Originally Posted by
MickR
Well it's a bit of a long yarn to get it all in context, but if you're up for it along with a bit of extra bits added on to round the story out...
This was my third day in the US, and my first day on tour with a small group of 12 counting the Driver. It was a bit of a whirlwind start to this tour, and as such no one had really had much chance to meet with, or get to know the others in the group…Well they may have, but I had spent the day up front with the driver, a nice bloke called Jeff Kehoe from Schenectady County NY. And had yet to meet with any of the other tourists.
This is the story of an Australians first attempt at conversational Japanese, which took place near the shores of Lake Ontario, 23/06/2004, 2115hrs. The drizzle had closed in and the breeze was up. I had donned, what we here in Australia call a ‘Driza-Bone’. In America it would be called a ‘Slicker’. Both being long coats, worn by horsemen to keep the rain off.
Standing by the fire, I noticed how everyone seemed to have divided themselves up into groups of nationality. Three girls who were travelling separately were from the UK, and were talking amongst themselves. A Russian-American, and an American girl were talking to each other and the Jeff. An Australian bloke was talking to my wife and two Japanese girls were talking to themselves…In Japanese. This left myself and another Japanese girl who seemed to be being excluded by the other two Japanese.
I saw that she looked a little lost, lonely and left out, and thought she might have trouble joining in with other groups due to a language barrier. Now I’m not much of a talker amongst new people myself, but I could see this was not usually the case with this young lady, and I took pity on her. So I turned to her, smiled, and said, “Anatano namae wa nan desku?” Well actually I think it was more like “Anatanonamaenandesku?” However, she seemed to understand, returned my smile and said, “Reiko Kakita. Anatano namae wa nan desku?” To which I replied, “Namae wa, Mick.”
A silence had descended on the camp, and I noticed all eyes were staring at me. Jeff broke the stunned silence with, “What…the…F**k! You’re standing there…In your akubra hat! Your driza-bone! And elastic sided boots…Looking like your stereotypical Australian bushman…And then you turn around and speak Japanese?! What the f**k?!?! Whaddidyousay?! WhereddidyalearntospeakJapanese?!” I told him, I simply asked for Reiko’s name, and she replied and asked me mine. I had picked up a little Japanese because of all the Japanese tourists back home.
It was from this point, that I was looked on by the Japanese girls, as a friend…And when it came to it…Their translator. Even though, for the most part, they spoke perfectly good English. Certainly far superior to my Japanese. People couldn’t seem to understand them. Even my wife was guilty of this. I put it down to other people’s lack of listening skills. I had no problems in understanding anything they said in English.
I later found out, even though I wasn’t fluent in Japanese, I could be understood…but it was better if I slowed down more. I only found his out when I asked a new Japanese arrival to our group, four weeks later, her name, and she said, “Huh???” So I slowed it down…really slow…I mean really slow. But I didn’t know how slow it sounded! I soon found out when she then replied, “Kiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiimmmmmmmmmmmmmiiiiiiiiiiiii iiiiiiiiikoooooooooo!”And burst out laughing. So naturally I did too. And became best mates with Kimiko at the same time.
Hisako Fukushima wanted to learn Aussie swearing, and the first time she came out with “Mick ya stupid bl**dy b@rst@rd!” in her accented English, I just about choked on my sandwich laughing. She was the comedian of that lot, and we got along really well, constantly ‘taking the p!$$’ out of each other.
On this trip we also met up with a second, separate, tour group from the same company, from time to time, and I found that I was also popular with the three Korean girls in this group, but with one more so than the other two. However I think that was more a case of ‘take a photo of me with the giant’ more than anything else. At least with the other two. I think perhaps the one girl did genuinely like me. Judging by the way she liked to cuddle up, bumped up against me in the pool, shared a recliner chair etc. I never once forgot that I was a newly married man. Many a time I wished I wasn’t though, but that’s how it goes I suppose :D.
Mick
