Thank you, parents!

Thanks for the birthday presents!

Love and miss you,

Bret

I Love Work Emails

That's not what that means!

This week I had a great adult student for one of my classes. She's new and around my age, so we have a good time talking (thanks to the fact that her English is better than most).

We got on the topic of the English language in marketing and advertising. In Japan, you'll usually see the logo of an item, and then a brief description or tag line somewhere else on the product. For simplicity, I am only referring to food products in Japan. Sometimes just the logo is off-putting for the average English speaker. For example, who wants to drink a beverage called Pocari SWEAT? If sweat is in the title, count me out. But more often, the well meaning description of the product is where things get wacky. Usually it's just amusing. On alcohol bottles they will say things like, "Makes for relaxing moments" or "cheerful times will be had by all." But it's not just alcohol. Most snacks and candy have something like, "Please enjoy during your most relaxing moments" or even describe themselves as "sophisticated and elegant" (usually designer chocolates --yes, they have those-- have that kind of phrasing on them).

In one restaurant, there was a poem's length of rambling on the wall of the memories you will make during your meal.

On another, "Hamburger is my life"

So I'm trying to explain all this to my student (spoiler alert, I fail) and she just says, "well, it's a cultural difference, I guess." To which I automatically (and arrogantly) think in my head, "Sure, but you can't use another language in a way that culturally suits you, it's absurd. It's nice that people market products with an ideal consumption experience, but that's not how you do things."

No, I didn't say any of these things. I tried to explain that "relax" is overused on almost every product in japan, from corn flakes to bottled water, but she didn't get it. I went over the definition of "relax" over and over but it only goaded her on her original point. "Relaxing isn't a bad thing! Why shouldn't these products be described this way?" Because they are not!

Slowly, she won me over, though. While Americans describe things on their content, taste, and texture, the Japanese will try to describe and sell an experience that the food will contribute to, and that's just the way things are. No one owns English, and the Japanese have a way with it all their own :)

haha

Our preschoolers made these for us. They say, "Thanks for teaching us English" AND we are as white as the wall behind us. Same latitude as San Diego, CA my butt

skateboarding owl

Awh Bret's Students Wub Him

I never get stuff like this. Two of Bret's students, who are brothers, had to stop their English instruction with Bret because of conflicting school/sports schedules (the new year for all school kids starts in March. Weird, huh?)

Anyways, they made this for him as a parting gesture. It says, in Japanese, "we love you. we love you. we love you" and "we'll miss you. we'll miss you. we'll miss you" That's all that was translated, but as you can see they wrote a really long, two page letter to him. How cute!

Left from Valentines Day

Neon Genesis Evangelion 2.0 chocolate! It's a manga about giant robots saving earth from an alien invasion. This is the “AU Assault Rifle Chocolate”:


It looks like this:



Here are the other two. The "Progressive Knife" and the "Steele Monolith"

SNOWDAY

Wooohooo! It's snowing here in Japan. Never mind that it was 60 degrees out for the last two weeks. I got one class canceled, but have to go the the others :(

Happy Snowday, Everyone! I hear it's snowing in Washington as well.

So This is What Dragonfruit Looks Like...

In addition, I found out that, " The Yasaka Fruit Processing Co., Ltd based in Binh Duong has just inaugurated a new factory 2009. This is the first factory exports dragon fruit to Japan after the Vietnam government abolishes fruit export to Japan.
Dragon fruit is still unfamiliar to the Japanese. Thefore, our company has design a mini brochure (A6) to introduce this kind of fruit to everybody in Japan."

I stole this from a Japanese website and it is obviously full of Engrish. I started editing it, but then I thought...wait...no

First Speeding Ticket In Japan!!!

Don't let the punctuation fool you, I am not pleased at the moment. I didn't even have a good reason to be going fast--I even got off work early today! I just like going fast and wanted to go home.

I haven't gotten pulled over in years and have only gotten ONE ticket in my entire life (I had just gotten my license and hadn't yet figured out the whole -talking your way out of it- thing yet)

There was no talking my way out of this one though. Every cop in my stupid, crime-less town was out at this speed trap. As I zoomed down the street, I noticed a man sitting next to a big metal box with antennae coming out of it. Either this guy was a crazy person, or something was amiss, and I knew I was screwed before I saw the blockade of 25 cops up the road. They flagged me down and when I rolled down my window said "speed over"

Yes, yes, my speeding days are over. thanks

Then they made me get out of my car and walk over to another group of cops who asked me said, 'nihongo wakarimasen' and I nodded and then they took my license and made me sit in the back of a police car while they processed the ticket. Needless to say I was PISSED.

I am really happy I was in my rental car instead of my normal one, which says, "English Teacher! Call this number!" (yes, it really says that). I am a pillar of the community and it would be a shame if I tarnished my reputation in this town over a lousy 20 km over the speed limit. (which is 50)

So I'm in the back of the cop car and they're like blahdy blah, this is your speed, this is the limit, blah blah blah. And I'm like okay how much is it? It's 15,000 Y (not too bad)

Then they ask me my address. To which I say, "I don't know" (i really don't, I mean, I know parts of it, but being put on the spot made me unsure and didn't want to give them inaccurate info)

Then they ask me my phone number "I don't know"
They mutter in Japanese. I tell them I have my phone in my car and can go get it, they say okay

I walk past 15 or so of the cops loitering about to get to my car, grab my cell phone and stomp back. They were all smiling at me because I'm a foreigner and they love white people in this town, but I was not in an equitable mood, and couldn't pull off anything better than annoyed.

Then they grab my cell number off my phone. The cops in the car were really nice, I feel bad for glowering at them now. They ask me what I do. "Akaiwa." Then they ask me my company and where I live. "Saijo" (at this moment I realized I forgot to switch over my address from the Tokyo address to Saijo on my license) I explain and some mild confusion ensues, but they didn't seem to care too much. One of the cops brings over a book with English instructions. "Here, read this" you must pay this ticket within the stated amount of time at your government office or at the Japan National Bank. How convenient.

Then they give me my stupid ticket and smile and wave bye. All of them. Thirty cops being like, "Have a nice day! Goodbye! Thank you!"
*still annoyed*

One of them follows me back to my car and tells me to open my glove compartment. I see what she's getting at, so I tell her it's a rental. "Oh," she says. "well okay, goodbye" At this point I'm amused, so I smile at her, thank her, and turn to wave goodbye at the rest of the fools in uniform.

Now I'm going to go drink some chu-hi and forget this day ever happened