Professional Baseball Player

 Most Japanese males love baseball. Most of them played baseball when they were boys. I was one of them.

 When I started playing baseball, I immediately realized I was not good at it. I was the worst player on the team. I hated that.

 Of course, I was never interested in joining my school’s baseball club. I have never even thought about being a professional baseball player. A professional baseball player is not my dream.

 But one night, I dreamed a strange dream.

 In the dream, I was a professional baseball player. Of course, I belonged to Nagoya’s home team, the Dragons. I was in the locker room. The game would start soon. But I had a problem.

 I couldn’t find my uniform shirt. I couldn’t remember what I had done with my uniform after the last game. I could have brought it home to wash it and forgotten to bring it back. I couldn’t borrow a uniform from my other teammates. Because each uniform had a number. My number was fifteen. I couldn’t play as a different number.

 I saw a laundry lady. I thought she might know where my uniform was. It was possible that I had not washed it at home. She could have forgotten to give it back to me after laundering it. I asked her where my uniform was.

 Then she got angry and scolded me: “Did you take it home? What a brat!”

 I was shocked that she didn’t show any respect to me, a professional baseball player!

 The game would start soon. But I was still in the locker room. I decided I would play half naked. Optimists would say I was half dressed.

 I went out of the locker room. When I had almost reached the field, the laundry lady called after me, waving some article of clothing. She said, “Wear this, brat!” I thought it might be the uniform.

 Actually, it was a uniform. And the uniform number was fifteen. But there was a problem. It was not a baseball shirt. It was a tank top for a basketball player.

 It might be better than half naked. But would a professional baseball player wear a tank top on the field? I thought about that. Then I woke up.

 After waking up, my first thought was, “Who has uniform number fifteen in the Dragons now?” It could be a message from the dream world. If I support the player, I might be happy.

 I checked who has number fifteen.

 Actually, no one has the number right now.

 Dragons uniform number fifteen is permanently retired.

 The player who had the number was the first “Mr. Dragons,” Michio Nishizawa.

 He was a great pitcher before the war. He needed to go to war as a soldier. He was injured. He had to give up pitching. After the war, he became a great hitter. He was a two-way player.

 We know Babe Ruth and Shohei Ohtani as two-way players. But we should not forget the tragic time-lag two-way player, Michio Nishizawa.

 I was relieved I didn’t wear that uniform number, because that number is too heavy for me.

 I wish the late Michio Nishizawa will support the Dragons now.

Proofreading by ProofreadingServices.com

Japanese

Picture by SUZUKI

 

Body Language

　When I was a high school student, I felt that studying a foreign language was bothersome. Actually, I was not a good student. When my classmates and I had a bad grade in English, we all told ourselves, “Relax! We will not need a foreign language. Because if we need to communicate with people from abroad, we can use body language.” We comforted each other.

When I was a university student, I traveled to Kyoto by myself. Everyone loves Kyoto.

I forgot the name of the temple, but I watched a shocking scene there.

There were a couple. They might be from abroad. They were walking around. There were also two high school girls. They stood in front of a small house.

One of the girls said, “Come here,” using body language to the couple. The couple got angry, glared at them, turned back, and got out of the temple.

Okay, here is the question. What happened between them?

I had studied English for a long time, so now I could solve this miscommunication. I could help them. But as you know, I was not a good language student at that time. I couldn’t help them.

I wrote, “Come here,” with body language. If you are familiar with Japanese culture, you might already know the answer. Japanese’s “come here” gesture and the English-speaking world’s “come here” gesture are upside down. It was not the beckoning sign. If an ordinary Japanese person invites you with the gesture, he or she waves the fingers with one’s palm facing down, bringing them toward one’s body (like the famous Maneki-neko lucky cat), but it means “go away” in the English-speaking world.

From the couple’s point of view, this was a sad incident. They came from abroad. They were enjoying an old temple, but a high school girl expressed “go away” to them in a gesture. They love Japan, so they visited Japan, but they could assume they were not welcome by the young girls. This might be a shocking experience.

I could understand the situation, but I couldn’t speak English. So I couldn’t take care of the couple. I talked to the high school girls because they were almost crying.

They said there were mysterious stones in the small house. They wanted to explain about the stones to the couple. Instead of that, they explained that to me.

There were three stones in the small house. They were different sizes. The big, middle, and small. All of them were handheld sizes. One of the girls said, “If you caress a stone, it will become lighter. If you hit a stone, it will become heavier.”

Actually, I couldn’t believe that story, but I tried.

Actually, it worked as the girl said. Somehow, I felt lighter when I caressed it, and I felt heavier when I hit it. I tried all the stones. I felt the miracle. The big stone, especially, drastically changed its weight. I was surprised.

I am not sure you can believe this story, but I think it would happen in Kyoto. Kyoto is a mysterious city.

The girls wanted to explain about these magical stones to the couple from abroad. The girls tried to invite the couple to the small house, but there was miscommunication. The couple got angry and went away. This was a sad incident for all of them.

Language includes body language. Our body language might not have common universal meanings. We use body language in daily life, but these could have bad meanings in a different part of the planet.

Studying foreign languages is bothersome, but we have to study them steadily.

Japanese 

ProofreadingServices.com

Picture by Hibino Kiro 

 

Memories Are Four-by-Three

Love Is Like After the Rain was a Japanese animated product. It was on air in 2018. Already, it is a kind of old animation.

When I was watching this product on TV, I was surprised by the direction in that.

Let me explain the story. There is a high school girl. She was a hopeful track-and-field athlete, but she had an accident. She had to give up being an athlete. She started to do part-time work in a family restaurant after school. She started to love the store manager.

The manager was forty-five years old, a middle-aged man.

I was almost the same age at that time. This story gave me encouragement.

The manager also had a sad story in his life. He was divorced. He wanted to be a novelist, but he was still a manager.

One rainy day, they met. The story went on with them showing their sad pasts.

There was a big difference between the girl’s past and the manager’s past.

They showed the girl’s past with normal pictures, but the point is the manager’s past. They showed the manager’s past intentionally as four-by-three-resolution pictures. Once, all the pictures in a TV show were in four-by-three. Now we are watching sixteen-to-nine resolution. When we look at the TV now, if the TV station is on air and has recorded old pictures, the picture changes to four-to-three. Then, we realized it was an old picture.

The animation crew used that effect as the direction. The girl and the manager belong to different generations.

I don’t know whether the direction worked or not, but I remember a similar direction.

Once, memories were all monochrome.

I remember a drama was on air with a colored picture. A character started one’s memory, and a monochrome picture started to show past incidents.

I think this direction is not often used these days. Maybe the younger generation hasn’t experienced monochrome movies and TV. This direction could be hard to take now.

My parents’ generation enjoyed monochrome movies when they were young. They might never think monochrome would be a symbol of the past. Furthermore, most people would forget about monochrome.

Now, we are enjoying social media. It will be a symbol of the past, and everyone will forget about it someday.

Japanese

Proofreading by ProofreadingServices.com

Picture by Illust Design's Lab