Okay, so I feel weird saying "filipina this and that" to identify myself as the writer of any entry. I think I'm going to stop doing that. I mean, you all know me. You know how I sound like, in almost every mood I've ever possessed. Just follow along, like good little rabbits okay? This is a compilation of everything interesting that's been happening. Some stories however, will never go public. Make sure to ask :)
The Story of the Stone Man
I heard this from two different people on the bus today. My classmates had disembarked from our bus and were making their way to the elevators in groups of 10 or 15 because the elevators in Japan are made for 15-17 people max. During the time one group was waiting for the elevator to come down again, a man came up to one of the boys and introduced himself.
It went something like this...
Man: (in a slurred voice) "Watashi wa Tahkeeeeeeeeeeeeehshiiiiiiii...."
Boy: "..."
Man shakes boy's hand and walks forward
It was only afterwards that we realized that this man was wondering the streets of Nagoya. Completely. Stoned.
We realized that this was only due to the fact that we would never, having learned a little about the Japanese culture, have expected that in broad daylight in the center of such a peaceful country (lowest crime-rate in the world) there would be such a man.
I think I'm using Japanese syntax again.
The Story of Yoko
Hey, so I saw one of the students I was a conversation partner with malaysian and ex-roomie today. It was effing awesome. I talked in English and she talked in Japanese and it was like old times! She gave me a one word greeting that was basically this: 「Wanna have fun?」
I just laughed and was like YESSSSSSSSSSSSSS!
And yes, I‘m using a Japanese keyboard. It's quite the pain. My apostrophes will be facing the other way, always from now on. And you will learn how to read square-quotes. Yes.
Actually, the only pain of it is typing in English. Typing in Japanese is a breeze because all the symbols are so easy to access.
The Story of Snow Man
Oh and I saw NaoYuki and a couple others too. It was interesting. I was going down the stairs, and I kind of stood in front of him and smiled really dorkily. He was like:
「γγ！」 -> Ahree! You?
I just nodded and went on to talk to him. He looked really surprised but I just went ahead and carried on a conversation in broken English and Japanese, asking for Yoko. His friends, I'm sure, were very jealous. Haha. He told me Yoko was on the third floor and before he let me go, he took couple of grains of rice from his rice ball. And handed it out to me.
「γΈγ½」present for roommate
It was the funniest thing ever. He didn't quite give me the grains, because at the last minute, he took his hand to his mouth and ate it. Grinning, he walked away. Crazy-ass buffoon.
He talked to me some through the day.
The Genki Japanese (Genki meaning energetic or hyper or perky, wherein this case its all of the above)
We couldn't find our lunch group, which consisted mostly of my past conversation partners in the U. Arkansas. So my friends told me we should just crash and have lunch in our next classroom, which at that time was being used by several Japanese students eating lunch. I was a little nervous, being unsure of how this was going to be taken by the students. Anything from, 「oh look americans!」 to 「westerners think they can go eat wherever they want...」 could easily be adopted. For the first few minutes there was some sort of tension when we sat down, both groups not knowing what to say to each other...
And then I heard:
(lyrics to my favorite Ghibli movie ever in English dub, which is not as good but it was still awesome)
「Country road, take me home, to the place, where I belong...」
And I did a double take and jumped up from my seat, and in eloquent Japanese I screamed
「Mimiwo sumaseba! Ghibli! Daisuki desu!!!!」 (Whisper of the heart! Ghibli!!! I LOVE THAT!!!)
And hence started the most awesome conversation of the day. Which was half japanese and half English. The Japanese students wanted to better their English, and we were willing to obliged on the condition that we Americans talked in Japanese. It was pretty great.
--Owari--
Okay so that's all for today. I feel bad not having posted this earlier, but it didn't come up to my usual standards of long-windedness. Hope you enjoyed.
Want a postcard? Message me thy address and it will come next week or something. (BTW, I haven't been able to send any yet so don't expect any).
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