There are a few things that I have noticed here that really throw me for a loop and seem inconsistent within the Japanese culture.
First and foremost is how much cash is used. I had always heard that Japan was incredibly technologically advanced. That you could load money onto your cell phone and use it as a pass in the subway, etc. Maybe these things exist in Tokyo but not in Kyoto. Or, maybe we just can't read and understand Japanese well enough to realize how much technology is used in Kyoto. In any case, very few places seem to accept credit cards or even debit cards. As a result, we actually have to carry around and pay for things with cash. CASH!! I have almost forgotten what American dollars look like since the only place I need them at home is the farmer's market. Otherwise I've grown accustomed to using my debit card for everything back home. But here no such luck. Furthermore, the ATM machines are extraordinarily fickle. Very few of them accept a foreign card. When Jim and I were meeting our new friends for the first time, we were late because we had to stop at five or so different ATM's before we finally found one that would accept our card. Even when using a Japanese bank card, there are issues. It turns out that ATMs here (even your own bank) will charge a fee if used after banking hours. (!!) Jim says apparently they don't understand what the “A” stands for... We were grocery shopping with Mery and Jeff the other day and poor Jeff went to six different machines trying to get cash from their Japanese bank account without having to pay a fee. Unfortunately, he was unsuccessful, so they had to buy a bit less than originally planned. I had a similar problem in the grocery store a few days later, because I realized I didn't have much cash with me, so I had the sad task of putting things back and carefully counting my total before checking out. Another way I am truly becoming a “dependent” as stated on my visa is that we only have one bank card. (You have to pay for each card, so Jim and Yasuko decided—in my absence I might add—that one for Jim was enough.) So, now I have to wait until Jim withdraws money from the ATM. Unbelievable!! (Especially since I've been our breadwinner for the last four years while he was in grad school!)
The second thing is smoking in restaurants. The Japanese are, as a culture, probably the most polite people on the planet. Except that is, when smoking in a tiny restaurant with no ventilation. Fortunately most of the ramen shops we've eaten in have not had anyone smoking and in the izakaya (pub) we were able to have our own rice walled room which reduced the smoke around us. However, Jim and I stopped to get noodles in a little place a few days ago and after the waitress got us an English menu (they had one!) as we started to sit down we realized that the guy next to us was smoking like a chimney, and blowing the smoke in our direction. I have a really low tolerance for cigarette smoke (always have) so I turned to Jim and said, “This isn't worth it.” We turned around to the confused and concerned look of our waitress. Oh dear. How do you politely say, “There's too much cigarette smoke,” when the smoker is inches away from you. And, oh yeah, we don't know how to say that in Japanese yet (minor detail). As it was, we very awkwardly and apologetically left. I worried all the way home that we had created some horrible impression of gaijin (foreigners) in their minds. Jim did tell me later that the cook had turned quizzically, wondering what was going on as we were leaving and Jim motioned to him about smoke and the cook nodded understandingly. At least, I hope he understood. Being foreigners makes us pretty conspicuous so I feel like we need to always be on our best behavior. Ah, the responsibility of being cultural ambassadors!
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Japanese Class Take Two...
Well, the second Wednesday of Kanji and language classes definitely went better than the first for me. That definitely does not mean that I understood everything, or even most things, but at least I understood more than the week before. Definitely my biggest improvement was in reading Hiragana. This time I could generally recognize a good portion of the Hiragana that were written and, when given the quiz in language class, I was able to write some from memory. (We got our papers back from last week and I got a whopping 5 points out of a lot...At least there is no where for me to go but up!)
Indeed my improvement in recognizing Hiragana in just one week was decidedly measurable. Yay.
I know that my Japanese is getting better also because I was able to go into a book store and ask if there were any English books. :) I have also been able to say, “no thanks, I have a bag” at the check out counter of stores. Another :). I still have a really long way to go before I can communicate somewhat decently, but at least if I were to write all the words I can now say, it would take a paragraph or so. I owe this improvement in language mostly to our daily Pimsleur (computer) lesson. Jim is relentless about making us do a lesson a day—even on weekends and even late at night. He really is a fantastic language student. He comes home from work and studies a book we have and also studies Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji online. Whew. No wonder he learned so much Mandinka when we were in the Gambia—he is disciplined!
Okay, perhaps it's incredibly insensitive of me, but I find it very funny that, because there is no “l” in Japanese, foreign words spelled with “l” end up being spelled with an “r”. As a result, many Japanese do not seem to be able to hear the difference between our spoken “l” and “r”. (Jim was asking a postdoc in his lab who spent two years in the US and speaks English well and even she couldn't hear the difference between “er” and “l”!) Thus, the jokes about some Asians not being able to say “rice” but “lice” instead...Of course, I have no doubt there are loads of sounds we can't hear—especially tonal ones in Mandarin, etc. It's interesting the role that language plays in our brain development. I'm sure Vygotsky wrote something about this, but I digress. You may recall from an earlier post that Katakana is a separate syllabary that is only used for foreign words. (Unbelievable to me that Hiragana can't just be used, especially since the syllables represented are the same, just with difference symbols—eek.) Anyway, as there is no “l”, some foreign words end up looking really funny. In class I was reading (yes, reading!) a word “ko” “a” “ra” and I thought, I have no clue what that word is. Since it's Katakana, generally these words are taken directly from English, so technically I should recognize them. Alas, I had to refer to the picture and “koara” means “koala”. Teehee. See what I mean?
Here's another “foreign” word that we looked at in class. The Katakana says “u” “i” “su” “ki” “i”. So, can you guess what “uisukii” is? That's right! “Whisky”! (Yeah, I didn't guess it either which lead to my exasperated face, which then lead to our teacher coming up to me to see if she could help. How could I explain my frustration that these were supposed to be the easy words for us?! Oh well...)
As if the written language wasn't bad enough, probably the most difficult thing about Japanese (or at least that we know about) is the counters. It turns out that having a single word to represent one, two, three, etc. is just not sufficient. We already knew from talking to friends who spoke Japanese that there were all sorts of different words to count by. But, in class this week our teacher gave us the counting sheet of doom. I have to call it that because it was perhaps the scariest piece of paper I have ever seen. Here's why: there are different ways to call one, two, three, etc based on the type of object. Here are the categories on our sheet that have unique counting words:
things, persons, order (as in sequential), thin/flat things, machines/vehicles, age, books/notebooks, clothes, frequency, small things, shoes/socks, houses, floors of a building, thin/long things, drinks/stuff in glasses, small animals/fish/insects, large animals
So that makes SEVENTEEN CATEGORIES of different words to count from 1-10. !!! (And I think there are actually many more counting categories that weren't on our sheet...)
It turns out that there is one “catch-all” category, so guess which one we'll be sure to learn...
And, oh yeah, did I mention that the words for one-ten for each category were all written in Hiragana only!!! It seems it's not as “easy as one, two, three” in Japan...
Indeed my improvement in recognizing Hiragana in just one week was decidedly measurable. Yay.
I know that my Japanese is getting better also because I was able to go into a book store and ask if there were any English books. :) I have also been able to say, “no thanks, I have a bag” at the check out counter of stores. Another :). I still have a really long way to go before I can communicate somewhat decently, but at least if I were to write all the words I can now say, it would take a paragraph or so. I owe this improvement in language mostly to our daily Pimsleur (computer) lesson. Jim is relentless about making us do a lesson a day—even on weekends and even late at night. He really is a fantastic language student. He comes home from work and studies a book we have and also studies Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji online. Whew. No wonder he learned so much Mandinka when we were in the Gambia—he is disciplined!
Okay, perhaps it's incredibly insensitive of me, but I find it very funny that, because there is no “l” in Japanese, foreign words spelled with “l” end up being spelled with an “r”. As a result, many Japanese do not seem to be able to hear the difference between our spoken “l” and “r”. (Jim was asking a postdoc in his lab who spent two years in the US and speaks English well and even she couldn't hear the difference between “er” and “l”!) Thus, the jokes about some Asians not being able to say “rice” but “lice” instead...Of course, I have no doubt there are loads of sounds we can't hear—especially tonal ones in Mandarin, etc. It's interesting the role that language plays in our brain development. I'm sure Vygotsky wrote something about this, but I digress. You may recall from an earlier post that Katakana is a separate syllabary that is only used for foreign words. (Unbelievable to me that Hiragana can't just be used, especially since the syllables represented are the same, just with difference symbols—eek.) Anyway, as there is no “l”, some foreign words end up looking really funny. In class I was reading (yes, reading!) a word “ko” “a” “ra” and I thought, I have no clue what that word is. Since it's Katakana, generally these words are taken directly from English, so technically I should recognize them. Alas, I had to refer to the picture and “koara” means “koala”. Teehee. See what I mean?
Here's another “foreign” word that we looked at in class. The Katakana says “u” “i” “su” “ki” “i”. So, can you guess what “uisukii” is? That's right! “Whisky”! (Yeah, I didn't guess it either which lead to my exasperated face, which then lead to our teacher coming up to me to see if she could help. How could I explain my frustration that these were supposed to be the easy words for us?! Oh well...)
As if the written language wasn't bad enough, probably the most difficult thing about Japanese (or at least that we know about) is the counters. It turns out that having a single word to represent one, two, three, etc. is just not sufficient. We already knew from talking to friends who spoke Japanese that there were all sorts of different words to count by. But, in class this week our teacher gave us the counting sheet of doom. I have to call it that because it was perhaps the scariest piece of paper I have ever seen. Here's why: there are different ways to call one, two, three, etc based on the type of object. Here are the categories on our sheet that have unique counting words:
things, persons, order (as in sequential), thin/flat things, machines/vehicles, age, books/notebooks, clothes, frequency, small things, shoes/socks, houses, floors of a building, thin/long things, drinks/stuff in glasses, small animals/fish/insects, large animals
So that makes SEVENTEEN CATEGORIES of different words to count from 1-10. !!! (And I think there are actually many more counting categories that weren't on our sheet...)
It turns out that there is one “catch-all” category, so guess which one we'll be sure to learn...
And, oh yeah, did I mention that the words for one-ten for each category were all written in Hiragana only!!! It seems it's not as “easy as one, two, three” in Japan...
Labels:
Japanese language
Friday, November 20, 2009
Confessions of an obsessive grocery shopper...
I am fascinated by grocery stores in other countries. Indeed, when I travel it's one of the first things I make a beeline to do. I think you can learn a lot about a culture through a careful analysis of its grocery stores. Poor Jim grew to hate our grocery shopping in New Zealand. I can turn a quick trip for two items into an hour (or more!) of fun and adventure. Or at least I think it's fun. Jim would heartily disagree.
Anyway, the cheapest grocery store, called Fresco, is only a short walk away from us. Oh! Dear Fresco, how I love to see what the sales are for the day! Sadly a couple of days ago I went in and realized I only had 800 yen (about 8 dollars), so I had the painful task of really picking and choosing (and totaling in my mind) what I bought. And, alas, two days later when I headed back, the prices seemed to have all changed! Well, not really, but some of the sale items (like potatoes) had changed in price—already! And it's not just prices that change. Much of the stock changes as well, perhaps because it is a small store? (Think of compact city shopping where the only options are hand-carried baskets.) A few days ago I bought funny cookies that were shaped like vegetables but had the taste and texture of waffles; but today they were not there. Another time I wanted to buy more mochi ice cream (little ice cream balls covered in chewy rice goodness—if you don't know them you need to find some!), but alas, there were none in stock. Instead I had to settle for coconut, green tea ice and red bean popsicles. (Fortunately, they are really good despite the seemingly odd combination.) I am learning that when grocery shopping I have to “get while the getting is good”. But, at least the main things remain the same: the milk/yogurt sections, the tofu section, the fish section, the rice snacks and cookies, the bread, the ready (and in-house) made delicacies (fried squid, gyoza dumplings, fried fish, sushi rolls, etc) . The latter make great impulse buys and interestingly they are placed right before the checkout counter. Mmmm.
Oh, here's an observation: the biggest grocery carts I have seen, even in the largest grocery store near us, are just large enough to set hand baskets inside. (They are basically frames for the hand baskets.) So, in general, people buy less at one time and go to the market more often than most Americans. This makes sense for two reasons: 1. people eat a lot of fresh fish, 2. the houses are very compact. The other day when I went to Fresco, I got a little carried away with the sales on veggies, etc, and I ended up filling my hand basket to the brim. Once I got home, I realized that I could hardly squeeze more into the fridge since our fridge is pretty tiny. (It's larger than a mini fridge for dorm rooms, but only by a little bit!) But, now, several meals later, the fridge is close to empty again! Time to go back to Fresco...
Other things I've found surprising in the grocery store:
The fish section is incredible, from salmon to octopus to tiny fish “sprouts”(really baby fish, maybe they're minnows?) Anyway, I read that fish from the sea and shellfish can be eaten raw but octopus is always cooked and fresh water fish must be cooked because of the harmful bacteria they contain. I do like sashimi (at least what I've had in the states, I haven't eaten it here), but I am a little nervous to cook raw fish myself. Er, I mean not cook fish. Anyway, we recently bought a variety pack of fish for adventure sake (and it was on sale) but I decided to cook it because I wasn't sure if it was okay to eat raw. I am adventurous, but I do have my limits...
Also, I never could have imagined so many different soy sauces! They all have different color labels and according to my friend, Mery, some are stronger than others. In larger stores there is a whole aisle dedicated just to soy sauce! Some of the bottles are over a liter in size and I, in awe, asked Mery what could possibly be done with that much soy sauce. She, being from Singapore, just looked surprised and said, “Well, for everything! Seasonings in soups, marinade for pork...I use it instead of salt. Much healthier...” So, I bought the soy sauce she recommended and that very night I used it to season our udon noodles. (She was right. It's really a good seasoning.)
Jim and I are already learning that when you go to the grocery store at the end of the day, the employees start putting stickers on the ready-made food, discounting it. What does that say about us that we can't really read kana and Kanji, but we can recognize the 30% off and ½ off stickers! We have had to experiment a little and sometimes it takes looking at the receipt at home later to learn—oh, that was a sale sticker, but that one wasn't. Nevertheless, we now know the difference between the “normal” stickers and the discount ones! ;)
Well, that's enough grocery store tales for now, but I promise that there will be more to come...
Anyway, the cheapest grocery store, called Fresco, is only a short walk away from us. Oh! Dear Fresco, how I love to see what the sales are for the day! Sadly a couple of days ago I went in and realized I only had 800 yen (about 8 dollars), so I had the painful task of really picking and choosing (and totaling in my mind) what I bought. And, alas, two days later when I headed back, the prices seemed to have all changed! Well, not really, but some of the sale items (like potatoes) had changed in price—already! And it's not just prices that change. Much of the stock changes as well, perhaps because it is a small store? (Think of compact city shopping where the only options are hand-carried baskets.) A few days ago I bought funny cookies that were shaped like vegetables but had the taste and texture of waffles; but today they were not there. Another time I wanted to buy more mochi ice cream (little ice cream balls covered in chewy rice goodness—if you don't know them you need to find some!), but alas, there were none in stock. Instead I had to settle for coconut, green tea ice and red bean popsicles. (Fortunately, they are really good despite the seemingly odd combination.) I am learning that when grocery shopping I have to “get while the getting is good”. But, at least the main things remain the same: the milk/yogurt sections, the tofu section, the fish section, the rice snacks and cookies, the bread, the ready (and in-house) made delicacies (fried squid, gyoza dumplings, fried fish, sushi rolls, etc) . The latter make great impulse buys and interestingly they are placed right before the checkout counter. Mmmm.
Oh, here's an observation: the biggest grocery carts I have seen, even in the largest grocery store near us, are just large enough to set hand baskets inside. (They are basically frames for the hand baskets.) So, in general, people buy less at one time and go to the market more often than most Americans. This makes sense for two reasons: 1. people eat a lot of fresh fish, 2. the houses are very compact. The other day when I went to Fresco, I got a little carried away with the sales on veggies, etc, and I ended up filling my hand basket to the brim. Once I got home, I realized that I could hardly squeeze more into the fridge since our fridge is pretty tiny. (It's larger than a mini fridge for dorm rooms, but only by a little bit!) But, now, several meals later, the fridge is close to empty again! Time to go back to Fresco...
Other things I've found surprising in the grocery store:
The fish section is incredible, from salmon to octopus to tiny fish “sprouts”(really baby fish, maybe they're minnows?) Anyway, I read that fish from the sea and shellfish can be eaten raw but octopus is always cooked and fresh water fish must be cooked because of the harmful bacteria they contain. I do like sashimi (at least what I've had in the states, I haven't eaten it here), but I am a little nervous to cook raw fish myself. Er, I mean not cook fish. Anyway, we recently bought a variety pack of fish for adventure sake (and it was on sale) but I decided to cook it because I wasn't sure if it was okay to eat raw. I am adventurous, but I do have my limits...
Also, I never could have imagined so many different soy sauces! They all have different color labels and according to my friend, Mery, some are stronger than others. In larger stores there is a whole aisle dedicated just to soy sauce! Some of the bottles are over a liter in size and I, in awe, asked Mery what could possibly be done with that much soy sauce. She, being from Singapore, just looked surprised and said, “Well, for everything! Seasonings in soups, marinade for pork...I use it instead of salt. Much healthier...” So, I bought the soy sauce she recommended and that very night I used it to season our udon noodles. (She was right. It's really a good seasoning.)
Jim and I are already learning that when you go to the grocery store at the end of the day, the employees start putting stickers on the ready-made food, discounting it. What does that say about us that we can't really read kana and Kanji, but we can recognize the 30% off and ½ off stickers! We have had to experiment a little and sometimes it takes looking at the receipt at home later to learn—oh, that was a sale sticker, but that one wasn't. Nevertheless, we now know the difference between the “normal” stickers and the discount ones! ;)
Well, that's enough grocery store tales for now, but I promise that there will be more to come...
Labels:
food,
grocery store
Monday, November 16, 2009
Our Japanese cell phones
Once Yasuko (the secretary in Jim's lab who has been SO helpful) managed to open a bank account for us, we were all set to get cell phones. There are three cell phone companies here: AU, Docomo and SoftBank. After going to all three both by ourselves and with Yasuko and having lots of difficulties communicating across languages about the complicated plans, minutes, features, etc, we decided to go with AU because it seemed the cheapest and, most importantly, there was a guy working there who spoke English!
We arrived in the evening and our guy knew we were waiting for him—poor thing. After about an hour of filling out our paperwork, deciding on a plan, etc, we had phones! Perhaps the most amusing--or horribly depressing-- part was that we couldn't fill out the application. Bless his heart, (I'm Southern so I say that a lot) after realizing that we didn't even know how to write our names in Hiragana, our salesperson offered to fill out the application for us. Talk about loss of independence and self-sufficiency! (I really felt like an African who can't read or speak English, having to get someone to read and translate a medicine bottle.) Even worse, is having to sign a paper when you have no clue what it says. It is a very humbling feeling and you are completely at the mercy of your translator. Thank goodness the Japanese—as a huge generalization—are very honest! I think I mentioned in an earlier post that our salesperson wasn't sure how to write our last name in Hiragana because it doesn't really translate into the syllabary. Bless his heart again, he had to call a couple of people to get their advice and finally had to make something up. He apologized but said that he needed to represent our name in Hiragana so other employees could read it. How funny that our name can't be represented exactly. Talk about being lost in translation!
He gave us the only phone models that could be set to English (we got the last two in stock!) and he then set them to English for us, since we'd have no way to decipher how to do it. After all this, we still didn't know his name, so we had to ask. (Yes, he was wearing a name tag, but it was written in Kanji only!) It turns out our helper is a law student at the University and he is originally from China. (So Japanese wasn't his native language either, though he obviously was pretty fluent.) His name was Son and he said we could go back and ask for him for help if we needed it. So kind.
Now that we have our phones we are able to call each other for free (yay for family plans!), which is the main reason we got them. We have also used them to call our new friends when meeting, which has already been very useful. The per month cost of our phones is actually less than it would be in the US. However, once we add in the fee for early termination of a contract (we had no choice but to get a two year contract) it is about the same cost as in the US. Our phones are much fancier though. We can watch Japanese TV, take decent photos, and send email on our phones. I know that they many more fancy things, but unfortunately most of these things are in Japanese, so we probably won't be able to take full advantage of these gadgets. Ah, yet another inanimate object that's smarter than we are!
We arrived in the evening and our guy knew we were waiting for him—poor thing. After about an hour of filling out our paperwork, deciding on a plan, etc, we had phones! Perhaps the most amusing--or horribly depressing-- part was that we couldn't fill out the application. Bless his heart, (I'm Southern so I say that a lot) after realizing that we didn't even know how to write our names in Hiragana, our salesperson offered to fill out the application for us. Talk about loss of independence and self-sufficiency! (I really felt like an African who can't read or speak English, having to get someone to read and translate a medicine bottle.) Even worse, is having to sign a paper when you have no clue what it says. It is a very humbling feeling and you are completely at the mercy of your translator. Thank goodness the Japanese—as a huge generalization—are very honest! I think I mentioned in an earlier post that our salesperson wasn't sure how to write our last name in Hiragana because it doesn't really translate into the syllabary. Bless his heart again, he had to call a couple of people to get their advice and finally had to make something up. He apologized but said that he needed to represent our name in Hiragana so other employees could read it. How funny that our name can't be represented exactly. Talk about being lost in translation!
He gave us the only phone models that could be set to English (we got the last two in stock!) and he then set them to English for us, since we'd have no way to decipher how to do it. After all this, we still didn't know his name, so we had to ask. (Yes, he was wearing a name tag, but it was written in Kanji only!) It turns out our helper is a law student at the University and he is originally from China. (So Japanese wasn't his native language either, though he obviously was pretty fluent.) His name was Son and he said we could go back and ask for him for help if we needed it. So kind.
Now that we have our phones we are able to call each other for free (yay for family plans!), which is the main reason we got them. We have also used them to call our new friends when meeting, which has already been very useful. The per month cost of our phones is actually less than it would be in the US. However, once we add in the fee for early termination of a contract (we had no choice but to get a two year contract) it is about the same cost as in the US. Our phones are much fancier though. We can watch Japanese TV, take decent photos, and send email on our phones. I know that they many more fancy things, but unfortunately most of these things are in Japanese, so we probably won't be able to take full advantage of these gadgets. Ah, yet another inanimate object that's smarter than we are!
Labels:
Japanese language,
phones
Inanimate speaking (and some non-speaking) objects:
It is a little depressing when you get the feeling that every inanimate object is smarter than you. Or at least, that every object knows more Japanese. Lots of inanimate objects talk here. Our water heater says something when you turn it on, the elevator in Jim's lab building talks, the cash registers often talk, some public restroom talk: and all speak more Japanese than we do. -Sigh.-
I am thankful for our microwave that is actually a lot easier than US microwaves to operate. It just has a knob that you turn for the desired number of minutes and a switch that is either set to a picture of a hot drink or a snowflake. (Dummy me, the first few times I looked at it, I wondered if it actually cooled things, but it finally dawned on me that the snowflake meant “defrost”.)
We have a little washing machine on our porch and other than the top that says “Twin Air Dry” the rest of the directions and buttons are written with characters. Thankfully there is a booklet that the rental company gave us that says in English, “turn on faucet, load clothes and detergent, press this button and then this button.” After making the mistake of pressing another button just to see what it would do, I finally had the machine running and water was filling it and all systems were “go”. Awhile later the machine beeped so I figured it was finished. Now, the English on top of the machine “Twin Air Dry” led us to believe that this machine might somehow be a dryer as well. (Jim's reasoning was, “After all, even the toilet seats are heated.”) However, after staring at all the buttons I could not figure out how I could set it to dry clothes. Finally, Jim checked online (from work, our internet wasn't working at home) and found the model description. Naturally, it was all in Japanese, so he used Google to translate. What resulted was garbled silliness; something about air shooting in the machine and wringing out the clothes so they are ready to dry in the beautiful sunshine. So...it looks like our machine doesn't really dry clothes after all. At least I hope it doesn't since all our clothes are hanging on our balcony... :)
Talking vehicles:
There are trucks that go through our neighborhood on a regular basis, playing music reminiscent of an ice cream truck and making announcements in Japanese. We are slowly (with an emphasis on slowly) figuring out the functions these different vehicles. At first it sounded like some sort of propaganda a government would send out during wartime, but then we realized that one of these vehicles is the cardboard pickup (I assume for recycling). Another talking musical vehicle that sounded like a Mosque at the call to prayer was selling something (but it definitely wasn't ice cream so we didn't make a beeline for it). There is one that comes by every morning too early and has a woman's voice—that one I haven't figured out yet. One day maybe I'll finally understand...
I am thankful for our microwave that is actually a lot easier than US microwaves to operate. It just has a knob that you turn for the desired number of minutes and a switch that is either set to a picture of a hot drink or a snowflake. (Dummy me, the first few times I looked at it, I wondered if it actually cooled things, but it finally dawned on me that the snowflake meant “defrost”.)
We have a little washing machine on our porch and other than the top that says “Twin Air Dry” the rest of the directions and buttons are written with characters. Thankfully there is a booklet that the rental company gave us that says in English, “turn on faucet, load clothes and detergent, press this button and then this button.” After making the mistake of pressing another button just to see what it would do, I finally had the machine running and water was filling it and all systems were “go”. Awhile later the machine beeped so I figured it was finished. Now, the English on top of the machine “Twin Air Dry” led us to believe that this machine might somehow be a dryer as well. (Jim's reasoning was, “After all, even the toilet seats are heated.”) However, after staring at all the buttons I could not figure out how I could set it to dry clothes. Finally, Jim checked online (from work, our internet wasn't working at home) and found the model description. Naturally, it was all in Japanese, so he used Google to translate. What resulted was garbled silliness; something about air shooting in the machine and wringing out the clothes so they are ready to dry in the beautiful sunshine. So...it looks like our machine doesn't really dry clothes after all. At least I hope it doesn't since all our clothes are hanging on our balcony... :)
Talking vehicles:
There are trucks that go through our neighborhood on a regular basis, playing music reminiscent of an ice cream truck and making announcements in Japanese. We are slowly (with an emphasis on slowly) figuring out the functions these different vehicles. At first it sounded like some sort of propaganda a government would send out during wartime, but then we realized that one of these vehicles is the cardboard pickup (I assume for recycling). Another talking musical vehicle that sounded like a Mosque at the call to prayer was selling something (but it definitely wasn't ice cream so we didn't make a beeline for it). There is one that comes by every morning too early and has a woman's voice—that one I haven't figured out yet. One day maybe I'll finally understand...
Labels:
appliances,
Japanese language
Friday, November 13, 2009
Japanese Language...
Today (Wed 11/11) was our first day of language classes at Kyoto University. We enrolled in both a Kanji class and a language class. Both classes had already met for one month, so we figured we'd have some catching up to do. It turns out there is a lot to learn for us to be even somewhat functional here.
Kanji: The wonder (and horror) of the written word!
Our Kanji class started at the painful hour of 8:45am. (Yes, I am getting spoiled sleeping in these days.) I really like the idea that Kanji are pictures to represent ideas, especially when the character bears resemblance to the idea. However, each Kanji character has multiple readings and most characters really cannot be likened to a picture. Jim and I really worried when we learned that the sign for man and woman, when put together was not couple or love, or family, but then must be read through the Chinese translation!(?) Yikes. Considering there are 2000 Kanji characters, I truly don't know how we can learn Kanji reasonably well in seven months.
I was okay following the book and learning the Kanji characters the lesson was introducing. In fact, it felt pretty good! That is until we got to the exercise that said, “Write the following Kanji in Hiragana.” Gulp. It is interesting that Jim and I thought that we would really just focus on oral language for communicating while we were here and figured that written language was more than we'd tackle. However, so few signs, bank letters, food labels, etc are translated to Romaji (the English alphabet) that it really is necessary to learn Hiragana and Katakana and at least some Kanji.
Japanese class...
Following the Kanji class we attended three hours of a beginning Japanese language class. Fortunately there was a lunch break in the middle, so the time passed surprisingly quickly. We expected to be completely lost since the class had already met for four sessions. Walking in we were given a paper to complete on which we had to translate into Hiragana. Gulp again. Further confirmation that I need to learn Hiragana! I wasn't sure if this was a quiz, but since it was our first day I didn't think we'd be graded. I saw another woman (with a head scarf—surely she was morally correct) looking at the Hiragana syllabary, so I opened my book and did the same. Of course, this action caused Jim to accuse me of cheating...Grrr. Anyway, it turns out that the class had focused on Hiragana and not speaking, so we are not behind in speaking. In fact, the Pimsleur language CDs we've been listening to daily mean we are actually quite a bit ahead in speaking. :) (Thanks for those CDs, Ross!)
I'm not sure if we'll go back to the class since it mostly consisted of the instructor saying words and having the class of 40 people say them back. It may not actually be worth the time, so we'll see what we decide next week.
It's not an alphabet!
Hiragana and Katana (collectively called “kana”) are syllabaries, not alphabets. This basically means that each symbol represents a syllable (usually 2-3 letters) rather than a single letter. This is fine with words that can directly translate. For example, there is a symbol for “sa” and one for “ra”, so my first name can be represented just fine with either kana. However, there is no “m” by itself, so Jim's name ends up being written as “ji” “mu”. (I guess that last vowel isn't pronounced, so it turns out okay.) The real problem is “Stapleton”. Double consonants are an issue in Japanese, so the name “Stapleton” is very problematic. In fact, when we finally got our cell phones this week, the poor guy helping us had no idea how to write “Stapleton” in kana. We gave him permission to make something up. I think the result is something like: “su” “te” “pu” “re” “to” “n”. Hee, hee. No wonder Japanese have trouble pronouncing our surname...
Kanji: The wonder (and horror) of the written word!
Our Kanji class started at the painful hour of 8:45am. (Yes, I am getting spoiled sleeping in these days.) I really like the idea that Kanji are pictures to represent ideas, especially when the character bears resemblance to the idea. However, each Kanji character has multiple readings and most characters really cannot be likened to a picture. Jim and I really worried when we learned that the sign for man and woman, when put together was not couple or love, or family, but then must be read through the Chinese translation!(?) Yikes. Considering there are 2000 Kanji characters, I truly don't know how we can learn Kanji reasonably well in seven months.
I was okay following the book and learning the Kanji characters the lesson was introducing. In fact, it felt pretty good! That is until we got to the exercise that said, “Write the following Kanji in Hiragana.” Gulp. It is interesting that Jim and I thought that we would really just focus on oral language for communicating while we were here and figured that written language was more than we'd tackle. However, so few signs, bank letters, food labels, etc are translated to Romaji (the English alphabet) that it really is necessary to learn Hiragana and Katakana and at least some Kanji.
Japanese class...
Following the Kanji class we attended three hours of a beginning Japanese language class. Fortunately there was a lunch break in the middle, so the time passed surprisingly quickly. We expected to be completely lost since the class had already met for four sessions. Walking in we were given a paper to complete on which we had to translate into Hiragana. Gulp again. Further confirmation that I need to learn Hiragana! I wasn't sure if this was a quiz, but since it was our first day I didn't think we'd be graded. I saw another woman (with a head scarf—surely she was morally correct) looking at the Hiragana syllabary, so I opened my book and did the same. Of course, this action caused Jim to accuse me of cheating...Grrr. Anyway, it turns out that the class had focused on Hiragana and not speaking, so we are not behind in speaking. In fact, the Pimsleur language CDs we've been listening to daily mean we are actually quite a bit ahead in speaking. :) (Thanks for those CDs, Ross!)
I'm not sure if we'll go back to the class since it mostly consisted of the instructor saying words and having the class of 40 people say them back. It may not actually be worth the time, so we'll see what we decide next week.
It's not an alphabet!
Hiragana and Katana (collectively called “kana”) are syllabaries, not alphabets. This basically means that each symbol represents a syllable (usually 2-3 letters) rather than a single letter. This is fine with words that can directly translate. For example, there is a symbol for “sa” and one for “ra”, so my first name can be represented just fine with either kana. However, there is no “m” by itself, so Jim's name ends up being written as “ji” “mu”. (I guess that last vowel isn't pronounced, so it turns out okay.) The real problem is “Stapleton”. Double consonants are an issue in Japanese, so the name “Stapleton” is very problematic. In fact, when we finally got our cell phones this week, the poor guy helping us had no idea how to write “Stapleton” in kana. We gave him permission to make something up. I think the result is something like: “su” “te” “pu” “re” “to” “n”. Hee, hee. No wonder Japanese have trouble pronouncing our surname...
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
End of week 1 and into 2!
We have been here ONE week!! It has gone by quickly, but I feel like I have learned much more than an average week's worth. As a week in review: we can now recognize some hiragana and katakana (Jim has studied more and is better than I am right now.) We also can say basic things: hello, goodbye, please, excuse me/I'm sorry, it's okay, do you understand English, I do not understand Japanese, yes, no, go ahead, thanks very much, good morning, good evening, when, where is ___, this, that, that over there, is, is not. We can also say random nouns like bank, cell phone, umbrella, book, etc.
This is certainly more Japanese than we came knowing, but we have SO much more to learn!
I am adjusting the style of my posts since not everyday will be exciting enough to recount all details. Yes, even life abroad can be mundane from time to time. I have gotten a little behind in my posting, partly because I have been out and about and partly because our internet connection at home is pretty spotty. (Our poor internet connection is perhaps the biggest hardship thus far! I was expecting higher speed internet than ever before, but alas. It is worse than home! Maybe because Kyoto is an old city, the internet technology isn't as advanced? Anyway, we are hoping for a better connection soon.)
Sunday:
In the afternoon we took a little walk in our neighborhood. For the month of November, we live in a quiet residential neighborhood in the Northeast section of Kyoto, very close to the surrounding hills. There is an imperial villa near us that we have been trying to see but it was closed again yesterday. (I finally looked in the guidebook and saw that you have to book a tour in advance.) We knew there was something else nearby, so we walked on a bit until we encountered what turned out to be a small temple-complex nestled in the woods. It was a lovely site, with beautiful small wood buildings with graceful sloped roof lines, so Asian in appearance.
I wish I knew more about Shinto and Buddhist beliefs and traditions, but hopefully I'll pick up some knowledge while we're here. From what our guidebook says, there are more than 1600 Buddhist temples and over 400 Shinto shrines and 17 World Heritage sites IN KYOTO!! Even if I saw a shrine a day and 5 temples, I still wouldn't see them all in seven months.
Monday:
Jim went to work but returned early because the professor with whom he needed to meet about his project was unavailable. I am surprised at how slow his work has been to get rolling, but I am happy he's had a little time to adjust and get settled. In the search for a better internet connection, we biked nearly an hour across the North part of Kyoto to a cafe that our guidebook said had free wifi. When we finally found it we discovered that it is now just an internet place—and expensive. So, we turned around and biked home again. (I have been getting lots of exercise, biking all around these days!)
You may wonder why we didn't call first or check online. Here is the situation:
1.Calling: we have no land line and no cell phones, so unless we use a pay phone, this is not really an option. Besides, calling in Japanese is not an option and there is little chance that the person answering speaks English.
2.Online: probably it wouldn't have an English website and we can't read yet. :P
Our trip wasn't all for naught because we did locate the Botanical gardens. We decided to save the gardens for another day when we would have more daylight hours. We also biked through the Imperial Palace park. The Imperial Palace itself is available for visiting but you have to apply and be granted permission to enter. Oddly enough, it is reportedly easier for foreigners to get it within a day or so, whereas locals may have to wait months for admission. This may be the only thing for which foreigners get preferential treatment. Everything else seems very geared to the non-foreigner. (More on this later.)
Surrounding the imperial palace is a large park whose most striking feature is the massive gravel pathways through it. Seriously, these park “pathways” are more than twice the size of any street in Kyoto. Strange. At least the park does have a number of trees and adds a nice green space to the city.
Tuesday:
We attended our first Klexon meeting tonight. Klexon is a cross-cultural group that meets to share culture and give Japanese folks a chance to practice their English. Jeff and Mery told us about the group, so we thought we'd try it out. Getting there was a little tricky...
We still don't have cell phones (we need a bank account and an alien card first.) As a result, we must plan to meet in advance and cannot change these plans. We had decided to meet at the International Community House because it was nearer to the Klexon meeting place and there were Japanese culture films being played there. Of course, it looked like rain when I headed out on bike, and I thought we might prefer to take the bus...Sure enough, by the time Jim meet me it was pouring and he was quite wet. We then had to bike to the meeting. We had rain jackets and I had rain pants, but apparently our rain gear isn't too good since we were both wet upon arrival. The meeting place was farther away than I had originally realized, so we ended up having to bike through the one big downtown street of Kyoto. (We bike on the sidewalk here, because everyone else does. This works fine except in areas with lots of foot traffic.) Needless to say, there were so many people downtown that we had to walk our bikes through the crowd. (Picture suave looking dry people with two wet, rain clothes-clad white people and their bikes. I felt a little silly.) When we finally reached the intersection of the Klexon place, we couldn't tell from our map which tall building was the right one. So, we ended up going to the second floor of four different buildings before we finally asked a tiny woman who was cleaning in a lobby. She pointed out the correct building, but then she insisted that we wait. We weren't sure what we were waiting for, but sure enough, she came back with two umbrellas and BEGGED us to take them. [Note: when it rains everyone carries an umbrella, even bikers. Many bikes have an umbrella holster for when it is not in use. Wearing raincoats and not carrying umbrellas is an oddity, I think.] We had learned the Japanese for it's okay, so we insisted that we were fine without her umbrellas. (Besides, we had no idea how or when to get them back to her since our Japanese is not sufficient yet.) She was so sweet, though.
Finally we made it to the Klexon, nearly an hour late. Yikes. I had considered not going, but after everything we had gone through to get there, it seemed like we should at least see where it was. Fortunately, I think we, as native English speakers, are enough of a commodity that our presence, even late, was appreciated. We were showed to seats and jumped right in to the action. The meeting was interesting. It was highly structured--maybe to alleviate awkwardness. First, there was pair work in which one row moved every few minutes. In pairs, we were to talk about what prefecture we would like to see in Kyoto. Next was group work in which we had several tasks to discuss like describing games we played when we were young. I ended up talking with people more generally since I was meeting them all for the first time and it was actually really enjoyable. Since the goal was for cross-cultural communication and English speaking, it was a great way for us to meet new Japanese with whom we could converse and ask questions about culture. We will definitely attend Klexon again.
This is certainly more Japanese than we came knowing, but we have SO much more to learn!
I am adjusting the style of my posts since not everyday will be exciting enough to recount all details. Yes, even life abroad can be mundane from time to time. I have gotten a little behind in my posting, partly because I have been out and about and partly because our internet connection at home is pretty spotty. (Our poor internet connection is perhaps the biggest hardship thus far! I was expecting higher speed internet than ever before, but alas. It is worse than home! Maybe because Kyoto is an old city, the internet technology isn't as advanced? Anyway, we are hoping for a better connection soon.)
Sunday:
In the afternoon we took a little walk in our neighborhood. For the month of November, we live in a quiet residential neighborhood in the Northeast section of Kyoto, very close to the surrounding hills. There is an imperial villa near us that we have been trying to see but it was closed again yesterday. (I finally looked in the guidebook and saw that you have to book a tour in advance.) We knew there was something else nearby, so we walked on a bit until we encountered what turned out to be a small temple-complex nestled in the woods. It was a lovely site, with beautiful small wood buildings with graceful sloped roof lines, so Asian in appearance.
I wish I knew more about Shinto and Buddhist beliefs and traditions, but hopefully I'll pick up some knowledge while we're here. From what our guidebook says, there are more than 1600 Buddhist temples and over 400 Shinto shrines and 17 World Heritage sites IN KYOTO!! Even if I saw a shrine a day and 5 temples, I still wouldn't see them all in seven months.
Monday:
Jim went to work but returned early because the professor with whom he needed to meet about his project was unavailable. I am surprised at how slow his work has been to get rolling, but I am happy he's had a little time to adjust and get settled. In the search for a better internet connection, we biked nearly an hour across the North part of Kyoto to a cafe that our guidebook said had free wifi. When we finally found it we discovered that it is now just an internet place—and expensive. So, we turned around and biked home again. (I have been getting lots of exercise, biking all around these days!)
You may wonder why we didn't call first or check online. Here is the situation:
1.Calling: we have no land line and no cell phones, so unless we use a pay phone, this is not really an option. Besides, calling in Japanese is not an option and there is little chance that the person answering speaks English.
2.Online: probably it wouldn't have an English website and we can't read yet. :P
Our trip wasn't all for naught because we did locate the Botanical gardens. We decided to save the gardens for another day when we would have more daylight hours. We also biked through the Imperial Palace park. The Imperial Palace itself is available for visiting but you have to apply and be granted permission to enter. Oddly enough, it is reportedly easier for foreigners to get it within a day or so, whereas locals may have to wait months for admission. This may be the only thing for which foreigners get preferential treatment. Everything else seems very geared to the non-foreigner. (More on this later.)
Surrounding the imperial palace is a large park whose most striking feature is the massive gravel pathways through it. Seriously, these park “pathways” are more than twice the size of any street in Kyoto. Strange. At least the park does have a number of trees and adds a nice green space to the city.
Tuesday:
We attended our first Klexon meeting tonight. Klexon is a cross-cultural group that meets to share culture and give Japanese folks a chance to practice their English. Jeff and Mery told us about the group, so we thought we'd try it out. Getting there was a little tricky...
We still don't have cell phones (we need a bank account and an alien card first.) As a result, we must plan to meet in advance and cannot change these plans. We had decided to meet at the International Community House because it was nearer to the Klexon meeting place and there were Japanese culture films being played there. Of course, it looked like rain when I headed out on bike, and I thought we might prefer to take the bus...Sure enough, by the time Jim meet me it was pouring and he was quite wet. We then had to bike to the meeting. We had rain jackets and I had rain pants, but apparently our rain gear isn't too good since we were both wet upon arrival. The meeting place was farther away than I had originally realized, so we ended up having to bike through the one big downtown street of Kyoto. (We bike on the sidewalk here, because everyone else does. This works fine except in areas with lots of foot traffic.) Needless to say, there were so many people downtown that we had to walk our bikes through the crowd. (Picture suave looking dry people with two wet, rain clothes-clad white people and their bikes. I felt a little silly.) When we finally reached the intersection of the Klexon place, we couldn't tell from our map which tall building was the right one. So, we ended up going to the second floor of four different buildings before we finally asked a tiny woman who was cleaning in a lobby. She pointed out the correct building, but then she insisted that we wait. We weren't sure what we were waiting for, but sure enough, she came back with two umbrellas and BEGGED us to take them. [Note: when it rains everyone carries an umbrella, even bikers. Many bikes have an umbrella holster for when it is not in use. Wearing raincoats and not carrying umbrellas is an oddity, I think.] We had learned the Japanese for it's okay, so we insisted that we were fine without her umbrellas. (Besides, we had no idea how or when to get them back to her since our Japanese is not sufficient yet.) She was so sweet, though.
Finally we made it to the Klexon, nearly an hour late. Yikes. I had considered not going, but after everything we had gone through to get there, it seemed like we should at least see where it was. Fortunately, I think we, as native English speakers, are enough of a commodity that our presence, even late, was appreciated. We were showed to seats and jumped right in to the action. The meeting was interesting. It was highly structured--maybe to alleviate awkwardness. First, there was pair work in which one row moved every few minutes. In pairs, we were to talk about what prefecture we would like to see in Kyoto. Next was group work in which we had several tasks to discuss like describing games we played when we were young. I ended up talking with people more generally since I was meeting them all for the first time and it was actually really enjoyable. Since the goal was for cross-cultural communication and English speaking, it was a great way for us to meet new Japanese with whom we could converse and ask questions about culture. We will definitely attend Klexon again.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
