Look-Alikes

You've probably heard this story before, but humor me for a second - it's vital background information for the rest of this post.

Last year when I was in Kyoto, my parents came to visit me at the university where I was doing my internship. My professor was determined to be a good host, so he took my parents all around the school and introduced us to all of the staff. When we met the secretaries on the first floor, they took one look at my mom and said in Japanese, "Wow, she looks just like Princess Diana."

For those of you who have never seen my mom (and/or Princess Diana), behold:


I'll send a fabulous prize to anyone who can identify these pictures correctly. (Personally, I often have difficulty telling these two apart.)

The secretaries on the first floor went on to say that I look like Princess Diana too, but since the similarities between Di and me are so striking, I won't even bother to post pictures here.

Anyway, in the last few days, it has come to my attention that I am the spitting image of two other rather famous celebrities. The first is Olivia Hussey, the actress who played Juliet in Franco Zeffirelli's 1968 version of Romeo and Juliet:

Uncanny, eh?

The other celebrity is a phenom golfer from Okinawa, Miyazato Ai (宮里藍) :



I must admit that the resemblance is rather striking. It must be my Okinawan blood.

Medical Engrish All-Stars

Although Tyler and I have been here for almost a month now, we still find little Engrish treasures in our office every now and then. Yesterday, while digging through a file folder, Tyler found a bunch of profiles of last year's students written in English.

Some of their entries definitely deserve a prize, so it is with great pleasure that I present to you the Top Three in the Medical English Class of 2004-2005.

#3: Most Wholesome Profile

What are your hobbies?

1. Smoking
2. Drinking
3. Driving

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#2: Most Earnest Profile

Please indicate any other information about yourself that you think is important. If you have any requests for this class, please let us know here.

I think I study hard maybe.

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#1: Most Philosophical/Apathetic/(??) Profile

Please indicate any other information about yourself that you think is important. If you have any requests for this class, please let us know here.

especially nothing

Boots and Wild Turkeys

During a lesson last Wednesday:

Me: Ok, let's look at this picture in the textbook. Can you describe the clothes that this man is wearing? What color are his boots?

Mrs. K: etto....

Me: (very slowly) Can you tell me what color the man's boots are?

Mrs. K: etto....a, sou da! (haltingly) Can you teru me what calaa za man's boots are?

Me: Uh, right... Can you tell me?

Mrs. K: ...

Me: I'm sorry. I must have confused you. (veerry slowly) Do you see this man in the picture? What color are his boots?

Mrs. K: Boots! Yes. He izu wearingu boots...and T-shirt and hat and - -

Me: Um, yes, that's true...but what color are his boots?

Mrs. K: Boots! Yes, boots. He have boots.

Me: ...

----

A conversation with my boss a few days ago:

Boss: Are you still cooking for yourself every night?

Me: Yes...well, I'm trying to.

Boss: Oh, good for you. So do you go to the supermarket to buy food?

Me: Um...yes...except for the days when I hike up into the mountains to hunt wild turkeys.

Boss: What?

Me: except for the days when I go hunting for wild turkeys.

Boss: Oh. (looks puzzled) Oh!!....You do?!!?

Odds and Ends

-- Typhoon number 13 hit Japan this weekend, so unfortunately I had to cancel my plans to see my dad's aunt in Kyushu. It sounds like they had some pretty heavy rain in her town, but she's okay. (In other places, trains flipped over and roofs caved in, I guess.) The typhoon was also supposed to hit Ehime this morning, but it must have missed because the weather today was probably as beautiful as I've seen it while I've been here.


-- My 100 Yen shop (the equivalent of a dollar store) is named Silk. I guess I must live in a pretty swanky part of town.


-- I had mochi (rice ball) pizza for the first time last week. It was quite sticky, but the mix of rice, crust, cheese and bacon was strangely satisfying. They also put corn on their pizza here, and everyone is shocked when I tell them that Americans don't.


-- According to a TV show last night, humans are instinctively programmed to like shiny things. Therefore, to make a good first impression on someone, you should try to accentuate the shiniest parts of your face: your eyes and teeth. To me, the most logical way to accomplish this would be to smile as you introduce yourself. But according to the experts on the show, people actually need to do facial exercises in order to improve their facial expressions and range of motion.

I doubt this show was broadcast in the US, so I figured perhaps I should pass along the facial exercises to you so that you too can make friends and influence people. Here they are:

1) To improve the flexibility your mouth area, hold a pair of chopsticks between your teeth and alternate between saying "oo" and "ee." If you're confused, see the model below. (And yes, the people on the TV show were sitting in the studio doing this. It was quite entertaining.)


2) To improve your eye area, close your eyes as tightly as possible for three seconds, then open them as quickly as you can and hold them open for three seconds. Repeat.


Apparently, if you do these simple exercises for just a few minutes every day, it will make all the difference in the world in your social life. Actually, I think it's already working for me. I tried the exercises last night, and this morning when I went to grocery store, all sorts of people were staring at me. I can only assume it was because of my beautiful eyes. *


-- The cookies here must be the smallest ones in the world. At first I was fooled by the large, luscious looking cookies in the pictures on the side of the packages in the grocery store, but now I've realized that there must be some kind of federal law against selling cookies more than an inch or two in diameter. (Perhaps if the cookies were any bigger, they would be so large after they were individually wrapped that the package wouldn't fit in a shopping cart???) Anyway, yesterday I searched high and low across Matsuyama for oatmeal and unsweetened cocoa, and today I succeeded in making the most expensive batch of no-bake cookies in the history of the world. The jury is still out on whether they actually taste good since they are still cooling in the fridge, but at least they're big. :)


-- I've now met all of my private lesson students. Since I'll be spending a lot of time with them and they're sure to come up in future posts, here's a quick run-down of some of my more interesting pupils.

Mrs. N: A really nice middle-aged lady who told me she was very nervous about working with a new teacher. However, according to my boss, Mrs. N liked me so much that she left our first lesson in a state of euphoria and forgot to pay me. Sweet. :)

Dr. M: This is the guy from a previous post who wanted to practice listening to men with southern accents. I had him listen to a singer with a southern accent and he seemed fascinated, so next week, he's asked that we focus on Boston accents. Hopefully I can figure out what a Boston accent is by then...

Mrs. K: Last year's teachers wrote profiles about each of the students, and Mrs. K's profile wasn't too flattering, so I was kind of dreading her lesson. (Apparently, she's rich, manipulative and therefore a pain in the neck to deal with. Also, she does freaky things like memorizing the birthdays of everyone in your family and reciting them back to you...) Once I got to the lesson, she sat me down and started asking me a very long list of questions. It felt sort of like an interrogation, but since she was asking me the questions in English I let her keep going. By the time she got around to asking me about my birthday, I was feeling quite nervous, but luckily she stopped there and I was able to actually start the lesson. Anyway, I've come to the conclusion that she's not so bad - maybe just a bit lonely - so hopefully I'll have more luck with her than the teachers before me.

Mrs. M and the Health Support Center Group: Mrs. M's profile is also pretty scary, and this time I would have to agree. There are six people in the class and Mrs. M has much better English than anyone else. She knows this and likes to explain things to the rest of the class very loudly in Japanese. The only problem is that I can understand her and half the time, she's explaining things wrong, but when I try to correct her or ask her to do something, she's really rude. At our first lesson, she started talking in Japanese about a movie she'd seen recently, so I asked her very nicely if she could explain the movie in English instead. She gave me a seething glare and then continued to talk about the movie in Japanese. I think I ended up interrupting her (very politely) three times and she finally switched to English. ewww...I don't think I like her very much.

The Ws and the Ks: I teach two lessons with kids, and both groups are very cute and well-behaved. Also, their parents are incredibly generous. Even though they're paying me to teach the lessons, they also give me presents everytime I come over. So far, I've received a box of figs, five Japanese pears, a really good piece of chocolate cake, and a cream puff. I don't know why they give all this stuff to me, but I love them.



* I would like to think that it was not due to the fact that I'm reasonably tall and white. Just humor me on this one. And try the exercises. All the cool people are doing them.

Lindsay the Human Washing Machine and Other Fantastic Tales from Old Japan

Hi again, thank you all for your very kind responses to my poll. I am still in the process of tabulating the results and conducting a statistical analysis. In the meantime, the medicine wrappers will remain in a pile on my kitchen table.

Since it has been a while since my last post, I will take this opportunity to provide you with updates on several ongoing situations:

-- Population of Toon-shi (my town): 34,643.
Gaijin (foreigner) population of Toon-shi: 3 (Yes, Tyler, the other English teacher, and I have sighted one other foreigner living in our city. Based on this sudden 50% increase in the gaijin population, we are beginning to worry that foreigners will soon over-run the town. More on this critical situation later.)

-- My Japanese softball debut was cancelled this Tuesday due to rain. I'm projected to get my first start in the beginning of October, so stay tuned.

-- Despite my best efforts to become a Real Woman over the past three weeks, my Marriageability Rating has steadily declined this week to an embarrassing 7.2%. (See Fig 1)

Fig 1.

At the beginning of the week, an encouraging streak of cooking success caused my rating to plateau at around 40%. However, Thursday's omelette incident (in which I completely decimated my omelette and settled for scrambled eggs instead) and an unfortunate episode of washing machine incompetence* this weekend eventually caused the rating to plunge to a record low.

-- It appears that the submission deadlines for several English medical journals are coming up, because Tyler (the other English teacher) and I have been swamped with papers to edit. Doctors from all over the hospital apparently rely on us to make sure that their English makes sense. The only problem with this is that since I'm not a doctor, I have not the foggiest idea whether "spondylosis" is spelled correctly or what in the world "LVH is cause the in hypertrophic myopathy condition, however, result condition was unfavorable" is supposed to mean. Soooo I've had to do quite a bit of research to make sure that my corrections are actually...well...correct. Happily, I am now quite the expert on spinal cord compression injuries, glycogen storage disease type IIIa, and Alzheimer's disease. Also, this whole paper editing process has been quite entertaining because of sentences like these.

The title of an article about new criteria to determine whether a patient with dementia is still capable of driving safely:

Brief criteria for the revocation of demented driver’s licenses

An explanation of a scale used to evaluate motor function in rats and mice:

The BBB scale is one of the most famous hind-limbs motor function evaluating methods for rats and mousse.

mmm....rats and mousse.

And finally, my favorite sentence. One group of doctors wanted to resubmit their article to a journal after making corrections, so they asked me to edit their letter to the editor. After explaining the corrections they had made, they wrote:

We hope new version is better for understand.

Fortunately, I fixed this sentence for them. :)


* In an attempt to wash my whites this morning, I threw them in my washing machine, turned it on and went off to make breakfast. Twenty minutes later, I heard the washing machine stop and started to take my laundry out. As I hung the clothes out to dry, I noticed that they were a bit wetter than usual. To be more precise, they were dripping. Finally realizing that my rather old and finicky washing machine must have turned off before the spin cycle, I proceeded to ring out about fifty-seven pairs of underwear and one very absorbent (and very aggravating) bath towel. This whole process took me about one hour. Only after I was finished did I realize that it is possible to manually set the washing machine to skip the wash and rinse cycles and simply spin the clothes.

I Love Trash / A Readership Poll

Last year when I lived in an apartment in Kyoto, I put all of my trash into one bag and threw the bag into the apartment building's dumpster. There was only one dumpster and the only sign on the dumpster simply said:


In case you're confused by the English translation, I think it should be changed to something more like "Please close the lid of the dumpster after you throw away your garbage." But questionable English aside, I loved this dumpster. It was simple and beautiful. Read on, and I think you'll understand why.

This week, I have been introduced to the harsh realities of the Japanese waste disposal system. Gone are the old days when I was allowed to put all of my garbage into one bag and simply toss it in a dumpster. Instead, I must sort my garbage into about seventeen different bags and dispose of each of them at separate pick-up sites in various parts of my town. (Off the top of my head, the categories are burnable garbage*, plastic bottles with the #1 recycling sign, all other plastic products, metal cans, glass bottles, milk cartons, corrugated cardboard, newspapers and magazines, styrofoam trays, batteries, mirrors and fluorescent light bulbs, oversized items, and other.)

Ok, so by seventeen categories I meant thirteen...but you get the general idea.

You may be thinking, Sure, they have all these categories, but no one actually sorts their trash that diligently, right? Wrong. Everyone in the neighborhood is required to sort their garbage into clear trash bags. Thus, if you have a stray fluorescent lightbulb in your "other plastic products" bag, the sanitation workers will be able to see it and will leave the offending bag at the pick-up site. On top of that, everyone is required to label their trash bags with their name. This means that when the rest of your neighbors go to the pick-up site to drop off their neatly-sorted trash, your poorly-sorted bag will still be sitting there, a mark of shame upon your household.

For the most part, dear readers, I think that I have succeeded in keeping all of my trash straight, but I would like to request your advice about one very important matter, and therefore, I am conducting a brief readership poll:

Question 1)

Every day, I take medication that comes individually wrapped in one of those childproof packages. Each pill is encased in a wrapper that looks like this:


Since the the packaging contains plastic, paper, and the foil stuff, I currently face a terrible dilemma, so please help me out and answer my poll.

Should I:
A) peel off the paper, painstakingly scrape the metallic stuff off the plastic, and throw away all three parts separately?
B) peel off the paper but leave the metallic stuff on the plastic and risk dishonoring my good name?
C) place the whole wrapper deep inside the "other plastic products" bag and hope that the trash man doesn't notice?
D) bury the wrappers in a hole outside my apartment until I decide what to do with them?
E) Other_____________

If you could send your response to me as soon as possible, I would be ever so grateful. You can leave your answer as a comment on this blog or just e-mail it to me. Thank you! I value your opinion.**


* This burnable garbage category completely baffles me. After all, you can burn milk cartons, cardboard, newspapers, magazines, and even plastic (although it would smell bad), but they are not considered burnable garbage.

** No really, I do value your opinion. But I am also curious to know who actually reads this blog. :)

Middle Fingers, Backhoes, and Old Men

Last week, after five consecutive successful attempts at cooking dinner, I was about to officially proclaim myself a woman of the world. However, I have since been forced to seriously reconsider whether I am yet worthy of such a title, because two days ago I had my first major mishap in the kitchen.

I was well on my way to making a respectable bowl of udon when I read on the back of the udon package that I should pour my successfully-boiled noodles into a strainer before transferring them to the pre-prepared bowl of broth. Consequently, I retrieved a strainer from under the sink, and holding the strainer in my left hand, I proceeded to pour out my noodles. Now, since strainers by their very nature have holes, I, in my infinite wisdom, should probably have realized that it would not be a good idea to grasp the bottom of the strainer while pouring boiling water through, but alas, this thought did not occur to me. However, as the water hit my hand, I quickly realized my mistake, and dropped the pot, the strainer, and the noodles into the sink.

My next thought was to run water on my hand, but I was reluctant to run cold water on the freshly-boiled udon noodles lying forlornly in the sink. What was I to do? I finally grabbed a bag of corn from the freezer and wrapped it around my poor burnt fingers. Unfortunately, after checking WebMD, I realized that you're actually not supposed to ice burns, so I swiftly returned the corn to the freezer and filled a bowl full of cold water to soak my hand, which by now was quite painful. Back at my computer, I scanned several web pages about burn care and read various things about how burns should be taken seriously, no matter how minor; burns with a diameter of more than two inches should be treated by a healthcare professional etc. And sitting alone in my little apartment with my tired, paranoid brain I thought, wait a second, this burn is definitely more than two inches in diameter. Geez, what if it's serious? Maybe I should run to the hospital...I think I'm feeling a little faint...What if my finger falls off ?...nah, that could never happen, you idiot....oh my god, I am going to perish in this apartment in the middle of Japan, the victim of a tragic udon-scalding-accident!!! At this point, I proceeded to send text messages to a couple friends, who assured me that I was not in mortal danger, and I realized that I was being a tad bit silly. Having regained my sanity, I managed to salvage the udon from the sink and eat with my right hand, while soaking my stinging left hand in the bowl of water.

Two days after the udon accident, the middle finger on my left hand is one big blister, but I am happy to report that it is signifcantly smaller than it was yesterday and I have high hopes for a full recovery.

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Since this spring, I had known that my apartment in Japan would be next to a train station and a high school campus, but I had thought nothing of it. After all, I told myself, I can sleep through anything. However, this weekend, I've realized that even I have my limits.

Actually, the sound of the train coming by isn't too bad, especially since the train stops running at 10:30 PM. But the high school is ridiculous. There are kids there all the time. I can't quite figure out when they eat and sleep, because they are always at school, even on weekends.* And boy are they ever loud. I'm not talking about normal playground chatter - I'm talking about the sound of hundreds of voices shouting, "Ichi, ni, san, shi" in unison at the top of their lungs at 7 AM on a Sunday morning. Absolutely ridiculous. Oh yes, the high school has a marching band and a drum group too. Apparently these groups find that Saturday mornings are the most opportune time to practice.

In addition to the noise from the high school events, this weekend I was treated to the sound of a particularly squeaky backhoe, which was clearing out a small forest on the other side of the apartment complex. I am quite certain that this backhoe had not been oiled for a long time, perhaps since the Meiji Restoration, and it was so loud that the train and shouting high school students paled in comparison.

Anyway, suffice it to say that I received a rather rude awakening on Saturday morning. I hope that the backhoe is nearly finished with its digging and flattening and whatnot. If not, I am thinking about going out to the construction site tomorrow with a shovel to help it along.

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While checking out my town's website one day, I read that there was supposed to be a softball tournament on Sunday morning, and I decided to go down to the field to check it out. The tournament turned out to be for a co-ed recreational softball league, so I stopped by the information tent to ask how I might go about joining a team. The guy at the tent was very impressed that I could actually speak Japanese, and told me, "I'll bet that your neighborhood's team will definitely let you join. They'll be very happy to have a pretty, young girl on the team."

"Oh, um, that's...good," I said, and the man at the tent brought me over to meet the team. Every single person on the team was male, and most of them were at least fifty. They were all very nice and invited me to play with them during a night game this week. So it appears that I am now the newest member of a softball team full of middle-aged/elderly men. I don't know if I will actually be able to make the game this week because I have to teach a private lesson, but I have no doubt that once I do make it to a game, it will interesting to get to know my new pals.


* On a side note, I've noticed that the high school is completely surrounded by barbed wire, and for the last week, I've been wondering why. After much thought, I've come up with two possible conclusions:

1) The barbed wire keeps the poor high school students from ever leaving the grounds of the school. EVER. And thus they must remain at school 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, with only one outlet for their frustrations: chanting "Ichi, ni, san, shi" as loudly as possible at all hours of the day and night.

or

2) The barbed wire is designed to keep people like me from entering the school grounds and binding and gagging all of those wretched high school students. (only kidding, don't worry...)

I will be sure to update you as I gather further information about this matter.