Another fairly long break from updating, sorry about that. I've been preparing 3 presentations over the past few weeks, so the other-wise largely work-free exchange student lifestyle has been a bit busier than normal. I've still got one left to do, though it really should have been done last week were it not for technical issues (ie, Powerpoint).
Out of the three (Translation Studies, Second Language Acquisition and International Communication), International Communication provided the most laughs. Given it's not really a proper class per-say, you're allowed a little more leeway when it comes to taking the piss with things, hence one group's referencing of the Tellytubbies ("He's happy because there is no death penalty in his world"), and out citations of the movies "Independance Day" and "Armageddon". Our topic was nuclear weapons (and nuclear power as my group DIDN'T TELL ME until it came up on the projector screen), and I figured that having been given the task of coming up with the case for, (in a conversation that went something along the following lines:
3 Japanese Students (to another foreign student): What country are you from?
Foreign Student: Malaysia
3 Japanese Students (to me): What about you?
Me: The UK
3 Japanese Students: Right, well since your country is the only one here that has nuclear weapons, you must be in favour of them, so you do the "pro" section.
There's logic in there somewhere....)
Anyway, back to the point, I figured that this being Japan, I had the choice of the "It wasnae me" route, or the "I love the bomb so much" route. Of which I picked the latter, leading to lines such as "Thanks to nuclear weapons, my country was protected and I was born in a free Europe" and "As you can see from these movies, Nuclear bombs are will be very useful when the asteroid/aliens come"...
Other notable taste/sensitivity/reasonableness-fails courtesy of International Comm. class presentations included "Japan's justified acquisition of Korea" (I believe the word she was searching for was "rather brutal invasion and occupation of") from the Textbook controversy/historical revisionism group, and "Abortion. First, lets look at reasons why parents kill their children" from the interestingly titled "Abortion and Infanticide" group who effectively tried to argue that the term "Abortion" applied to children up to the age of 8 or 9...
A number of groups covered capitol punishment as well, and on repeated occasions brought up the argument that some criminals commit crimes in order to be sentenced to death... given that no cases were cited I'm not quite sure where they got that point from, much less where they were going with it (If we abolish capital punishment the crime rate will drop?).
Without meaning to have a massive go at the Japanese students, I do feel that their presentation skills and delivery techniques are far below what would be considered acceptable for undergraduate students in Europe or America. Having never had to do a university level presentation outside of physics perhaps my judgment is not the most well-informed, but does anybody consider standing at the lecturn, staring down at a pre-written sheet of paper and reading it out aloud (no-powerpoint) to be acceptable?
This criticism is more aimed at the other two classes where the Japanese students deliver their presentations in Japanese. Given that in Int. Comm. we have to present in the target language, reading off pre-prepared notes is more forgivable given most of us are not at the level of being able to make up presentations on the spot or from small flashcards in our target language.
I'll just mention now that the Japanese education system is frequently criticised by foreigners who have had contact with it as being too focused on cram-learning "facts" rather than developing any sort of analysis skills... I emphasis that this criticism is made by foreigners because rather frustrating Japanese cultural taboos forbid people from actually criticising most things, regardless of how they feel.
Hmm, this has turned into a rather negative article... I'll just make it clear I'm still having a great time here and I'm not in a bad mood, just seeing/ doing all these presentations lately has made me think about some stuff...
Oh, Yoo comes back from his gap year in Germany/Italy in a few weeks, so I'm going to go meet him a the airport since it's not that far from here. It'll be interesting to see how his German has improved since I saw him in Italy in September... He's probably better than me now...
Oh, and I just wanted to mention this. Without meaning to a)politicise this blog, or much more importantly b) trivialise the terrible tragedy in Haiti, I would like to point out that that the official casualty figure from the earthquake now stands at 100,000 people, which is approximately 1/6th of the 2006 death toll of Iraqi civilians directly or indirectly as a result of our invasion, as calculated by the peer-reviewed Lancet survey. Granted I only pick up information from BBC news website and Facebook, but in light of the above does the whole "Save Haiti" media blitz not strike a certain note of moral indulgence with anyone?
Just a small though...
Sunday, 24 January 2010
Wednesday, 6 January 2010
明けましておめでとう！(Akemashite Omedetou!)
Merry Christmas and a Happy New year everyone, hope you had a good one and sorry I havn't updated this in a while, I hope the withdrawal wasn't too terrible.
Hmm, where to start. Japanese Christmas? After all the build-up and hype in all the shops and stuff it actually turned out to be a bit of a let down, Nothing much happens, it's considered mostly a couple's thing, and oddly for Japan they don't even really take the opportunity to indulge in lots of food (or maybe that's how they make it different from every other day...). A bunch of us exchange students went out for lunch to this restaurant which does pretty decent (by which I mean recognisable) western food, so I had a distinctly festive spicy mushroom pasta for Christmas dinner...
Oh, and this may seem a little bit odd, but what with all the couples down in Harbourland (they put up loads of illuminations there. The Japanese like pretty illuminations) it seemed particularly noticeable that there really are a lot of Japanese people in Japan. And pretty much ONLY Japanese people. I know this is pretty obvious, and I find my self in situations every day where I'm the only non-Japanese person in sight, but what with the massive number of people and me the only foreigner it was just more in-your-face than usual.
New Year! Bloody hell that was cold. (largely my own fault, should have put on more clothes, had a nice new-year cold for the next few days). All in all, not my favourite New Year, went to a club in Kobe, as we all figured Osaka, which has a much better night life in all honest, would be even more crazy than it is on a normal day. Anyway, place was mostly filled with random (mostly rather fat for some reason) foreigners, and there was much drama with some of the other exchange students which sort of put a downer on things. We went to a shrine at 4am on the promise of hot Sake from the monks, which turned out not to be the case (though there was much food, this being Japan. (Anyone who tells you the main religions of Japan are Budhism and Shintoism has no idea what they're talking about.). We then went up Mount Maya to watch the first sunrise of 2010, where it was even colder. Not to mention cloudy :-(
Oh, I went to see Avatar as well, in 3D! (And fortunately not the Japanese dub. The first time we tried to go I got the times wrong and we turned up in time for that showing, though it was sold out so we went back a few days later and saw the Japanese Subtitled showing.). Without meaning to turn my blog into a film review, I did really enjoy it, even if the story was entirely predictable and rather overly messianic, very much recommended if you havn't already seen it. Oh, and when you do, and you see those tribal-font subtitles they give to the alien language, spare a thought for me trying to speed-read the Japanese versions. I ended up giving up reading the phonetics (ie, the names) and just reading the Kanji (ie, the bits with the meaning in them). So basically what I read was "[Blank] killed [Blank]!You bastard! [Blank] will never forgive you and I will avenge [Blank]", or something like that.
I had a great Gaijin (foreigner) moment the other day. After spending an hour speaking in Japanese to my (Japanese) friend in a coffee shop (incidentally I just found out there are KANJI for coffee-珈琲. It's a frikkin foreign word! There aren't supposed to be kanji for it!). Anyway, as we get up to leave, I notice the people sitting next to me are looking interestedly at my keyboard-scarf, so I show it to them and explain it to them (In Japanese), and then, after a brief chat with me, they turn to my friend and ask "What country is he from?"! Then to cap it off, after we both say "the UK", they start talking about how they've always wanted to go to Switzerland...
Also lately, in response to the much complained about Japanese language classes, I've been working through Chris' grammar textbooks, which have been really helpful, only now I feel a bit over-stuffed on sentence structures, so I think I need some more vocabulary to fill them in with. I feel fine with everyday stuff (and rather oddly some rather technical linguistic vocabulary), but I be able to hold some more advanced discussions...
Oh, and the 一生三宅 store-staff's stalking geared up a notch this month with both a hand-written note and a phone call at 2100 (the store closes at 2000!) to tell me about the new collection on sale from Friday... freaky...
Finally, bizarre Japanese preoccupation of the last month: Alpacas
Hmm, where to start. Japanese Christmas? After all the build-up and hype in all the shops and stuff it actually turned out to be a bit of a let down, Nothing much happens, it's considered mostly a couple's thing, and oddly for Japan they don't even really take the opportunity to indulge in lots of food (or maybe that's how they make it different from every other day...). A bunch of us exchange students went out for lunch to this restaurant which does pretty decent (by which I mean recognisable) western food, so I had a distinctly festive spicy mushroom pasta for Christmas dinner...
Oh, and this may seem a little bit odd, but what with all the couples down in Harbourland (they put up loads of illuminations there. The Japanese like pretty illuminations) it seemed particularly noticeable that there really are a lot of Japanese people in Japan. And pretty much ONLY Japanese people. I know this is pretty obvious, and I find my self in situations every day where I'm the only non-Japanese person in sight, but what with the massive number of people and me the only foreigner it was just more in-your-face than usual.
New Year! Bloody hell that was cold. (largely my own fault, should have put on more clothes, had a nice new-year cold for the next few days). All in all, not my favourite New Year, went to a club in Kobe, as we all figured Osaka, which has a much better night life in all honest, would be even more crazy than it is on a normal day. Anyway, place was mostly filled with random (mostly rather fat for some reason) foreigners, and there was much drama with some of the other exchange students which sort of put a downer on things. We went to a shrine at 4am on the promise of hot Sake from the monks, which turned out not to be the case (though there was much food, this being Japan. (Anyone who tells you the main religions of Japan are Budhism and Shintoism has no idea what they're talking about.). We then went up Mount Maya to watch the first sunrise of 2010, where it was even colder. Not to mention cloudy :-(
Oh, I went to see Avatar as well, in 3D! (And fortunately not the Japanese dub. The first time we tried to go I got the times wrong and we turned up in time for that showing, though it was sold out so we went back a few days later and saw the Japanese Subtitled showing.). Without meaning to turn my blog into a film review, I did really enjoy it, even if the story was entirely predictable and rather overly messianic, very much recommended if you havn't already seen it. Oh, and when you do, and you see those tribal-font subtitles they give to the alien language, spare a thought for me trying to speed-read the Japanese versions. I ended up giving up reading the phonetics (ie, the names) and just reading the Kanji (ie, the bits with the meaning in them). So basically what I read was "[Blank] killed [Blank]!You bastard! [Blank] will never forgive you and I will avenge [Blank]", or something like that.
I had a great Gaijin (foreigner) moment the other day. After spending an hour speaking in Japanese to my (Japanese) friend in a coffee shop (incidentally I just found out there are KANJI for coffee-珈琲. It's a frikkin foreign word! There aren't supposed to be kanji for it!). Anyway, as we get up to leave, I notice the people sitting next to me are looking interestedly at my keyboard-scarf, so I show it to them and explain it to them (In Japanese), and then, after a brief chat with me, they turn to my friend and ask "What country is he from?"! Then to cap it off, after we both say "the UK", they start talking about how they've always wanted to go to Switzerland...
Also lately, in response to the much complained about Japanese language classes, I've been working through Chris' grammar textbooks, which have been really helpful, only now I feel a bit over-stuffed on sentence structures, so I think I need some more vocabulary to fill them in with. I feel fine with everyday stuff (and rather oddly some rather technical linguistic vocabulary), but I be able to hold some more advanced discussions...
Oh, and the 一生三宅 store-staff's stalking geared up a notch this month with both a hand-written note and a phone call at 2100 (the store closes at 2000!) to tell me about the new collection on sale from Friday... freaky...
Finally, bizarre Japanese preoccupation of the last month: Alpacas
Sunday, 20 December 2009
Yes we can!
This still makes me laugh. I was walking down to the train station at Mikage (down the hill from my halls) on Saturday, when, as I passed by the local high school (which incidentally is one of Kobe University`s high schools), a bunch of the kids (school on Saturday I`m afraid) see me walking past. Immediately one of them shouts, and I swear I am not making a word of this up:
「オバマ大統領！！！！」
Which means...
"President Obama!!!!!"
What can I say, Japan is a weird place to be a foreigner...
That wasn`t even the weirdest part of the day... (that would be a toss-up between introducing myself as a paving slab in French (to some French people I hasten to add), or being mistaken for a drug-dealer by some fat Russians in a club...)
(For those keeping count, that`s now David Beckham, Nick from the Backstreet Boys and now Obama様 (sama, more polite, honourific version of san, for example, the emperor is Tenno-sama) for whom I`ve been "mistaken"). I think Nick is a distinct step down from the other two... If the next person is anything less than someone on, say, Will Smith-fame level I`ll be deeply insulted...
Oh, and Japan may be having a stab at challenging Scotland for the "most unpredictable weather" trophy. This morning it was 10C and sunny, 2 hours later it was snowing, then freezing but raining, and now it`s clear and relatively mild...
Oh, and most importantly, I HAD CHEESE ON TOAST TODAY!!!!!! Proper cheese on toast! Japanese cheese is a bit like the Matrix (yay for Rage Against the Machine btw), no-one can be told of it`s full horror, you have to see it with your own eyes. However, lo and behold, I found (actually, Baz showed me) a little coffee shop where they do it properly! Now if only I could find a real Pizza and a lawn to sit on... Funny what you end up missing.
Finally, I`ll just mention why I`m typing this right now, here in the faculty library. I was walking back to Rokko train station to get the train back home when I decided to call Kaori-san in Tokyo for a catch-up. At the end of the conversation I realised I`d actually managed to walk all the way to campus, about 15 mins past the train station... oops.
Oh, and I did mean to talk about the surreal Second Language Acquisition class here (though to be honest, surreal has been the norm for the past 3 months now...). Oh well, there`s always next time...
「オバマ大統領！！！！」
Which means...
"President Obama!!!!!"
What can I say, Japan is a weird place to be a foreigner...
That wasn`t even the weirdest part of the day... (that would be a toss-up between introducing myself as a paving slab in French (to some French people I hasten to add), or being mistaken for a drug-dealer by some fat Russians in a club...)
(For those keeping count, that`s now David Beckham, Nick from the Backstreet Boys and now Obama様 (sama, more polite, honourific version of san, for example, the emperor is Tenno-sama) for whom I`ve been "mistaken"). I think Nick is a distinct step down from the other two... If the next person is anything less than someone on, say, Will Smith-fame level I`ll be deeply insulted...
Oh, and Japan may be having a stab at challenging Scotland for the "most unpredictable weather" trophy. This morning it was 10C and sunny, 2 hours later it was snowing, then freezing but raining, and now it`s clear and relatively mild...
Oh, and most importantly, I HAD CHEESE ON TOAST TODAY!!!!!! Proper cheese on toast! Japanese cheese is a bit like the Matrix (yay for Rage Against the Machine btw), no-one can be told of it`s full horror, you have to see it with your own eyes. However, lo and behold, I found (actually, Baz showed me) a little coffee shop where they do it properly! Now if only I could find a real Pizza and a lawn to sit on... Funny what you end up missing.
Finally, I`ll just mention why I`m typing this right now, here in the faculty library. I was walking back to Rokko train station to get the train back home when I decided to call Kaori-san in Tokyo for a catch-up. At the end of the conversation I realised I`d actually managed to walk all the way to campus, about 15 mins past the train station... oops.
Oh, and I did mean to talk about the surreal Second Language Acquisition class here (though to be honest, surreal has been the norm for the past 3 months now...). Oh well, there`s always next time...
Monday, 14 December 2009
Hi again
I havn`t posted for a while, I know. I`d like to say that`s because I`ve been really busy with loads of stuff but as Japanese University is a complete joke (to the extent that even the lecturers admit it) , I can`t really use that as an excuse...
I had a slightly odd Saturday last weekend. I went back to Osaka for another look around, got ABSOLUTELY lost once again (in Shinsaibashi this time, I sort of know my way around Umeda now). While I was there, I had a quick look around a few shops, inside one of which a brave shop assistant asked me in English if I needed any help. After reassuring him that I could understand Japanese, he then pointed to the jeans I was looking at and said "コレクッションじゃなくて、ジーンズです” ("These aren`t part of the collection, they`re jeans.") Oh well, at least this time they though I was a JAPANESE SPEAKING idiot...
Anyway, after wandering around Osaka for the day, I went back to Kobe, got changed, went to a bar in central Kobe with some other exchange students (where, in the middle of me ordering drinks and food, my Dad calls me... doh). Anyway, after going outside to speak to Dad I get stuck in this massive people-jam on the way in, where about 15 people are trying to go to other floors through the entrance elevator (the bar was on the 4th floor), another 10 are trying to get into the elevator to leave, and another 20 people are hanging around in front of the elevator waiting for seats in the bar. Just so you know, the entrance lobby of this place is about the size of the average public toilet... Anyway, while squished in there, the Japanese people squashed in beside me decided I looked like... wait for it... Nick from the Backstreet Boys... what the hell? (I want to say "Is it coz I is white?" but I know that is exactly the reason). I felt bad about having to break it to them that nobody in the UK has heard anything about the Backstreet Boys for the last 15 years or so, but they were too busy serenading me with "Azu rong azu yuu rabu me"...
Later on, we all went BACK to Osaka to find a club, after which nobody really remembers much else... There are however unfortunately photos, WHICH WILL NEVER EVER SEE THE LIGHT OF THE INTERNET.
I do however remember us all lying in a heap on a train bench at 0600 (maybe?) on the Sunday morning on the way back to Kobe, getting laughed at by two Japanese high school kids (Yea, they go to school on Sunday)
Oh, and I realise I`ve said this many times, but being a tall, very white foreigner sort of makes you stand out obviously. Sadly, this means a lot of people remember you from random places, even when you havn`t the faintest idea who they are. We all just get used to saying hi back to random people on an hourly basis. Unfortunatly, this backfired on my today when the person I gave a really obvious "Who on earth are you?" look to yesterday turned out to be my supervisors assistant...
Oh, and Second Language Acquisition teacher just goes from strength to strength in terms of totally surreal conversation topics... more on her next time.
I had a slightly odd Saturday last weekend. I went back to Osaka for another look around, got ABSOLUTELY lost once again (in Shinsaibashi this time, I sort of know my way around Umeda now). While I was there, I had a quick look around a few shops, inside one of which a brave shop assistant asked me in English if I needed any help. After reassuring him that I could understand Japanese, he then pointed to the jeans I was looking at and said "コレクッションじゃなくて、ジーンズです” ("These aren`t part of the collection, they`re jeans.") Oh well, at least this time they though I was a JAPANESE SPEAKING idiot...
Anyway, after wandering around Osaka for the day, I went back to Kobe, got changed, went to a bar in central Kobe with some other exchange students (where, in the middle of me ordering drinks and food, my Dad calls me... doh). Anyway, after going outside to speak to Dad I get stuck in this massive people-jam on the way in, where about 15 people are trying to go to other floors through the entrance elevator (the bar was on the 4th floor), another 10 are trying to get into the elevator to leave, and another 20 people are hanging around in front of the elevator waiting for seats in the bar. Just so you know, the entrance lobby of this place is about the size of the average public toilet... Anyway, while squished in there, the Japanese people squashed in beside me decided I looked like... wait for it... Nick from the Backstreet Boys... what the hell? (I want to say "Is it coz I is white?" but I know that is exactly the reason). I felt bad about having to break it to them that nobody in the UK has heard anything about the Backstreet Boys for the last 15 years or so, but they were too busy serenading me with "Azu rong azu yuu rabu me"...
Later on, we all went BACK to Osaka to find a club, after which nobody really remembers much else... There are however unfortunately photos, WHICH WILL NEVER EVER SEE THE LIGHT OF THE INTERNET.
I do however remember us all lying in a heap on a train bench at 0600 (maybe?) on the Sunday morning on the way back to Kobe, getting laughed at by two Japanese high school kids (Yea, they go to school on Sunday)
Oh, and I realise I`ve said this many times, but being a tall, very white foreigner sort of makes you stand out obviously. Sadly, this means a lot of people remember you from random places, even when you havn`t the faintest idea who they are. We all just get used to saying hi back to random people on an hourly basis. Unfortunatly, this backfired on my today when the person I gave a really obvious "Who on earth are you?" look to yesterday turned out to be my supervisors assistant...
Oh, and Second Language Acquisition teacher just goes from strength to strength in terms of totally surreal conversation topics... more on her next time.
Wednesday, 2 December 2009
Osaka, Himeji and Green Coffee
I went to Osaka!!!!! Finally!!!! It was really big. Like really really really big. Totally unlike anything in Europe, it`s just overwhelming. It took me 30 minutes to find my way out of the train-station and then I just wandered about in a daze for a while... Oh, and Osakan accents are hard to understand...
I went to Himeji as well, which is where Japan`s most famous/best preserved castle is. The castle was amazing and really beautiful, but to be honest Himeji as a town is really really dull. Funny moment on the train there as well, when Chris mentioned "Wow, it`s really rural out here..." by which he meant you could see a field (singular). I guess that counts as rural after 2 months in the Kobe/Osaka/Kyoto metropolis....
All this getting around to other cities makes me realise how nice it is to live in Kobe; it`s not crazy big like Osaka, has better weather than Kyoto (even though Kyoto is a nicer city hands down), but is still pretty and interesting. And the view is nice.
Anyway, just to make a comment, Stevie, little ray of sunshine, said it was difficult to tell if I was enjoying Japan based on my blog. Just to let you all know, I`m having a great time here, don`t worry.
Oh, I was in Starbucks down in Central Kobe having coffee with a Japanese friend, when some random guy walks past and really really really obviously stares AT HER. Haha, welcome to my world lol. Oh, and while we`re on the subject, don`t let the spectacular green colour of Starbucks matcha frappuccinos`s tempt you, they`re terrible (I don`t know if I`ve mentioned this before but Starbucks, or Staba as it`s called for short has different food and drinks here)
I went to Himeji as well, which is where Japan`s most famous/best preserved castle is. The castle was amazing and really beautiful, but to be honest Himeji as a town is really really dull. Funny moment on the train there as well, when Chris mentioned "Wow, it`s really rural out here..." by which he meant you could see a field (singular). I guess that counts as rural after 2 months in the Kobe/Osaka/Kyoto metropolis....
All this getting around to other cities makes me realise how nice it is to live in Kobe; it`s not crazy big like Osaka, has better weather than Kyoto (even though Kyoto is a nicer city hands down), but is still pretty and interesting. And the view is nice.
Anyway, just to make a comment, Stevie, little ray of sunshine, said it was difficult to tell if I was enjoying Japan based on my blog. Just to let you all know, I`m having a great time here, don`t worry.
Oh, I was in Starbucks down in Central Kobe having coffee with a Japanese friend, when some random guy walks past and really really really obviously stares AT HER. Haha, welcome to my world lol. Oh, and while we`re on the subject, don`t let the spectacular green colour of Starbucks matcha frappuccinos`s tempt you, they`re terrible (I don`t know if I`ve mentioned this before but Starbucks, or Staba as it`s called for short has different food and drinks here)
Wednesday, 25 November 2009
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...
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...
Thursday, 19 November 2009
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...
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...
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