I was hanging out after lunch with some 5th graders today. One of them is really into dinosaurs. He kept trying to drag my attention away to talk about them.
To try to keep the others involved, I asked another boy, in Japanese, if he liked dinosaurs. Now, the Japanese word for “dinosaur” is “kyoryu”. But I messed up and said “kyuryo”. That means “salary”. The kid rolled with it nicely. First he kindly corrected me, then he said (in Japanese), “My dinosaur is $1,000 per month.”
Awesome.
You probably know that we borrowed the word “Typhoon” from Japanese. But I’ve been learning that we’ve actually borrowed quite a random assortment of words from Japanese.
For example, “honcho” from “head honcho” comes from the Japanese word 班長 (hanchou) which means “group leader/boss”. Apparently English speaking POWs in WWII were put into (quite brutal) workgroups by their Japanese captors and one Japanese word they never forgot was 班長.
I imagine many words we imported from Japanese were learned that way.
Electra and I were going to go to burgers tonight after I finished counseling, but I decided I really wasn’t hungry and wanted to chill at the park in the cold, but wonderful-feeling, air.
I walked into the park with my headphones on. The park smells of healthy pond and is mostly lit by the occasional lamp and the neon on distant hotels. So it feels private and lovely but not dangerously dark. I took off my headphones to hang out next to the pond and listen to ducks and — someone was playing a flute! He’s in the dark near the pond and I can barely make out his shape. I think it’s some kind of bamboo or wood instrument, but I’m pretty sure it’s not a shakuhachi. His playing is beautiful! It echoes around the pond like a New Age meditation CD. And it’s pretty much exactly what I needed tonight.
Today at my elementary school visit I had occasion to chat with a couple of adorable first graders in the hallway. This conversation was in Japanese:
Me: I have to go now. Bai bai! [That last part is "bye bye" but pronounced the way the Japanese do.]
Little girl: Bai bai! *pause* How do you say “bai bai” in English?
Me: “Bai bai” is English.
LG: *pause* But how do you say it in English?
Me: Well, we say “bye bye”.
LG: You say the same thing?
Me: Yes.
LG: Wow!
I am seriously exhausted today. It’s my own damn fault, of course. I stayed out too late at the bar with Nick last night. We were talking about important stuff and then suddenly Yoichi and his buddies came in and good judgement just went out the window. I ended up quite intoxicated and hitting the bed around 1am.
That doesn’t actually seem super late except that I had to wake up at 6am for work today — at an elementary school visit. I was very muddled this morning. I had that pseudo-hangovery feeling of being a little off balance and very, very sleepy.
I was a little worried because the staff and kids at this school were especially cool and I wanted to summon up my maximum genkisa (er, energy and “verve”) for them. But luckily, as soon as I got into class and the kids were all excited and playful my head cleared right up and I got totally into high-energy mode. I had back-to-back classes all morning so I was able to keep it up for a while. I felt tired the whole time but the kids were feeding me so much energy that it was alright.
So in the end I had a good day. I played with lots of bright, cheerful kids and learned a bunch more about Japanese kid culture. It was good times.
Now I’m going to go home and crash for several hours.