Lost in Japan
I have been talking way too much politics lately so here are some up dates about other things.I have to say that there are a few highlights every day in Japan. For instance, shopping.
1. About moderation…when it comes to commercial I guess the slogan is “modesty is boring” (I think David & Victoria Beckham would like it here). I went to buy a mouse for my laptop today at a really huge electric store. And everything in that store had some kind of “special offer”. Have they ever thought of the “don’t cry wolf” domino effect?
2 Let’s continue with the sea grass! Obviously there are different forms of sea grass and obviously people can make a psychological analyze of a person by looking at the choice of sea grass (back home in Sweden, I do that by looking at peoples laptop on “the previous visited pages”). But not here. I thought that I should have something else than Takanara (Japanese dish). So I bought sea grass to have on my egg sandwich (I’ve seen people eating it here). And since I’m a poor student, I picked the cheapest sea grass for 100 yen (0,7 euro), I mean, it comes from the same sea as the fancy 1000 yen sea grass. When people saw the sea grass they looked at each other and started to speak Japanese. The Japanese are really polite so they never tell you about your mistakes (for instance they never told me that I killed a mouse because I gave it to much Phenobarbital (=we give that in order to make them fuzzy before surgery)). But they started laughing later and said, you shouldn’t pick that sea grass. Why not I asked…and in bad English she said…”wiji gjiv animall thiz”. How was I to know? Back home we put the animal food in a separate shell, not the rest of the shells.
3. After dealing with so many animals, I don’t find it discussed by their urine and poo (adjustment time is 3 weeks).
4. The old people who keeps on talking Japanese even though my Japanese is bad. When I tell them “nihongoga skoshiwa kadimas ka”, they just keep on talking anyway. They clean up the streets every morning. It’s actually early in the morning that you’ll see them. My favourite is actually a guy who looks exactly like Mr Miyagi in the Karate Kid movie and who sell Bonzo trees outside my building.
5. Names of the streets. Since they don’t name their streets here but buildings instead, it feels like as if I’m in the middleeast (but in the middle east, they don’t even name the building, they just call it “the building where Abu Jeans has his fruit store”). I’ve been lost in Nagasaki so many times.
6. The evening ritual. At around 6 or 7 pm, there’s a big traffic jam outside the university. I asked my lab mates if that’s a normal time to get off work. But they say that it’s a normal dinner break from work. So, I have a lunch break and a dinner break (with the ritual of buying things at the supermarket with 20 % off).
7. When I asked people here what they do on their spare time the answer has been; “Spare time, what is that?”
8. Since I look like a foreigner, people have asked several times if they can take a photo (mostly girls). Imagine what would have happened if I was blonde or blue eyed. Well, this is really god for the self confidence at least. They should send all people with bad self confidence to Japan.
9. The irony. Don’t be ironic here. They don’t understand the jokes and you’ll have to explain everything (and we all know what that does to the joke. They think that “the book of the rat anomy” is fun when you say that you want to read every page of it).
To be continued...
1. About moderation…when it comes to commercial I guess the slogan is “modesty is boring” (I think David & Victoria Beckham would like it here). I went to buy a mouse for my laptop today at a really huge electric store. And everything in that store had some kind of “special offer”. Have they ever thought of the “don’t cry wolf” domino effect?
2 Let’s continue with the sea grass! Obviously there are different forms of sea grass and obviously people can make a psychological analyze of a person by looking at the choice of sea grass (back home in Sweden, I do that by looking at peoples laptop on “the previous visited pages”). But not here. I thought that I should have something else than Takanara (Japanese dish). So I bought sea grass to have on my egg sandwich (I’ve seen people eating it here). And since I’m a poor student, I picked the cheapest sea grass for 100 yen (0,7 euro), I mean, it comes from the same sea as the fancy 1000 yen sea grass. When people saw the sea grass they looked at each other and started to speak Japanese. The Japanese are really polite so they never tell you about your mistakes (for instance they never told me that I killed a mouse because I gave it to much Phenobarbital (=we give that in order to make them fuzzy before surgery)). But they started laughing later and said, you shouldn’t pick that sea grass. Why not I asked…and in bad English she said…”wiji gjiv animall thiz”. How was I to know? Back home we put the animal food in a separate shell, not the rest of the shells.
3. After dealing with so many animals, I don’t find it discussed by their urine and poo (adjustment time is 3 weeks).
4. The old people who keeps on talking Japanese even though my Japanese is bad. When I tell them “nihongoga skoshiwa kadimas ka”, they just keep on talking anyway. They clean up the streets every morning. It’s actually early in the morning that you’ll see them. My favourite is actually a guy who looks exactly like Mr Miyagi in the Karate Kid movie and who sell Bonzo trees outside my building.
5. Names of the streets. Since they don’t name their streets here but buildings instead, it feels like as if I’m in the middleeast (but in the middle east, they don’t even name the building, they just call it “the building where Abu Jeans has his fruit store”). I’ve been lost in Nagasaki so many times.
6. The evening ritual. At around 6 or 7 pm, there’s a big traffic jam outside the university. I asked my lab mates if that’s a normal time to get off work. But they say that it’s a normal dinner break from work. So, I have a lunch break and a dinner break (with the ritual of buying things at the supermarket with 20 % off).
7. When I asked people here what they do on their spare time the answer has been; “Spare time, what is that?”
8. Since I look like a foreigner, people have asked several times if they can take a photo (mostly girls). Imagine what would have happened if I was blonde or blue eyed. Well, this is really god for the self confidence at least. They should send all people with bad self confidence to Japan.
9. The irony. Don’t be ironic here. They don’t understand the jokes and you’ll have to explain everything (and we all know what that does to the joke. They think that “the book of the rat anomy” is fun when you say that you want to read every page of it).
To be continued...
posted by Diana Chavlah at 1:03 a.m.
1 Comments:
Haha, sjägräs! fy fan vad äckligt det låter. Jag tänker på fotsvamp, tänk dig alla med fotsvamp som trampat i sjön. På gräset...
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