A Kind Sadist

I went in for my second session of sensei's Second language experiment today, which started off with her asking me my views on semi-autonomous city-states. Needless to say this was a quick discussion... Continuing the theme started by Yume last week of accidentally committing criticism of Japan to video tape, I somehow found myself having a go at leopard print (really popular here), Crocs and hairstyles (I see a new one every day...). Adding this to sensei's little game of "ask-terrified-exchange-students-odd-questions-all-the-time", I'm coming to think of her as a sadist, albeit a very kind and personable one...

Speaking of odd questions, I think I might have accidentally crushed Fujinami sensei's little dream of finding some interesting English examples... As I mentioned before, I'm the class English speaking monkey (Alexis had his turn as the French one today as well, Markus will probably get his turn at German next week), so I read out some random spiel about butterflies, at the end of which sensei asks me if it was interesting, to which I reply "Not especially", thinking she mean the content. Turns out she meant the little idioms and set phrases at the start of it (this being a linguistics class that should maybe have been a bit more obvious...).

Moral of the story, just say yes to any questions in class...

Oh, and here's a video we were shown in International communication class (I also put this on Facebook so you might have seen it already)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmanjsjp4AU

This one is also great, though the voice-over is japanese only, though you should still get the funny bits.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j28Rz2P9LXA&feature=related

I actually tried Dynamite in a little restaurant in Kyoto. I don't recommend trying this in front of the owner unless you are willing to put the "Stupid Foreigner" defense to it's very limit.

Speaking of Kyoto, we had another little national holiday on Monday so Mayuko and I (Along with pretty much half of the Kinki region, the other half of whom went to Nara. No joke about the name btw) , went to Kyoto, which was the ancient capitol of Japan. We only got to spend a day there, but I'm not kidding when I say I've fallen in love with it, seriously, if you every get a chance to go don't let anything stop you. I'm seriously considering going straight back this weekend. The temples there are just amazing and they light up the gardens at night. I'll put up my (mostly rather blurry) photos soon...

Oh, and Japanese compliments... these take a little while to get used to... apparently having a small face and big nose is considered good. I was honestly not sure how to take this when told it rather directly in the middle of an otherwise perfectly normal conversation. Talking of odd conversation points, Japanese people are quite keen to know what you're blood-type is.... It seems this is seen to control you're personality. Either that or we were lured here in order to be harvested and replenish Japan's supply...

Still havn't made it to Osaka...

Requiem for my German

My German ability is dying :=( Before I came here, especially after spending 3 weeks in Italy with a bunch of Germans I was pretty fluent, about C1 level on the Common European Framework, maybe even C2 in speaking, but now I can barely string a coherent sentence together, seriously, every time I try some kind of horrible, inconsistent-tense ridden half Japanese garbage comes out my mouth :-( for example, I routinely produce something similar to the following: "Tja, ケッコだな、aber jetzt bin ich so 忙しい,vieleicht 後で konnen wir etwas するね." I`m sure my second language acquisition teacher would be very happy to get her hands on that little example of code-mixing... Speaking of which, she`s doing a study on comparisons between native and 2nd language speakers in Japanese and English at the moment, and as we`re (Shin, Yume, Mark and I, the foreign students in the class) are the most readily available native English speakers around (except Mark, who slept in that morning...) we`re her guinea-pigs. Basically it involves sitting around chatting with English learning Japanese students in both languages. To put that another way we take it in turns to bludgeon each others language. Except Yume who`s as the teacher put it: "Like a native" speaker in both. Possibly because SHE`S HALF JAPANESE (I hope she reads this... She doesn`t want people to know that because people think she`s less interesting, ie, less foreign.). Oh, and I asked her if she had any tips for saving my German and she basically said "頑張って" Which basically means "good luck"...

Oh, and the other day in Translation Studies we were looking at Interlingual translation from Ancient Japanese to Modern Japanese. I understood about 5% of that lecture, no joke. The examples looked like they were written in frikkin Chinese! No kana (letters) what so ever, and then even in the later ones they had these really weird ones which I still couldn`t read.

Oh, and my Supervisor likes showing his students British movies, though after Trainspotting and This is England, can anybody think of some that don`t make the UK out to be a terribly depressing place to live. Suggests of Bridget Jones` Diary or Love Actually not appreciated. Also, they already watched Love Actually 2 weeks ago...

Of Cake and Alcohol

I`m sure I`ve mentioned this before, but if you don`t look Japanese, ABSOLUTELY NOBODY will expect you to be able to understand a word of the language. Madame et Monsieur (I`ve been learning French... sort of), I am proud to say I discovered a new low in this phenomenon at the weekend. I was in this little coffee-shop place under the train stations (plural) in Sannomiya (central Kobe) the other day, and I walk up with my cake to pay and get my iced-coffee (The cakes are self-service). Anyway, at the till the shop assistant doesn`t even bother to say anything to be and just sort of starts pointing to the door. Eh? You want me to leave? No, You want me to go round the corner with you? What? I just stood there looking rather puzzled and just said えと，何ですか？ (Err... what?) At which point she decides to say something and I realise what she meant was "お持ち帰りですか？” Which means "Do you want this for take-out?"... seriously, just say that in the first place and we`ll all be much happier...

We also had the Kobe university festival at the weekend (every Japanese university has their own festival which is pretty much a weekend-long party.) On the Saturday night about 1/2 the Intercultural Studies faculty was converted into bars and restaurants from 1700 on Saturday to basically 1200 the next morning... Imagine if you will: Many many Japanese people + 19 hours + $2 cocktails...

Anyway, I got randomly asked by two guys if I`m the quote "Random foreigner with the sunglasses"... I think it might be time to change that particular habit (see the "Magic Sunglasses" entry if you missed that). Lilly and Yume both got marriage proposals from these guys as well. Incidentally they`re physics students as well... Japanese physics students are obviously a bit different from their UK counterparts, given the 3rd question these guys asked (after the sunglasses and marriages) was "Oh, French person (ie, Lilly), do you know A.P.C (French clothes brand)? Dior? Lavin?"

BTW, any body who learned Japanese from either Minna No Nihongo or just generally in the UK, 喫茶店（きっさてん: Cafe/coffee shop）is something apparently something only old ladies say... you have been warned. Unfortunatly I wasn`t and got laughed at by my teacher this morning...

On the subject of funny Japanese, people have noticed that, having learned Japanese in a UK classroom, I have a tendency to say "そうです” (sou desu: means roughly, i suppose/that is the case/i agree) a lot. It`s a sort of useful thing when either a) I have no idea what someone said to me b) I can`t be bothered thinking of a proper answer . Anyway, this slightly backfired on me at the weekend and someone was saying something to me, though I wasn`t really listening at all and just said そうです、turns out they were asking me if I wanted another drink... Unsurprisingly I didn`t get one...

Oh, btw, Spooks series 8: NOOOOOOOOOOOOO sob sob

I Am An English Speaking-Monkey

Of my 国際文化学部 (Kokusaibunkagakubu, Faculty of Intercultural Studies, ie my faculty) classes, I like Translation studies the best. I understand most of it and the teacher is really nice (and speaks German in case I really really need to know something exactly) . Anyway, slightly amusingly it seems Sensei has decided that I`m going to be the class`s English-speaking monkey... If there`s anything lengthy and written in English (It`s translation studies so most stuff is English to Japanese translation examples, though sometimes we get the odd exotic one like Hungarian or Finnish, which NOBODY in the class understands), the teacher sort of looks over to me expectantly.

I don`t mind it at all to be honest, I just find if quite funny. As the only native English speaker in the class (about 25 Japanese, 1 person from China, France and Germany and me) I suppose I`m most qualified, and it means we avoid odd- Japanese English situations. That said, I would prefer not to be asked to imitate and 8 year old American girls accent again...

There is one thing about the class that gets to me though. Whenever I`m there I seem to completely loose the ability to string together a coherent Japanese sentence. Understanding is not the problem, I just can`t say stuff! Maybe it`s just the fact that it`s in front of a big bunch of people...

Oh, and I`m going to be in a video on Kobe University`s web-page at some point. I don`t think I actually do anything other than sit in a lecture though...

The Scarf Mare Continues...

Well, they called me up just as they promised, and apparently there aren`t any of the scarves I wanted left in the whole of Japan, for which the nice shop assistant (I forget her name) on the end of the phone made the usual personal apology for letting me down etc... Anyway, they want me to come in and check out the one they have left to see if I want it (I may just throw them a curve ball and get some shoes instead...). Anyway, the funniest thing about the whole business was my realising that I didn`t actually know how to end a phone call politely and in a non-casual way. Most unfortunately I realised this AT THE END OF THE PHONE CALL. I thanked them all for their effort and then sort of expected them to hang up, but then realised they actually can`t hang up on me because I`m 客様 (kyakusama-literally most honourable customer) and it would be rude to, and I can`t hang up because the only think I can think of saying is something along the lines of "c u l8r" which isn`t very appropriate if you don`t know the person very well... this went on rather awkwardly for about 30 seconds...

I`d just like to point out at this moment that I do actually do other things here other than go shopping... I`m off to Kyoto with Mayuko next week for example.

Oh, and I spend 30 mins of technical Japanese class struggling through a paper on Global Warming and then in the last 3 mins found the vocabulary sheet which explained everything... Actually, on this subject, given our vocabulary sheets are all in English, isn`t that a bit unfair on the Chinese/Korean Students?

More Crazy Shop Assistants

Last week (particularly on Culture Day when we went to Nara) it became pretty cold here, so seeing as I only really brought a few little jacket things here with me I went out to buy a nice big winter coat. Only now this crazy country`s weather has the indecency to turn hot again! For F*cks sake! It`s frikkin Mid-November already! That`s not even the worst bit though, no, it`s not hot all the time, just when the Sun is out. As soon as it goes down the temperature plummets, so you effectively have to wear a T-shirt into Uni then drag around a jumper, jacket and scarf for later in the day...

Speaking of scarves, I found one I liked while I was out looking for the coat, and mentioned I quite liked it to one of the shop assistants. Immediately she starts profusely apologising to me that it`s out of stock and shouts over to a co-worker for some help and starts calling the Osaka branch to check if they have it, which they don`t. Before I can stop them they`ve ordered me one from the Tokyo flagship store! It`s lucky I actually don`t mind buying it... Seriously, if anyone comes to visit here, BE CAREFUL while out shopping. Expressing ANY interest in something, or heavens forbid trying anything on is effectively the same as signing a contract in blood to buy it. Anyway, now I`m waiting for them to call me tomorrow to sort out when I pick it up...

Oh, and I did my first actual proper homework piece for my class! (I had 4 Japanese friends check it over to make it readable) It was for Second Language Acquisition studies, and was about someone who didn`t learn language as she was growing up and therefore had to be taught it as a teenager. Except that would make it her First Language, so what we`re supposed to care about that I didn`t quite get...

P.S. Is anybody else watching Spooks series 8? I`m using the Library`s computers to keep up...

Just a quicky

I went to Nara the other day! Wow, so cool! Nara is sort of famous for a) having loads of really pretty temples which were build about 1000 years ago (then rebuilt about 5 times because they kept getting burned down) and for being totally over-run with deer. I`m not making that up. Literally, you go into the park and there are just deer everywhere, and they all are perfectly happy to wander up to you and let you pet them. Some of them have also learned to bow back to you if you do it to them... Mind you, the superficial little buggers will only do something interesting if you give them food. If they realise you don`t have any for them they just wander off...

Anyway, this mornings funny happening: One of the exchange students turned up late for class and said: "The train was late", then realising that this was a completely implausable excuse (Late trains, in Japan? Is that a joke?) added: "Miraculously" to the end of it. The teacher, who spent time in America responds in English with "And the dog ate your homework?"...

And this weekend I will, really will, manage to make it to Osaka...

Television

I don`t know if I`ve mentioned this before, but Japanese TV is bad. I mean really really really bad. Like, so bad that a) they import Korean and Russian soap-operas and subtitle them (sometimes they don`t actually) and b) the adverts are easily the best bits.

If you`re thinking "Yea, but stuff like Takeshi`s Castle etc is amazing", well, yea, it is, but for one thing they don`t show it anymore and two the newest version is only shown on Sundays. Everything else is either this one Japanese soap opera about Okinawa (apparently everyone wears Hawaiian shirts down there) or endless game shows where celebrity`s (at least I think they`re celebrities) sit around eating or just generally looking pretty. Usually while eating.

And for the second richest country in the world everything looks really really cheap and low-budget (except the adverts which I`ll get to later...)

Seriously, I`m not asking for much Japan! You don`t even have to make up new stuff! Just rip of the Americans! Mind you, as Chris pointed out a Japanese version of 24 just wouldn`t work. Here`s an example of why:

Biiru Byukanen: Everybody, gather round, we have a situation. Terrorists have smuggled a nuclear weapon into Tokyo and are threatening to detonate it in 3 hours. We have to stop them. Unfortunatly, due to cultural obligations, we must spend the next 30 minutes discussing meaningless chit-chat before anything business oriented can be decided upon. Who wants to go first?

Tonii Arumeidaa: Well, my wife`s dead and I feel a bit crap about that to be honest...

Kuroii OuBuraian: Oh, how terrible for you... I really sympathise... By the way, does anyone know why I`m dressed as a hostess?

Biiru Byukanen: Oh, and one more thing, Jyaaku, this is particularly aimed at you; Group consensus is our number one priority, so no running off and saving the day by yourself like you did in practically every other day. Remember season 5 and the good bits of season 7 where we all worked as a team? That`s the sort of stuff that`s expected of us and if you don`t do it you will have to make a lengthy apology to everyone in CTU whom you let down by sorting everything out by yourself.

Jyaaku Baawaa: I understand. By the way, speaking of season 7, arn`t you supposed to be...?

Biiru Byukanen: Saa, minor details... Oh, and everyone, remember that at the end of the day we`re all obliged to be at the bar to get totally trashed with President Teiraa and Agent Piasuu, no matter how shot/ infected/ dead we are! No excuses!

Japanese TV`s one redeeming feature: Adverts! Seriously, Japanese adverts are amazing! In contrast to the actual TV shows, they`re actually really well made and look like they have a pretty enormous budget. Also, having some random person wander around a room asking if you want to sue someone for something that was blatantly your fault in the first place isn`t considered quite good enough here. You need at least a dance routine, disco-pop soundtrack and lots of flashing stuff. Either that or some samurai either with anachronistic product placement (like bottled green tea or PSPs) or a really famous person eating/drinking something will do instead.

Here`s a link to my current favourite:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipTUblPXzE4

It`s now my mission to find this chewing gum and see if it actually makes you and everyone around you dance (not to mention the famous local symbols get up and join in. In case you didn`t know, the second one (with the guy) is supposed to be in Nara, which is famous for having loads of deer randomly wandering around. The first one is Akita but I don`t really know much about there because it`s at the other end of the country. )

Oh, and we had a halloween party at the weekend. And tomorrow is a national holiday (Culture day apparantly...) so I think we`re off to Nara to see the deer :-)