Linguistic Difficulties

Feb 27, 2004 9:18pm (Nagoya)
Feb 27, 2004 7:18 am (Ottawa)

I spoke Japanese to a perfect stranger for the first several times today. Asking for directions from people while trying to locate Michelle's apartment, and once explaining to a salesman that I only understood a little Japanese.
"Koko wa doko desu ka"
"Watashi wa nihongo ga sukoshi wakarimasu"
Michelle seemed to find the second fairly impressive, but I was frustrated by it.
After the amount of time I've spent obsessing over Japan you'd think I could understand better. It's annoying to be surrounded by people I wish to speak to, and be unable to find the words.
I received mail here today, and it makes me wonder about the last tennant. Why? Because it was a single flyer with a picture of a naked Japanese woman on it. After some reading I figured out that it was a flyer for a prostitute. Hopefully everyone got that flyer, I'd hate to think the other teacher before me was into that.
I collected little odds and ends as I wandered around the city with Michelle today. Generally ads for different products. They're funny sometimes.
Nagoya city from what I've seen so far is...schisophrenic (sp?). Buildings are so random it's confusing. You'll have an ancient looking building with a walled off courtyard with an American style modern house on one side, and a small wreck of a building that looks like an old home from Canada in the 40's that somebody allowed to go completely to pot on the other side.
The grocery store where I shopped today was equally scattered. They sold Japanese food on shelves next to Frosted Flakes, and bottles of Coke next to the beer section.
Despite everythihg I was told people do not really stare at you was you walk by here. The Japanese residents don't seem to notice the difference at all. The few caucasian people I've seen walking around are different though.
They notice instantly that you are not Japanese, and they will go out of their way to greet you. I think some of them miss having people to speak English with.
There is a whole sub-culture here dedicated to western pop-culture. At a video store Michelle and I found Japanese translations of several American television shows. ER, Buffy, Beverly Hills 90210, Ally McBeal, Dark Angel, and shelf after shelf of Hollywood movies as well.
I'm a little concerned about Michelle now. She didn't get her working visa before coming here, and she was told today that it will wake 2-6 weeks. This means she will be unable to join the rest of us in training on Monday. She didn't bring the required $2500 CAD either, so she's not sure how she's going to be able to afford to wait until her first paycheck. She may have to go to Korea instead until her Visa is ready, and even that will likely cost too much to allow her to return.
"Gambatte kudasai Michelle-san"