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Broadcasting to an audience of three (and a goldfish)...
Comment, ramblings and musings... life through the eyes of a Japanologist...
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Tuesday, July 30, 2002 |
 I was going to go out and get something to eat after my bath, but the
bath itself put paid to that plan for sure; I would have been mistaken
for a traffic light! I was forced, therefore, to go with peanut butter
and jam sandwiches. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing, of course,
but I'm now breakfastless...
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Hmmm. No green sky after all...
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Big mistake. Stupid mistake.
When I got home I saw that my skin was
beginning to peel, so I thought I'd run a bath to 'encourage' it. I
mean, nothing could be more embarrassing than going to work with a
half-peeled forehead...
Well, the bath worked. The only problem was,
it worked too well. I'm sure that I looked redder after the bath than
before it- and not because I'd been sitting in hot water, either...
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Well, I got very few comments about my lobsterness at work today. A
couple of people commented on the fact that I'd obviously been out in
the sun, but I didn't get any 'Oh my god! What on earth has happened to
your forehead?'-sort of comments. Not to my face, anyway...
(Yes, the
pun was intended.)
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Lunchtime duty today, so- of course!- there were no phone calls. No
nothing, in fact. It's amazing how long an hour can seem when there's
absolutely nothing to do...
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Got one of those phone calls that make my blood boil just now. It was
from the Town Office in Ogaki, checking about a speech I'd been asked to
give.
Well, credit where credit's due. It's good that they actually phoned up
to talk about the content (albeit in a somewhat
'this-is-what-we-want-you-to-do' way), but what really got things off to
a bad start was the fact that the woman on the other end of the line
asked for 'Nei-sensei'. To which I replied, of course, 'There's nobody
here called Nei'.
There are two big annoyances here; first of all,
I'm not a teacher, so to call me 'sensei' is wrong. I also find it
slightly offensive, because I know that it's basically because of the
'all foreigners in Japan are English teachers' way of thinking. Well,
sorry, missus, but I'm not an English teacher. I'm a local government
official. First black mark.
The second thing is that this woman was
assuming that the 'san' in Neisan (the pronunciation of my name in
Japanese) was in fact a polite term- like 'Mr.'- and so was dropping
this and adding 'sensei' instead, thus making my name 'Nei'. Well, I'm
sorry, but there's no excuse for this- it's just rude. I always make
sure that I have the pronunciation of someone's name correct before I
phone them (Japanese names are notoriously difficult to read because of
non-standard readings of the kanji); there are no two ways about
it, not to make this check (and then to get the name wrong) would be
impolite. The really galling thing is that I don't use kanji for my
name, but an 'alphabet', so there is no excuse for not pronouncing it
correctly in the first place, and if the 'san' was really a polite term,
it would be written in a different script, so there's even less excuse.
Second black mark.
Mind you, I suppose I should expect things like
this from Ogaki. After all, we are talking about the town that employed
a CIR without realising what a CIR was. I phoned up just after he'd
arrived in Japan to say hello, and when I asked for the CIR, I was told
there wasn't one. I explained that I knew for a fact that there was, but
the person on the other end of the line wouldn't be swayed, so I ended
the call and called back later. When I asked for the CIR this time,
though, I was asked, 'Which CIR? We have two of them here!'...
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Decided on the contents of my speech to the elementary school children
at 'Furusato Tanbo' next week. Or, more precisely, I've decided it's not
going to be a speech.
Part of this is sheer bloody-mindedness- I
hate being told what I'm going to be talking about without any
discussion, and so my natural instinct is to ignore the 'command' as
much as possible. Especially here, when the idiot in charge wanted a
40-minute speech about the differences between this island and Britain.
Well, sorry, but I'm not here to talk about differences, but about
similarities. One of the things I place most emphasis on here is not
being treated differently to Japanese people, either at work or
generally, so I'm not going to stand up and stress that I'm somehow
different. Anyone who understood my job would realise this; but the
woman in charge, to be honest, hasn't a clue- I am officially a member
of staff just like everybody else, but nevertheless I'm convinced that
this is just a name, and that the fundamental reason why I've been asked
to help with this event is because the woman thinks it will be good to
have a foreigner. Well, she's going to be in for a surprise, because I'm
going to insist on treatment the same as everyone else.
However, enough of the rant (or 'calm exposition of my position'). More
importantly, I've decided against a speech because a group of 11- and
12-year olds aren't going to sit for 40 minutes and listen to me going
on and on, no matter what the subject. One thing I've learned from my
elementary school visits is that participation is everything, and so I'm
going to do a game instead. The trick is to make the game educational,
so I've decided on 'Furusato-kurabe bingo', or 'Hometown Comparison
Bingo'. I'm going to ask a series of questions about this island and
Nottingham, each one of which will have a keyword. The questions and
answers give the information, and then, using the keywords, the children
can make their bingo card. We then play a game of bingo using these
cards. The children'll love it!- and almost as importantly, the old bag
in charge won't know what to make of things at all. Perfect!
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Breakfast Show Staple Randomhaiku of the day (from The Genuine Haiku Generator)
stars reflect, loveless
stallions searching clay roaring
blossoming flowers
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© Copyright 2003 Nathan Duckworth.
Updated: 8/1/03; 8:23:41 pm.
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