Rocking in Hakata

Fail. Don’t just go laughing at the classic Engrish shirts, and feeling smug and superior to Japan. It happens in America too. Ha ha.

(For those who don’t get it, the shirt is grammatically incorrect – as a commenter has noted on the page. The design is what you’d get if you just swapped out the I and NY in the I♡NY design for their Japanese equivalents. 私は♡日本 is wrong. 10 cool points to the commenter who corrects it first. Hint: SVO / SOV.)

Deas Customary Drivel, Humor, Unsolicited Commentary

Deasさんのこのエントリー、面白いなぁと思って、昨日、夕飯の時に我が家の子供たちにも話してみました。

子供たちが出した結論は…∴サンタさんは一人ではない。でした。
サンタ村のようなところに大勢のサンタさんが住んでいて、クリスマスの夜はみんなで一斉に配りに歩くんだそうです。（ちなみに「サンタ」と呼び捨てにすると、「サンタさんに失礼だろう！」と怒られました。(^^;)「ママがそんな失礼なことを言っていると怒ってこの家には来てくれないかもしれない」と心配もしているようでした。）

“1秒間に900軒以上配らなければいけない”のところで、私が、「もしかしたら、サンタさんは魔法みたいなものをつかって、一度に900軒分のプレゼントを煙突から入れることができるのかもしれない」と言ったら、上の息子(9歳）は「うーん…そうかもしれないけど、ぼくの考えでは、サンタさんはちゃんと一人ずつ、”一年間いい子だったね”って寝てる顔を見て、置いて行ってくれると思う」とまじめに悩みながら言ってました。(^^)

みんなでわいわいと、それぞれの自論を披露し合って、楽しい夕飯になりました。楽しい話題をありがとうございました。(^^)/

-English translation-

I thought your entry was interesting, so last night during dinner at our house, I brought it up in conversation with my children.

The children’s conclusion seemed to be that…Santa Claus is not one person.
They posited that many Santas live in a place like a Santa-village, and each Christmas night they all walk around to distribute presents at the same time. (By the way, when I just called him “Santa” [presumably without the "Claus" or "-san" suffix], they became angry, saying “isn’t that rude to Santa?” (^^;) It was as though they were worried that “If Mama says such rude things Santa will be angry and he might not visit our house!”)

When I explained that “in 1 second’s time, Santa must distribute presents to more than 900 houses” I said, “Maybe Santa is using some sort of magic to put 900 presents at one time into various chimneys.” My oldest son, who is 9 years old, said, “Yeah, that might be true, but I think that Santa visits each child one by one, looks upon their sleeping faces that convey that they have ‘been a good child for a whole year,’ carefully lays down the present, and goes.” He seemed serious and distressed as he said it. (^^)

It became a fun dinner, with everyone being lively and making their own arguments about it. Thanks very much for the fun topic. (^^)/

marukoさんのコメントDec 20th 2008 07:57

This warmed my heart. I submitted my translation of the Santa Claus: From An Engineer’s Perspective piece to Lang-8 for revision – see the entry on Lang-8 here. Not only did I get super-fast corrections, like usual, but I also go this comment. Made me smile.

Deas Customary Drivel, Humor, 日本語

Hey, check this out. It’s the profile of Ken Hoang, Survivor: Gabon contestant.

Yes, it really says: “Nobody would look at him and believe he climbed Mt. Fuji at the age of 20.” *snort*

For those who are lost…while it’s pretty dadgum steep at times, Mt. Fuji is nowhere near Everest or K2 in difficulty or prestige. At all. TV personalities do it. Children do it. My friends do it hilariously. Really really old people do it. Ken, I’m sorry, but…seriously? WHY would nobody believe that he did it when he was 20?

*Disclaimer: I haven’t watched Survivor since the first or second season, so I don’t know this guy or this season’s drama. Can’t comment on it. This was brought to my attention by an avid fan of the show who will probably claim credit in the comments.

Deas Customary Drivel, Humor, Unsolicited Commentary

Here are 8 more chain stories from my students. They range from awkward and sad to awkward and unintentionally funny, with lots of awkward in between. I love these kids, though. They do try. Ha ha. I’ve dropped a black bar on top of any real names used. Read through these, and let me know what you think.

Alright, which one was your favorite, and why?

Deas Customary Drivel, Humor, Media, Photos

This post could also be called “Michael Scott’s Cultural Misunderstandings.” Yes, I’ve got 2 more clips from the US version of the The Office that relate to Japan. Wrong, but funny. And the suicide bit does play on a common misconception, anyway. The concierge-cum-geisha, though? I dunno about that. Ha ha. Oh, Michael Scott, how you sadden and delight me simultaneously with your incredible awkwardness. These clips were taken from Episode 7 of Season 5, “Business Trip.”More please!

To conclude, here is the wisdom gained about things Japanese from these clips:

“In Japan, you must always commit suicide to avoid embarrassment.”

“A concierge is the Winnipeg equivalent of a geisha. This is a woman who has been trained in the fine art of fanciness and pleasure. And when you meet one, it is intoxicating. Just what the doctor ordered.”

If you missed the last clip, where some Japanese is spoken (poorly) on The Office, go check it out!

Deas Customary Drivel, Humor, Media, Video

Round 3 is screeching to an awkward halt today in front of your eyes! I thought I might continue this posting series that I started waaay back in early 2007. It’s only 2 posts long thus far, and rather than rewrite, I’ll copy some intro text from the previous installments – I had far less traffic back then, so people may have missed them. Then I’ll move into the stories. I’ve culled 17 primo stories this time, so I’ll post half now and half later this week. Enjoy!

The following stories were written by students at one of my schools during a chain writing activity. I won’t put their names or year in this post. I purposefully left all of the original mistakes in the text – so these are copied verbatim, incorrect capitalization, punctuation, spelling, and grammar included. I have been correcting these for about 2 days, and thought I’d share some of the ones that struck me as particularly interesting. This is not to make fun of their English (though I excuse native speakers who giggle at the funny stuff), but to show what kind of weird stuff comes out when you tell them to write with a time limit and nearly zero direction. It also shows you the level of English that I tend to deal with in high schools. Each story was written by a group of 4 in 5 minute shifts without any outside ideas. I hope you enjoy it.
- Student Stories, 20 February 2007

Ready for round 2? Come and get some love. (Or a suspicious box of bananas, depending on which story you read first.)
- Student Stories Part Deux, 23 February 2007

Alright, on to the good stuff. This time I’ve got images up with the students’ actual handwriting. Because they wrote in pencil, sometimes it can be hard to read. I checked them though, and I feel like most of them are legible. Also – please view them on a screen with an appropriate resolution, or the pop-up will automatically resize them to fit. If you need to read them on a smaller screen, I recommend clicking with your mouse wheel on the links to open the images in tabs.

Which story was your favorite? Let me know in the comments. Ha ha. Fun stuff. Also, if you found these really difficult to read, I’ll put up a plain text copy of the stories. Just let me know!

Deas Customary Drivel, Humor, Media, Photos