Conversation Partner

 

 In 1998, I studied in California.

My university had a conversation partner system. Each overseas student introduced a local student who wants to study foreign language. We taught our own language to our partners.

My conversation partner was Ms. V. She was a beautiful girl.

One day, she invited me to a wedding ceremony because she would be a veil girl. Of course I attended. I was so excited to attend a wedding ceremony abroad. I bought a new formal suit for it.

Most Japanese love wedding ceremonies in churches. But most of the time, the church is not a real church. Even more, the priest is not a real priest in Japan. Sometimes, the priest is a foreign actor who pretends to be a priest. So I believe that was my first time to attend the real wedding in a real church with a real priest. It was a great experience.

Finally, the bride and groom arrived in the church. Behind the bride, Ms. V followed. But I was confused. There were two Ms. Vs behind the bride.

I didn’t know she had a twin sister.

 After the ceremony, I told Ms. V, “I didn’t know you were twins.”

 Surprisingly, she denied it. “No. We are not twins.”

 I couldn’t understand what she was talking. She continued, “We are triplets.”

 She introduced her two sisters to me. I was surprised twice.

Picture by Kintomo

 

Local Newspaper versus National Newspaper

 

In the beginning of 2000, I had a unique hobby. In those days, we could already read newspaper articles on the Internet. On Japanese newspapers, we can read a short essay on the front page. I didn’t buy any newspaper, but I could read the front page essay for free. Then it became my hobby. I read two essays every morning. One essay was from the local newspaper’s front page, and the other was from the national newspaper’s front page. I compared them and personally decided which one was more interesting.

I had continued this hobby for a year. As a result, the winner was the local newspaper’s essay. The local beat the national by a score of 6–4. It was just my opinion. It was a completely personal hobby. I didn’t tell the result to anybody, except one person, my father.

Since my father worked for a local newspaper company, I believed he might be happy to hear the result.

When I returned to my hometown, I told him the result. But instead of being happy, he got mad. He said, “The guy who writes the essays is writing just one short essay a day! That’s why he can write a good essay!”

I guess he didn’t like the person who wrote the front-page essay.

I was a stage actor. Let’s think about this in the context of the theater world. If a member of my family would come and see my performance, after the show, he or she would praise the actor whom I hate. The family member would say,

“It was a wonderful show. This was better than what I watched in Tokyo. Actor X was especially wonderful!”

We are hostile a near enemy than a remote enemy.

Picture by Igor Sapozhkov

All-You-Can-Eat Sushi

 

A friend of mine works for a sushi place. When I worked for a steakhouse, the shop owner never let us eat steak. But the owner of the sushi place is generous. All the workers can eat sushi as much as they can. What an envious workplace! That must be the most ideal place to work.

But my friend does not eat sushi anymore. He goes to the convenience store and buys precooked food as his lunch and dinner. At the beginning of the job, he enjoyed sushi every day. But two or three months later, he started to get tired of it. His coworkers also didn’t eat sushi.

Sushi is delicious and expensive. But if we eat it every day, we may get tired of it. We dream of eating expensive special meals every day, but it should not be like that. Most Japanese love to eat sushi, steak, and boiled eels, but we should not eat them every day.

Dear friends, even if we become rich, we should not eat the same thing every day as it would reduce the value of our favorite dish. We should eat our favorite dish once in a while. It makes the dishes special to us.

Picture by g-san

The Privilege of a Relative

 

One of my relatives runs a pediatric clinic near my home. The clinic doesn’t accept consultations for adults. I am a middle-aged man, but I have the privilege of a relative. When I catch a cold, I can see the doctor in the clinic.

 

One day, I caught a cold, so I visited the clinic. When I was in the waiting room, a nurse said with a high-tone voice, “Hello, Honey-Bunny Shu! Our doctor is waiting for you!”

 

She looked around me and asked me, “Where is Honey-bunny Shu?”

 

Then I answered, “I am Honey-bunny Shu.”

 

She was a new nurse. She didn’t know the doctor and I were relatives. She never suspected I was the patient. It was a pediatric clinic.

 

I was very embarrassed. It was almost laughing-stock.

 

Should I see a doctor in another clinic when I catch a cold? I did it once, but my relative got mad when he learned that I visited another clinic.

 

What should I do?

 

In most cases, privilege and laughing-stock are two sides of the same coin.

Picture by Keiigo K

My Brother-in-Law Is Depressed

 

My wife’s sister married a British man, so my brother-in-law is an English gentleman.

 

Shortly after I married my wife, my parents-in-law, my brother and sister-in-law, and my wife and I visited Kyushu, which is located in the south part of Japan. Many of my wife’s relatives lived in this area. We traveled almost all around Kyushu. During our travel, I left my mother at an elderly welfare facility. I was released from taking care of my mother who had Alzheimer’s disease. This was my first visit to Kyushu. I was overjoyed to travel.

 

However, my brother-in-law looked depressed. I worried about him. Maybe he was tired. Or he had a jet lag. Or he hated Japan. But my assumptions were all wrong.

 

My brother-in-law really loved Japan. He had studied Japanese every week in England, but he couldn’t understand most of the Japanese conversations during our travel. It didn’t mean he was lazy in studying Japanese. It also didn’t mean the language school taught him wrong Japanese. Actually, even I couldn’t understand half of the Japanese conversations I heard.

 

In most cases, language schools would teach standard Japanese. Usually I use standard Japanese, but when I talk to relatives and childhood friends, I speak the Nagoya dialect.

 

People in Kyushu have a strong accent. My wife’s relatives met us when we went there. They knew each other well, so they omitted some details in their conversations. They spoke in short sentences in a strong accent. This type of conversation is difficult to understand for outsiders, including me.

 

I was a stage actor. Actors are trained to speak in standard Japanese. If an actor is offered a role who speaks in a dialect, the actor learns the dialect. However, based on my experience, learning dialects is very difficult. We have to train hard with a dialectologist. Native dialect speakers can easily recognize fake dialect speakers. In my opinion, mastering a dialect requires a person to live in the region for a long period. I had lived in Osaka for six years and tried to learn the Osaka dialect. But sometimes some native Osaka dialect speakers would point out, “What are you saying? Your Osaka dialect is so fake!”

 

Dialects are the final hurdle for language learners.

 

My brother-in-law was a beginner Japanese learner, but he tried the final hurdle. That experience could be valuable. I believe he will have remarkable progress in the future.

 

Picture by Furainyan

The Shut-in Emperor

 

I was a sociable person. When I was a stage actor, I used to spend all day in many types of fields. Then I would come back home just to sleep.

When I started to take care of my mother, who had Alzheimer’s disease, I had to become like a shut-in. I had to watch her all day at home.

When I got used to being shut in, I found it could be a comfortable lifestyle. We could do many things at home: reading books, playing games, etc.

I know young people’s withdrawal from society poses a big problem in Japan. Some people are seriously struggling. But I believe some are genuinely shut-in people: They are not good at face-to-face communication. They love to ‘face’ inanimate materials instead.

The second emperor of ancient Roma, Tiberius, could have been a shut-in type. When he was young, he was expected to support the then emperor. But he withdrew to Rhodes island. After becoming the next emperor, he withdrew to Capri island. He was not exactly a shut-in then. He lived with his close friends on the small island.

Shut-ins have always had a bad reputation Tiberius was specifically believed to be a bad emperor in those years and over the next many centuries. At the end of the 17th century, people started to think about him differently. Some started to think he might have been one of the great emperors of ancient Roman history.

Tiberius might have been a shut-in, but he didn’t withdraw from all of his responsibilities. He made a system that centralized information from all round Roma, and his orders reached all over Rome. As long as this information infrastructure was working, his location was not very important. He didn’t care about his popularity. He had never done popular policy. But when a disaster took place, he quickly made a decision and reacted properly. He had a reputation for about 1,700 years.

Now, there are many shut-ins in Japan. People find fault with them. But we can do many things at home. One thousand, seven hundred years later, someone will discover a person with great achievements in our world. But the person will be looked down upon in the way that shut-in people are now.

Picture by vectorpocket

Starting with the Surface Aspects of Things

 

My wife was sickly skinny before our marriage. But she subsequently gained weight. I also gained weight. We both put on weight due to married life. It could have been stress-induced weight gain. We were taking care of my mother, who had Alzheimer’s disease.

My wife decided to start jogging. She started with the surface aspects of running. She bought high-grade running shoes, running wear, a cap, and a watch. She had the appearance of a perfect athlete.

A huge park with a circumference of four kilometers is located near our house. One day, on my wife’s way there, a stranger talked to her. The stranger was an EKIDEN road relay team manager. They had an annual road relay competition in the park. My wife was scouted to become a member of the team. The manager assumed that she was an advanced runner because her equipment was perfect. My wife gladly joined the team.

On the first training day, the coach said to the team members, “Let’s make today’s training a piece of cake. We will run just six kilometers.”

My wife was shocked because she had never run more than three kilometers! Her outfit was that of an advanced runner, but she was a beginner. It was a double disgrace.

But that situation turned out very well. People who trained during the holiday with the goal of winning a road relay competition had to be advanced runners. Even if they won the competition, they would never get prize money for it. Those runners worked hard for an unpaid competition. They were extremely advanced runners. There were bound to be exceptions, but really advanced people were typically very kind to beginners. They had plenty of knowledge and experience. Their advice was accurate. My wife advanced very quickly.

My wife did not elect to run in the road relay competition. But she took part in the Nagoya Women’s Marathon. She ran the whole distance. It could not have been easy for a beginner to complete a 42.195-kilometer run, but she made it. She was given a Tiffany’s necklace as a prize. Only the runners who reached the finish line were able to get one. She was very happy. If she had trained alone, she would not have made it.

Some people look down on those who start with the surface aspects of things, but it could be a good way to start something. It’s a way of announcing, “I will do this!” It makes it easy to be supportive.

The next time I start something, I will start with the surface aspects of things.

Picture by sh240