Your Japanese word of the week is...

"tomadoi". It means confusion or bewilderment. I chose this word because although not much has happened in the past week, there has been quite a few things that's been confounding me. And I thought I'd share them with you........ It's sort of like the Weekly Word + What The Deuce put together this week.......

Ahh.... so that's why....
I start with a short one. I'd just like to say I finally figured out why it seems like everyone looks at me funny on the train.

Riding the train all the time is a great way to practice your Japanese reading ability what with all the ads on the trains. Whether it's building your hiragana and katakana reading speed or using context to figure out the meaning of different kanji, it's not a bad way of passing the time.

I caught a glimpse of myself one night and lo and behold, what's this quizzical look on my face??

It turns out I look like an illiterate Japanese guy staring at a mascara ad for 15 minutes............. no wonder people think I'm odd =P........

Speaking of ads....
While we're on the topic, you guys might know of various prominent English teaching companies that offer classes to the Japanese. Names like Gaba, Aeon, Nova, or even Berlitz might ring a bell. Well, perhaps not Nova, since they went bankrupt last year.

Anyway, they all run ads on trains and on the newer trains with LCD screens, Berlitz and Gaba have short TV-style ads.

Berlitz has rather good ones where they show various flashcards or explain the meaning of an idiom ("to hold one's horses" was on a few weeks ago) with Japanese translations.

Gaba ads, however, aren't so good. They often show a Japanese student and a Gaba instructor working on something in class. The problem is that they use speech balloons and flash the "spoken" words for a second before moving on. Now, I can read it, but I can imagine some people learning English might have a bit of trouble reading it all that quickly. And if they didn't, then perhaps they don't need what English schools offer......

Just a thought.........

That's crazy!! Oh wait, we're in Japan...
The best part about being somewhere new is really living the new culture.

Last week, I was going over animal flashcards with the kids, asking them to find an animal that's tall, or heavy, or fast, etc. I got to "tasty" and one of the kids held up the whale. I was just about to say no when I realised that, wait, they do hunt and eat whale here still.

It's quite rare and I honestly think few people have actually had some, but just like the Native Americans or Inuit, whale hunting is a part of certain Japanese local cultures, particularly those up north.

It may be hard for some to wrap their head around, especially with how I'm sure many Vancouverites view cetaceans, but this is what's part of trying to understand a new culture.

I can think of a few other such cultural views in the same vein as this, too. I wouldn't, for example, consider wandering around New Delhi asking where I can have one of these...


By the way, I went to TGIF's with Peter cuz we had a hankering for "western" food. That's where Peter took that picture. That's deep fried mozzarella cheese above the patty........ it was good ahha..... but I digress......

Perhaps in my next English class, I'll pick the shark as a "tasty" animal, and see if any of the kids are surprised. It'll be a good chance to open their eyes to the world of shark fin soup heh...... or do they have that here too?? I don't know actually heh....... we'll see I guess =P.......



Anyways, all that aside, the next two weeks will be busy busy. Thursday is Shiramizu's dojo tournament, this sunday is the Kanto area tournament, and the sunday after is the Kita-Katsushika-Gun tournament.

After that, I start my new job on April 4th soooo.............. I guess a slow week is a good way to build up to it heh......