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It’s local election time again in Japan. Candidates stand outside train stations wielding megaphones and wishing everyone good morning. Signs are erected with the various candidate’s posters extolling their virtues with winning smiles.
Wait a minute winning smile? That’s a grimace of the first order! Come on man you can do it! Stretch those mouth muscles! No don’t cry, smile! Smile!
I had my teeth x-rayed and checked and they found evidence of decay in 14 teeth.
After that bombshell, they said they were going to fix them.
I’m not scared of the dentist. I am afraid of a mistranslation that sees me agreeing to having my teeth removed against my wishes.
WHAT THE HELL DOES FIX MEAN ANYWAY?
In my confused state I tried to picture what fixing it meant under these circumstances and failed.
The only thing I could think of was total extraction.
After a long impasse he drew what he was going to do to me. He drew an excellent tooth (he is a dentist after all) and showed him chiselling away a part of it and then putting some stuff in the gap. This sounded okay so I agreed to it.
Make a fist with your right hand, place your left hand on your right bicep and make an upward thrusting motion with your right arm and allegedly this means Ganbatteor Try Hard/Good luck.
This is instead of the other Western meaning of I’d prefer if you’d go away/be quiet. A motion that is giving us great amusement at our work.
I do it to the kids and fellow colleagues. One day it’s going to get me in trouble though.
Thanks to Japan Probe, I came across a YouTube video of a Japanese programme I’d seen on TV. It is about Japanese who marry foreigners.
It was about a slightly ditzy Australian woman who’d been in Japan for 7 years yet still could not speak Japanese. She needs her husband to help her with buying household goods - going as far as calling him up at work and asking him to talk to the salesperson.
7 years is a long time for her to be in a foreign country and not have an adequate understanding of the language but I can sympathize.
I recently called Reiko up to ask her for help in ordering an English textbook not on display. I have a moderate understanding of Japanese but get flustered when put in new situations or when the salesperson treats me as an honourable customer and uses excessively complicated turns of phrase.
I’m a fervent supporter of bicycles and I’m in favour of their use above cars. I can’t drive and so I commute by bicycle or public transport.
There is a busy pavement in Namba, Osaka centre between Namba station and Den Den Town which is very wide. Unfortunately 2/3 of this is taken up with illegally parked bicycles as you can see above. It is so frustrating that this reduces the people flow to two single file lines especially when you’re in a rush. This scenario is repeated all over Osaka and Japan.
There needs to be some sort of bicycle parking which is easy to use, affordable and doesn’t inconvenience cyclist or pedestrian before I go on a massive rampage destroying all illegally parked bicycles.
I was looking through my iPod the other day and was struck by how many songs started with I. It starts with I’d give you anything and ends with I would have left you.
Definitions of self
I am a rock
I am love
I am the Walrus
Only’s
I just don’t know
I just want to have something
I just want to touch her
Likes
I like Chinese
I like dirt
I love George Best
Wants
I wanna be sedated
I wanna be where you are
I wanna be your boy
I wanna rock
I want a little girl
I want an alien for Christmas
I want it all
I want some
I want to break free
I want to hold your hand
I want to tell you
I want you (She’s so heavy)
I want you around
I want you back
I want your girlfriend to be my girlfriend
Past and future
I was a lover
I was made to love you
I will
I would have left you
Did they ever get the chance?
Did they ever do it?
I went to the dentist the other day 
