Broadcasting to an audience of three (and a goldfish)... Comment, ramblings and musings... life through the eyes of a Japanologist...   Friday, December 6, 2002 J-List 10 largest prefectures in Japan Hokkaido (83454 km2) Iwate (15279 km2) Fukushima (13783 km2) Nagano (12598 km2) Akita (11434 km2) Niigata (10939 km2) Gifu (10209 km2) Aomori (9235 km2) Kagoshima (9132 km2) Hiroshima (8477 km2)      This afternoon, there was the final meeting of the planning committee for this year's Festival Etajima. The meeting was basically a summary of the event and an auditor's declaration, and it finished without any problems in half an hour or so. Every year, after this final meeting, there is a small party in the restaurant at Seinen-no-ie, and this year was no different, so after the meeting had finished we all trooped upstairs to find nabe, snacks, and beer and sake. After the obligatory opening comments and the kanpai, everyone quickly gravitated to their colleagues or friends, but, as is always the case at this sort of events, people started coming over to pour me a glass of beer. Pouring beer for other people is an important part of Japanese parties, but I get beer poured for me more than most people because (1) everyone knows who I am, (2) I've worked with, or given speeches for, most of the people present, (3) people think (for some reason) that I can drink a lot, and (4) because beer quite often gives the more timid of Japanese people the courage to come up and talk to a foreigner. With the beer, and people wanting to talk to me, I didn't eat very much at all, but I'm always glad that people want to chat. The party ended at 6 o'clock after an hour and a half of socialising, and we went back to the office. I had intended to finish a couple of translations before the weekend, but the editor of the town newspaper collared me and asked me where we were going next. I got him to wait for half an hour or so while I finished a few things off in the office, and then we went to Mejiro, where there were already five people from the office. We all drank some more, and ate a little (nobody seemed to be able to be bothered to cook any meat, despite having ordered it), and after a while we left, and (as is normal) went to a sutando, a little bar-like place where you can sing karaoke. The standard drink in these places is mizu-wari- brandy or whisky diluted with water- and so we drank some more (again), and a few people sang karaoke. I was persuaded to sing a Beatles song. The danger of drinking, of course, is that people get drunk. The danger of drinking in my case, though, is that I always end up to the person who starts talking rubbish- sometimes annoying or even offensive rubbish- when drunk. Tonight- of course!- was no exception. When things get to this stage, it's time to go home. However, just before I could make my excuses and leave, everyone else decided to call it a day too, and we all left together. It's always good to drink with people from the office- it's fun, and it's good for work relationships too- but, unfortunately, there's always the risk that someone will drink too much and become, shall we say, troublesome...      I signed up the Breakfast Show to Blogdex, a site that tracks popular stories in the blogging world. It's an interesting source of stories and information.      Finally finished my newsletter article. It was becoming a monster, so I cut half of it off- I'll use it in next month's article- and just wrote about cheese and beer as examples of things I missed about Britain. However, when I did a word count, the article had become a monster for a second time, so in the end I cut beer out of the text as well. It's a slightly odd article as a result, but it will be fine if it's read as the first in a series of articles. In any case, it's one more thing crossed off my to-do list. At the beginning of the week, I really felt like I was drowning in my to-do list, but now, with an article, cookery class, and three translations out of the way, it looks decidedly more manageable.      After the Kindergarten, I went to Akizuki Elementary School for the final lesson of the the term, a double lesson with the fifth- and sixth-years to plan the English play they want to perform at the end of next term. This time, the sixth-years had chosen the story to use (and then I'd translated it into English), the idea being that this way, they'd feel like it was 'their' play, rather than something they were being coerced into doing. Hmmm... I have to say that I'd resign if I had to teach these children every day. Even once a week might make me seriously consider giving up my job. They are without doubt the least interested, most badly behaved children I have the misfortune to teach. I wonder what it is about this school; I can do a lesson in the other six schools, and the children will be interested and responsive, but in this school I'll get no response whatsoever. It's been like this from the start, but if anything, the children are getting worse, I think. The one sixth-year boy is particularly bad; for example, he pushed his script off the desk, and when the teacher picked it up for him, he pushed it off again. When she refused to pick it up for him a second time, he refused to take part in the lesson. In a way, though, I blame the teachers for not being strict enough; surely one of the roles of a teacher is to teach manners and discipline? I know what I'd have done if I were his teacher... Anyway, in ninety minutes, we managed to work out everyone's roles (of course, the idea that getting the children to choose the play would make them more interested was a complete failure), and go through the pronunciation once. I think that anywhere else, this could have been done in half the time. 'Nuff said. The fifth- and sixth-years are now supposed to be getting the lower years involved in the play; how this turns out will be interesting to see...      This morning was the happyo-kai at the Kindergarten. I went along for half an hour or so, before going to Akizuki. The kindergarten children sang songs (some with sign language) and played music- they were really cute! And moreover, they were very good considering their age. Perhaps I should get them to coach the children in Miyanohara...      Someone from the Planning Section came to see me this morning, to ask if I knew what the word 'daberingu' meant. It was written in katakana, which normally indicates words imported into Japanese from other languages, and so he assumed that it was English. Of course, though, I'd never heard of the word. I checked on an excellent Japanese-English dictionary on the internet, and the word didn't come up, so I dug out my house-brick-thick Kenkyusha dictionary. It listed the words 'daben' and 'daberu'; 'daberu' meaning 'to chatter, jabber, have idle talk'. From this, and checking the context, we worked out that 'daberingu' meant 'the act of daberu' (the '-ingu' being the English '-ing'). An interesting word... but nobody in the office knew what it meant! This is a not uncommon phenomenon in modern Japanese; surely the whole point of language is communcation, so why use (or coin, even) words that nobody else will understand?      Found a link to the Breakfast Show from Frostymoss. The author wondered what the kanji by each entry was... ...Good question. The answer will be in the Breakfast Show FAQ when I get round to writing it, but anyway, the kanji means 'eagle', and is used to write the 'Washi' part of 'Washibe'.      © Copyright 2003 Nathan Duckworth. Updated: 20/1/03; 2:18:50 pm.

December 2002 Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31         Nov   Jan The Breakfast Show Weather... FastCounter by bCentral