Complain and ye shall receive
My favorite anecdote from the day so far: the keynote speaker this morning began his speech by asking if everyone could hear him if he was standing at his full height. "I should really slump down like this," he said. "They just don't make microphone stands tall enough in this country." Everyone laughed.
Ten minutes into his speech, a Japanese man, one of the sort of ushers of the event I guess, went up on stage, took the microphone out of its stand, handed it to the speaker, replaced the stand with a taller one, took the microphone back and put it in the new stand, and left the stage.
Maybe it's not a very exciting story (4/10, maybe 5?), but trust me, it was pretty hilarious at the time. I was imagining the hotel officials whispering to each other after he said that: "えっ、何?日本のマイクロフォン・スタンドはすべて短すぎるって?あのやろう。。。見せてやるぜ!" Or something to that effect but, you know, in real Japanese instead of my attempted approximation. ("What?! He said all Japanese microphone stands are too small?? That bastard, we'll show him!")
(Don't you think the normal question marks look odd in between sentences of Japanese? Wouldn't "。。。なに？日本の。。。" look more even? But last time I used the bigger question mark I felt my moral fiber was called into question...)
The other exciting part of the day was role-playing as a Japanese elementary schooler. You see I met this guy, and he was really cute, so we ditched the afternoon workshops and just hung out in his hotel room and it turned out he sort of had a thing for -- no, no, wait a sec, that's not quite what I meant. (But as I read the sentence I just typed, I couldn't resist. Dirty mind points for me; I think that brings me to about 65.) Let's try again: I went to a session on making elementary school visits, and they had us be the class and did sample activities with us, aimed at different age groups. It's not often in recent years I've been called upon to sing a song whose lyrics are "1 2 3 4 5 6 7, 1 2 3 4 5 6 7, 1 2 3, 1 2 3, 1 2 3 4 5 6 7," or sing Five Little Monkeys while making bed-jumping motions with my palm and fingers, or compete to be the first to grab the card with the right animal on it (Mia beat me! She got three cards and I only got one. It was quite disgraceful. If I were a real Japanese school child, I'd have brought terrible shame upon my family. In fact, I've brought terrible shame upon my family as is. Sorry, family.). 本当に楽しかったよね。
(For anyone who doesn't know Japanese and wants to understand the little snippets of Japanese I throw in...tough! 日本語を習ってみれ. ;-P)
I found another couple of people who'll come with me to 秋葉原 tomorrow night, so that was good. I also bought two huge thick books on being vegetarian in Japan. (Which is part of why I feel perfectly fine skipping out on the vegetarianism workshop thingy that's going on right now...heh.) Other than that, the day's been pretty boring so far...lots of listening to people talk.
Okay gotta go, one of my roommates wants the internet. じゃあね!
Oh, lyrics, uh...well, it was raining yesterday and I didn't have an umbrella, so...
雨の日傘ささなきゃズブ濡れになるだろ。
その程度さ、笑うだけさ。
P.S. Oh yeah and I forgot the other funny moment I meant to include here: during the elementary school session, we had to climb with our fingers up and down like in the Itsy-Bitsy Spider (going down, by the way, is really hard!) The workshop was being run by a Japanese woman who is in charge of elementary schools in Kyoto or something and by a former ALT (JET teacher person). The dialogue went as follows:
Woman: Okay, now this is the mommy finger [wiggles index finger], and this is the daddy finger [wiggles thumb]. Mommy finger [wiggles], daddy finger [wiggles]. Now Mommy and Daddy touch like this [touches left thumb to right index finger], and Mommy and Daddy touch like this [touches right thumb to left index finger]. And we make a rectangle!
ALT guy: Right, that's right; when Mommy and Daddy touch, they make -- a rectangle...
Woman: [looking shocked] Aah, these are children! Pure, pure little children!
It was cute. ^_^ Okay bedtime now. おやすみ、みんな。
Ten minutes into his speech, a Japanese man, one of the sort of ushers of the event I guess, went up on stage, took the microphone out of its stand, handed it to the speaker, replaced the stand with a taller one, took the microphone back and put it in the new stand, and left the stage.
Maybe it's not a very exciting story (4/10, maybe 5?), but trust me, it was pretty hilarious at the time. I was imagining the hotel officials whispering to each other after he said that: "えっ、何?日本のマイクロフォン・スタンドはすべて短すぎるって?あのやろう。。。見せてやるぜ!" Or something to that effect but, you know, in real Japanese instead of my attempted approximation. ("What?! He said all Japanese microphone stands are too small?? That bastard, we'll show him!")
(Don't you think the normal question marks look odd in between sentences of Japanese? Wouldn't "。。。なに？日本の。。。" look more even? But last time I used the bigger question mark I felt my moral fiber was called into question...)
The other exciting part of the day was role-playing as a Japanese elementary schooler. You see I met this guy, and he was really cute, so we ditched the afternoon workshops and just hung out in his hotel room and it turned out he sort of had a thing for -- no, no, wait a sec, that's not quite what I meant. (But as I read the sentence I just typed, I couldn't resist. Dirty mind points for me; I think that brings me to about 65.) Let's try again: I went to a session on making elementary school visits, and they had us be the class and did sample activities with us, aimed at different age groups. It's not often in recent years I've been called upon to sing a song whose lyrics are "1 2 3 4 5 6 7, 1 2 3 4 5 6 7, 1 2 3, 1 2 3, 1 2 3 4 5 6 7," or sing Five Little Monkeys while making bed-jumping motions with my palm and fingers, or compete to be the first to grab the card with the right animal on it (Mia beat me! She got three cards and I only got one. It was quite disgraceful. If I were a real Japanese school child, I'd have brought terrible shame upon my family. In fact, I've brought terrible shame upon my family as is. Sorry, family.). 本当に楽しかったよね。
(For anyone who doesn't know Japanese and wants to understand the little snippets of Japanese I throw in...tough! 日本語を習ってみれ. ;-P)
I found another couple of people who'll come with me to 秋葉原 tomorrow night, so that was good. I also bought two huge thick books on being vegetarian in Japan. (Which is part of why I feel perfectly fine skipping out on the vegetarianism workshop thingy that's going on right now...heh.) Other than that, the day's been pretty boring so far...lots of listening to people talk.
Okay gotta go, one of my roommates wants the internet. じゃあね!
Oh, lyrics, uh...well, it was raining yesterday and I didn't have an umbrella, so...
その程度さ、笑うだけさ。
P.S. Oh yeah and I forgot the other funny moment I meant to include here: during the elementary school session, we had to climb with our fingers up and down like in the Itsy-Bitsy Spider (going down, by the way, is really hard!) The workshop was being run by a Japanese woman who is in charge of elementary schools in Kyoto or something and by a former ALT (JET teacher person). The dialogue went as follows:
Woman: Okay, now this is the mommy finger [wiggles index finger], and this is the daddy finger [wiggles thumb]. Mommy finger [wiggles], daddy finger [wiggles]. Now Mommy and Daddy touch like this [touches left thumb to right index finger], and Mommy and Daddy touch like this [touches right thumb to left index finger]. And we make a rectangle!
ALT guy: Right, that's right; when Mommy and Daddy touch, they make -- a rectangle...
Woman: [looking shocked] Aah, these are children! Pure, pure little children!
It was cute. ^_^ Okay bedtime now. おやすみ、みんな。
Labels: japan
posted by Ashila at 4:43 AM
2 Comments:
hmm I'm curious to know how to got the other 64 points...and what point system you're using. After I read that, I've come to realize that we are all rectangles..shocking!
And don't worry, you're family knows that you're a shameful person so I think they're used to it by now...
Yay! I'm glad you're having a fantastic time so far! Aren't those squirty toilets crazy? You'll be longing for them every time you come across a squatty potty... I don't miss those X__x
Take care! Can't wait for more posts soon X3
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