Friday, December 28, 2007

when you wish upon a smoke

My campaign to get my mom to quit smoking failed within a week, though now she does smoke outside which is nice. I need to go to Shinjuku today and she's been hemming and hawing about whether she wants to come with me. I've been waiting for about 2 hours for her decision. She is still undecided. She finally just went out to "Think on a smoke." I hope I'll get my answer soon.

my japanese is not improving...

I've started reading this comic that was written about my great-grandfather's life (it's weird, I know) and already on the first page there are vocabulary words I don't understand. The book is meant for kids, so the pronunciation of the complicated kanji characters is written next to it, but that helps not at all if you don't know what the word means. So, what that means is basically I'll have to look them up in the dictionary. Boo. But, anyway, I was telling my mom about this, and gave her as an example this word geneki. I couldn't even figure out its meaning from the context. So my mom says to me, "Geneki means, like, I am geneki," pointing to herself as she says this. I start laughing because of course I still don't know what it means and her example makes no sense.
She tries again, "Geneki is what I'm right now doing."
Now I'm laughing hysterically and still am no clearer about what this word means, so she adds, "but soon I won't be." I think it might have something to do with work since she's retiring soon, but I'm still not entirely clear. Guess I'll have to look it up in ye olde dictionary. (boo)

Wednesday, December 26, 2007

akkapajio

There was a police detective at our house today and all of a sudden my mom calls me down stairs. Apparently this detective speaks English because he spent time at the police academy in Davis (of all places!) learning about being on an american bomb squad, but now he gets most of his English from cop shows like 24 and movies like Columbo and Lethal Weapon. He also liked the show "Twin Peaks" and was asking my mom about this phrase, which in Japanese-English sounds like "akkapajio." So, my mom asks me what this is. Of course I draw a blank. Then he tells they said it a lot on Twin Peaks, like when they'd enter the police station or at a diner, "Gimme akkapajio" - then it hits me like a ton of bricks: A cup of Joe. My mom spent 37 years in the States and claims never to have heard this expression. Considering how much coffee she drinks, this is a big shocker. One time she was complaining to me over a cup of coffee about how thirsty she is all the time and I told her that caffeine actually makes you more dehydrated, so she should drink water when she feels thirsty. She mused, "Maybe I shouldn't drink so much coffee in the morning." I asked her how much she drank, and she told me, "Oh, usually just one pot."

One last thing about the detective. In the States, he'd always wanted to use the phrase: You're under arrest! but has had a chance to use it a few times here in Japan apprehending foreign petty criminals in gaijin-heavy areas like Roppongi. I just think it's hilarious to imagine this Japanese detective screaming "You're under arrest!" Maybe you had to see him to understand...

Tuesday, December 25, 2007

my abbott-and-costellian existance

N: I'm teaching pronunciation tomorrow using tongue twisters and need a few hand mirrors so they can see their own mouths.
Y: I have a whole bunch of them in that drawer right there.
N: Really? That's great. How many do you have?
Y: Oh, I have tons! (she indicates mountains with her hands)
N: Well I only need a few. Are any just small hand mirrors?
Y: I thought you were talking about tongue twisters. I don't have any mirrors.
N: Oh, okay. I've been looking on-line for good tongue twisters and found a few new ones.
Y: I have a big one that's like this (she makes a round shape with her hands).
N: What's like that?
Y: The one I have.
N: What the hell are we talking about? The tongue twister is shaped like that? I don't know what that means.
Y: I thought you were talking about mirrors. I have one big hand mirror, that's what I was talking about.

I try to keep up with her but always fall behind somehow. It's like I take a step forward and she takes two steps back.

Our conversation ended like this: Y: If I find any mirrors...you won't want to use them.

I don't know if the '...' adequately marks the change in tone that occured after this pause. The first part was with the tone of "If I find some, I'll let you know" but then I think she realized mid-sentence that any mirrors she might discover would be so old and dirty that they shouldn't be used any more. So she just suddenly switched gears. Because that's how my mother rolls. Consistency is the least of her worries.

Did you catch all that? I finally did, but now I'm behind on the next subject.

Saturday, December 22, 2007

another post for mchjd

So, another post for mycrazyhalfjapdaughter.blogspot.com, had it existed. This post would have begun with the story about how I got my first black-eye in the 5th grade. It wasn't anything cool, like a fist fight or anything. No. I gave it to myself. Running into a pole. Yup.

This imaginary post would continue to tell the story about my second black-eye, acquired tonight. I wish that its story would redeem me from the first one, but it doesn't. In fact, I think it only makes my case worse. Thus the appropriateness for appearing on the thankfully non-existent mchjd.blogspot.com. So, this black-eye I also gave to myself. Not a pole this time. Instead, I caught the window corner of a closing car door. Yes, it was my own door. Sad. There were many extraneous circumstances that led to the occurrence, but none of them really justify the actual incident. But luckily my glasses took the brunt of the force so the black-eye isn't too horrible (the glasses flew off my face but somehow made it through the ordeal intact. You can breathe your sigh of relief for the glasses). If you want to know the whole story, I will give you all my excuses in private.

Friday, December 14, 2007

Department of Redundancy Department

I asked my mom this morning about the family who live on the corner of our alley because I saw someone I assumed to be their son working on his motorcycle last night and I considered going over to see what he was working on, but decided it was too cold to be hanging around outside speaking broken Japanese about something I know nothing about to begin with. Anyway, she told me that they have two sons, "An older brother and a younger brother."

As opposed to what? I don't know.

context is everything

I was tidying up the dining room to get ready for my students who are due to arrive any minute now, when my mom, on her way out the door, tells me to "Just shove it." She knew what she meant (just shove her papers to the side) and I knew what she meant but of course I was laughing and so to clarify she added, "I meant it literally," which only made me laugh harder.

"Just shove it. Literally." This may be a new phrase in my ever expanding archive of Yokoisms.

Monday, December 10, 2007

brain mapping

Do you ever start doing something that takes concentration but is something you'd rather avoid? Ever get sleepy in such a situation? I do, and my mom does, too. She was telling me that, no matter how rested she is or how early in the day it is, when she goes to practice her shamisen and learn new pieces, she always gets sleepy.

Here is her scientific reason: "I think that I use the same part of my brain to memorize and to go to sleep. It's the only reason I can think of." I like this for two reasons. One, I like that she thinks that it is not because it is difficult or boring that she feels sleepy. Two, I like that she uses part of her brain to fall asleep. Personally, I need to not use my brain to fall asleep, though it's hard and I can't always make that work, either. Hmm, maybe I need to take a clue from my mom and try a new method.

Wednesday, December 5, 2007

...that's what she said...

We were on our way home and we passed by this building that had an office on the first floor. It was very nondescript and small, but there was a man in a police uniform pacing in front of the building, so I asked my mom if that was a police station, and she said, "Yes, it's a police station, not a whore-house."

As you can imagine, I started laughing immediately. Obviously, I was only paying attention to the man in uniform out front, but apparently all police stations (even if it's just a little office like this one) are marked with a red light out front and Europeans who've visited my mom thought that it meant they were in a red-light district. So that's what she assumed I was talking about. Confirms the old adage of what happens when you assume.

Saturday, December 1, 2007

Some things you just can't leave out

I was asking my mom about this area called Ebisu and she said that I'd been there before.

"You know that place where Baba (my grandma) used to go? Where they lay you?"

Before you start thinking things about my grandma, you must know that when my mom said that, she also made a horizontal motion with her hands. I knew where she meant - it was like a physical therapy place for your spine... anyway I was laughing so hard, obviously she knew that she had said something funny.

"Lay you down?" she added.

"You HAVE to say 'down'," I told her. "Have to!" It was too weird to talk about the implied meaning of the partial phrase, but in any case we both had a big laugh.

Grammar, sense notwithstanding

This morning, my mom discovered that she'd forgotten about a student that's coming for a lesson. But, she's not worried because this student, as my mother expressed it, "She tells what I do."
"She what now?"
"She does what I...tell her." It's in these little moments that I begin to see the blueprint of how the cogs in her mind turn, and it all makes a little bit more sense. Luckily there were no articles in that sentence to be flubbed.

To anyone who thinks that my ardent noting of these tiny errors in my mom's language usage verges on cruel, know that I also make such mistakes (frequently) in my Japanese, to the point where I'm sure that my mom, if she knew about the miracles of blogs and the internet, could certainly have one: www.mycrazyhalfjapdaughter.blogspot.com. Actually, I'd better check that it doesn't exist...I'm in the clear.
An example? I recently misread a sign as we drove past a pet grooming store. The error? I misread
ペット
ベル (Pet Belle) as ペット (Pet Hell). You look at it and tell me it wasn't an honest (yet hilarious) mistake?

I'm still laughing.