mugiwara nakama

I wake up at 6:30 and stand in line for 2 hours to watch Saturday morning cartoons. Yeah, this is a first for me. At least I know my youth isn't completely lost. The new One Piece movie comes out today. As you can see, people like it. They're giving away a movie-goers only limited edition comic book. People love that.

Song about Today

There's a red motorcycle to deliver the mail
and a freight train barreling through on the rails
and a cherry picker way up high working on the lines.

There's a shovel car hauling steel like a crane.
At the railroad crossing, there's another train
and, when the lunch whistle blows for the road crew, it's just in time.

We see three more trains on the way home.
We end up there wherever we roam
for juice and cookies as tell mama what we find.

Rolling around in the neighborhood
three deep on a bike and we're feeling good
'cuz everybody's working hard and the weather's fine.

Nihongo Furikake

There's something that I've been noticing ever since I got into teaching English in Japan. There is almost no one I've met here that communicates entirely in English. I'm not just talking about Japanese people. I'm also talking about native English speakers including myself.

First of all, I'm very happy to be in a country and at a school where everyone is willing to make such an honest effort to speak English (I wouldn't want to be a Japanese person in America). So this is not a gripe. It's just something funny that I noticed.

For example, someone might start an otherwise English sentence with, "ano na..." instead of "hey uh" to show that they are thinking of exactly how they should put something. A person might also use, "demo ne" instead of "but" between contrasting statements. They might end a statement with something like, "da to omou yo" to show that it's not for certain; that's just what he or she thinks.

People are great at conveying information and sharing ideas effectively in English, but all the nuance; all the emotional content; all the flavor is still in Japanese. Like Japanese 'furikake' for that big bowl of English.*

I think modern English may just be too coarse and direct to express the the same social register and subtle implications that Japanese culture depends on the Japanese language for. It's hard to walk that edge in a foreign language. I used the wrong register in the wrong dialect with Naho's grandma once and she went white. Now a Japanese person might not tell you when you're stepping on their toes but an American will. So I can see why a Japanese person might not want to walk that edge in English.

As I said though, native English speakers are just as bad about leaning on Japanese. There are several reasons. First of all, there are so many great things that are said in Japanese that would just sound too long winded or sissy if you wanted to say the same thing in English.

We don't have an easy way to express everything that saying 'ganbare' expresses (a combination of 'go for it', 'do what you have to do' and 'don't give up'). We would feel strange telling the meter maid, 'You're doing a good job.' but I wouldn't think twice about it here. "Gokurosan" is just something that you say when someone is doing their job on your behalf.

Another reason is that, even if I know someone will understand, "if you would be so kind", I might want to add a small glimmer of empathy by making the effort to say, "onegiashimasu" instead.

Most commonly though, when I'm speaking Japanese to an English speaker, it's just because I know I can get a polite chuckle for being cute. I usually prefer to be a smart ass but that's really hard to pull off in Japanese.





*Furikake means 'sprinkles' like the seasoning sprinkles you might put on rice.

and?

Cockney Rhyming Slang

Adam and Eve = believe
Aristotle = bottle
battle cruiser = boozer
Brahms and Lizst = pissed
bread and honey = money
dog and bone = phone
loaf of bread = head
porky pies = lies
rub-a-dub = pub
tom-foolery = jewelry

For example:

The old battle cruiser's gettin' Brahms and Lizst down the rub-a-dub.