tako_koen (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} tako_koen) wrote,@ 2004-07-08 19:54:00 |
|
Okay, so I’ve been a bit lazy with the updates lately. You’ll have to forgive me. Or, to put it like the English teachers at my school – “You had better forgive me.” Apparently, the English textbooks in Japan teach this form as a slightly more humble or suggestive way of telling someone what they have to do. Which means that, depending on the random inflections used by the teachers, every obligation is relayed as either:
a) A threat. “You had better study Japanese…” (…or else we will kill you.) I always get the urge to shoot back with “OR ELSE WHAT!?!?!” but I never do.
b) As if whatever the obligation is, your very life depends on it. “You had better bring something to do tomorrow…” (FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!!!!! BRING SOMETHING TO DO TOMORROW!!!!!!)
Anyway, you eventually get used to the fact that you may be threatened with terrible consequences if you don’t, say, bring you textbook to school.
My school’s brass band is playing the theme music from Back to the Future outside. I wish my life had an Alan Silvestri score. It just became the Indiana Jones theme. The brass band is not as good at John Williams.
So, I took my friend to Tokyo Disney Land yesterday as a birthday present, and Disney was having a “wear your yukata (which is the Japanese summer version of a kimono) and get a special gift” promotion. And since Japanese girls would suffer through any torture imaginable for a cute stuffed animal, (which, incidently, may be the only way to explain some of the married couples I’ve met in Japan) they turned out in droves in their brightly-colored yukatas. So all day I was walking around and pointing out all the cute Japanese girls in yukatas to my friend, who is herself a cute Japanese girl, but wasn’t wearing a yukata.
It went something like this:
Me - “Ah! Yukata!” I would say as I pointed out some cute girl in her yukata.
My friend – “It’s rude to point.”
Personally, I think it was just sour grapes. I had tried to talk her into wearing hers, but she said walking around Disney Land in getta (the wooden shoes that go with the yukatas) would kill her. I dangled the “cute-stuffed-animal” bait, but my friend happens to be the one girl in the entire country who has limits to what she will do for a stuffed animal. Which is probably why she’s still single.
a) A threat. “You had better study Japanese…” (…or else we will kill you.) I always get the urge to shoot back with “OR ELSE WHAT!?!?!” but I never do.
b) As if whatever the obligation is, your very life depends on it. “You had better bring something to do tomorrow…” (FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!!!!! BRING SOMETHING TO DO TOMORROW!!!!!!)
Anyway, you eventually get used to the fact that you may be threatened with terrible consequences if you don’t, say, bring you textbook to school.
My school’s brass band is playing the theme music from Back to the Future outside. I wish my life had an Alan Silvestri score. It just became the Indiana Jones theme. The brass band is not as good at John Williams.
So, I took my friend to Tokyo Disney Land yesterday as a birthday present, and Disney was having a “wear your yukata (which is the Japanese summer version of a kimono) and get a special gift” promotion. And since Japanese girls would suffer through any torture imaginable for a cute stuffed animal, (which, incidently, may be the only way to explain some of the married couples I’ve met in Japan) they turned out in droves in their brightly-colored yukatas. So all day I was walking around and pointing out all the cute Japanese girls in yukatas to my friend, who is herself a cute Japanese girl, but wasn’t wearing a yukata.
It went something like this:
Me - “Ah! Yukata!” I would say as I pointed out some cute girl in her yukata.
My friend – “It’s rude to point.”
Personally, I think it was just sour grapes. I had tried to talk her into wearing hers, but she said walking around Disney Land in getta (the wooden shoes that go with the yukatas) would kill her. I dangled the “cute-stuffed-animal” bait, but my friend happens to be the one girl in the entire country who has limits to what she will do for a stuffed animal. Which is probably why she’s still single.
