before I can say ohisashiburi desu ne (I haven't seen you for a while) he got his hands all over me, which is actualluy so common in Japan that I've gotten pretty used to it. Listen, I'm not touchy about that at all, but I turns to me mate and says, before this is all over this guy's gonna definitely be grabbin' me yarbles, which he never did, but kissed me several times on the arm, and cheek, bought us several drinks, though not enough to compensate for the patience we alloted the poor drunk, and also we were subjected to a twenty minute history of the bad relations between the Japanese and the Koreans and the Japanese and the Chinese and the Japanese and the Vietnamese and basically anyone the Japanese came in contact with as they drove their way down through south Asia even into Australia--except they do like Austrailians--all delivered in machine gun-fire Nihongo (Japanese) without any consideration for the fact that we understood, at best, about 1.375% of his drunken diatribe. Somewhere in there was the word homo at least three times that I counted, and which I decided to take as a compliment. The women next to Tim asked if he and I lived together. He said yes, sometimes, and then the discussion deteriorated into the old guy feeding us from his ohashi (chopsticks) various morsels he'd ordered. Once he merely put the chopsticks in his mouth and then put them in Tim's, but we let him know that this was a dirty trick and unacceptable. Outside, he asked me what hotel he was staying in and I explained (in Japanese) for the fourth time that I LIVE in Isesaki. He tried to get me to get into his car. I thought, if you drive that car, I'm going to call the pigs myself, but as it turned out, his wife was coming to pick him up and put him to bed. It was a typical Friday night for us and most likely a typical every night for him. Then it occurs to me this guy instead of going out with an umbrella, which every Japanese person had five or six of, actually thought to himself, hey I'll cut the eyes out of a garbage sack, and then actually did it. Ugh I can still feel his awful mouth on my right cheek, the alcohol smell reeking off him the way some men smell of cheap cologne. Well, every yakitori-ya has one. Like the one I've gone to three times, but won't retun to again because the same old drunk is there everytime, tries to give me Nihongo lessons, and even the Nihon-jin around him can't understand his speech production. Every time he leans over me and points over the counter at the woman cooking, and says in English. "BOOO TEEE FOOOLU ------ OOOOMAHN" about thirty times. (Last time I was there he was spraying saliva absentmidedly onto my plate, so I allowed him to buy me several drinks. Every yakitori-ya has one. Entertaining, but sometimes one's patience does wear thin. ah well, it comes with the territory, but the thing that I remember most I guess is the expression on his wife's face, sitting in the driver's seat, waiting for her idiot husband to shut the fuck up and get in the car. THAT must ge old after the first fifteen years or so. I don't know how they do it or why, except that a thousand years of culture that has "trained " them to put up with any amount of shit. This is changing slowly, and fortunately the divorce rate is on the rise. Whenever I meet a woman who tells me that she's divorced, I say "Congratulations." It's no wonder that lesbianism is an absolute taboo (except in magazines at 7-11); what with any self-respect women, if given the choice, wouldn't run from such a life, and run fast.
I'm walking around the stifling classroom checking student's answers to fill in the blank problems. One 14 yr old girl has got should and shouldn't mixed up: You shouldn't study English every day. You should sleep until afternoon. I'm pointing the error out to her, when I notice, next to a Hello Kitty sticker, a button on her pencil case which reads in red lettering on a black background: "Many sex. Drug treatment"
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The following is someithing that's been floating aroud the web. Thought you might enjoy it, esp the Coca cola one... Here's a look at how shrewd American business people translate their slogans into foreign languages: When Braniff translated a slogan touting its upholstery, "Fly in leather," it came out in Spanish as "Fly naked." Coors put its slogan, "Turn it loose," into Spanish, where it was read as "Suffer from diarrhea." Chicken magnate Frank Perdue's line, "It takes a tough man to make a tender chicken," sounds much more interesting in Spanish: "It takes a sexually stimulated man to make a chicken affectionate." When Vicks first introduced its cough drops on the German market, they were chagrined to learn that the German pronunciation of "v" is f - which makes "Vicks" in German the phonetic equivalent of "sexual intercourse." Not to be outdone, Puffs tissues tried later to introduce its product, only to learn that "Puff" in German is a colloquial term for a house of prostitution. . The Chevy Nova never sold well in Spanish speaking countries. "No va" means "doesn't go" in Spanish. When Gerber first started selling baby food in Africa, they used the same packaging as here in the USA - with the cute baby on the label. Later they found out that in Africa that companies routinely put pictures on the label of what's inside since more people can't read. When Pepsi started marketing its products in China a few years back, they translated their slogan, "Come alive, you're in the Pepsi generation" pretty literally. The slogan in Chinese really meant, "Pepsi Brings Your Ancestors Back from the Grave." When Coca-Cola first shipped to China, they named the product something that when pronounced sounded like "Coca-Cola." The only problem was that the characters used meant "Bite the wax tadpole." They later changed to a set of characters that mean "Happiness in the mouth." A hair products company, Clairol, introduced the "Mist Stick", a curling iron, into Germany to find out that mist is slang for manure. Not too many people had use for the manure stick. ****************************************************************************** Sometimes the reason behind the behavior of the Japanese eludes me. Here are a few examples. Mr. Kimura, who just returned from a little rest of about 10 months. Seems the ole' circuits got a little burned out--except he's younger than I am. Well that's what the teaching life often does to people over here (strangely we foreign teachers are immune). Anyway Kimura-san takes the DAILY YOMIURI every day. But he never reads it. When he came back to work, which is when I first met him, he began just giving it to me when he'd come in, which I appreciated; however, on days I have dropped in to the school, for just a few minutes, I've seen the paper there, unrolled, but never taken apart. I suppose he might read the headlines on page one, but that's a pretty expensive daily habit, and an unnecessary one considering that the school takes the Japanese newspaper every. And he does read that paper. When the shocking news about the identity of the the Kobe Killer was discovered (a 14 year-old boy who, if you will recall, spiked his classmate's head on the school gate early one morning and put a note in his mouth promising to do it again) I remarked to Kimura that I was surprised that the police had deduced that the killer was a man in his late thirties. I pointed at the paper and said "Look, the note says (they'd printed the note) 'If you think I am a weak child, you are sadly mistaken.' I mean, that's as good as saying that he's a strong and dangerous child, right? Why else use the word child?" Kimura-sensei said, "Oh, they printed the letter?" "Yeah, here, would you like to read it?" "Uh , no thank you. It would take too long." "No, it's only about four lines long." "Thank yu but I'll just find the Japanese newspaper." So he spent the next fifteen minutes looking for the Maebashi Shinbun. That he had rather have read the Japanese newspaper is understandable. What I don't understand is why he buys the Yomiuri.
So, it seems now that, Mr. Yoshida, the fifty-something year-old leader of my Thursday night class is plotting against me. He was very disappointed that Marilou, the Filipino teacher I'm substituting for wasn't ready to come back from her maternity leave. He's disatisfied because I don't speak Japanese. At the beginning of the class he handed me the tapes to one of the texts that I haven't used in several weeks. "Thank you," I told him. I didn't tell him that I lost the teacher's textbook several weeks ago. Besides a number of students had complained to me that the book is too easy. Here's a pretty direct transcript of last week's class: Handing out cards with job titles on it I said: "Everone, please look at your card. But don't show your card to anyone. It is a secret. Anato no card o misenai. Now, please take paper and a pen or pencil and describe--write about--your job. Five minutes later, go hun ato de, I want you to tell about your job to the other class members. They will guess your job. You have five minutes. Do you understand?" (deathly silence, as ususal, I once told them that I'd taught more lively classes in the cemetary) "While you're writing I will prepare questions for a different assignment." I turned and began writing on the black board, while the 20 students began working. Five minutes later I turned and said, "Now, Mr. Yoshida. Please tell us about your job. Mr. Yoshida looked at me, then at his paper, then at the blackboard. Then he looked at the other student and back at me again. "Wakaranai." (I don't understand.) "Well, just read what yu wrote about your job," I said. Walking to his table I was miffed to find that he'd only copied what I'd written on the board. "Wakaranai." "Alright everyone. Five minutes ago I explained the game and then asked "Do you understand. That was the time to say 'I don't understand.' Okay. Next person. Mr. Masato, did you understand the assignment?" "Yes." "Thank you. No please, describe your job to us." "Eto (uh), I build houses and other things. Maybe I build a boat. I work with wood." One of the other students said, "You're a carpenter!" "Great," I said. "Now, we're getting somewhere." But Mr. Misato was puzzled. "Eto, eto. No. That's not it." "What? That's not it?" I asked. "I thought it was carpenter too." Another student asked, "Can you tell us more?" "No, that's all," he said. "Then, alright. What is your job, Mr Misato?" "I'm me- me-chanic." "A mechanic? I'm sorry, Mr. Misato but a mechanic doesn't build houses or boats." He started speaking in rapid fire Nihongo. "What's he saying, Mr. Oki?" Mr. Oki said, "He says that he used his dictionary." "Mr. Misato, may I see your dictionary." But it was a Japanese dictionary. More hyaku-guchi (fast speaking) Japanese. "He says that he made a mistake." "How do you mix up carpenter and mechanic? Do they have similar kanji?" "I don't understand it either," Mr. Oki said. "Well ok then. . ." and I explained the difference between the two on the blackboard. The next person, a woman named Yamaguchi (mountain-mouth), said "I'm singer. I'm play GEEtah. Concert." "Are you famous," Mrs. Yanai asked. "I'm a rock star," she said. "Well that maked the game pretty easy," I said, "but only Mr. Oki and Mrs. Kobayashi understood me and laughed. After the class, Mr. Yoshida began talking in Japanese about how Marilou couldn't come back for several more months. "What's he saying?" I asked Oki-san. "Maybe he is very sad that Marilou is not coming back to teach the class. He says that he spoke to her and she says that she is very busy with the new baby but that she can maybe teach in the mornings, but of course this is not convenient for us. He says that Marilou told him that maybe there is some trouble at home." "What kind of trouble?" "Well, he says that maybe (the ubiquitous non-comittal maybe) Mr. Tamura is dissatisfied with Mariou." "Like maybe she's too busy with the baby and teaching the class and doesn't have enogh time to be with him?" "Well, not exactly. He says that maybe there is a more severe problem in there home." Of course, I'm a little shocked that in a culture that prizes subtlety that Yoshida is airing Marilou's dirty laundry in front of 20 people. At this point I said to everyone I said, excuse me, everyone, I'm leaving now. Do what you want. See you next week." That class is a pain in my ass, and the pay is lousy. I only took the job as a favor to Marilou. I wish she'd come back. I could find another class that'd pay twice to three times what this one pays and that'd be far easier to teach. Well, it's convenient, right around the corner, so I'll probably continue . . .
Mark Frank came into town this weekend--it was a long weekend on account of Monday being National Old Fart's Day. He was supposed to be here at 3:30, but he didn't show up until six. Seems that instead of buying just one ticket for the whole trip, he bought one at each stop. Then at one of the stops he went to ask a question in the ticket both area and he went in the exit door and the automatic door closed on his head, knowcking him half unconscious. By the time he'd gathered his wits, he'd missed the train. Well--he could have just taken the next train going toward his next stop, no later than twenty minutes later at the longest, but since none of the trains explicitly read that they were going to Nagaoka, and since he was too damned shy ask a simple question, he waited there for three hours. It was too late to go out to another city and there's not a whole lot to do in town here, but we had a party and kept ourselves occupied until late at night, when we bicycle through a rain shower to a ramen-ya where I passed out three times. He just left a couple of hours ago. And then there's the school nurse at my friend's girl's high school who tells Tim the most intimate details about the student's physical condition. One of my friend's got stuck in a high school where the Kocho-sensei (Principal) had a brilliant sense of humor. He knew one joke, but he'd made it up himself. There are some real kooks in the educational system over here. When I met my friend, he told me, "I've been here a year-and-a-half and every day makes the same joke. The joke is that actually, he's not Kocho-sensei, but I am. Every day, he tells me, 'I'm not Kocho-sensei--YOU ARE!!! Then laughs as though it is the funniest things he'd ever said (which it probably is). So about a month later I visit my friend's school enkai (drinking party), and Kocho-sensei is there. My friend introduces me, saying, "David this is my Kocho-sensei--" "I'm not kocho-sensei," the old guy interrupts all red-faced. "HE IS." We all had a good belly laugh over that one, and I complimented him on his great sense of humor. >Dearest Dave; > >Oh Boy! You would not believe the fun and frolic our family had at the annual >Japanese Fall Festival in the stroll garden at Nathaniel Greene Park >yesterday. And was I in for a surprise! The japanese are just like us >hill-folk, dining on hot dogs and chips, drinking Hawaiian punch and Iced >Cappacino (brought to you by Moon City, swear to god), and finishing this >delicious feast with a refreshing dip of Hagen-Daz. Now I understand why you >are not homesick. > >So I said fuck it and we went to Ossi's, the newer of the two japanese steak >houses here in town and the boys had sushi for the first time. They were >quite impressed. But we all want to know what Wassabi is. Was it that grated >mass of wet, crispy stuff that I have always thought was part of the garnish? >What is it really for? Why is it there? Well, the Japanese do eat that kind of stuff sometimes, but they prefer a regular diet of tofu, noodles, rice and fish etc. Really. Glad that you made it out there though. Did you read about it in the paper before-hand? Wasabe is the green paste either placed on the side of some dishes or in the case of sushi, between the rice and the fish. If you hadn't noticed, if you eat enough of it in one bite (which is very much) it'll set your nostrils on fire, take your head right off and put your ass on the floor. It's the only legal drug in Japan, I've sometimes remarked. Next time ask for more and give it a try. It's fun. I eat a little every day. Oh the purpose: it's there to kill any worms or unfriendly bacteria that may be lurking in the raw fish. By the way, I recommend that you don't eat salmon sushi, which is sometimes the harbinger of a particularly nasty and hard to kill worm that really likes the taste of human brain. But all the other varieties of sushi are perfectly safe, and a small dab of wasabe will kill almost anything. One television show last year proved how effective wasabe is as a disinfectant by using it to clean toilets bowls with a before and after analysis of present bacteria. Seems it did the trick. I think the crispy grated stuff you had was ginger. Cleanses the palate. Then there was the time, Tony Sumpter, who weighed at that time about 250 lbs. stands a formidible 6'3" with a gotee and shaved head (he's scary looking even to other westerners, but he's really just a big ol' Teddy Bear) goes to the 7-11 to buy some manju. Manju are doughy, fist-sized treats with a sweet bean paste in the middle. There's one young woman working the counter. Well, Tony had only been in Japan or a week or so and so he got the word manju mixed up and accidentally said, "Manko wa ikura desuka," which means "How much is your ________?" The clerk looked up and her jaw about dropped to the counter. She shook her her, stuttering and forming her forearms into a cross, the sign over here for "dah-meh" which means "No" "Can't do that" or "Great Buddha's Belly! I'm in mortal danger from this insane giant foreignor!" Only later did he learn what he had said.
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