my crazy tokyo mother

Straight from John's pen

2011-06-18T09:20:00.004+09:00

At a cafe in Tokyo. I ordered an ice coffee. It came with the little syrup container with the silver lid. Yoko ordered toast, big slices of briochey white bread served with butter and marmalade. There was an old man with all silver teeth smoking cigarettes and talking crazily to himself.

I asked what was up with him.

"He's old," said Yoko.

Read John's entire post HERE.

Inconsistency in actual quality (though not enjoyability)

2011-05-05T20:46:00.004+09:00

First I got world news from an email:
I just heard Obama statement about Bin Laden dead. yokattane. outside white house is sugoi! mama

('Yokattane' kind of means like 'isn't that nice')

Then I got this:
It disconnects right away, Skype Call me mama

I'm going back there for a couple of weeks very shortly. I'm excited to see what comes!

'Nass,' 'chako cake' and other cute things my students intuited

2011-03-30T08:51:00.003+09:00

The confusing thing for many English learners from Japan is that there is an ever-expanding segment of the Japanese lexicon derived from a foreign language - often times English, but also French, German etc. Thus the word for bread is 'pan' after the French 'pain,' the word for backpack is 'ryukku' after the German 'rucksack' and things like apple and orange are simply that, with some necessary vowels thrown in: 'appuru' and 'orenji'

This leads all kinds of people to make the error that they can assume reverse conversions are effective, applying a rule that doesn't always apply. Like how little kids sometimes say 'runned' instead of 'ran.' One of my favorite stories entails a group of 5 & 6 year-olds who would enthusiastically shout the English for the things depicted on my flash cards: "APPLE" "ORANGE" "CABBAGE"

Then they see an eggplant, that purple 'onasu' and shout "NASS" much to my glee.

Or the half-Japanese boy who spoke with nary an accent and proudly informed me that for his snack he was going to get some chako cake.

I had an adult student tell me that she was 'grading up' her computer system, and another who wanted to talk about the new designer 'G-pan' she got.

The seamless blending of the world - it ain't easy. Anyone know where we stand with the whole Esperanto effort anyway?

a recent email (Note: this is the email in full. From the top.)

2011-03-13T09:33:00.003+09:00

Please forward this to John.

Dear John, I hope all is well around you! Shigeru my ukulele cousin wants to know if you are doing something at the party. Nami seems really busy so I decided to write to you direct. The party is at a small live-house, and Ukulele members will perform and Kenki my student will write something for the occasion for him, me, Jun. (His music is sometimes Arabian type). If you are planning to do something like sing or play, please let me know, so I can tell Shigeru.

Nami didn't know when you arrive here but if I am not available, I will have someone meet you at airport to bring you here while Nami has to work. I am gone 9,10,11 but the house is yours. Hopefully, you arrive before so I can show you a few things around here.

I am sending this via Nami, so I don't send it to one of your relatives. I hope to hear from you soon. love, Yoko

our parents never faced this kind of vexation as youths

2011-03-13T04:59:00.004+09:00

Skype+Parents must yeild equal parts hilarity and abject frustration. Like I love how we were troubleshooting with John's parents, on their maiden skype voyage trying to get audio and video to occur and they typed into their mood bubble thinking it was the chat window. John got them the webcam for mothers' day '09. When we log on to skype to this very day, the bubble next to his parents name says "You bought the damn thing!"

But this isn't mycrazynocalinlaws.blogspot.com

One day my mom gets a new Dell laptop with a built in webcam, which I'm excited about because I figure it means that my days of playing IT to my mom's skype are finished. So I call her and say let's skype. She turns on her computer and I see her log in to skype. I call, she answers and lo! My mom on the video! For a split second only, though, and then she is replaced by a very worried looking white Scottish-fold kitten with green eyes and human teeth.
I stare at my screen in bemused amusement. Then, this kitten begins to move: the head tilts back and forth, its eyes look this way and that, its mouth moving without any words audible. Clearly this thing is trying to communicate with me. I call my mom on the phone and try to talk her through getting rid of the cat. But now I can hear her voice matched up with the motions of this worried cat and it's freaking HILARIOUS and I can barely focus on anything. But as amazing as this kitten-mom is, I need to try and fix the problem, which is hard because my mom doesn't know what she did plus her skype is in Japanese and I have no idea what any options might even be called. So I google 'turn off cat video skype' and what I learn is: this cat thing is called an avatar; it is specific to Dell computers; and that there are many forums where people are trying to find out how to turn off the cat avatar from their parents' skype.

I guess solidarity means something: my mom is no longer alone in this world and, just as importantly, neither am I.

Directions on taking care of my baby

2011-03-05T10:21:00.011+09:00

This probably dates to like 1980. Please click to read in full. Try not to have any food or beverage in your mouth.

Please note these are the directions in full. I came from this woman? No further explanation necessary.

A rock and a hard place

2011-03-04T11:24:00.008+09:00

My mom suffers the same inclination of many people from her generation which is to refer to all people of Asian descent as 'Orientals,' a term that, growing up in the PC 80s, was eradicated from my vocabulary long ago but persists in hers despite my valiant efforts to update her outmoded terminology. Or maybe it's in spite of my efforts, but I digress. Talking to her about perpetuating this semi-racist usage only inspires her to argue about her rights since she herself is Oriental. My people-are-not-rugs-logic has never gotten me anywhere.

On her trip to NYC in February, of course she said Oriental and I expected to have this perennial interaction of me saying, "Use 'Asian'" and her saying, "Why?" followed by the usual back-and-forth ending with her above-mentioned go-to justification: "I'm one so I can say it if I want to."

Not to say that we didn't have just that, but after the requisite (and now more than two-decades old) song-and-dance, my mom paused, looked at me thoughtfully then announced her compromise.

"Well, can I just call myself a Jap then?"

A rock and a hard place.

Yoko waits for no blog

2011-02-24T10:35:00.008+09:00

Can you imagine it's been more than two years since I left my island-nation-source for the Big Apple? That isn't to say that Yoko stopped being mctm. I just thought that my interactions with her strange and hilarious behavior would be so few and far between, why write on them because who's gonna care? But I now know that it is important to get these stories down in writing and up on an info cloud. You know. Just in case. Like the little prince and the extinct volcano. "One never knows..."

Skype helps a lot, too. Stay tuned for more back-posts, coming soon. Two years is a lot of hilarity to catch up on.

the final send off was im-perfection

2008-11-15T07:53:00.004+09:00

I am leaving for the airport and will say good-bye to Tokyo and my mom in just a few hours. I feel so many emotions but the first and foremost is that I am sad I will no longer have the pleasure of experiencing Yoko in her natural habitat living her daily life. So my departure will also likely mark the end of my blogging days. Well, blogging with any kind of regularity I mean. She will still do amazing things I'm sure, but my noting them will certainly be fewer and further between.

Last night we went out to eat, just the two of us. Our beverages arrived first and my mom lifted her hot tea to toast me. Of course she immediately splashed hot tea on herself. The toast went like this, "Bon Voyage! Achiiiiiiie!" which loosely translates as "Hot! Ow! Ouch!"

I laughed and cried both tears of joy and sadness. This is kind of how I am summing up this past year, with tears of joy and sadness.

Why she is great

2008-11-08T15:27:00.005+09:00

Obviously there are too many reasons to put here now. This blog can only exist because of why she is great. Here is one more reason:

A few weeks ago she was getting ready to go play a concert in Tateshina. I happened to find her list for the concert. Listed, in this order:
Violin
Music
Music stand
Coffee etc.

I didn't comment on it at the time, but when I finally thought to tease her about needing to write 'violin' on her list of things to take, she told me that she always does because once on the way to the airport to begin a tour she realized she'd forgotten her violin at home . She had to borrow a violin for the first venue. It's amazing to me, too.

I was talking about this kind of thing with Jun chan who had stayed at our house to take care of gramps while we were on our trip. It came up because my mom almost left to teach with out her violin the very morning after we'd joked about the list. Anyway, she told me about a time she was talking to her boyfriend on her cell phone getting ready to leave and was freaking out because she couldn't find her cell phone. Her boyfriend told her he was sure she'd find it the moment they hung up. And of course, she did. It's good to know that this greatness will continue into the next generation. Hopefully one day Jun chan's child will also start a blog, but they'll need to come up with a different name than 'my crazy tokyo mother' or else I swear I'll sue.

Not E=MC² but a theory nonetheless

2008-10-22T22:18:00.008+09:00

My mom has a friend that compulsively buys really (REALLY) expensive things for herself but then will give them away because she ends up not liking the thing or not really needing it. And I am not talking about like a $200 necklace; I am talking like $30,000 price tag and then just gives it to someone because she's all, "Eh! I don't need this. You can have it."
"She is crazy," I told my mom.
"I know," she said. "All my friends are crazy. I'm the only...," then she trailed off.
"The only what?"
"Well, the only normal one among them, I guess," she replied.

Oh, lord! May I never be in a room with all of them at the same time. I know now, though, with sanity, it's all relative.

an additional measure of home protection

2008-10-21T08:49:00.007+09:00

We had a barbeque with a bunch of friends and even though it's Fall and getting cool, it was nice to be outside and not be attacked by throngs of mosquitoes. There were a handful at the most and they were not vicious. The sliding screen doors to our 'yard' (it's more like a glorified patio because of the size but in feeling it's a yard) are made to be easy to slide open and closed. From the inside of the house, that is. There are no such handles or impressions in the frame to help you get a grip when you are outside. It was frustrating when you are trying to go in and out bringing food, drink, adjusting music and doing other hostly activities. When I aired my grief to my mom, but she corrected me in her "glass-is-half-full" manner touched by a little y-logic.

"Erg! Why don't these screens have an easy way to open them from the outside!" I grumbled.
"It's a good thing," she said.
"How's that?" I asked.
"Well, it makes it harder for robbers," she replied.

I feel safer. Imagine how many countless thefts those screen doors protected us from. It was lucky that the robbers who attempted to break in here were not hardened criminals, but milk toasts who give up at the slightest hindrance. I think one of them didn't even make it to the screen door; they went home when they stubbed their toe on the parapet.

Living in a vacuum

2008-10-19T12:32:00.007+09:00

Today is Jun chan's birthday so my mom made osekihan which is an extra sticky pink rice and azuki bean dish. She was tasting the finished product and had this to say:
You know, this dish calls for 10% beans to rice used, and every time it seems like such a small amount, I always add a little extra. But then, when it's finished, I guess there are a lot of beans and it probably would have been fine with that small amount.

So I suggested putting a note on her recipe to remind her next time that she should only use the 10% even if it seems too small. Here is what she said to that:
Oh, I remember every time. But it still seems small and so I still add more beans.

In incredulous tones I can't help but voice my disbelief: So you're saying that you know from previous experience that if you add more beans that it will be too many, but you do it anyway.

Her answer was, resoundingly: Yes.

It occurs to me that she is living in a logic vacuum. As in a real vacuum, it makes sense that a feather and a bowling ball will fall at the same rate of 9.81 meters per second. It also makes sense that what looks like too few beans will one day actually be too few beans.

We are not translators, not by a long shot!

2008-10-07T18:20:00.012+09:00

I have found myself in a position where I am having to attempt to translate some of the photo captions from my picasa site. It is inordinately difficult. My mom and I struggled through a few, agreeing and disagreeing on the Japanese or the English or both. Talk about vexation! We were not even speaking a language by the time we took a break. These words actually passed my mom's lips: "Like I’m always looking for a new word kind of way." Wha? Meaning is completely up for grabs. I'm sure that's not English either, but I'm beyond caring right now.
We arrived at the photo of the girl with her cell phone down the back of her pants. The caption, "From this girl, I learned the best place to store your cell phone is your butt-crack," seemed straight forward enough, so I was typing the Japanese as my mom quickly and easily dictated her translation because she, too, thought it should be a breeze. Oh, how wrong we were.

Here is her Japanese translation retranslated back into English:
"From this girl, I learned the best place to store your cell phone is your butt-hole."

I almost laughed out my lung.

Cat pee will not make your skin beautiful and more youthful

2008-09-30T23:29:00.005+09:00

To cure my dish-pan hands, I grabbed a small amount of lotion from a container my mom keeps near the kitchen sink and rubbed it into my hands. I immediately noticed a suspicious smell. It reminded me of a combination of a hotel pillow mint and cat pee.

Before I continue with this story, I have to tell you about this daily noon-time program devoted to giving seemingly pointless 'tips' to the Japanese public. Tips like if you rub sesame oil into your hair before you wash it, it will get cleaner, or how to improve your health by eating grapefruit chunks in curdling milk. Things like this which my mom totally buys into, thus disgusting concoctions in the fridge and the bottle of sesame oil in our bathroom. Knowing that she has the penchant to take such strange advice only made the smell coming off my hands more worrisome. I sniffed the backs of my hands again. "What's in this lotion? It smells like cat pee and mint."

Her gaze came back steadily to me. "It's ur... urrr.......," she begins stammering.
"NO! Don't say it!"
"Ur....urr....," she continues.
"Don't say 'urine!' Please. No!"
"It's urine," she declares matter-of-factly.

Thankfully though, it was not a home-made addition. She meant urea which, though I suppose chemically the same, I can handle a little better than extract from Tokyo cat box.

Paul Newman tribute week chez Yoko

2008-09-29T12:17:00.004+09:00

She was sad, as was I, as were Paul Newman fans world wide, at his passing this weekend. In tribute we are watching his movies this week. Yesterday we rented "The Sting" and "The Color of Money" (known as "Hustler 2" in Japan, though the store did not stock the first one). "It's really too bad, you know," she said. "Didn't Marlon Brando die a few years ago?" I affirmed this. "Who's that other actor I really like. You know the one."
"If you like them so much, you should probably learn their names," I told her. "What movies has he been in?"
"Cuckoo flew over..." she trailed off into dead silence. I cracked up, of course.
"You mean Jack Nicholson. The movie title is "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest."
"Right," she says. "I was in the theater watching it when it won the Academy Award for best picture. Someone came into the theater and shouted, 'It just won best picture!' and everyone stood up and cheered!" It's been 33 years since that movie excursion of hers and she remembers it vividly. I bet everyone who was at that theater remembers it, too. I wonder where they are now, and what they are doing?

A clue: the haves and have-nots.

2008-09-27T08:56:00.009+09:00

There is a store in Japan called Zoff that has inexpensive but cute eye wear and I decided that I should buy a pair or two while I'm here because glasses, like belts, are a useful tool but shouldn't be relegated to simple utilitarianism. Why use a piece of rope when you have your snazzy Western belt buckle, right? So, I bought a pair a while back. I hadn't really worn them much, though, because they are a little bit more delicate than my hunk o' plastic frames that can take a lickin and keep on tickin. But last night, I was going out to dinner with a former student and I decided I should wear the new ones. So I put them on and to my extreme surprise, I realized they are vaguely reminiscent of Sarah Palin's glasses. Well, what can you do? It's not as though I bought them because of that plus it seems unlikely in terms of fashion no-no's that her eye wear choices will go the way of the Hitler mustache. So I put them on and went downstairs.

My mom was there to see me out and complimented my new glasses. "Thanks," I told her. "I just realized, though, that they kind of look like Sarah Palin's glasses."
"Who's that?" she asked me.
Even given who was asking this question, I was shocked: we live in the internet age; even my mom gets her daily headlines emailed to her from the New York Times; we watch the international broadcasts of CNN and the BBC World News.
"Are you serious! You don't know who that is," I replied.
"No. And should I?"
"It's McCain's vice presidential running mate!"
"Oh, that," she said with some exasperation. "I thought you meant someone I knew."

She was never allowed to Rock the Vote, not even once

2008-09-22T23:19:00.007+09:00

I just received my sample ballot in the mail for the November elections. My mother, who was never naturalized, had never seen a ballot in all her 37 or 8 years in the US and so was curious to see what they looked like. I assured her they were nothing interesting, but she pressed, so I showed it to her. She was nonplussed in general and remarked that she hadn't realized it wasn't just a presidential election, that there were other things on the ballot. "Of course," I told her. "But this time around I'm registered to vote in Los Angeles, so there's a lot on the ballot I don't know anything about. I'm going to have to...," but before I could finish my thought about needing to do some research before the end of October, she conveniently filled in my words for me.
"...fill them in randomly?"

NO! NO! Thank God she's never voted! Argh!

My civic self had a total hissy fit, then my actual self dissolved into hysterics. Plus, it reminded me of a story about my mom's Japanese colleague who gave a talk in the US in the 70s or something about how progressive Japan was becoming and made the fatal L/R pronunciation error and told a bunch of people at a lecture: In Japan, even women can now have erections.
Ah, but that seems more civically responsible than filling in a ballot like your SATs when you've run out of time.

she knows just how to put my mind at rest.

2008-09-18T21:38:00.010+09:00

So, I went to the Doc's just out of convenience really, but she told me that it didn't look like a spider bite and her only other guess (given how much it swelled and hurt for days) was that it might be the dreaded Japanese mukade. Or, centipede of doom, as I like to call them. Anyway, I'm not entirely sure where in my home I got bit because I can't find out how long it takes to feel the first effects of such a bite (damn you internet! Though I did find this cute blog entry from 2005 about this kind of bug by some young boys. It was informative). But it definitely happened in the house. Possibly downstairs in the music room, which is where I felt the effects. But, there is a chance it happened in my own room, which pleases me NOT AT ALL. I can hardly relax for fear of the dreaded mukade falling on me from my ceiling or crawling into my mouth while I sleep, biting my tongue or throat, it swelling up and me asphyxiating to death. Well, that's dramatic and probably won't happen, but I did find a mukade in my closet. It wasn't alive but it was horrifying nonetheless, with its blue legs and black body. BLECH. Well, here. See for your self.Anyway, it was pretty tiny - maybe 2 inches long, but enough to give me the heebie-jeebies for a while. I was whining to my mom and she said that she hadn't known they came so small. She continued, "The one I saw crawl under the house a few weeks ago was at least 6 inches long." It wasn't the same type, though. It was the deadlier, red legged version.

Dude. I am never sleeping again.

First victim of the Japanese Ninja Widow

2008-09-15T15:22:00.006+09:00

This morning I got some kind of insect bite. I did not see it, so I don't know what it was. But it wasn't a mosquito. Or, if it was a mosquito, it was a mosquito on steroids. It swelled up at the location at first (pictured), but now my whole arm is slightly bloated. It's been nearly 6 hours but the effects are not gone. In fact, I am having some trouble typing since my arm is sore and my brain isn't functioning to its highest capacity. I think I might have a slight temperature and was mentioning this to my mom. "It's possible, you know," she told me. "Because of the venon." It was cute. Steve asked me if it was a black widow. I don't think so. He suggested grey widow. Maybe that was what it was. My mom said she thought it was something invisible since I didn't see it. Clear widow? or maybe it was just that I didn't see it. So, I guess it was a ninja widow.

The results are in: Couscous ≠ Panko crumbs

2008-09-09T17:51:00.006+09:00

She was going to make fried pork cutlets à la tonkatsu tonight. I just went down to check it out because it was smelling pretty good and she informed me that she didn't have any panko bread crumbs, so these are more like schnitzel or whatever. But the flour batter was a second attempt. The first time, she tried covering the meat with dried couscous. "But it was too hard," she told me. I immediately started having a conniption and had to run away. Who in their right mind thinks to substitute panko crumbs with couscous? It's like putting cornstarch in a bread maker instead of flour just because they are both white and powdery. It just doesn't make sense to me. "At least I only made one," she said in her own defense, "because I had my doubts about it, too." Well, that does show at least a little bit of foresight on her part. In any case, it's an improvement.

a different kind of HD

2008-09-03T08:04:00.005+09:00

Japan is switching over to a completely digital television system by the year 2010, so many companies are urging their customers to upgrade their systems and equipment now. Because of this our TV channels recently changed and we now get things like Discovery channel and Discovery HD. We'd had just had the conversation about HD versus regular TV a few minutes earlier, so I cracked up like crazy when my mom turned to me last night and said, "What does HD mean again? High Density?"

Cute!

The Yoko Edict

2008-08-29T12:02:00.010+09:00

"My brain is so...," my mom began and then trailed off.

Lately she has been picking up conversations that we had started hours, sometimes days, earlier. This morning, she called up the stairs to me to tell me she had found two more books but they were at least 10 years old, too. You think I'd know what she was talking about and that maybe I had just been asking her about books but our conversations today have not even remotely touched on the subject of published chronicles. My only choice was to let those words settle in and let the natural synapse connection process occur. Eventually I remembered I had asked her the other day if she had any of her old French conversation books still. She'd found one. It had been published in 1968. I decided against using it.

But anyway, back to today. "My brain is so....," we looked steadily at each other, her trying to find the words, and me trying not to crack a smile so as to interrupt her 'thought' process. After a longish pause, she continued, "...not used to being used." What a declaration. What an amazing declaration!

People like that

2008-08-24T08:03:00.016+09:00

The technological miracle that is Japan has things that would be useful the world over. For example, our washroom has an overhead light, of course, but the mirror over the sink has its own florescent lighting that allows you to see every flaw in your skin clearly, as well as a heater for the mirror so that it won't fog up. It is brilliance that only costs two light-switches extra. Well worth it.

As some of you know, I've been enjoying James Thurber's short-stories lately. He had a line about an aunt in the story about his various misadventures with cars that I felt, had I been a great writer and able to make good sentences like this one, would have worked well in the June installment of mctm, Wishful Thinking. Here is the line:
"She enjoyed the hallucination, among other things, that she was able to drive a car."

This guy who died almost two decades before I was born surely had a way with words that pummels my funny-bone like a sledgehammer. Anyway last night as my mom was getting ready for bed, brushing teeth etc in the washroom, I read her some of the more hilarious excerpts from this story about cars, "Recollections of the Gas Buggy." One recounted how he had taken his suddenly overheating car to a mechanic who fixed the problem:
I was standing outside the car, staring at the dashboard and its, to me, complicated dials, when I noticed to my horror that one of them registered 1650. I pointed a shaking finger at it and said to the mechanic, 'That dial shouldn't be registering as high as all that, should it?' The garage mechanic looked at me with the special look garage mechanics reserve for me. It is a mixture of incredulity, bewilderment, and distress. 'That's your radio dial, Mac,' he said. 'You got her set at WQXR.'

"The world really does have people like that," my mom tells me. This from the woman who asked me this morning if she could send a fax from our fax machine to our fax machine. "Um, yeah," I think, "you are one of them." I clearly state this fact as she comes out of the washroom laughing lightly, and turns off the overhead light.

But the washroom is still illuminated. I tell her. She goes back, clicks a switch and comes out again.

The light is STILL on, so I tell her again. She looks back in surprise - she'd obviously switched off the defogger but somehow didn't notice the light still on. I think it dawns on her at this moment that she really is one of those people and I swear we've never laughed so hard. She switched off the light (for real this time) and slowly walked past me, doubled over in laughter with wheezing sounds coming out of her throat and went to bed. I then followed suit.

Life is just a bowl of cherries

2008-08-22T12:58:00.005+09:00

My mom filled me in on a little secret of hers. Whenever she sees tears, she thinks of the time when she had just come to the US and didn't really speak English and was at a Catholic School, flunking out of some class. When the teacher, a Sister, told her that she was flunking, some tears start to drip from her eyes (her words). The words of consolation given to her by this sister struck her as funny and so now she can't help but get the giggles when she sees tears dripping from someone's eyes. The coveted words of solace: "God gave you tears, dear." I don't know why it was so funny to her, but anyway it's funny to me that it's funny to her. Maybe I'll never be able to cry again.

Oh, the whole 'life is just a bowl of cherries' thing is because it's her favorite song and she's wanted a copy of the Hi-Lo's album with their recording of it since the 70's and just acquired it through amazon.com. I think she is in love with technology.

mctm's Crazy Kyoto Friend

2008-08-19T15:20:00.008+09:00

This is Ryohei:

He's probably one of the few people I can say are weirder than my mom. Really. He was impressed that I can play Rock, Paper, Scissors with my feet. Apparently, that makes me super Japanese. "Funny, you don't look like a Japanese!" - this was his catch phrase all weekend. He gives my mom a harder time than I do, probably. They went to the US around the same time and I guess went to Yale together. We talked about how tough the TOEFL test is nowadays and they both mused that they probably would have flunked it if they had had to take such a test and would have never been able to go to college in the States at all. That's probably true.

Anyway, he was telling stories about traveling through the US on a bus in the 60's. This was one of the best stories. He was on tour and his group had stopped at a Howard Johnson's or something somewhere in the Midwest for dinner. "The waitress was staring, you know, because probably she had never seen a Japanese before," Ryohei tells us. "When she came over to take our order, I said, 'I'll have spaghetti.' Then the waitress said to me, 'We don't have that kind of tea here. We don't serve Chinese tea.' You know, because I pronounced it like the Japanese do, spaghe'TI, instead of spagheddy." My mom practically had a conniption. For me, I thought it was as sad as it was funny.

Y.E.S. - Yoko's English? Subversive.

2008-08-10T09:51:00.006+09:00

She had joined in on my skype chat with my dad and step-mom. After greetings, she informed them, "Nami is dreading summer in Japan."
Now, it's mid-August. As far as I can tell, we are in the middle of summer in Japan! The linguist in me can't let this slide by unnoticed.
"Dread is about a future occurrence. I can't dread summer. It is summer. You're using the word wrong."
"No, I'm not. I've always used it like that."
"I'm sure you have. But, dread is like about trepidation about something that hasn't happened yet."
"Well, whatever then. Nami hates summer in Japan."

I can't say she's wrong. The constant cry of cicadas are like some audio form of waterboarding to me. It's true that I had just asked her when all the cicadas will die. I'm sick of their screaming. She told this to my dad and Deborah, but she said locusts. I corrected her, but she claimed that it's the same difference. It SO isn't, but she was just confused because I guess "17-year locusts" are cicadas. Whoever invented that name was deliberately trying to stir up future Japanese mother/ Half-Japanese daughter disagreements, I just know it.

Anyway, later we continued our discussion about 'dread' v 'hate' - I can't help that I've become something of a vocabulary Nazi. "Do you really use the word 'dread' like the word 'hate'?" I asked my mom.
"No," she answered. "They don't mean the same thing."
"True," I agreed. "I'm telling you that 'dread' is always about something in the future."
She replied, "I always thought it was when you were worried about something that's gonna happen."
**Long pause as we gaze at each other like high noon (somewhere a tumbleweed is rolling by).
"EXACTLY! Going to happen! Something in the future! You just said it yourself! You knew all along!" She starts laughing like crazy.
"I'm going to go have a cigarette," she announces before she steps out. I don't think it's that she's trying to make me look like the grammar police. I think she just likes riling me up. Argh.

(phrasal verb) - preposition = cute

2008-08-09T08:24:00.005+09:00

We are going to Okinawa in November, so I bought a new swimsuit. I bought it on-line after a few discouraging attempts to find one in a store here. Japanese swim wear is either ugly or a billion dollars. Yen. Whatever. Luckily, an on-line store where I'd previously bought a swimsuit was having a sale. Since I knew my size, I went ahead and bought one. It is due to arrive any day now. My mom was shocked at my purchase; she conveyed this to me by remarking, "But, how can you buy one without even trying?" I explained that even using the internet takes a little effort, but of course that wasn't what she meant and I knew it. She's too fun to tease sometimes.

mchjd post 9: Will I ever grow up?

2008-08-07T20:20:00.016+09:00

I had a student today, a woman a little younger than my mom but contrarily very proper and polite; a most agreeable student. Today's lesson covered things you might need to know should you need to visit a doctor, with phrases like "the flu" or "food poisoning." Naturally, the word "diarrhea" was also in the text book, but I am enough of a professional at this point that I didn't even crack a smile. Not to say I didn't want to but, proudly, I repressed the juvenile urge to giggle. What happened next made this valiant effort worthless, though.

You see, she had trouble with the word's enunciation. The first time, she said DI-a-rrhe-a. So I corrected her. "The stress is on the third syllable," I said in a teacherly way. di-a-RRHE-a
I felt proud that I was keeping it professional.

Then there was a dialog between a doctor and patient. Of course the writers of this text book couldn't give the patient the flu. Nooo, it had to be food poisoning. At this point, I'm still holding it together, but when my student gets to the line in question, she makes the same error, "I have DIarrhea." So I remind her, "It's diaRRHEa." I'm still holding up.

Here, she begins to chant to get the correct pronunciation firmly into her brain. I'm used to this behavior from students - repetition really does help - but all of a sudden I'm aware that she's saying, "I have diaRRHEa. I have diaRRHEa" over and over again and the second grader in me comes flying out full-force. Tears of laughter begin welling up in my eyes and I can't breathe. She looks concerned and asks me if she's said something wrong. I shake my head 'no' and force myself to think of something-anything!-else. But it's too late; I'm laughing and no longer feeling any pride, but rather that I'm going to get fired if I can't pull myself together. The rest of the lesson was me reminding myself not to remember this incident, forgetting it, then wondering what it was I was trying to not remember, remembering it again and having to quell any hysterics. It was this pattern over and over again, but I managed to survive the remainder of the lesson without incident, though I don't know that 'teaching' accurately describes what I was able to do in those 20 minutes.

It was ballroom dancing, but I swear we weren't watching

2008-08-01T09:55:00.003+09:00

We happened to have the TV on and there happened to be a broadcast of some Pan-Asian ballroom dancing competition. 'Watching' would be a very loose description of my mom and my activity vis á vis this program. Anyway, some couple was dancing and the woman's costume was, in a word, hideous. I may never have been a huge fan of professional ballroom dancing outfits, but I am used to the female dancers having at least some small piece of cloth they can refer to as a 'skirt' somewhere near the crotchal region. This woman's costume was missing this vital piece of cloth and so was simply wearing a unitard. But not a normal, spandex kind. It was a nude colored, nylon body-stocking with barely enough sparkly rhinestones in the three most necessary places to avoid being jailed.
"Ugh," I moaned. "I can't believe that costume. It's disgusting."
"Well," said my mom, "I don't think Japanese should even be ballroom dancing."
"I don't think this couple is Japanese. They look maybe Chinese?"
"Whatever. Asian. I don't think Asian people look good dancing like this."
"Why not?" I asked, my curiosity piqued by her disdainful tone.
"Well," she began, "first of all, their legs are too short..."
She never got to a second reason, though I'm sure there was one. Maybe even a third. But we'll never know because my laughter totally cut her thought process short. But I must say I was proud that she used the word 'Asian;' I've finally broken her 1960's habit of referring to all Asians as 'Orientals.'

One from the archives

2008-07-28T13:24:00.004+09:00

My mom had never watched any reality TV before. I introduced her to Top Chef since I had found a place to watch it illegally on the web (shh, don't tell). She was addicted just as I was. It was season 4 and I had already seen a few episodes before we started to watch them together, again from the beginning, so she knew I already knew who was going to be eliminated at each round. We're all old hands at reality shows, us Americans, and while the dramatic editing and music at the end just makes me annoyed and not really in suspense, she would get tense, wring her hands, and look back and forth from me to the computer until the verdict was announced. This reaction of hers went away after a few episodes, but it was cute while it lasted.

Anyway, we got to the Final Four and there was a chef who served a pigeon pea dish whose peas were not fully cooked. During the deliberation, my mom asked me who was going home. I just shrugged my shoulders and told her to wait and see. "It's the girl who made the peas," she said.
"Why do you think that?" I asked.
"You just don't under-cook peas."
Agreed, but I was surprised she had such a strong opinion in the matter. Anyway, she was right. As we all know.

The N.R.B.R.A.??

2008-07-20T16:48:00.017+09:00

Our ukulele thing this weekend was at the National Communications Museum and they had a bunch of 'exhibits' on the ground floor, of which we were one. The 'booth' to our left was this:
Could I have felt any happier? I think not, but in a country where guns are totally illegal, it makes sense that it would spawn this organization. In the display case were many different rubber-band guns (I won't even try to name the types because I'll just sound like an idiot, but there were many. You can see the MR-2 here) and next to it was a poster with the best painted portrait I've ever seen of this association's founder. One-hundred percent 70s cop style, replete with hair-do, raised eyebrow, gun-holster and green meadow in the background. See for yourself:It was so good, I took a picture. Feeling satisfied, I turned around and faced...the man in the flesh! Of course I had to take another picture. His painted portrait was not false-to-form in any way:If there was ever an obscure talent, it would be being gifted with a rubber-band gun. This guy, Mr. Nakamura, was a dead-shot. He had a 5 yen coin hanging from a string, and he could hit it with a rubber-band time and again, whether it was stationary or swinging and spinning all around. I was impressed. Plus, he designed and made all of the guns on view. I kinda wish he was my grandpa. Seeing how the kids flocked to his table, I think I am not alone in this wish. Why do guns draw kids like magnets?
Anyway, you may be wondering why this is appearing on mctm since thus far it has had nothing to do with my mom. But, this is where she comes into the picture.

Of course she wanted to try one out. She'd barely 'loaded' it before she discharged it in some random direction. See the look of abject terror on that guy's face? There are kids everywhere! I thought. Man, it was a good thing that it was only loaded with low-caliber rubber bands. The moral of this story, in the words of James Thurber, is 'Never allow a nervous female to have access to a pistol, no matter what you're wearing.'

Especially when she is your mother.

Amen, brother.

Some words of advice...

2008-07-16T20:45:00.007+09:00

if you are ever trying to get me to taste something, a good starting point would be NOT telling me you thought it was congealed blood.

My mom took me for a belated birthday dinner at this place that is a bath-house-slash-fancy-restaurant. I didn't know what kind of food would be served and when I'd asked her on the train ride there what kind of restaurant it was, she told me, "Nice*." It ended up that we were slated to have a kaiseki meal. Not to be overly suspicious, but once a long time ago we had such a meal and one of the dishes consisted of a small 'pile' of slimy, white ooze. Poking it with my chopstick, I had asked my mom what it was, and she looked at me with her crazy eye and said "fish sperms;" so, needless to say I felt a little bit of, shall we say, reservation toward what might be served. Generally speaking, however, everything tonight was quite delicious. Of course, I had also just got out of a nice, hot bath and was working on drinking an entire (small) bottle of sake by myself. There was, however, one thing that I couldn't pop into my mouth with ease. This was it:

It wasn't just how it looked, though. The look of confusion and concern on my mom's face when she took a bite of it was about enough for me NOT to try it.
"What does it taste like?" I asked her. Puzzling, she took another small bite.
"I don't know!" she said.
"Well, is it vegetable? Fish? Meat? (she raised her shoulders, baffled, after each suggestion) Blood?"
"It might be blood. Taste it and you tell me."
At 31, I can finally kind of tell what I need and what I don't need, and what I don't need is to try a cube of blood. Do I even need to tell you I said "Hell, no"?

* My mom has always been this way, using qualifying words instead of quantifying words to describe things. Actually, hers are probably better choices, though they are seldom what I am looking for. Like here when I was wanting to know what type of food, not what quality of food. One time she had bought me sheets with horses on them, and I wanted to know if they were cartoon, or what. When I asked her what kind of horses they were, she replied, "Running." Maybe I'm too like the adults on the planets the Little Prince visits in that book. Maybe, though, it's also not too late to change...

Never as bad as it sounds

2008-07-12T23:56:00.006+09:00

We are going to my grandparents' grave tomorrow. This morning I was informed that today was the anniversary of my grandmother's death. Here are some possible ways my mother could have told me, followed by my translation of what she actually said:
Casual - "Did you know today was the day that Baba died?"
Proper - "Did you know Baba passed away on this very day three years ago?"
Traditional - "Did you know that today is the anniversary of Baba's death?"
Yoko - "Did you know today was the day Baba croaked?"

Okay, maybe the Japanese didn't quite translate as 'croak' but it was definitely beneath casual in how she said it. The thing is, I know nobody rolled over in their grave because we all know and love her for exactly the fact that she says things like this. After all, she did call her mother (though I guess this term really exists in Japan) 'Honorable bag lady' instead of 'Mom.' I guess it never is as bad as it sounds.

It was "The Blair Witch Project" redux

2008-07-10T14:01:00.010+09:00

Do you remember the scene where the kids find that little bundle with something suggestive of inner workings and something suggestive of teeth and the horror that perhaps swept through your guts when you saw it?

Well, yesterday I was browsing through a tin that contained several medals my grandfather had been given, as well as some other miscellaneous items that had hitherto not been examined. One of my favorite pastimes at my grandmother's house had always been to hunt for treasure. The treasure being old photographs which my grandmother had kept all of out of what I can only assume was a sense of duty, though I must say her organizational methods left something to be desired. But that's part of what made it exciting for me; every time I visited, I went through forgotten drawers and found treasures of photographs that I still feel desperately attracted to. Perhaps they give me a sense of history, of something beyond my self and my brief life. I would feel a thrill as deep as the archetypal archaeologist discovering Tutankamon's burial site when I would find a photo of my great grandmother on her 20th birthday (20 is a right of passage in Japan), or the high and then low of finding a photomat sleeve inside a box, at the bottom of a drawer in the storage room, only to discover a perfectly preserved, never been opened disposable rain poncho from what appears to be the late '70's by the look of the model. So, poking around old storage tins and boxes has a certain allure for me.

In this tin was a small wooden box. I opened it. It contained a weathered envelope. In this envelope was a paper with writing on it folded around something slightly bulky. I looked at the squiggles (please recall my illiteracy) and could make out my grandmother's maiden name but nothing else. So I unfolded it. Out came another, tinier package also wrapped in rice-paper. I gingerly unfolded it to reveal its contents. In my hand I saw something grey, like a bit of rope bunched up; then I noticed something fleshy and creepy among the ropey. The sensation I had was identical to the one I had seeing that bundle with teeth. Feeling slightly vomitous, I ran down stairs to show it to my mom.

"What is this?!" I asked, showing her the writing on the bundle.
"Where did you find this?" she responded, laughing a little.
"WHAT IS IT?" I said, close to hysterics, "It's Baba's umbilical cord, isn't it?! ISN'T IT!"
She laughed at me. But, I was right. I just knew it the minute I saw it. Man, how I wish I had been wrong! Why couldn't it have been a poncho! (vomit)

Generational gap defined, much to her chagrin

2008-07-06T09:33:00.007+09:00

I was vaguely partaking in a conversation my mom and one of her former students, Jun chan, were having this morning, when I heard a word I was not familiar with.
"What's ohbehjin," I asked.
"It's what you are," my mom said. A brilliant definition that clarified close to nothing for me.
A giggle escaped my lips. "I don't know what that means."
So she clarified. "Da white people."
I swear to god she said 'da' and not 'the;' I was laughing so hard. But Jun chan didn't agree with this explanation. My mom said that the characters that make up the word come from the words "Europe" and "America" to which Jun chan agreed, but she said that while elderly people might still think that means 'white,' the younger generation may not be so narrow in their interpretation.

As for me, I was just recovering from my loss of control over my mom's 'da white people' comment when the words 'elderly people' passed Jun chan's lips. Of course I had a total relapse. My mom didn't scowl, though. She just laughed. I'm kind of glad that that scowl is reserved only for the disparaging comments that I make. Kinda makes me feel special.

I'm glad I'm not her financial advisor

2008-07-03T19:41:00.002+09:00

We were discussing retirement savings options and she seemed a bit confounded and confused as to some of the terminology I was using. I had asked her whether she had an IRA account or if it was a 401k. She didn't know. She just knows she has something.
"But you don't know which kind?" I asked.
"No. And I've never heard of a IRA-k before," she said. She immediately started laughing.

I quickly followed suit. "Neither have I. Neither have I."

when gas was only 31 cents

2008-07-03T06:48:00.008+09:00

Ogura san brought a package of Japanese cherries to us yesterday and it sparked a conversation about which tastes better, Japanese cherries or American black cherries. Because the thing is you can get either variety in Japan but for some reason the ones grown in Japan are way more expensive than the American imports. So, this gift of a pint of cherries from Ogura san wasn't just like getting some fruit from someone who'd just gone to the farmers' market or anything. "How much does a basket of cherries cost in California?" my mom asked, "About 65 cents? Or 89 cents?" Admittedly produce is cheaper in California, but obviously my mom is no Alan Greenspan, and I could not help myself.
"Maybe back in 1960!"

But it's true. A basket of Japanese grown cherries, in season, can cost about ¥2,000 which is close to 20 bucks give or take some change. Of course, this totally destroys my conspiracy theory about how the Japanese government keeps foreign food products' prices high and Japanese products low in order to force culinary cultural continuity since they can't keep the population from wearing foreign clothes, watching foreign movies and listening to that durn hip hop, abandoning enka forever. Well, maybe Jero will turn that tide. Just. Kidding.

Confounder confounded by confoundee

2008-06-21T23:21:00.010+09:00

On Tuesday morning, my mom was multi-tasking, talking on the phone and surfing the net simultaneously. I learned later that she was trying to look up directions to a museum on the impossible-to-navigate Japanese internet. I don't know who they've all hired as their UI advisors, but they should all be killed. Or failing that, at least fired. I know that this entry took a harsh turn right away..... (hello dad....).

Anyway, something was evidently not going right, so she turned to me and wrote me a note on a piece of paper then pushed it toward me. It said, "map." I had no idea what that meant. I was completely confounded. So, I decided to confound her back, by using some of my recently acquired KY-style Japanese. Underneath her words I wrote, "I.W." (which, if you're too lazy to look at the link, means "Don't understand a thing"). But, unfazed, she continued chatting on the phone and turned back to the computer. She then typed the letters "I.W." on her key-board and waited patiently. Of course nothing happened, at which point she turned to me with a half-scowl, like I'd purposefully deceived her or something. It was around this time I was able to piece together what was actually going on. Once I did, you know I laughed like mad.

It's like 'ding-dong-ditch' cellular style

2008-06-21T23:07:00.004+09:00

I've been lazy, so this actually happened several days ago. I did write in on paper, so I'll just transpose:

This morning, my mom asked me if I'd heard the phone ring at about 1am. I had not; it must have been her cell phone. "It only rang once," she told me. Was it a text message? Was it a wrong number? "I don't think so. I think it was a weird one." Silence. Silence continues and then we turned to each other and said, "Huh?" at the same exact moment. What were the chances. Anyway, she went to see who had called. "It was definitely a weird one." (I knew, of course, that she meant a prank call, in case 'a weird one' wasn't ringing a bell for you regular people out there).

But, my logical self kicked in. If someone was calling to harass you, wouldn't they let it ring more than once? "I don't know, but the number was hidden. I'm sure they called just to annoy me. They've done it before. It's why I usually leave my cell in the kitchen at night."

I can't really believe that someone would call and let it ring once then hang up, even if it had happened on a few occasions. It brings back memories of sleep-overs in my younger days, calling up random numbers and someone saying in a thick Persian accent, "Hello? Your dog is in my backyard." It's only funny if you hear the right accent. But, even we pre-adolescent girls knew it wasn't fulfilling unless the prankee answered. I mean, I know that Japan is über well-mannered, but this is ridiculous. It seems somehow wrong that even prank callers are polite in Japan.

obviously!

2008-06-15T07:59:00.009+09:00

I was going to a party at place called "Terakoya" and asked my mom if she knew about it. "Well," she began, "Terakoya is an old word for 'school,' like from the Edo period, so it's probably a restaurant."

The cadence of her sentence reminded me of a time when I was younger, hanging out pool side with my dad and some friends, drinking my preferred beverage at the time, a Schweppes Bitter Lemon. I noticed something cloudy floating around at the bottom of the bottle and asked my dad what it was. He said, "Well, since it's bitter lemon, it's probably made out of mostly bananas." I totally believed him for a moment there, too. But, the point of this story is not that I'm super gullible, but that he was joking whilst my mom was absolutely serious in her deduction. And, once again couldn't understand what I was kept chuckling to myself about for the rest of breakfast. If only things were as clear to me as they apparently are to her, I'd be set!

PS no fatties

2008-06-08T14:07:00.006+09:00

I'm sick as a dog today and thanking god for the invention of audio books and iTunes. I'm about to sink into a blissful reverie of listening to tragic mystery as written by Truman Capote for what will most likely be the rest of the day, but needed to note these few occurrences.
1 - my mom tried to get me to take ルル. Again. And after having just read 'The Murder of Roger Ackroyd' by Ms. Agatha Christie, I'm convinced that she has it out for me.
2 - the house keeper came today and this time straight up told me that I was getting fat. WTF? She still said it smiling so I still think it was not meant to be derogatory at all, but jeez. Luckily I'm on that new fangled diet called the flu. I hear you can drop pounds like mad on it.

I still have no idea; it is still hilarious. Barbara.

2008-06-07T08:00:00.008+09:00

We all hate spam so when my mom created a new email account I advised her to use her old one for on-line purchases etc as an attempt to avoid future spam. Apparently she forgot to use the old address when she bought that sheet music recently, and so is receiving ads from that company at her new email. Not spam yet. Just junk mail. So, I told her that usually those kinds of emails are easy to stop. "Scroll down to the bottom, there will probably be something that says 'click to unsubscribe.' "

So, I watched her scroll and I watched her face as it inched closer and closer to the screen, searching, before turning back toward me with that blank expression. I knew something good was afoot. I waited. The blank expression continued and then finally, in that perplexed voice, she said, "Barbara?"

I have no idea but it was hilarious. I'm sure she scowled not that I could tell through my tears of joy. Then the cat meowed, and she said to him, "It's not funny, is it," but I think his meow was in solidarity with me. He knows. My mom believes cats have the mental capacity of a 10-year-old because she saw it on TV one time (I'm not sold), so I also know she knows he knows - it was hilarious.

Wishful thinking

2008-06-03T17:32:00.009+09:00

It's a given that the streets in Tokyo are notoriously narrow and that the phone poles often jut out into the street making the already difficult task of driving in a metropolis all the more complex. All this notwithstanding, sometimes my mother's driving gives me a heart-attack. It seems to me when there is ample room on one side, she crowds the other with many near misses (in mah humble yet co-rrect o-pinion, as my "Texan" father might say) of, say, parked cars, phone poles, center dividers, people on bikes and sometimes, yes, pedestrians. I swear that when she sees a pedestrian about to cross, she'll hit the gas first before hitting the brake. She claims to not notice doing this, but I can't help but think that maybe she gets some sick thrill out of watching me clutch my chest in panic and horror. Personally, I think it's payback for her experience of my drivers'-permit-driving when I was 15, but I digress. I realized early on in my stay that I wasn't going to be able to change how she drove and, as evidenced by the lack of dents in her car, my mom's driving couldn't be all that dangerous so I should just trust in her ability and let her be. I've felt relatively safe under this assumption until now.

On Sunday my mom took some visiting friends and myself out to lunch, just a short drive away. On the way back, there were several near misses of large objects, but I kept my cool, chanting to myself "She knows what she's doing; we're all perfectly safe in here." That is until we came really too close to a pole and I nearly popped both eyeballs from my skull. "YOU REALLY ALMOST HIT THAT POLE" I close to screamed. "It was less than an inch from your mirror!"
I was hoping for something soothing from her, like, "Oh, don't worry - it's fine." But, when have I ever gotten what I was hoping for in these situations. Her response? "There was a pole?"

Of course.

My nerves are shot for good.

Flowers were for Algernon, now also for Yoko

2008-05-30T08:06:00.009+09:00

I love fresh cut flowers but we don't have them in the house too often because my mom doesn't like buying them. My grandma loved cut flowers so my mom was constantly having to buy them toward the end of my grandma's stay on earth. I guess she got sick of them and had once told me that so I thought she just didn't like them. "That's why I have so many dried flowers in the house," she told me by way of explanation. She will get them from time to time, though, which surprised me. Once I asked her why she was going to buy flowers because I thought she hated them. "I don't hate them," she told me. "I just don't like them." I suppose there is a difference.

Speaking of flowers, my mom's friend Ogura san, carpenter extraordinaire, came to help out with tree trimming earlier in the week and he brought about a dozen beautiful long-stemmed roses for my mom for her birthday.I happened upon her as she was trimming them to put in a vase. She had the scissors ready to cut more than half-way up the stem and she comments, "It seems like such a waste to cut off the long stem!"
"Don't cut the stem off!" I blurted out. "That's what makes these special!"
"Oh."
"They sell the short stemmed kind at the florist, too, you know," Ogura san piped in casually. So my mom found a vase that would hold these long stemmed beauties and starts filling it with water. "Please don't use hot water," he requests. He has a dry sense of humor and his quick, perfect timing is awesome. Sadly, so much of it gets lost in translation. There are many a thing he has said that still make me laugh like crazy.

it continues

2008-05-27T13:12:00.005+09:00

When I got home from work, I went to the kitchen to try to suss out the lunch situation. I observed a pan on the stove with three eggs sitting in a shallow bath of lukewarm water. I picked one up and held it up to my mom, who was sprawled out on the couch trying to stay cool in the recently warming weather.

"What's this?" I asked her. Her reply?
"Egg."

Naturally.

A birthday tribute

2008-05-25T22:04:00.010+09:00

Today was my mom's birthday. Everyone think her happy birthday. I'm sure she appreciates it. I don't know if it's that I'm getting used to her ways or, more likely, because I'm becoming like her, but as the months wile away fewer things are popping out to me as post-able material. But, as I said, it is her birthday and I want to take a moment to recount a little nothing moment that I feel accurately represents her true spirit.

We were walking together toward the train station. I don't remember when or why, just that it was fairly recent. The day was not too cold, a little bit rainy and humid. We came to a small intersection and were nearly run over by people on bicycles holding umbrellas coming from both directions. As I recall, it was two from the front and one coming from behind. She was walking along pretty blind to any possible catastrophe; luckily my eagle eyes had seen the two bicyclists ahead and I'd heard the warning bell from the bike behind. Ascertaining the potential hurt on the horizon, I turned and pulled my mother out of the way. A heroic move (if I do say so myself) that avoided a lot of pain and suffering for both of us. Anyway, it really was a near miss, but before I had finished breathing my sigh of relief, what do you think she did immediately?

She ran out into the street against the cross walk signal to jaywalk to the other side. Obviously.

I could hardly believe her. Fortunately there were no cars. But somehow this 'caution to the wind,' blindered existence has gotten her farther along than my (soon to be) 31 years. I must give credit to where it's due. I don't know how she's done it, but I certainly can't refute the fact that she has. Happy Birthday!

Chasing the Rainier Dragon

2008-05-18T20:58:00.009+09:00

We stopped at a konbini (which is the Japanese word for convenience store, which, unlike any States side, actually are full of convenience) to get some coffee as we hit the road. Shirking away from the coffees in cans which are also readily available, I bought us each a cup from new brand of coffee which my mother had tried yesterday - it's called Mt. Rainier. It comes pre-packaged in what looks like any to-go cup from an espresso bar and this place was selling several varieties. You could differentiate because the colors on the cups varied but as far as what the actual differences were, anyone's guess was as good as mine since they all basically said 'espresso latte.' My mom had gotten the one that said 'Premium' (and whose only other difference, aside from the word 'premium' in front of the words 'espresso latte,' was that it was ¥50 more expensive than the regular kind); she'd said it was really good yesterday, so I got it again. It was pretty damn good.

As she drank it in the car, she commented, "They must put something in this coffee."
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"Like, drugs or something," she replied.
"Why?" I laughed.
"Because, every time I taste it, I think 'Oh, this is so good!' Every time it touches my tongue I think it. It's not normal!"
"Are you sure it's the coffee's fault? Perhaps it is you who are not normal."

I don't think there's anyone else in my life who would immediately attribute the deliciousness of something to it being spiked with drugs. I tried to convey this to her but maybe I should have just said "Yeah..."

Yoko don't need no instructions

2008-05-10T20:54:00.008+09:00

We'd bought some walnuts near a temple in Hakusan on our trip and they've been sitting in a bowl with a nut-cracker for a few days now. Today, my mom told me that she'd tried to crack one open but it was too hard. "So, I tried smashing it with a hammer, and look what it did to that cutting board Ogura san made! I even wrapped it in a towel first."I thought I'd give it a try, too, and damn if it wasn't the hardest nut I've ever tried to crack! I gave up and sat down. "You're right. It's too hard!" I told her.

"They came with directions," she then told me, "that said to boil them first, but I'd never heard of that so I threw the directions away." I nearly had a heart-attack in the laughing fit that followed. She still doesn't understand what I found so funny. I'm still laughing.

If the shoe fits...

2008-05-08T13:09:00.006+09:00

I noticed a pair of unfamiliar grandma-like sandals in our genkan-entryway and thought maybe there was someone here. So I asked my mom, but she said no and why do I ask. "Because there are a pair of old granny shoes in the genkan that I've never seen before."
"Oh, those are mine," she tells me.
"Those granny shoes?" I ask.
"Yes, I thought I'd start wearing them from now...," she responds.
I thought about it for a minute.
"Because you're getting old or because it's getting warm?"
She laughed so I thought she was going to say, "Both" but she didn't say anything at all. Sometimes her actions are super CB*

* Yay! Footnote number 2
cho bimyo means 'very hard to tell' - I recently read an article about this kind of Japanese that they are calling KY-style Japanese. I want to bring it to the US because if it's possible to make something that already is kind of meaningless to me even more meaningless while somehow retaining some significance, then I'LL DO IT.

Like a kid at Christmas, starry-eyed and full of joy

2008-04-29T12:37:00.002+09:00

This story begins a few days ago when we met in Shibuya; she was looking for some sheet music and a CD, I was blowing off steam with some retail therapy after a visit to the US embassy (not to worry; I am not being deported). I bought a delicious smelling oil which improved my mood a lot; my mom's endeavor was fruitless. But, the next day she proudly told me that she had bought the sheet music on-line. Apparently I wasn't satisfactorily amazed because she said it again. "I ordered it. On-line. By myself. With a credit card." I suppose it is a feat.

Anyway, I then asked her if she had looked for the recording she was looking for, but she hadn't. So I opened ye olde iTunes and searched for the Mozart piece wanted and lo and behold! if several don't pop up. She was interested in one of them, so we downloaded it - it was a "Masterpieces" compilation from Vanguard and coincidentally had 2 pieces she'd recorded with the Yale Quartet in 1968! She has the LP but thought she'd never listen to it again, so was super excited that it was on the collection. I told her I'd burn the CDs as soon as they were done downloading.

"Will it take 2 hours to burn?" she asked. I assured her it wouldn't be long. I think it took 10 minutes for the 2 CDs. "Where did you get 2 hours from, anyway?" I asked. "That's how long it would take to play the pieces, so..." was her answer.

Epilogue - She listened to the CDs and her eyes shined like a kid beholding a magic candy machine or something. "It's soooo amazing!" she said, "It sounds as good as if I'd bought the CD at the store!" I could attempt to explain to her what digital means, 0's and 1's, but why ruin the magic, right?

Sometimes thinking ahead isn't at all

2008-04-26T09:37:00.003+09:00

It was raining and I had asked for a ride to the train station. As I was putting on my jacket and bag, I noticed my mom putting an English muffin into the toaster. I asked her why she was doing that when we're just about to leave. Here was her answer:

"So that I'll forget that I wanted toast by the time I come back from dropping you off and will discover them later when I get home from school, all dried and hard in the toaster."

Really, it's that she wants to remember that she even wanted toast, but she recognizes that this scenario is much more likely. Probably based on previous experience.

Head of the Crass

2008-04-22T11:11:00.006+09:00

It was a good way to start the day.

I went down for a quick bite before heading off to work this morning. As usual, my mom was already downstairs and was reading her email. I got my breakfast and sat down at the table, sipping coffee and trying to get ungroggy, when my mom turns to me and says, "Seizo's assistant."
I sat, eating, drinking, waiting for more, but nothing was forthcoming.
"You know that's not enough information," I told her.
"Well," she said, "I was gonna say 'fucked up' but I didn't think it was very nice."
It was a proverbial 'milk-out-my-nose' moment, though coffee and toast was decidedly more painful.

Event two happened just moments after this one, when the cat was whining and meowed his super high and lady like meow even though he's really an old-man kitty. "It's because he has no balls," my mom informed me, "Like the castrati, you know?" This I knew, but still it seems remarkable that his voice is so clear and high. To me, he'll always just be the Gramps, the Queen.

'mfa≠job steve' has it right: Yoko you so crazy

2008-04-20T09:53:00.009+09:00

Last night my mom was talking about this kind of light, orchestral music that is not really classical but not really pop and as such is extremely popular among many Japanese. She couldn't remember the name of the composer and so started to try and describe the music to me. She didn't even make it through one sentence.
Y: It's really soupy...
N: You mean, sappy...
Y: No, SOUPY. You know, light and not really very serious, sentimental.
N: Yes. Sappy. Cheesy.
Y: Soupy.
N: I don't understand. You are telling me that the music has the quality of soup? I have no idea what that means. I think you are using the wrong word.
Y: No, I've used it for years and no one has said anything before.
N: That's probably because they thought you were meaning 'sappy.' But, please, explain to me exactly how music can have the quality of soup, and what that means to you.
Y: (laughing) Well... (long pause)
N: (laughing) You don't even know, do you!
Y: Yes I do! It's nice and it's sort of runny...

She couldn't get any further than this though which told me enough, not that I would have heard her over my cackling. I can't really give her any grief since I'm sure there are a million things I know how to use but probably couldn't give a definition if my life depended on it. Actually, I've discovered I have this problem with many idioms. I guess adjectives are to Yoko what idioms are to me.

Move over, Ono - there's a new Yoko in town

2008-04-18T16:08:00.008+09:00

I should submit my mom's house as conceptual installation piece to represent the Japan pavilion at the next Biennale. Here are some detail shots from the current installation.

If my ego was a zeppelin, it'd the Hindenburg

2008-04-14T21:52:00.008+09:00

So, today when I went down to have some lunch, the housekeeper was just getting ready to leave. She's in her 70s, the one who is fast. At any rate, we were making small talk and just as I was reaching in to the fridge, she says, "I always thought you were skinny, but you're not really so skinny, are you." I froze. Yes, I've put on a few since I've been here (and yes, sadly in Japan they use the metric system); also, I don't think she meant it as a criticism, but rather some weird post WWII-type compliment in my granparents'-era-style. Needless to say, I reached past my original lunch item and grabbed for the plain, low fat yogurt. Anyway, later when I got home, I told my mom this story and she laughed with me about it. As we were laughing, the cat started to beg for more dinner, and my mom says to him, "You can't have any more. You're fat, too."
"Fat, TOO?!"
"Well, you just said it," she started to back-peddle, "We're all kind of getting fat..."

Anyway, I can't say much because, well, the scale doesn't lie. Also, I think my mom confuses empathy and sympathy sometimes (I guess they do sound alike...) and she wasn't trying to make me feel like a whale. Needless to say, I think I'm going to go on a diet. Failing that, maybe just a day long 'cleanse.'

an admission

2008-04-10T12:11:00.007+09:00

My mom's prior student was here with her baby when I got back from work. We were introduced and made some small talk in Japanese. She said it was strange to be speaking in Japanese with me and asked which was easier for me. I said, English (obviously) and my mom told her that I was definitely American.

"And what about you, Sensei? (all her students call her this and it kind of makes me laugh because I'm an American, who, like all of my generation, grew up with The Karate Kid. Wax on, wax off) Are you American or Japanese?"

My mom paused for just a half-second before she answered, "Alien." (it was kind of wordplay in Japanese: America-jin, Nihon-jin, Uchuu-jin). It all makes such sense now! Of course, that makes me half-alien, but I think I might be okay with that. In any case, maybe it's the answer to many of my queries.

those little throw away moments

2008-04-04T22:16:00.004+09:00

"If I see it, I want to stop it." This declaration was made with gusto today as we drove to the cemetery. What heinous offense is my mom so against? Nothing. She was telling me about a little farmers' market kind of place and, while I had a good laugh, it was just a case of pronoun/adverb confusion: it, there, whatever. These are the little moments that don't get shared but happen daily, sometimes hourly. Let me tell you, the scowling abounds each and every time.

The moral here is that the whole is more than the sum of its parts and you'll just have to experience her yourself someday to fully appreciate what I get to enjoy every day.

Maybe I'm an asshole

2008-03-28T16:45:00.013+09:00

Is everyone familiar with this magazine known as FRUiTS that publishes pictures of young people with outrageous fashion sensibilities for the rest of us to wonder and gawk at? Well, I don't know if it is because the Japanese are more attached to youth culture and fashion than much of the Western world, but there is a certain faction of, shall we say, older people who dress in this same outrageous manner. There was one such individual where my mom and I were eating lunch today and I was thinking that someone should start a magazine to document this currently ignored fashion demographic. They certainly have as much "style" as their younger counterparts. I was taking stock of this woman in her 70s dressed in black stiletto boots with a red plaid turn-down rim, leggings and cute mini-skirt jumper accessorized with a necklace made of fist size plastic beads and a big, floppy hat, wondering what I would name my fantasy magazine, when it came to me like a vision: DRiED FRUiTS. I guess it's kinda mean (maybe I am an asshole), but it was also pretty funny and of course I started laughing out loud, so my mom asked me what was so funny, and when I told her, she burst out laughing, too. I guess that means we're both kind of jerks.

catch phrase and wig and the jokes are lame

2008-03-26T11:47:00.006+09:00

I was cracking up over the comment Inder posted on my last entry, and was telling my mom about it. I wonder if it was some weird antisemitic thing making Popeye's catch phrase something that is so blasphemous? I'm thinking of those crazy cartoons from that era with Mickey and Hitler etc., etc. Anyway, I was telling my mom that "I am what I am" really was Popeye's catch phrase, and she says,

"I always thought it was 'I am what I eat.' "

I fell over laughing. She also recently told me that she thought Homer Simpson was a plumber. I thought that was pretty funny, too, although maybe it's weirder that the rest of us know that he works in a nuclear power plant.

Sincerely, move over

2008-03-25T13:20:00.004+09:00

Okay, so this one really was an accident, but until I figured it out I thought it was totally the most brilliant and hilarious thing to happen in a while.

I proof read a recommendation letter my mom had written correcting the engrish as I went along then this is how it closed.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
bla bla, it is my great pleasure to recommend bla bla.

I am,

Yoko M------
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
I feel sketched about putting full names on the internet. Call me paranoid. Anyway, it wasn't meant to be a closing but for a brief few minutes I was hopeful. 'Sincerely'? Overused. 'Best'? Impersonal! 'Best wishes'? LAME! 'May I always live to serve you and your crown'? Too monarchical! *sigh* All I want is something simple but not boring! Ah, yes. I think I'll just use the good ol' 'I am.' Simple, straightforward, honest.

EXACTLY.

Maybe I'm a culiary prude

2008-03-23T12:14:00.011+09:00

Since I've been here, from time to time I'll notice this concoction my mom makes sitting in the fridge, looking disgusting. It's always in a bowl, covered by some saran wrap, and it looks like chunks of grapefruit in yogurt that has gotten watery and a little curdled from the grapefruit juice. This morning, I finally saw her eating it.

"I don't know why anyone would want to eat grapefruit that's sitting in curdling yogurt," I said maybe a little more rudely than I intended.

"It's not yogurt," she informed me. I look again...the grapefruit chunks are definitely sitting in something milky. "It's plain milk that's curdled. I saw it on TV. It's really healthy for you."

I can eat a lot of things, fermented beans, stinky cheese, foie-gras, I've even eaten ris de veau, though that is an experience I'll likely never duplicate. But I have to draw the line at curdling milk. I had a traumatic curdled milk experience when I was young...my dad can attest to that!

I don't know what it means but it's probably true.

2008-03-23T08:34:00.003+09:00

At breakfast, amidst our morning conversation, my mom told me she doesn't have jikaku.

"What's that?" I asked.

"Self-recognition."

Bullet points; more Yoko on basketball

2008-03-22T19:51:00.009+09:00

The Cavaliers played the Raptors and here's what she had to say:

• A player was being swapped out with another player and as they switched, they slapped five.
"Do they have to touch like that?! No....! * It's not a relay."
*insert my maniacal laughter here

• "Are the people in suits the coaches? Why do they wear suits? The coaches in baseball don't wear suits, do they?"
"No, they wear uniforms. But, what, you want the coaches to wear shorts and tank tops? It would look ridiculous."
"Well, what about that..." (she points to the TV)
"Those are the refs."

• "I still don't like all that squeaking." Perhaps you will recall...

• She'd also asked me recently if they were "allowed to shove it down." By 'it' she meant basketball and by 'down' she meant into the net. This action is known to the rest of us as a slam dunk. It was cute.

smart and small-minded both start with 'sm'

2008-03-19T00:20:00.012+09:00

My poor mother has a cold. There's this Japanese medication called 'Ruru' or 'Lulu' (or 'Rulu' or 'Luru' depending on how you wish to translate it; this is what it looks like in its original form: ルル). Anyway, she recommended it to me a while back when I had a cold but apparently I'm allergic to it or something because I got a rash on my stomach and the doctor told me it was probably from the ルル since it's like the rash I got when I took penicillin once (Meags! Remember - 'I'm allergic to penicillin'?). Anyway, it's gone so enough about rashes (can I say 'rash' any more? Jesus.), but when I told my mom what the doctor had said, she wouldn't believe the rash (christ.) was from that.

Today I asked her if she'd taken ルル. She said yes.
"Obviously, you're not allergic to it," I said.
"Why? Are you allergic to it?"
"That's what the doctor told me."
"She did?"
"Remember? I told you and you didn't believe me."
"Oh yeah, I kind of remember. I always forget things I don't believe."

Either it leaves room for more, or it just keeps it conveniently empty. sm.

Don't know why, but it reminds me of a comic that illustrated the three types of people measuring a half-glass of water: Optimist - "The glass is half full!"; Pessimist - "The glass is half empty..."; Anal-Retentive - "Half-nothin'! Try 48%"
You all know what category I fall under.

To the LIMIT!

2008-03-13T18:15:00.007+09:00

In the kitchen, she noted: "I was going to buy more eggs at the store today! I used them for the cakes. We're down to none."

The Queen of Substitutions

2008-03-13T17:07:00.005+09:00

My mother has long held the title of "The Queen of Substitutions." She will substitute one thing for another with out regard to scientific property or relevance. Sometimes the results are fine, like when she 'extends' sour cream by adding plain yogurt to it. Other times they've ended in disaster. But I've learned some good lessons, like: Never substitute Red Miso for White Miso in a misoae no matter how much it might seem like a good idea at the time. Or: Just because things look alike, doesn't mean they are alike. This lesson I learned the time she used powdered laundry detergent instead of dish detergent in our dish-washer in LA ("They looked the same!" she said) and I came downstairs to find suds interminably pouring out of the sides of the machine, all over the floor. It was straight out of "I Love Lucy."

Anyway, I was just reminded of this because she's making a cake to serve at the reception of her concert on Sunday. This is a time where it counts, where if the cake comes out badly, it will get served anyway. So, of course, she starts making additions and substitutions left and right. I saw on the counter: a tupperware of frozen cooked apples from last fall, a bottle of Kahlua and one of Absolut, a tub of lard, some recipe clippings that looked like they were from 1940.

Your guess is as good as mine. She turned to me with this worried look and said, "I hope it comes out okay..." I'll be sure to tell you how it tastes this weekend.

insanity in action!

2008-03-08T08:27:00.007+09:00

When my mom hits some technological wall, like the error message on her fax machine this morning, if there's nothing I can do to help because I can't decipher the squiggly lines the Japanese call writing (yes, I'm almost totally illiterate. Don't laugh!), it's interesting as an exercise to just observe, like a scientist, and see what she will do next.

Today's observation revealed that the subject's first step toward problem-solving is to try the failed action several times in a row. As each action yields the same (unfavorable) results, the subject will make frustrated noises and raise her palms upward in the gestural version of "What the hell?" and utter the discontented expression "Nandenanoyo!" which translates in the most insufficient way into "Why!"

Albert Einstein is quoted as saying, "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." Obviously my mother qualifies under Einstein's postulation, but I don't know how I think I'm exempt when I've always flicked the light switch up and down rapidly and repeatedly once the bulb has clearly burned out. I suppose I've said it before, but I'll say it again: the apple does not fall far from the tree.

She's lackadaisical, I'm single

2008-03-06T23:09:00.008+09:00

Monday was girls' day in Japan and traditionally you put out hina dolls until the day of the celebration. I was talking to one of my students the day after girls' day and she told me that there is a superstition/tradition in Japan that if you don't put the dolls away by night-fall of the actual day, the girls in your house will never be brides. Of course, here it is now days after girls' day and our dolls are still out.

"Well," said my mom, "it doesn't matter. I don't really plan on getting married again, so..."
"And what about me?" I asked.
Her response was to laugh in my face. Well, I guess it doesn't really count if I'm laughing, too.

Technology 7, or, Laptop Viagra

2008-03-02T08:14:00.012+09:00

My mom's old student/IT man came over last night to finish setting up her new computer, transferring data and things. This morning, encountering a problem, we clicked 'restart' and waited. "It's taking so long to shut down," my mom commented, so a few seconds later I asked if it was still trying to shut down.

She replied, "It shut down and now it's trying to get it up."

I started laughing immediately, and she said, "It's not funny..."
"It is," I insisted, tears welling up in my eyes. "Do you even know what that phrase is usually used for?!"
"Yes."

A side story about her student (whom I call "The Professor" since he knows random facts about just about anything) is that last night my mom was telling him about my blog and he asked me what the URL was. As I said it, he typed it in to the computer. A moment later I got a blank stare from him and he said that it pulled up an error screen. What?! I thought, but as soon as I saw the address bar, it all made sense. Here is what it said: www.myclazytokyomother.blogspot.com. So close, and yet, so far...

Beauty, tradition and the art of letting go

2008-02-29T08:35:00.007+09:00

This morning I was telling my mom about the folding method for the little rag used in the tea ceremony for wiping the inside of the tea bowl. It is complex but extremely important because one wrong turn and you'll end up somewhere weird at the end (with the fold in the wrong direction and you can't do the next part of the process). Anyway, so I was showing her with a kleenex as an example, and placed the little folded tissue so she could see it.
"Well, that's all fine and dandy*, but..."
"But, what?!"
"If you can make a good bowl of tea, what does it matter if you can fold the little cloth right?"

I then gave a lecture in slightly incredulous tones about the beauty of ritual and how tradition connects you to history - how when I fold the cloth like that, engage in this ritual, I'm connected to all the people who have ever performed the tea ceremony all the way back to Rikyu himself! The fact is, she understands my feeling and is laughing just as I am laughing through this entire exchange because I also know she knows. I don't think you can be a classical musician and not have some clue about connecting to the past.

Anyway, this episode ended like this: Laughing so hard, my mom began to cough a little, then grabbed the delicately folded tissue I'd made as an example and hocked a loogie into it.

My first footnote:
*'fine and dandy' is only an approximation of what she said in Japanese. She doesn't actually talk like that, though recently she really did say "Gee Whiz"

subtle is her middle name

2008-02-28T13:21:00.009+09:00

They were showing this really ornate kimono on TV just now, with amazing gold thread embroidery in patterns reflecting the spring, like cherry-blossoms. "It's something that would be worn by a hight-class..." my mom pauses, looking for the right word.
"Courtesan," I offer.
Evidently she didn't hear me, because she's still searching her brain, looking up toward the ceiling, eyes a little squintier than normal.

"A high-class..." As her gaze falls back toward earth, I try again. "Courtesan?"
"...whore."

This is my mother.

The Tell-Tale Smack

2008-02-23T08:45:00.006+09:00

My mom has a habit of kind of making smacking sounds with her mouth right before she's about to say something. Sometimes it takes a while for the words to come out and as a consequence I'm stuck listening to that smacking sound for longer than I'd like. She's unaware that she's even doing it so my pleas to get her to quit are futile. You have no idea how annoying it can be knowing she's on the verge of saying something and having to just wait for her to spit whatever it is out. Anyway, it finally yielded something funny.

I'd heard the telltale smacking, so I turned to her expectantly and asked, "What?"
She looked surprised then began laughing.
"Is it creepy, like I can read your mind and know you're thinking about saying something?" I asked.
"It already felt like you can read my mind" was her reply.

The funny thing is, she relies on this potentiality far more often than she should and it is the cause of many miscommunications and misunderstandings in this living situation of ours. No matter how prescient I may seem, I'm just not.

The new name of fear

2008-02-22T23:06:00.011+09:00

We just finished watching "The Silence of the Lambs," me for the nth time, but my mother for the first time. It was, as it always is, a very intense experience. My mom asked me if Jodie Foster was the same person that was in the movie "As Good as it Gets" but I said no, that was Helen Hunt.
"Oh, that's right," she said. "And I always forget the name of that actor...what was the name of the guy who played Lester?"
"Who?"
"The doctor in the movie we just saw. Dr. Lester?"

Fear has a new name, and it is Hannibal Lester.

It's a good thing my mom never worked for Hollywood in that capacity. Somehow Hannibal Lester just doesn't have the power to strike anything but glee into my heart.

Technology 6

2008-02-19T20:46:00.003+09:00

"Something is wrong with her e-mail machine"

When she said this, I had a sneaking suspicion she just meant her friend's computer, but then again this is Japan! Maybe her friend really had an e-mail machine. So giving my mom the benefit of the doubt I made some clarifying inquires.

But, no, my gut was right. She meant computer.

Riveting Writing

2008-02-19T14:09:00.004+09:00

Last night my mother was telling me about a novel she's been trying to finish. She reads before she goes to sleep and this book, I guess, has her out like a light before even finishing one page. Several times she's woken up to find the light on and her book still in hand.
"It must not be very interesting," I said.
"Oh, it IS interesting!" she countered.
"Then why do you fall asleep?"
"I don't know!"
"What kind of book is it anyway?"
My mom starts laughing and answers, "Mystery."

Technology 5

2008-02-17T10:02:00.007+09:00

I forget why it even came up, but my mom was saying this morning how she wished she still knew someone who knew flag signals like this but in Japanese, obviously. I guess she learned it once when she was little. Now I assumed that, as that link may have shown you, this kind of flag signaling probably had some kind of military origin, so I asked if she knew what it used to be used for.

"Well," she said, "this was before there were cell phones..."

I think of all the youth in Japan currently spending every waking minute texting from their cell phones and then try to imagine what life must have been like when my mom was young. I guess, you never left home without two handkerchieves.

Maybe there was something in the water...

2008-02-16T11:06:00.005+09:00

My mom arrived back yesterday and her suitcase was overflowing with things purchased or given to her while she was in LA. I'm ecstatic about the two bags of candy she brought me! They don't have licorice here in Japan (!?) so she brought me a bag with an assortment of red and black licorice and licorice flavored things as well as a bag with assorted gummy things which she knows I love, too. But, as she was looking through her suitcase for these bags of candy to give me, she pulled out this huge wad of snack-size ziplock bags. She had taken them out of the box so that they'd take less room, but here is the story of how she came to have them in the first place:

My mom has an old friend in LA who grew up in Tokyo with her. When my mom was visiting her, I guess she saw one of these small snack bags and commented that she had never seen that size before. The next part of the story is that my mom's friend gave her a box of ziplock snack bags to give to me as a gift. I have no idea what the common thread is through any of that. So, like I said, I think maybe there was something in the water in post-war Tokyo that affected left lobe development or something.

I'm beyond caring, though. I have everything I need in those two bags of bad-for-me things.

"It was good to hear you"

2008-02-14T14:59:00.010+09:00

Latest quote from mctm's email. This was sent, naturally, after we had spoken on the phone. I can hear her now, telling me, "I meant it literally." Which I'm sure she did.

All you mctm fans out there, fear not! She is coming home tomorrow so we can hope for more things like this happening in person. Although I did have to comment that I don't know why these kinds of things still make me smile. I mean, she is the product of this crazy culture that not only has a TV station called BS (devotees will remember) but feels no sense of irony that the news brief of said channel is called "BS News" and that the commentator begins every edition with the words, "Now I will give you the BS News" (of course in Japanese).

Condonlences received

2008-02-11T08:08:00.002+09:00

My mom just emailed me condolences about my toe. Here is the excerpt from her email: "Sorry about your toe. How did you stab it."
I might as well have stabbed it for how much it bled. Also, the period was part of her sentence. CUTE!

mchjd post 3, or, the world's worst stubbed toe

2008-02-10T08:42:00.003+09:00

The pain is still so acute that I feel the need to post this. This is not for the squeamish - who knew a pinkie-toe could bleed so much. Also, why is it that whenever my mom leaves town, I injure myself? Oh, right. 'Cause I'm her crazy half-jap daughter (dot blogspot dot com).

"The Damage" - after cleaning with ethanol...ouch!

"Post-Self-Conducted-Minor-Surgery to remove skin flap"

"The Final Look"

Now I'm in pain and limping like crazy everywhere. Karma much?
In the words of Ren Hoek, "I am hurting."

Cuteness meets mystery

2008-02-07T21:56:00.001+09:00

I was flipping through TV channels this evening and the movie channel was showing an old (maybe 70s era) Jackie Chan movie. I knew my mom liked him so I called her attention to the TV. "Oh, it's Lucky Jan," she said. It was funny. Also, I've been trying to brush up on my kanji recognition skills and since this movie was in Chinese with Japanese subtitles, I thought it would be a good opportunity to practice, not that I'm any good (at all!). The following conversation then occured:
N: "Did that last kanji say 'thought'?"
Y: "What?"
N: (drawing the character in the air) "Is that the kanji for 'thought'?"
Y: "Did it say that? I wasn't reading the subtitles."

Which makes me wonder, was she just watching the movie in total oblivion or does she secretly speak Chinese? I asked but received no answer. I guess I'll never know.

Sadly, I think the joke was on her

2008-02-07T17:45:00.002+09:00

After eating lunch with my mom's friend, the three of us sat around jibber-jabbering and ended up talking about politics in the US, of course making disparaging remarks about Bush. I recounted a funny story I'd heard on NPR about a fictional conversation during the meeting between the then-newly-Nobel-prize-awarded Gore and the prez. It was kind of funny in English, but somehow when my mom translated it for her friend, it simply became tedious and unfunny. I noted this, of course. He agreed.

Then she turned to me and said, "Do you know the joke?"

It was such a random, generic question. I really had no idea what she was talking about (with her it might be anything!), so of course I started laughing, and she said, "So, you do know it!" My continuing laughter made it evident that I, indeed, did not know the joke. I tried to indicate that I didn't even know what she might possibly be referring to, but that's a hard thing to do when you're rolling on the floor. I couldn't stop, even when she gave me that patented scowl of hers. I'm still laughing.

Technology 4

2008-02-06T21:45:00.003+09:00

She's catching up to me in her quickness, I must say. This morning she was using her new computer and I heard her making frustrated sounds; then she suddenly started laughing. Of course I had to know what it was all about.

"When I moved the mouse up on the table, it would go down on the screen and if I moved it down, it went up on the screen and I didn't know what the problem was, but I just figured it out: I was holding the mouse upside down."

Does life get any awesomer than this story? I submit that it does not.

fact v sentiment, or, about a Canadian ex-pat: 2

2008-02-04T12:11:00.002+09:00

Last night we were watching that program with the fattanug Canadian guy, once again marveling at his amazing knowledge of Japan and all things Japanese. His knowledge and pronunciation of the Japanese language really is astonishing, and I mused aloud, “I wonder how long he’s lived in Japan?” to which my mother replied, “I think he’s married to a Japanese.”

Tea time with Yoko

2008-02-03T16:40:00.001+09:00

It's snowing and cold and my mom and I had bought donuts at Mister Donut for our afternoon tea. (Incidentally, Mister Donut makes this thing called a Pon de Ring which is the best thing I've had of the donut variety since my first taste of a Krispy Kreme.) I was making us black-tea and asked my mom if she wanted to put any sugar or anything in hers.
"I want everything," she told me. "Sugar and milk. Or whiskey."
Apparently she likes tea with sugar and Wild Turkey. Anyway, today she opted for the softer version and we enjoyed our tea mit donut as the snow fell quietly outside.

Having eaten our donuts, we were meditating on the quiet mess of the dining room table when my mom started to peer curiously at this tin she uses to keep stamps in.
"What?" I asked her.
"I was trying to figure out where this came from," she answered.
"It looks like it's maybe from England...Let me see it."

I looked at the picture on the front and read the little blurb under the name "Neuhaus."
"I think it must be French. It says 'Neuhaus - créateur de chocolats frais depuis 1857.' "

"I guess so if it says depuis."

The ridiculousness of that sentence hadn't penetrated my heavy Pon de Ring fog before I heard the raspy wheeze of a cackle coming from my mom. Actually, this was one thing I might have even let go except that it was funny that she thought it was funny before I even recognized it as being funny. She finally beat me to the punch.

Technology 3

2008-02-03T11:42:00.002+09:00

My dad recently told me about this youtube video:

It coincided with my mom's finally buying a new computer and now whenever she asks me (simple) tech questions I can't help but think about this video and it makes me laugh. Then she gives me her patented 'Yoko scowl' to let me know she's not amused at my amusement. But I cannot help myself. I can't tell you how many times I've directed her to click 'okay' and she closes the window, then looks at me in surprise.

Anyway, yesterday she called me down stairs because, as she told me, her email was all gone. She has a free yahoo online account so I knew right away that there was no chance it was 'gone' but went down to see what the problem was.
"I clicked the 'yahoo' bookmark, and there's no mail!" she explained.
I looked at the book mark she'd clicked. It was for yahoo's homepage, not the mail page. Admittedly Japanese websites are notoriously hard to navigate and so she couldn't find the link to yahoo's mail service. Anyway, I told her that she should just use the yahoo mail bookmark in the future. I had put it at the top of her bookmarks so it would be easy to find, but the person who was helping her set up her new computer had collapsed the folder with her usual bookmarks. So, I opened/uncollapsed it for her and showed her where it was. "Oh, so you have to do that first?" she reflected. I can't help but imagine her in a medieval monk costume and it makes me smile.

if it brings you down, it ain't no favor

2008-01-29T20:30:00.001+09:00

They are predicting unusually high pollen counts for this coming spring, so my mother was worried about my allergies and asked me, "Do you still have hay-favor?" It was cute.

Nobody can eat 50 eggs

2008-01-29T11:16:00.002+09:00

There was a segment on the morning news about Avian Flu in S.E. Asia. They were showing footage of a local person, presumably talking about his experience, and the voice-over said, "I used to eat 12 eggs a day, but now because of the epidemic, I'm only eating half that. If it gets worse, I'll stop eating eggs altogether." My mom thought that was pretty funny and then commented, "But he probably really said that."

In all my news watching years, it has never occurred to me to doubt the veracity of news footage.

On a separate note, the Japanese news always takes great care when pairing the voice-over voice with the person being filmed; I swear that they hire professional anime voice talent! For instance if the person is a middle-aged woman, they will give her an exaggerated obasan/auntie voice, or if it's a farmer more often than not the voice will be vaguely hick-like. It always cracks me up, especially since I'm used to American news where even if they're interviewing a nomad from the war-torn Middle-East, he speaks with a BBC accent. Maybe the Japanese are going for a verité experience on the news or something... I'm not sure.

Another (unintended) life truth (by Yoko)

2008-01-27T15:02:00.002+09:00

So, you know how sometimes when you're conversing with someone, you might interject with an, "I know, but..."? Conversely, sometimes you might even stick in an, "I don't know, but..."

Well, you can guess who just brought those two worlds together.

Today we were talking about where to buy a dustbuster while she's in the LA (I know it seems crazy that they don't sell them here in Japan, but they don't!). I suggested Best Buy and she said she might just go to a drug store. I told her she'd have a better selection at a bigger place and she responds, "I know...I don't know..," looks at me sheepishly and starts laughing.

Thinking about its intended meaning produces the same brain sensation as thinking about the sound of one hand clapping. Also, I think that this phrase is the most accurate representation of my view of understanding in my own life at this very juncture: I know (but) I don't know.

How true that is.

fact versus sentiment

2008-01-26T09:44:00.001+09:00

English is a language that has the possibility of so much subtlety and nuance - I guess I always kind of knew this but it becomes clearer with every lesson I teach. This morning I was talking to my mom about things like this. We looked up a word that had come up in my lesson last night to see what the Japanese equivalent would be, and it seemed like none of the definitions fit at all. Pairing this with last night's debacle, I started to think maybe her dictionary was outmoded. I mean, it did kind of look like it was from the 60s and there's an entire set of Collier's Encyclopedias from the 70s in the other room, so I asked her, "How old is your dictionary?"

She looked at me despondently and sighed, "I know!"

Even if the damage is permanent, it was worth it

2008-01-25T21:23:00.002+09:00

We were talking about this little farmers' market type place where my mom had gotten hand-made donuts and possibly the aforementioned cookies. But she said it wasn't quite the same as a farmers' market. The next thing I'm aware of is that she's looking something up in the Japanese-English dictionary. She finds whatever word she's looking for then looks at me with the most puzzled and confused expression, and asks me, "What's 'corneous'?" I'm busy eating my tangerine, but I take the dictionary from her and look to where she's pointing.

"It says 'horny'," is the next sentence out of her mouth.

At this point, I literally inhaled about a quarter of my tangerine and started alternately choking and laughing. Luckily I didn't die - I coughed most of it out (though I'm still hacking up bits of pulp and juice) but my voice got all deep and now I'm wondering if citric acid can seriously scar lung tissue. But still it might have been worth it. Maybe I'll even sound like Tone Loc - Steve, remind me to see if they have Funky Cold Medina when we go Karaokeing. The PS to this whole thing is that the word she was looking up had nothing whatever to do with markets or farmers but was about an exfoliant she bought and thus the whole 'corneous' whathaveyou. I can't follow her train of thought no matter how hard I try. And I'm trying. Hard.

A whole lot of nothing collides

2008-01-25T21:22:00.002+09:00

My mom just got back into town and she returned bearing gifts - food gifts specifically, which, truth be told, are my favorite kinds of gifts. One of the items was a box of these wafer type cookies with a cream in the middle. She was anxious to try one and as she crunched away I asked her how it was.
"It tastes like nothing. It's like eating air."
I need to know what this is like, so I opened one and took a bite. She's right. "It tastes like sweet nothing."
Then I look at the cookie itself and notice that at the top it declares SAND and then at the bottom it says "C'est un" which is French for "It's a."

I turned to my mom and said, "It says, C'est un."
"C'est un what?"
"Exactly."

On a related note, my mom was able to decipher what the hell SAND was all about. "I think it's because it's like a sandwich." I'm sure she's right, you know. I am amazed that it made immediate sense to her. My love of all-weird-things-Japanese just collided with my mom and it all makes perfect sense somehow.

I mope, I will mope, I was moping, I moped...

2008-01-20T08:52:00.001+09:00

My mother was reading her email this morning, when she suddenly turns to me and asks, "What's 'moped'?" I'm not immediately sure, so I ask her to read the sentence. Apparently a friend of hers was in Vietnam when her son had an accident on a moped but my mom had never heard of that before so she pronounced it like the past-tense of 'to mope' (which is also what she thought it meant and so was perplexed as to what a moped accident was). So I told her that it was like a little scooter.

Minutes later, she turns to me and says, "So, a moped is like a little scooter?"
"Those are the exact words I just used to describe it to you!"
"So, you don't ride it in the snow?"
"No. And, would that even make sense? There's no snow in Vietnam!"
She starts laughing, and asks me, "What are those snow ones called?" But before I can answer, she says, "Snow-mobile."

I don't even know what she needs me around for. Also, I think I'm going to start referring to depressive moments as having a 'moped accident' because, really, who ever gets into that state on purpose anyway.

Chin-ups, dental floss and the inevitable give-away

2008-01-18T10:35:00.001+09:00

I have just finished my first set of chin-ups when I hear the distinct shuffle of slippers overhead. I turn around and my mother is peering down from the top of the stairs at me, dental floss still in hand.
"What?"
"I want to see you do them."
"No! I just did some! Go away! I have performance anxiety!"

She is still standing there, waiting expectantly.

"Really! Go away! I can't do them with you watching me!"

She disappears. And as I get ready to do my second set, I hear the distinct 'ping! pong!' of flossing action still at the top of the stairs.

"I can hear you there still. I'm not doing any more pull ups. Go away."

I did try, though, to do at least a few more, but somehow I kept laughing and now I know why you never see athletes laughing while they do their thing. It's pretty much an impossibility.

Does Yoko dream of electric sheep?

2008-01-16T01:32:00.001+09:00

I had a nightmare a few nights ago, the kind that is so stressful and painful that when you finally wake up (undoubtedly in a cold sweat) you can't help but feel the extreme relief that you don't actually have to deal with the situation or find a way to make it all work out because... it was all in your mind. Anyway, I breathed my sigh of relief and went back to sleep. In the morning I told my mom that I'd had the craziest, most stressful dream in the middle of the night, and all she said was, "I wish I could have one."
"You wish you could have a stressful dream?"
"Any dream. I don't have them anymore."

And so, we arrive at our answer, and the answer is: no.

What makes the singular so much cuter?

2008-01-15T19:57:00.001+09:00

My mom was trying to explain what a goya was - I've found out that it is also known as winter melon or bitter melon - but anyway, she described it to me as "like cucumber but with a bump." Tell me that isn't cute somehow. The goya however is less cute. Take a look. I don't think I want to eat this:

Incidentally there is a popular band in Japan right now called "Bump of Chicken" but I have to say, I don't think that the singular thing is helping them out at all.

If the idiot looks at the finger, what does that make the pointer?

2008-01-12T09:41:00.001+09:00

"If a man points to the moon, an idiot will look at the finger" - Sufi proverb

The other day I poked the side of my pointer-finger with a new metal-wound low G ukulele string. At the time it didn't hurt much, so I didn't really think about it even though it bled a little. The next morning, it was sore and a little swollen. Then as the day progressed, it got a little more infected-looking and painful. I told my mom about it and she said that she had some topical ointment that might help get rid of the infection, so I put on a gob and covered it with a band-aid.

The next morning at breakfast, I removed the band-aid to see how it was doing, and amazingly it was practically healed! No more swelling or infection. So, I stuck out my finger to show my mom, and said, "Look!" She looked up toward the ceiling, to where my finger was pointing. She looked back at me again.
"No, here!" I said shaking my finger. Again, she looked over in the direction I was inadvertently pointing, searching in confusion for what I was pointing to.
"My finger!"

So, like I said, if the idiot looks at the finger, what does that make the pointer? Maybe I am an idiot; I certainly laughed like one - we both did.

on the true nature of being

2008-01-08T22:53:00.001+09:00

I'd forgotten to write about this when it happened, but I think about it enough that I think I will write it now.

My mom was getting ready to play a concert a few weeks ago and so was practicing daily which had been a rarity what with the holidays and things happening. After about 3 or 4 days of practicing in a row, she was taking a break in the living room when I walked in and she commented to me:
"I finally feel like a real person today! I mean, a real person who plays the violin. I mean, a real violinist."

I think she was self-correcting her errors but when I think about it, that's the order I hope to perceive myself in, too. I'd rather be a real person over a 'real teacher' or an 'real artist' any day.

When life gives you lemons...

2008-01-07T13:29:00.001+09:00

At the end of our meal last night, my mom picked up the slice of lemon sitting on the plate for the fish, picked the seed out of it and popped the entire thing, peel and all, into her mouth and started chewing! I was surprised to say the least, but felt something akin to filial pride fill me as I thought, "That's a lesson! 'When life gives you lemons, eat the whole damn thing!'" Feeling happy with this I sat back and mused to her that I couldn't imagine why anyone would want to eat the peel...when she unceremoniously spit the entire thing out, still intact, and declared, "That lemon was too hard."

I guess even Superman has his kryptonite.