Thursday 10 January 2008

I don't get it........

No really. I don't sometimes. I've been here for a (brief) 5 months and there are some things I understand. Some cultural bits and pieces. Some work ethic bits and pieces. Some bits and pieces about bits and pieces. I get some of it, I really do......

But then there are days when I'm just totally lost. Fortunately, it's usually rather trivial and, in the end, is good for a few laughs......

What's the point?

Here's the deal- if you can read Japanese, you might know that the words in the black area say "goma kurimi doreshingu". Or "creamy dressing" for goma, which is sesame. First off, who eats sesame in such amounts that require (and justify) a creamy dressing to go with it?? I was given a bunch of these various flavoured dressings to use on salads, so that's fine.

But then the word in quotations in that orange circle say "retasu", or "lettuce". You might have picked that up from the picture. I dunno what the rest of it says, but the other ones I've eaten taste similar to what the picture show.

So........ it's lettuce flavoured salad dressing??....... I'm speechless......

Do the Japanese shuffle.

There's no way around it- many Japanese shuffle everywhere they go. Half the reason is, I honestly believe, that they think it's cool to go everywhere looking slightly sulky. It's a bit of that "I'm too cool for school" with how some people carry themselves. And that's fine. To each their own.

The other half of the problem is that the Japanese put on and take off their shoes a lot. Houses, restaurants, community centres, etc. So, and you see this with school students a lot, the backs of their shoes are destroyed from the constant jamming of their feet into it. It's also why most people buy shoes a touch larger than their foot size because it's easy to slide in and out of.

And that just makes the shuffling problem worse........

Can you tell me how to get, how to get to...

Sesame Street. I went to karaoke with some friends a few weeks ago. They had (seriously) the Sesame Street Theme song. It was awesome.............. that's all =P

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

lettuce flavoured dressing for green lettuce salad with sesame. must be very tasty.



Geoffrey

Anonymous said...

Maybe the lettuce is trying to say that it would like to get together with the creamy sesame dressing, if you'll introduce them??

BTW, depression is supposed to be a big problem in Japan, especially among young people... might also explain some of the stooped shuffling... But, then again, what do I know?

Just a thought.

-Amber

Lawrence said...

Y'know, you could be right. If it's not depression directly, it could be stress induced exhaustion that causes them to shuffle. And I could see how long term stress can lead to depression.

But then again, some of them are probably just flat out lazy haha..... it's not like people don't shuffle in Canada heh. It's just they're more likely to have proper fitting shoes =-P haha.....