Sausage and purple mash!
Sausage and purple mash!
I didn’t dye this mash potato; it’s actually this colour naturally. They’re called “紫芋” (murasaki-imo), and they grow on the southern islands of Japan. Maybe they’re not that un-common, but I’d never seen them until yesterday!
Not only are they purple, but they taste great, too!
Improving your Japanese fluency fast
Here’s a trick I used to build my vocabulary in Japanese, as well as improve my grammar and pronunciation at the same time with very little effort.
Find an English book (graded readers like ‘レベル別日本語多読ライブラリー’ are great, or JapanesePod101.com is really good) that has an audio CD with it. It should be something that you’re interested in (to ensure the usefulness of the content and so that you don’t get bored too fast!) and not very long – compilations of several short stories or articles are probably best.
First you want to just listen to the audio recording. After you’ve listened once and gotten a feel for the Japanese go ahead and read though the text underlining anything you don’t fully understand as you go. Circle any words you don’t know, and look them up in the dictionary. I strongly recommend jotting down some notes in the margins, as it’ll save you a lot of time later should you forget any of the words. You shouldn’t be trying to force yourself to remember them all now though – that’ll come naturally in later stages.
Once you’ve been though your text, looked up everything you need to and fully understood the overall meaning it’s time to go back to the CD. You should listen to the audio as much as possible – I suggest at least once a day until you get so board you can’t bring yourself to listen anymore. The more times the better – generally I’ll listen to a five minuet track about 30 times. The best time to do this is on the train to work, in the car or whilst your doing the cleaning – anytime when you can make use of the minuets that normally would be wasted. That way you can spend your study time on something else.
And that’s it. Just keep listening. The idea is to build your vocabulary by repetition, but also to acclimatize yourself to the Japanese language. Listing so many times might seem like overkill, but it’ll push the language deep down into your brain, where it’ll stay for good! It’s important to get used to hearing how grammar and vocabulary should be used so that you can recognize mistakes easily, without relying on complicated rules and grammar explanations. Once you know the audio well you can also try shadowing – that is speaking alongside – the CD, which will help pronunciation a great deal. Again, the idea is to become so accustomed to the way English sounds that you just know when something sounds wrong.
Autumn in Japan
Autumn. Now is a great time to be in Japan, but, it’s getting cold fast!
＞ 日本人は「私には美しい娘がいます」と言えない、と書いてありますが、言えないのはなぜでしょうか。
日本人が 「私の娘は美しい」や「私の妻は素晴しい」言えないことについてはよく考えることがあります。短く答えれば「日本人は習慣も考え方も西洋と違う」と言うことになりますが、それは答えとしてはあまり具体的ではありません。
日本人の考え方では、自分の子供や家族を誉めることはあまり好きではありません。アメリカと違い、日本では謙虚な態度が良いとされます。自分の家族を公に褒めることは、自分のことを褒めていることになり、あまり良い印象は持たされません。日本人は自慢と感じられないように、本当の考えは言わず、謙虚でいることを良しとします。
学校でもそのようなことが頻繁に見られます。「素晴しいクラスですね」と先生をほめても、「そんなことはないですよ」という答えが返ってきます。イギリス人はアメリカ人に比べればずっと謙虚な国民性だと思いますが、謙虚に対する考え方は日本人とは異なります。
イギリス人にとって本当の考え方を正直に話すことはとても大切なのです。もちろん理由のない自慢をするのはよくないと思いますが本当は「自分の娘は美しい」と思っているのに「自分の娘は美しくないです」と言うのは良くないと思います。
(A question from "An intergrated approach to intermediate Japanese")
動物に関する諺
初めの諺は“To rain cats and dogs” 直訳すると「猫と犬が降っている」で、ひどい土砂降りという意味です。これは他に複雑な意味がないので、僕が選んだ諺の中で一番説明しやすいです。
二番目は“Not enough room to swing a cat” ちょっとひどい感じがしますが、イギリスではよく使う諺です。直訳すると「猫を（しっぽを持って）振り回す広さがない」です。意味は「部屋が猫を振り回せないほど狭い」。これは日本の「猫の額ほど狭い」とぴったり合います！
“To have kittens” これは私の一番好きな諺ですが、意味は少し不思議で説明しにくいです。直訳すると「子猫を産む」。意味は「何かを心配している」です。例えば、”George didn’t come home last night – his wife is having kittens!” は「ジョージが昨日家に帰らなかったので、奥さんはとても心配している」となります。何故「子猫を産む」からこのような意味になったのかは全く分かりません。 最後の諺は、猫ではなく犬に関する諺です。 “Let Sleeping dogs lie” を直訳すると「寝ている犬を起こすな」になります。この諺は使い方が少し難しいです。勿論犬や赤ちゃんが寝ている時にも使えますが、この諺の本来の意味は、喧嘩や揉め事があった時に、収まったことをわざわざ持ち出して、再び問題を起こさないで！というもので、少し重大な時に使えます。
The 500en man part1
Once, ok. Twice coincidence? Three times? Destiny? Who knows?
More than two and a half years ago I’d just arrived in Japan and the working situation (major English school bankrupt. 2000 English teachers bankrupt. Chaos.) Wasn’t looking great. Opportunities were far and few between, but I found myself working in a small conversation café about 20mins away from Shibuya. The job was pretty good (providing you didn’t want to earn big money, because the pay was terrible!) all things considering although certainly nothing to write home about.
On route home (I think it was a Monday) one evening I was changing trains at Shibuya station. I began my assent to the platform where my train Ikebukuro bound train was already waiting only to be accosted (pulled bodily back by the elbow in fact) by a guy in a dirty suit and glasses that by the looks of them had been repaired more than once with tape.
“Do you speak English??” the man asks, his voice heavily accented and border lining mania. “….yes, I do…” I reply, wondering where this is going. The man – whose glasses really have seen better days - follows up with “I need 500yen!! Please give me 500yen!” What? 500yen? I wonder. “Please give me 500yen!” he repeats again, a little more earnestly this time. I go for the standard reply. “Sorry…. I don’t have any change on me….” “500yen! Please give it to me!” He’s pretty persistent I think and give him up for crazy, brushing him off with something about having to catch the last train (though we both know it’s not for another two hours). Even after reaching the platform I can still hear his cries of “excuse me! Excuse me!! English! English!!”
That was the first time a met the 500yen man. Of course, I didn’t think anything of it at the time (I’m sure he didn’t either) and the incident got mentioned at the dinner table then subsequently forgotten. Tokyo’s full of people who’ll stop a foreigner for the most bizarre of reasons after all.
The second time I ran into this strange middle aged guy was about a year later (give or take a month). The first time was in a major station known for its throngs of gaijin (I’ve always assumed that this guy only targets foreigners) however the second time wasn’t. It was right out in the middle of nowhere at a tiny station in Saitama-ken where I was working at the time.
“Do you speak English??” the man asks his voice heavily accented, slightly manic. “….yes, I do…” I reply, wondering where this is going. The man – whose glasses really do need replacing - follows up with “I need 500yen!! Please give me 500yen!” What? 500yen? I wonder. “Please give me 500yen!” he repeats, a little more earnestly this time. “Err, sorry…. I don’t have any change on me”, I reply. “500yen! Please give it to me!” A familiar conversation I realize.
I go home, laugh it off, and mention it to my friends and family. “He must be the one!” my wife jokes. That was about 8months ago, and I simply forgot all about it. This morning however, when passing through Shinjuku station, I felt a pat on my shoulder and a heard a voice that I recognized. “Do you speak English?? I need 500yen”. I’m in a rush and I have a lesson to get to – “すみません、僕はフランス人です” I reply In Japanese – Sorry, but I’m French. This seems to have the effect I want, as Mr500yen, with his badly fixed glasses simply looses interest and walks off without a second look. No calling after me, no hassle. Great! I think. That did the trick! Regret comes soon after though. Who is this guy? Why does he always target foreigners? Why only English speaking ones? Why does he move around so much – Shibuya and Kawaguchi aren’t exactly neighbors after all. More to the point, why does he need 500yen so badly? Did anybody ever give him what he wants?
The more I think about these questions, the more I think I have to give this guy a chance next time. 東京は人口がとても多いのに、同じ人に四回も会うなんて滅多にないと思う！To meet the same person by chance four times in a city as populated as Tokyo is pretty unlikely. True, there are allot of crazy people out there, and we can’t give our time freely to just anyone, but next time I plan to take five minutes out of my schedule and talk to this guy. I’ll give him 500yen and I’ll find out the answers to my questions. That is of course assuming there are answers to receive.
一升餅
When kids turn one in Japan, it’s customary to do something called “一升餅” (issho mochi). Issho is an old Japanese measurement of weight (about 4kg), and mochi of course is a type of sticky rice cake.
Basically you tie the mochi to the babies back and make him or her walk, the idea being that the baby has their “初めての試練” (hajimete no shiren) or “first difficult experience” and by overcoming it, learns to grow strong. Unsurprisingly most babies screem their heads off, however my sons pretty built (compared to most Japanese babies) and didn’t have to much trouble ~
Ghosts in Aoyama
I guess this is a bit of an urban myth, but still, I like it.
There's a huge graveyard in Aoyama - a really expensive part of town - where allot of the bomb victims from the war went. This area's pretty known for 'spooky goings on' (and my wife has a thousand stories from when she worked there, particularly from a photo studio that's particularly famous as being haunted), but here's the bit i love.
There was a subway built right under the graveyard - the Ginza line I think - and the story goes that ghosts get on the train sometimes then end whisked away somewhere and get lost. So what do Tokyo ghosts do when they get lost? Same as us apparently - they get a taxi!! There are all these reports from taxi drivers about people they've picked up in areas on the line and driven to Aoyama only to find that when they look back for their fare, nobody's there!
海ほたる – sea firefly
海ほたる行きました。家から一時間ぐらいかかりました。海ほたるは、どな所か今もよくわかりません！デパートじゃないし、海じゃないし、大きいパーキングーエリアだけだとおもうだ。つまらなそうだたけど面白い所だよ！沢山写真をとったり、スイカストラップかったり、おいしいアイスクリームたべたりしてとても楽しかったよ！それから、千葉県にドライブに行った。千葉県綺麗だね。でも、千葉県の館山の名物料理（魚）あまり好きじゃないのでそこにはすみたくないよ。ハハ、東京のほが好きだな。
We went to this weird place today called 海ほたる - "sea firefly". It’s not really anything; BUT it’s such a popular day-trip destination! Actually it’s a service station, and that's it – right out in the middle of Tokyo bay, connecting an underwater tunnel to the highway into Chiba-ken. Being just a big car park, it sounds boring, and it kinda is, but it’s still worth seeing once. Nice views, a bit of fresh air and a pretty unique “been there done that” on your list!
