Friday 26 February 2010

Centre stage

Apparently, it takes twenty years for someone to live in a new language situation to become completely incompetent in their mother-tongue language.  Obviously, you would have to be using only your second language for it to all fall apart. Most ex-pats in Japan lose their ability to spell and I often get tongue-tied and frustrated when the correct English word just will not come.  The weirdest thing, however, is when you are staring at a simple word and its form looks strange and you just can't trust the spelling and start thinking that there is either something wrong with that word or your brain; I've just been searching for an idiom revolving around the word "stage" and after five minutes or so, a kind of panic set in: s.t.a.g.e....is that "stage", does that really say stage? What are those strange five letters and why are they arranged in that order?  It must be correct as there is a whole bunch of idioms using it here.  Fortunately, it all resettled in the grey matter and I calmed down.  Sometimes it doesn't, and I'll be left unhinged for the rest of the day, by a three-letter word.

Wednesday 24 February 2010

How the rest of the world insists on seeing Japan

I'm pretty sure that this video touted by the BBC as "Japanese zoo trains staff to catch runaway 'tiger' " is actually footage of some entertainment being put on for the school kids so clearly visible in the video.  That, however,would not be entertaining enough, or provide a quick laugh at how "wacky" those Japanese people are.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8508623.stm

It is not entirely one way as Japanese people enjoy and  insist on believing the cliches about every other nationality, but I have been thinking about how Japan is portrayed a lot recently.  I read an interesting essay on the subject just last night, about the relevance of Japanese studies, or any cultural studies and how much of it reinforces stereotypes out of laziness, ignorance or only the 12 hours allocated to an "academic" course, especially when it is taught by people who have never spent an extended period living in Japan or by Japanese who have long left their own country.

Monday 22 February 2010

Not the greatest of looks,

but a pretty good way to check for seaweed that might be lodged, rather unfetchingly, in ones teeth.

The problem when you are reasonably good at photography

is that you don't end up having any photos of yourself, or, at least, any decent ones: if you aren't completely over or under-exposed, you end up with weird implements sticking out of your head. Why can't people look at the whole of the view finder and ask themselves a couple of vital questions such as:
a) What is the subject?  Is it Sento-kun the weird freak mascot of Nara city, that is a cross between Buddha and a deer, and, thus, has offended a whole load of people, and cost the tax payer a ridiculous amount of money to design?  Or, is it Rebecca together with Sento-kun?
b) Does Rebecca have a coat hanger sticking out of her head?

People's way of thinking is often weird

You want to buy your teacher a small gift to say "thank you" as you are leaving school.  You are an 18 year old Japanese student.  H'mmmmm, what would be a good gift?  Ummmmm, perhaps something useful...but what?

OK, what do I find useful? Got it! Notebooks and pens!  Yes, I'll get her a notebook and pen. Plus, I'll even tipex out the price on the back of the notebook (because that'll be a good look).  I'll buy a flowery notebook for my female techer.  The male? Well, I'll get him a plain black B5 one.

Friday 12 February 2010

Murder!

I wonder what it means when you find yourself thinking "Oooh, I could watch another episode of Hart to Hart!"

"He's quite a guy........What an amazing woman!" 

I wonder what prompted Mrs H from being "an amazing woman" in season one to "a woman who knows how to take care of herself" in the later seasons?  Also "Their hobby is murder" changed to the slightly more impressive "When they met, it was murder!"