Chase the Gaijin

Sorry I haven’t been updating. I don’t know the exact details, but apparently the internet connection in the house was swallowed by the Great World Tree. I think I might try posting some stuff later, but it’s not going to be nearly as much, nor as often, as before.

(Imagine this in a Boston accent for no good reason)

So there I was, just off the plane from Tokyo to Osaka and I’m looking for the person I’m meeting. I didn’t have a cell phone at the time so I get tired of waiting for them at the international gates – they’re not there – so I go searching for them. I look everywhere and, since I can’t find them at all, in the end decide to use a pay phone. In the process I run into some African guy at the train station (there’s always phones at the train station). After getting in touch with them I ask the guy if he needs any help since he keeps trying to call someone and looks lost and very confused.

So what happened with him is that he has some friends in Japan and he came to visit(?). He arrives in Osaka, at night, and he doesn’t know where to go. He tried to call his friends, but ended up doing something incorrect and lost all the minutes on his phone card (it wasn’t a lot of minutes). We got him straightened out only to find that his friends live in Tokyo. WTF. So we write some stuff on a piece of paper for him so that he can find a cheap hotel and then take the train to Tokyo the next day.

Nice kid, but what kind of friend doesn’t tell their friend which airport is closest to them and/or doesn’t meet them at the airport?

You guys have seen this already right? It’s a new Wii game called Muscle March and (at least in Japan) it’s coming out soon. Even if you don’t have/want/like the Wii, it’s worth watching the clip.

I just spent part of today biking from one city (Osaka) to a new one (Kyoto) since that’s where I’ll be for the time being. How about we learn bicycle words: 自転車 (じてんしゃ, bicycle) and 乗る (のる, to ride).

Example 1:
あの自転車に乗ってた女子は矢で俺の心を射た。
あのじてんしゃにのってたじょしはやでおれのこころをいた。
That woman who was riding on a bicycle shot me in the heart with an arrow.

Example 2:
電車に乗りながらお菓子を食べたらぶっ殺す。
でんしゃにのりながらおかしをたべたらぶっころす。
If you eat snacks while riding on the train I’ll friggin’ kill you.

I think you know what do; if you don’t then … you don’t.

Some streets are too small so Google decided to ‘mount‘ high school girls and capture the smaller streets.

Every year Mercer Human Resource Consulting releases a list every year that always gets airplay; unfortunately, this list isn’t what everyone thinks, but that’s usually what happens when the press gets something that doesn’t fit in a sound byte. You know it as “The World’s Most Expensive Cities“, but this isn’t the full name; the actual name is “List of most expensive cities for expatriate employees” and not many people really know what or how it’s calculated.

One of the main problems is that they hold the finer details of how everything is calculated away from prying eyes; you end up knowing what they’re looking at (isn’t it blindingly obvious?), but you don’t know the exacts: are they buying what everyone else eats?, do they live in an up-scale place?, where do their kids go to school? These are all simple things to those that grew up in the area (or lived there for a while), but it can be very different for anyone that is only there for business.

Almost every magazine/website that writes about the list drops the “expatriate employee” thing, but this is the thing that gives you the correct perspective of the whole list; this list isn’t telling you the most expensive city in the world, it’s a list for companies who are sending mid/high level employees to another country. This fact brings along other things that help you see the list for what it really is; this is a list that shows you if the life for someone living in Manhattan would be more or less expensive in another city. They don’t take into consideration any government subsidies or cultural norms that would affect diet, where someone lives, how large of a place they would be living in, fashion, and other possessions.

Honestly, I don’t have much of a problem with Mercer’s list – they openly state the main purpose of the list – my issue is that this is consistently misreported, which gives you this and this. Since it’s reported the way that it does it’s actually quite difficult to find which city is actually the most expensive to live in (it’s certainly not Moscow); there are other lists that you can find, but they are all geared toward western habits. Some lists aren’t bad, but none of them tell us what we are led to believe.

Your snarling reflex has been thoroughly flexed?

Since they’re related to the earlier lessons, let‘s do name prefixes! There are the main ones: さん (Mr/Mrs), 様 (さま Mr/Mrs [more polite]), くん／ちゃん ([man/woman] casual); but there are others that aren’t as common: 殿 (どの, Mr/Mrs [very polite] ) and 閣下 (かっか, your excellency). Let’s get right to it.

Example 1:
ディロンさん、神様を信じませんので、地獄はこちらですね。
ディロンさん、かみさまをしんじませんので、じごくはこちらですね。
Mr. Dillon, because you didn’t believe in God, Hell is this way.

Example 2:
ビーバ閣下、一番美しい方です。
ビーバかっか、いちばんうつくしいかたです。
Oh most excellent Beaver, you are the most beautiful person.

Example 3:
倖田 來未：ドラえもん君、助けてくれない？
こうだくみ：ドラえもんくん、たすけてくれない？
Koda Kumi: Won’t you help me, Doraemon?

ドラえもん：くうちゃん、あんたは歌うまくないよ。助けられない。
ドラえもん：くうちゃん、あんたはうたうまくないよ。たすけられない。
Doraemon: Kumi, your singing sucks; I can’t help you.

Also pretty easy, but sometimes the translation makes things more difficult.

I suggest finding earless cats to help you learn quickly.