スター・ウォーズのテーマ～カンテナバンド
But if you are someone that can bust out a guitar and steal our girlfriends, I also have this for you:
帝国のマーチ
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December 29, 2011
Karaoke: Star Wars Episode... Uh, One?
Unfortunately, I could not find lyrics attached to a video, but the Uga Uga site has confirmed that they do have this song! I give you Star Wars with disco treatment, a small cantina diversion, and Japanese lyrics. Yay!
スター・ウォーズのテーマ～カンテナバンド
But if you are someone that can bust out a guitar and steal our girlfriends, I also have this for you:
帝国のマーチ
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スター・ウォーズのテーマ～カンテナバンド
But if you are someone that can bust out a guitar and steal our girlfriends, I also have this for you:
帝国のマーチ
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December 19, 2011
I Need a Karaoke Hero
I love finding Japanese translations of world-famous songs. See if you can recognize this one. Protip: I gave everything away with my clever title.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8PiJlflNPs&feature=related
麻倉未稀 ヒーロー （カラオケ）
Edit: video got copyrightslapped, so I found a new version.
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Edit: video got copyrightslapped, so I found a new version.
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October 19, 2011
Claytonian Wrote a Children's Book? Introducing: Green Zombie Green Zombie What Do You See?
Everyone probably remembers Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?
This book, which I made in Adobe Illustrator, is a send up of Brown Bear that is designed to be both spooky and educational. I use it to teach at an international preschool here in Japan, so the focus was on vocabulary and Halloween fun. It was a hit when I read it this morning from my Android Tablet; the kids made me read it twice!
View Green Zombie Green Zombie What Do You See? here.
A couple notes:
Unlike the original books, "looking at me" is not the verbage used in this book, but you can use it when you narrate to children if you don't like the verbs/pace I chose.
Rokurokubi is a Japanese monster. You may need to practice saying the name out loud. Ghoul is an Arabic monster, and it just means basically monster, goblin, or boggart in my mind.
I may add to this book next year (rainbow blobs, anyone?) as well as find a technical way to emulate brush strokes like the original book has. So check back next October too!
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This book, which I made in Adobe Illustrator, is a send up of Brown Bear that is designed to be both spooky and educational. I use it to teach at an international preschool here in Japan, so the focus was on vocabulary and Halloween fun. It was a hit when I read it this morning from my Android Tablet; the kids made me read it twice!View Green Zombie Green Zombie What Do You See? here.
A couple notes:
Unlike the original books, "looking at me" is not the verbage used in this book, but you can use it when you narrate to children if you don't like the verbs/pace I chose.
Rokurokubi is a Japanese monster. You may need to practice saying the name out loud. Ghoul is an Arabic monster, and it just means basically monster, goblin, or boggart in my mind.
I may add to this book next year (rainbow blobs, anyone?) as well as find a technical way to emulate brush strokes like the original book has. So check back next October too!
Japanese Study Links
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September 11, 2011
億劫: In Japanese, Sometimes a Task Can Take Aeons.
Lately, I share a lot of kanji, words, and phrases from Japanese in my twitter stream, but today's word demands a bit more of an explanation. Plus it has one of my favorite units of time built into it: the kalpa.
How long is a kalpa, you ask? In Hindu and Buddhist cosmology, they explain it this way sometimes: Imagine an immense block of stone. Every century, an angel descends from heaven to give the stone a brief wipe with a silky cloth. That stone will be worn down a little at a time by this process. But the stone will be gone long before a kalpa can finish.
Less poetically, some clock a kalpa at 4.32 billion years.
Anyways, looking at today's word, 億劫 okku, meaning troublesome or annoying, we can see the kanji 億 (100 million) and 劫 (a kalpa). So it refers to a task that would take 100 million kalpas, or 4.32x10^17 years. Very troublesome indeed.
--
Bonus kalpa fun: A webcomic. The kalpa part comes around panel 31.
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August 16, 2011
California Komachi
I encountered these ladies in the streets of Shibuya after missing the last train home on Christmas Eve*. They were in full mouse (cat?) costume and handing out leaflets. Today I finally found their leaflet and looked them up. They go by the name of カリフォルニア小町 (The California Town-beauties). I never knew that small+town=town belle before I started this post. I'll teach you one more word:表現する (hyougen suru): to express a concept. In the video, they use gymnastics to create cheesy images of famous Indian things. Their artistic merits are moot, but I just think they should keep the masks off.
*Don't worry, I met random foreigners and we all went to the best room at Karaoke Hiroba. Excellent Christmas Eve, that.
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*Don't worry, I met random foreigners and we all went to the best room at Karaoke Hiroba. Excellent Christmas Eve, that.
Japanese Study Links
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August 10, 2011
Comprehensive Guide to Japanese Lesson 1: Screw Aisatsu, Is That a Dog?
I'm not going to teach you aisatsu (greetings) with this, the first Japanese lesson of a series that will teach you every last thing about Japanese. Why? Because you will hear that crap a million times a day if you come to Japan or take in their media! Instead, I'm going to teach you some hiragana (syllabic characters) and kanji (ideographic characters) and even characters from one more writing system.
Sample conversation between two people:
And thus ends a conversation between two friends about how one mentioned a thing (before we overhear them), the other tried to clarify, then the first person at first just confirmed but then realized that the thing he thought was a dog was actually a tree, disgusting the second person. This conversation has probably never taken place, but that is not important!
Okay, so what's the deal? How do I read this? Well, I'm going to include a hiragana chart below this paragraph in the post. At some point, I'll redesign the site to have it float in a handy place, but for now consult the chart for each character. Can you find あ, ん, え, っ, 木, 犬, と, ア, and ー? Well, no, because two of these symbols, 木 and 犬, are not hiragana but kanji (also, two more symbols, ア and ー, aren't hiragana either, but hold on for them and look for all the other characters I listed). As for those pesky kanji, 木 is read き (consult the chart again) and 犬 is read いぬ (that's two characters for the price of one). We'll get to their respective meanings in the vocabulary if you can't tell from the translations above, but if you are smart, you have probably noticed a few other things about the moronic conversation of this lesson...
For instance, they have 。s instead of periods. Well, technically, 。s are only supposed to be used in vertical writing (traditional Japanese is read top to bottom, from the right side of the page to the left, or have you actually not already learned this from the Wikipedia article on Japanese before starting your very hard linguistic journey?), and Western style punctuation is supposed to be used when writing horizontally (which is read from left to right like English for reasons that elude me) but fun fact: Every last Japanese person has disregarded that rule of style for generations to the point it's not even common knowledge anymore.
The proceeding run-on sentence/paragraph/parenthetical-parse-monster was to emphasize a sad fact about studying Japanese: You won't get much help from J peeps when doing it. Seriously, most of them forget what verbs and nouns are, let alone period rules. You don't know what a noun is either? Then seriously, taking up a new language is not for you. I don't expect you to know the word parse (see sentence one of this paragraph-monster) however, but you will have to learn how to parse like a boss to figure out Japanese, so keep that in mind too. And like I said, no help from the natives. Don't even try.
You will also have to learn how to pic up on what people are talking about without using many subjects. If the subject is the least bit understood in Japanese, it is left out. Check out that first sentence, "あれ?" That sound means something like, "in yon way/style/manner/thingy?" Yeah, yon isn't used much in English these days, but it is a useful way to approach あれ. I'll teach you words for "this" and "that" some other time, but right now, the guy is talking about yon thing, whatever it is. Yon could also be an action or a concept. Of course, we would probably just say "that" in modern English, but I want to remind you that yon things are a little different from that things. Yon things are removed a bit from both the people in the conversation, either physically or psychologically.
How do you say あれ though? Well, exactly like あ, but for two mora instead of one. Mora is a word that kinda means a beat in linguistic terms (also, oddly enough, mora is totally an English word too; get used to learning English in these Japanese lessons). All Japanese syllables happen in the space of a mora, and generally, all moras uttered in one breath will be the same length if uttered by a native speaker. Utterly. There can be tones that alter the pitch, but I ain't planning on touching those as I have wooden ears. Lost them in the war.
But wait, at the end of the silly dog-tree conversation I see アーア. If I look on a katakana chart (for that's what these willy characters are called, as you can see below this paragraph), I see ア is also pronounced like an a sound, but I thought that was what あ does! Well, confused me, who is a stand-in for the audience, let me explain: Japan has two syllabaries that cover the same sounds. However, ー isn't likely to be found on either chart. But what it does is lengthen sounds. Usually just for katakana, but sometimes it gets hiragana fever too. So アーア is pronounced kinda like AaAh, if you interpret the captical a's as higher tones. Crap, I thought I wasn't gonna let myself get dragged into a tonal conversation. Monotone for me, thanks.
One more trick! っ is not the same as the hiragana chart つ. The little one is used in this case to indicate a kind of clipped sound, caused by a glottal stop of the sound of the character that proceeds it.
So to summarize, 3 writing systems combined in the same sentences, dropped subjects, implications everywhere, western punctuation can happen (but ellipses have four dots), everything said in even beats, yon mountains call to the dog. Or was it tree? Could have been trees. We'll get to the ambiguity of plurals in later lessons.
This is a beautiful way to begin an explanation of a super hard language to learn. Yes sir.
So, homework time. Find a hiragana practice chart somewhere and print out something that you can trace. Make sure it includes stroke order arrows. Look up Japanese writing system on Wikipedia if you haven't already (don't try to memorize it; save some brain space). Enter the terms below into a memory system or program of some sort (*cough* Anki *cough*), and check their pronunciation using the audio at wwwjdic (linked in the right toolbar).
Next time, maybe I'll start feeding you kanji and verbs (Holy crap did I just do a lesson with out verbs? I see what I did there).
Vocab:
あれ (sometimes ああ) yon (that way)
ん nasally grunt of agreement
えっ ejaculation of surprise
木 tree(s)
ええ sound of confirmation
犬 dog
と a particle that effectively quotes whatever proceeds it.
In this case, to give the sense that this person was thinking about a dog (the word thought is not said anywhere in the sentence though, as it is often dropped and this is the first lesson anyways).
アーア sound of exasperation
Questions? I promise this silly post was not a trolling of you, and it will get easier to grok, but maybe I can answer some queries in the comments section of this post.
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Sample conversation between two people:
Person 2 (In response to something person 1 said earlier):あれ？
That? [points to something which he expects the other party to look to]
Person 1: ん。 。。。。えっ？！木？
Yup. ...What?! [realizes what they are really seeing] A Tree?
ええ。。。。
Yeah...
犬と。。。。
I thought it was a dog...
アーア！
Oh come on!
And thus ends a conversation between two friends about how one mentioned a thing (before we overhear them), the other tried to clarify, then the first person at first just confirmed but then realized that the thing he thought was a dog was actually a tree, disgusting the second person. This conversation has probably never taken place, but that is not important!
Okay, so what's the deal? How do I read this? Well, I'm going to include a hiragana chart below this paragraph in the post. At some point, I'll redesign the site to have it float in a handy place, but for now consult the chart for each character. Can you find あ, ん, え, っ, 木, 犬, と, ア, and ー? Well, no, because two of these symbols, 木 and 犬, are not hiragana but kanji (also, two more symbols, ア and ー, aren't hiragana either, but hold on for them and look for all the other characters I listed). As for those pesky kanji, 木 is read き (consult the chart again) and 犬 is read いぬ (that's two characters for the price of one). We'll get to their respective meanings in the vocabulary if you can't tell from the translations above, but if you are smart, you have probably noticed a few other things about the moronic conversation of this lesson...
For instance, they have 。s instead of periods. Well, technically, 。s are only supposed to be used in vertical writing (traditional Japanese is read top to bottom, from the right side of the page to the left, or have you actually not already learned this from the Wikipedia article on Japanese before starting your very hard linguistic journey?), and Western style punctuation is supposed to be used when writing horizontally (which is read from left to right like English for reasons that elude me) but fun fact: Every last Japanese person has disregarded that rule of style for generations to the point it's not even common knowledge anymore.
The proceeding run-on sentence/paragraph/parenthetical-parse-monster was to emphasize a sad fact about studying Japanese: You won't get much help from J peeps when doing it. Seriously, most of them forget what verbs and nouns are, let alone period rules. You don't know what a noun is either? Then seriously, taking up a new language is not for you. I don't expect you to know the word parse (see sentence one of this paragraph-monster) however, but you will have to learn how to parse like a boss to figure out Japanese, so keep that in mind too. And like I said, no help from the natives. Don't even try.
You will also have to learn how to pic up on what people are talking about without using many subjects. If the subject is the least bit understood in Japanese, it is left out. Check out that first sentence, "あれ?" That sound means something like, "in yon way/style/manner/thingy?" Yeah, yon isn't used much in English these days, but it is a useful way to approach あれ. I'll teach you words for "this" and "that" some other time, but right now, the guy is talking about yon thing, whatever it is. Yon could also be an action or a concept. Of course, we would probably just say "that" in modern English, but I want to remind you that yon things are a little different from that things. Yon things are removed a bit from both the people in the conversation, either physically or psychologically.
How do you say あれ though? Well, exactly like あ, but for two mora instead of one. Mora is a word that kinda means a beat in linguistic terms (also, oddly enough, mora is totally an English word too; get used to learning English in these Japanese lessons). All Japanese syllables happen in the space of a mora, and generally, all moras uttered in one breath will be the same length if uttered by a native speaker. Utterly. There can be tones that alter the pitch, but I ain't planning on touching those as I have wooden ears. Lost them in the war.
But wait, at the end of the silly dog-tree conversation I see アーア. If I look on a katakana chart (for that's what these willy characters are called, as you can see below this paragraph), I see ア is also pronounced like an a sound, but I thought that was what あ does! Well, confused me, who is a stand-in for the audience, let me explain: Japan has two syllabaries that cover the same sounds. However, ー isn't likely to be found on either chart. But what it does is lengthen sounds. Usually just for katakana, but sometimes it gets hiragana fever too. So アーア is pronounced kinda like AaAh, if you interpret the captical a's as higher tones. Crap, I thought I wasn't gonna let myself get dragged into a tonal conversation. Monotone for me, thanks.
One more trick! っ is not the same as the hiragana chart つ. The little one is used in this case to indicate a kind of clipped sound, caused by a glottal stop of the sound of the character that proceeds it.
So to summarize, 3 writing systems combined in the same sentences, dropped subjects, implications everywhere, western punctuation can happen (but ellipses have four dots), everything said in even beats, yon mountains call to the dog. Or was it tree? Could have been trees. We'll get to the ambiguity of plurals in later lessons.
This is a beautiful way to begin an explanation of a super hard language to learn. Yes sir.
So, homework time. Find a hiragana practice chart somewhere and print out something that you can trace. Make sure it includes stroke order arrows. Look up Japanese writing system on Wikipedia if you haven't already (don't try to memorize it; save some brain space). Enter the terms below into a memory system or program of some sort (*cough* Anki *cough*), and check their pronunciation using the audio at wwwjdic (linked in the right toolbar).
Next time, maybe I'll start feeding you kanji and verbs (Holy crap did I just do a lesson with out verbs? I see what I did there).
Vocab:
あれ (sometimes ああ) yon (that way)
ん nasally grunt of agreement
えっ ejaculation of surprise
木 tree(s)
ええ sound of confirmation
犬 dog
と a particle that effectively quotes whatever proceeds it.
In this case, to give the sense that this person was thinking about a dog (the word thought is not said anywhere in the sentence though, as it is often dropped and this is the first lesson anyways).
アーア sound of exasperation
Questions? I promise this silly post was not a trolling of you, and it will get easier to grok, but maybe I can answer some queries in the comments section of this post.
Japanese Study Links
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June 11, 2011
Evil Magistrates of Japan Past 悪代官
There has been a bit of an in joke in Japan that I have been thinking about for a while now but not really sure or the details. Basically it goes like this, there is an evil magistrate, called the 悪代官 (akudaikan: aku, evil+ daikan, magistrate). He appears in many period pieces and plays, but I can't find any evidence so far of an actual TV show about the character. He is deprived and lecherous, the epitome of corruption by power.
His signature move is the sash-pull, or 帯まわし (obimawashi: obi, sash+ mawashi, spin), where he pulls the sash off a poor kimono wearing girl from the local area. This is actually supposed to be funny, and his abashed victim always screams out あれ？！ (are, the sound of surprise) while being helplessly spun around. Everybody in Japan seems to know the joke, and you will sometimes see it referenced in pop culture.
The evil magistrate character stars in his own video games as well. In the video below, I've set it to start at the end of his sash-pulling mini game, so you can see the results.
You can also see the slot machine version here, which features things like cosplay, tickle-torturing kunoichi (ninja women), and the youjinbou (bodyguard) character.
And for extra credit, study up on Evil Magistrate sayings here.
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May 23, 2011
Frogs is the Craziest Peoples カエルのこころ
I can't recall where I ran across this one, but while going through my photos, I found that I had snapped a pic of a frog in an anthropomorphized position. After a little googling,it seem that these images come from a postcard book available on amazon. If you like frogs doing people stuff--who doesn't?!-- or if you would like an odd taste of the everyday in Japan through a froggy perspective, maybe this book is for you.
Here is a post with more of these frogs/books.
I also found カエル国へようこそ！ (Welcome to frog country)
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March 19, 2011
Why I'm Not Leaving 'Till I Start to Glow Green
 |
| The 20-20 hindsight! It does nothing! |
My post on not leaving Yokohama during these turbulent times has been published at the JibTV site. Check it out.
Also, I post for them occasionally, so enjoy some backlogs.
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March 15, 2011
More Crisis Vocab
Edit: corrected a couple things in this post and the last. Commenter wanted to remain anonymous, so I'm deleting what they said...
We'll start on a term related to the last in our previous post. Keep in mind I don't know why these words were chosen, and I haven't necessarily heard them, but I am putting them into my own English and context, and confusingly mathematical looking meaning breakdowns. I hope you remember junior high math order. Also, for some practical nuclear words, check out this list.
天譴論 (tenkenron, (heaven+reproach)+theory) the belief that heaven is punishing us for our iniquities. 天譴, tenken, on its own means divine punishment.
水火 (suika, water+fire) flooding and fire. Used in 水火の苦しみ (suika no kurushimi) to mean great hardships. xの苦しみ is a common pattern in times like these; just fill in the x with the bad situation of your liking.
漏洩 (rouei, leak+leak) leakage. Especially recently, of radiation.
待避 (taihi, wait+avoid) wait for danger to pass, or make way for emergency vehicles.
退避 (taihi, escape+avoid) run away or take shelter from danger. Note this is a homophone for the previous item.
被災漁船 (hisaigyousen, (incur+calamity)+(fishing+boat)) a boat in the the wrong place at the wrong time that falls victim to a disaster. Like those ships that got swept inland by the Tsunami.
殺処分 (satsushoubun, kill+(dispose+portion)) killing off animals to avoid zoonoses (disease that humans can catch from animals). I think this one comes about because a lot of people can't donate blood if they lived in mad cow disease-laden countries. Unless I missed yet another bird flu story recently.
私利私欲 (shirishiyoku, (self+profit)+(self+avarice)) selfish desires. 私欲, shiyoku, and 私利, shiri,can mean self-interest on their own too.
Which brings us back to the governor of Tokyo, who said that we are suffering a form of tenken for our shiyoku. He apologized, but someone may well satsushoubun him from his political party if he's not careful with what he says. He'd better taihi until this scandal blows over.
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We'll start on a term related to the last in our previous post. Keep in mind I don't know why these words were chosen, and I haven't necessarily heard them, but I am putting them into my own English and context, and confusingly mathematical looking meaning breakdowns. I hope you remember junior high math order. Also, for some practical nuclear words, check out this list.
天譴論 (tenkenron, (heaven+reproach)+theory) the belief that heaven is punishing us for our iniquities. 天譴, tenken, on its own means divine punishment.
水火 (suika, water+fire) flooding and fire. Used in 水火の苦しみ (suika no kurushimi) to mean great hardships. xの苦しみ is a common pattern in times like these; just fill in the x with the bad situation of your liking.
漏洩 (rouei, leak+leak) leakage. Especially recently, of radiation.
待避 (taihi, wait+avoid) wait for danger to pass, or make way for emergency vehicles.
退避 (taihi, escape+avoid) run away or take shelter from danger. Note this is a homophone for the previous item.
被災漁船 (hisaigyousen, (incur+calamity)+(fishing+boat)) a boat in the the wrong place at the wrong time that falls victim to a disaster. Like those ships that got swept inland by the Tsunami.
殺処分 (satsushoubun, kill+(dispose+portion)) killing off animals to avoid zoonoses (disease that humans can catch from animals). I think this one comes about because a lot of people can't donate blood if they lived in mad cow disease-laden countries. Unless I missed yet another bird flu story recently.
私利私欲 (shirishiyoku, (self+profit)+(self+avarice)) selfish desires. 私欲, shiyoku, and 私利, shiri,can mean self-interest on their own too.
Which brings us back to the governor of Tokyo, who said that we are suffering a form of tenken for our shiyoku. He apologized, but someone may well satsushoubun him from his political party if he's not careful with what he says. He'd better taihi until this scandal blows over.
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Vocab from the 2011 Quake and Fukushima Crisis
I'm just going to provide some short translations of interesting words I found on the Practical Japanese blog, which has many helpful topical entries each day. Sub it if you know how to read Japanese. Here we go!
安否 (anpi, safe+no): safety, well-being. Think safe or not.
耐震性 (taishinsei, (x-proof+quake)+nature): Earthquake-proofness.
憂慮 (yuuro, anxious+fear): anxiety or concern. The sentence 憂慮すべき状況 would be "disturbing circumstances," or more literally "things are in a state you should fear."
空焚き (karadaki, empty+cook): heating an empty vessel that would usually have water, or that has lost it. Seen in 空焚き状態, the reactors being hot last night without an incoming water supply to cool them.
不透明感 (futoumei, opaque+ kan, feeling): Unclear feeling. Being unsure what to do next. Indecisiveness.
点検漏れ (tenkenmore, (spot+examine)+omission): Something that was overlooked during a check. A blind-spot in the prevention plans. Like a tsunami taking out your generators after an earthquake.
多選 (tasen, many+election): Being elected many times. I think this one refers to the crazy governor of Tokyo.
Well, my lunch-break is over, so more later!
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安否 (anpi, safe+no): safety, well-being. Think safe or not.
耐震性 (taishinsei, (x-proof+quake)+nature): Earthquake-proofness.
憂慮 (yuuro, anxious+fear): anxiety or concern. The sentence 憂慮すべき状況 would be "disturbing circumstances," or more literally "things are in a state you should fear."
空焚き (karadaki, empty+cook): heating an empty vessel that would usually have water, or that has lost it. Seen in 空焚き状態, the reactors being hot last night without an incoming water supply to cool them.
不透明感 (futoumei, opaque+ kan, feeling): Unclear feeling. Being unsure what to do next. Indecisiveness.
点検漏れ (tenkenmore, (spot+examine)+omission): Something that was overlooked during a check. A blind-spot in the prevention plans. Like a tsunami taking out your generators after an earthquake.
多選 (tasen, many+election): Being elected many times. I think this one refers to the crazy governor of Tokyo.
Well, my lunch-break is over, so more later!
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March 14, 2011
Me in Yokohama, a Few Days After the Quake ＊wobble＊
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March 13, 2011
The Quake: A Video with Pictures
I'm fine, but many are not.
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March 12, 2011
Tweeting the Great 2011 Japan Earthquake
I am fine so far. If you want to see events as they happen, I have been tweeting constantly since yesterday.
My twitter.
ALSO a large collection of Japan earthquake tweeters is here: http://twitter.com/#!/redjoe/japan-quake-3
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My twitter.
ALSO a large collection of Japan earthquake tweeters is here: http://twitter.com/#!/redjoe/japan-quake-3
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February 26, 2011
Homeless Japanese Dudes Really Like Me
Well, I suspect they just like Western-looking people in general. The reason being somehow they caught on to the fact that Western culture has a strong tradition of charity. Japan, on the other hand, has a culture of 恩返し (ongaeshi,gratitude+return). Someone gives you a gift and then you try to return it or pay it forward to someone lower on the pecking order.
When NOVA went under, we started to hear stories of out of work English teachers getting food from their former students. But a lot of those students then sat themselves or their child down for a free English lesson. Expecting something in return is not charity, so if you want charity a foreigner is a good person to go to.
Often I am accosted by gentlemen of the homeless persuasion at larger train stations around here. They always address me in English to ask for money. I, having mixed feelings about what they will spend their money on, often counter with, "おにぎりは?" (How about a riceball?). They always walk away, though I genuinely am offering.
Tonight I walked into my local Dokihotei to buy some weights. A rather unwashed-looking gentleman followed me in, said "HELLO!" and thrust out a left hand, bedecked in fungusy nails, for me to reluctantly shake. I tried to wave bye-bye, but he followed me throughout the store, cornering me near my quarry, a set of adjustable dumbbells. After a weird show of strength with forearm exercise pincers, he started to ask me in Japanese for money. I gave my usual onigiri counter offer, and he raised for bread. Deal. He wanted to carry my heavy purchase for me, but as I am not from an ongaeshi culture, I couldn't let him. Maybe that was insensitive of me; I don't know the rules that well. Anyways, he got the bread, and I got to to thinking, so the end result is a blog post.
--
Virtue is its own reward.
徳はそれ自体が報いである。
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| Odd image via Nippon Cinema |
When NOVA went under, we started to hear stories of out of work English teachers getting food from their former students. But a lot of those students then sat themselves or their child down for a free English lesson. Expecting something in return is not charity, so if you want charity a foreigner is a good person to go to.
Often I am accosted by gentlemen of the homeless persuasion at larger train stations around here. They always address me in English to ask for money. I, having mixed feelings about what they will spend their money on, often counter with, "おにぎりは?" (How about a riceball?). They always walk away, though I genuinely am offering.
Tonight I walked into my local Dokihotei to buy some weights. A rather unwashed-looking gentleman followed me in, said "HELLO!" and thrust out a left hand, bedecked in fungusy nails, for me to reluctantly shake. I tried to wave bye-bye, but he followed me throughout the store, cornering me near my quarry, a set of adjustable dumbbells. After a weird show of strength with forearm exercise pincers, he started to ask me in Japanese for money. I gave my usual onigiri counter offer, and he raised for bread. Deal. He wanted to carry my heavy purchase for me, but as I am not from an ongaeshi culture, I couldn't let him. Maybe that was insensitive of me; I don't know the rules that well. Anyways, he got the bread, and I got to to thinking, so the end result is a blog post.
--
Virtue is its own reward.
徳はそれ自体が報いである。
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January 3, 2011
Tama Hoooooooooooooome
Japan rips off Deep Purple. I rip off Japan. Vid:
So you can see one Tama home CM in that video, here is a new one where they prove my point and replace Tama Hooooooome with chirashi (flyer, as in the damn flyers I get shoved in my mailbox everyday):
If you want more of the Kuraray CMs, visit this post.
This isn't the only vid I've made with a guest recently by the way. This one stars butt biting bug of Japan fame more prominently:
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So you can see one Tama home CM in that video, here is a new one where they prove my point and replace Tama Hooooooome with chirashi (flyer, as in the damn flyers I get shoved in my mailbox everyday):
If you want more of the Kuraray CMs, visit this post.
This isn't the only vid I've made with a guest recently by the way. This one stars butt biting bug of Japan fame more prominently:
Japanese Study Links
Sign/Ad J | J Slang | J News w/Pics | J VidsKaraoke | J Commercials | Let's Yoji! | Kanji
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