Miscellaneous

I'm back at work after a good Golden Week. In Japan, there are three Big Weeks of the year, when most people have holidays. As you can imagine, having a whole nation of people on holiday at the same time has good and bad points.

Good points:
-you can see any of your friends, as you all have holidays; families can easily spend time together
-if they didn't force them to take this break, a lot of Japanese people would probably work the whole year through with no time off at all

Bad points:
-every touristy place is CROWDED
-roads are hugely congested
-hotel prices and airfares skyrocket

I had a student who drove up to Tochigi Prefecture. The journey of 30km took him over 5 hours. !!! The Government reduced the toll on the highways (yep - you have to pay to use the highways here) so the already congested roads were packed beyond belief. Fortunately, I never had any problems with this.

***

The video shop on my street, which closed recently, has reopened as a fruit and vegetable shop. There was clearly a gap in the market for it - literally, a 500m gap. It's nice for me, because it's on my walk to the station. Before, if I wanted to buy fruit, I'd have to walk an exhausting 50m away from the station to get to the supermarket from my house. (Yes, I live 50m from a supermarket. ^_^)

This is a place where small stores can still fill an important role. In my suburb, especially, there are lots of tiny 'mom and pop' stores. When I went in there for the first time, the owner offered me a piece of grapefruit to try. I bought a bag of six apples for 150 yen (about $2). This is an AMAZING price for Japan, where it is very possible to pay more than that for *one* apple. (And most apples here are Enormous. These ones were normal-sized.)

I can get most basic vegetables here, but one thing I don't like is that capsicums are expensive here, no matter what the season. Here, capsicums are called 'paprikas' (?!) and a single one usually costs from $2.50-$3.50.

I'm going to teach a special class called 'Food English'. The main goal in this class is to try to dispel some of the Japanese English. So, as you may know, Japanese has adopted a lot of English words into the language. However, some of the words don't have their original meaning, or have been so katakana-ised that they don't sound anything like the original.

Other Japanicised words are words that are originally from French or Italian or other languages, but Japanese people think they are English and use them in English conversation.

Here are some examples of Japanese English and the translation:

chou cream (pronounced 'shoe cream') = cream puff

soft cream = soft serve ice cream

taruto = tart (you can see it's come from English, but the pronunciation is unrecognisable)

cookie and cookie = cookies & cream (ice cream flavour)

donuts = donut (they pluralise it even if it's singular, because in Japanese it's donatsu - same with shirt (shaatsu))

piman = green pepper (we don't have these in Australia; they're like small capsicums, but they have very little flavour)

one-piece = smock/tunic (that kind of long top... actually, we need a decent name for that in English...)

marron = chestnut

wear = clothes

soft drink = non-alcoholic drink (coffee and tea are listed under 'soft drinks' on menus here)

maniac = fan

arubaito = part-time job

anketto = questionnaire (apparently it's from the French 'enquête')

horumon (sounds like 'hormone') = offal

English words are popular here, but even if the English is written on a menu, it's still safer to pronounce it Japanese-style. Today I recklessly ordered a 'Bailey's Cinnamon Latte', using normal English pronunciation, while pointing to the Bailey's drinks (there were only two drinks on the poster - cinnamon and hazelnut). I had to repeat myself, and then the clerk asked me 'cinnamon or hazelnut?' ("shinamon, he-zurunatsu?")

Speaking of coffee, the staff at my local Starbucks have taken to writing little 'thank you' messages and smiley faces on my daily cappuccino.

(I'm sad to say it really is a daily habit and I am very predictable. Today, I only bought a banana*, and the girl, slightly confused, asked me if I wanted anything else. Other times, I haven't had to open my mouth. Once, the guy had caught sight of me and finished making my cappuccino before I could even get to the counter to order it. They are very nice people, at my Starbucks. ^_^)

*(Am ashamed to relate that the reason I only bought a banana was not because I was forgoing the coffee. It was because I had just finished my cappuccino at a different branch of Starbucks, which didn't sell bananas.)