Japan Stories II

"I will sit in front of you for 4 hours. As long as you don't talk to me."

Cori is the only student in her Comparative Religions class, as in she sits in front of the teacher and he lectures -- at her -- for four hours. Naturally, a college student doesn't have the ability to focus for that long, and she actually ZONED OUT only to realize that he had asked her a question and was waiting for the answer.

Just outside the south gate, on Mitaka's main street, there are two ramen shops side by side sending the steamy smell of oily brother wafting down across the sidewalk, momentarily filling the air as we shoot by on our bikes.

Today I got upset when the dictionary.com translator wouldn't translate Icelandic to English.

"You can lie in class, but you have to live with the reputation." ~Ichikawa sensei

"I'm a black person." ~ Z

I think that I made progress in Japanese language today: I found that my roommates and other people from Global House would often speak to me in Japanese and I would completely understand and respond in English. That's a step in the right direction, right? I'm a little hesitant about responding in Japanese because so far I've only learned formal Japanese and it sounds kind of stupid. But tomorrow in class we'll learn short form so hopefully I'll be able to start using it soon.

10/5/08

"Sorry, I'll give the book back as soon as I can."
"I can't read your apologies at night before I go to bed!"
~Me and Erykha

"I wanna be a ... ペンギン。”　(penguin, with Japanese accent)
~Cory

"I feel like we're foreign."
~Eyrun in Shibuya

What the hell is Tokyo Tower? Is it really a copy of the Eiffel Tower? Does it have a function? Are Japanese people proud of it? How does it relate to Western culture?

10/6/08

Eyrun told me all about her culture's (Iceland's) belief in fairies while we were studying last week. They lure people into large rocks, so the government actually builds roads around rocks rather than moving them.
"Never follow a fairy into a rock."
She also said that Santa Clause's mother eats children? And her cat too.

Japan is such a homogeneous, group-oriented society that there are countless grammar structures based solely on asking for agreement. Even giving information in Japanese should be followed by "でしょう” or "I think" (whether you're sure or not) in order to lighten the blow of one person knowing more than another.

I'm thinking about writing really formal looking letters to my family in Japanese and including a dramatic translation that has nothing to do with the actual content.

10/10/08

The natives can take pictures of the gaijin!

I started a bucket list last night. It includes so far:

random long-distance bike ride
live in France more than one year
Visit New York
Visit Iceland
Visit Rome +
Learn 5 languages by 30 (at least advanced level)
Finish 'Running' (old story from high school)

The kanji for medicine is in two parts; the symbol for gross and the symbol for fun. o_0

Z dropped a paperclip down her shirt in the middle of class one day and she quite discretely laughed about it and fished it out. I mean seriously, we were sitting in a circle and I was the only one who noticed. Kudos to Z.

The same day as the paperclip incident (I think), I was pretty giddy so as the teacher went around the room showing the class the kanji on her chapstick, I pulled mine our and showed it off to Z who oohed and aahed.

ーせんとうからかえってからごはんを食べます。
lit: bath from returning after food eat
<-----You read it this way in English! <---

I read an article back home arguing that English and Japanese grammar were complete opposites. This amazes me, especially now that I can completely see it!