Busy Busy

Finals and presentations out the 'yazoo' or maybe out the 'wazoo.' Busy. Anyway, here is the language presentation I'm giving tomorrow. If you actually understand Japanese please don't read it because it's crap, but if you don't read Japanese then imagine that it's really good. It's a summary of 崖の上のポニョ (Ponyo on the Cliff) There's some presentationy stuff at the beginning, of course.

おはようございます！私はイリノイ大学のショーエスト・マシューです。
では、今から子供映画のあらすじのプロジェクトについての発表を始めます。
まず最初に、このプロジェクトにした理由について話します。
私は日本語で聞くのが上手になりたいので子供映画を勉強しよう思って、このプロジェクトをしました。
次に、プロジェクトについて説明します。崖の上のポニョを見ることに決めました。映画を見た時、ひっきして、日本語であらすじを書きました。
つづいて、私のあらすじをじょうかいします。
映画の始めの時、ポニョはくらげでぬけだします。海の上にあみでとって、びんでひっかかります。そうすけという男の子はポニョをひろってびんをわります。海から水魚の魔物はポニョをつかみにためすけど、そうすけとポニョはそうすけの家に帰ります。そうすけはポニョと学校に行って、おばあちゃんにポニョを見せます。
その後で、水魚の魔物はポニョをつかみます。ポニョのお父さんはふじもとです。ポニョの名前は「ブルンヒルダ」と言います。ポニョは人間になりたがっているから、足と手を作るためにまほうを使います。でも、ふじもとさんはポニョをまどします。
そのあとで、ポニョはねけだして、大きいなまほうをはなちます。それで、大きいつなみを作ります。巨大魚でつなみを乗って、そうすけを探します。
ぼうふうがあるので、そうすけの家にとまります。リサさんはそうすけとポニョにラーメンを作ります。リサさんは老人ホームに手伝いに行きます。ポニョは朝そうすけのおもちゃ船を大きくなります。
ポニョとそうすけはふねを乗ってリサさんをさがします。トンネルに入ってポニョは魚になります。そうすけはふじもととグランマンマレとリサさんをみつけます。グランマンマレは「そうすけはポニョが大好きで、ポニョは人間になるけどまほうをなくす」と言います。海の上にそうすけはポニョとキスしてポニョは人間になります。
最後に、このプロジェクトで、新しい言葉と漢字を習いました。
以上ではっぴょうを終わります。ご成長ありがとうございました。

早口言葉 - Tongue Twisters

In language class we've been learning a few Japanese tongue twisters. This video is one we learned today: 東京特許許可局 tokyo tokkyo kyokakyoku

We've also learned:
-バスガス爆発 - basu gasu bakuhatsu - bus gas explosion
-生麦、生米、生卵 - namamugi namagome namatamago - raw wheat, raw rice, raw egg (raw meaning uncooked? this kanji has tons of meanings)

And longer ones:
-蛙ぴょこぴょこ三ぴょこぴょこ合わせてぴょこぴょこ六ぴょこぴょこ
-裏庭には二羽庭には二羽鶏がいる

Speed dubbed on Japanese TV

Yeah, this is the most amazing thing in the world.

Random Tidbits

There are many things I've learned about Japan or Japanese culture that don't require an entire post, so I'm dedicating this post to some of those things. (I'll number them so I can add more later)



1. The Japanese are very concerned with cleanliness. (for garbage) Whenever they feel the need to place a trash can somewhere, there will be 4 different ones. One for cans, one for bottles, one for burnable trash, and one for nonburnable trash. It's moderately difficult as an American to know which place to drop our trash since we just have 'trash,' and in some cases 'recyclables.' The streets and buildings are very clean, it's rare to see trash on the sidewalk. (not sure if this is true of tokyo as well?) The crazy thing about it is that it is very hard to actually find trash cans. They're usually only next to vending machines. I think it's amazing that an entire society has this level of cleanliness, it's definitely something Americans need to learn.



2. The Japanese expect much better service from their car companies than we do in America. Our culture told us a story of one of his friends who wanted to install sensors on his back bumper to help with backing up and parallel parking (super tiny spaces in Japan). The dealer came to his house with an array of sensors for him to look at and decide which one. After he had decided, the dealer asked him what time was good to pick up the car. Since he had to commute to work to Tokyo everyday, he needed the car picked up before 4:30am, which was no problem for the dealer. After the car was serviced, he brought it back. This is the kind of service that Japanese are used to from car companies, and that's why American companies don't do well or don't even try to sell cars in Japan. And that's just the service, they also care a lot about the quality of the cars too, and nowadays the eco aspects too.

3. In Japan, it's not socially acceptable to walk while you're eating in public. Drinking and walking is just slightly better. Prettty weiirrdd.

Home Stay

Yesterday (Saturday), everyone spent a day with Japanese families in Kanazawa. Some people were alone and others went in pairs. (Randomly assigned?) I was in a pair with Ricky. The couple that picked us up from the dorm was pretty much the cutest old couple that exists. They picked us up at 2pm and we went for a drive. The first place we went to was a Zen Buddhist cemetary near their house. That sounds a bit creepy, but it's a really cool place. It's spread out throughout a hilly wooded area with a temple in the back. We rang a giant bell with a big log. Yeah, pretty awesome. Out front of the cemetary was a pretty great overview of Kanazawa.


After that, we went to a fresh foods market called Omicho Market. It was amazing. It had what I can only assume is almost every kind of sea creature. There was buckets of octopus tentacles of bowls of weird black goop. They bought us some ice cream while we walked around. Tip: eating ice cream while constantly smelling fish is not a good idea.

Finally, we went to their house for a barbecue. Once we got to their house, we met their two daughters and his mother, who was 90 years old. Both of their daughters were married, the oldest to a chinese man she met while studying mandarin in China. They had a son, who was 7. We went to their backyard to chill out and talk. Another exchange student was there for the day too, but she was Chinese. She had also been studying Japanese for one year, and surprisingly she was at about our level. The problem was, of course, that she didn't speak English. The good news was, that Mr. Chinese Yoshi could speak Mandarin, Japanese, and English. He gave us his business card. He told us if we ever wanted to go to China we could e-mail him and he could set us up. >_<

We spent abour four hours there just hanging out, talking, and eating. Once it got dark they brought out some sparkler-like fireworks for us to play with. The little kid plead with his mom for a lot of the time to be able to light two of them at once. She finally gave it at the very end after jo-chan had lit two.

They actually got watermelon for us, which supposedly is pretty expensive in Japan.

Picture with me and Ricky, Jo-chan, the head of the house, his daughter and her husband and their kid Hand-held fireworks

The homestay was one of the most fun experiences I've had so far in Japan. =)

A note on Japanese money, also, creatures!

I knew going in beforehand that Japan is a mainly cash society. It is common to have as much as 2 to 3 hundred dollars on your person at a time. What I didn't know was that the smallest bill was 1000yen, or 10 dollars. Lower than 10 dollars is all in coins. Yup. There are 500, 100, 50, 10, 5, and 1 yen coins. They look like this:

I'm still getting used to treating coins and actual valuable money. Also, it doesn't help that the 1 yen coin feels like monopoly money. Sometimes I run out of bills and go 'crap, i'm out of money...' only to discover I still have over 10-20 dollars in coins. As far as bills go, I've only seen 1000, 5000, and 10000 yen bills. (10,50,100 dollars, roughly)

Now for creatures! I've had the pleasure of running into a few animals that were not concerned at all that we were there. Here's a compilation of some of these doubutsu (animals).

Things you may not know about Japanese culture!

(This is what I have learned in culture class, if anyone thinks am I wrong, and by extension my professor, please say so, I am only repeating roughly what he told us)


There are many aspects of everyday Japanese life and culture that Americans, even those going to work in Japan, are never told. Some of these things are very important to know when forming friendships and relationships, both personal and business, with Japanese people.

Firstly, the Japanese are very harsh when it comes to drunk driving. Because of this, Japan has an extremely low drunk driving rate. Many times, if you are arrested for drunk driving it may make it to national news. Getting arrested means you will almost certainly be fired from your job. Beyond the legal blood alcohol level, in normal Japanese situations consumption of any alcohol (even one beer) means you shouldn't drive home. In downtown areas there are many taxis with two drives, one will drive you home in his taxi, and the other will follow you in your car. The Japanese are very concerned with responsibilty and respecting other people, so putting yourself and others in danger when it can be easily avoided is social suicide.

For relationships with other people, making friends carries with it much more responsibility and obligation than in American culture. If you are friends with someone, it commonly brings with it a level of obligation to the other person that in America you may only give to your family and very close friends, if that. Because of this, on average most Japanese have a smaller group of friends than Americans, but their networks can reach much further. Ignoring these aspects of the friendship can cost you a lot some of the time, as that lost friend may spread the word that you are not honorable to other people. Many businessman are hesitant to make many new friends, as it usually means that they will have obligations to use company resources to help the other person if they are in need, when they may not always be able to afford it. In this way, many men depend on their wives to make connections to other wives and thus their husbands for business interests that do not have that long term obligation. (As long as their wife doesn't have a career of her own)

This relationship culture also affects dating strongly. In America, you could meet a person in a bar, or in some public place, go out to dinner and a movie together and then decide if you are interested enough in that person to continue going out. In Japan, you can't just approach some person in public you find attractive and start chatting them up. There are very intricate social circles that exist; it isn't easy to cross the boundaries at will. Usually you may meet a person through someone else, and hang out with them in groups for a long time before even considering going somewhere alone. An 'American style' date would be fairly serious for a Japanese couple. If a couple is frequently going out alone then their families will soon expect that they will become engaged. For Americans, this seems sort of silly since it's precisly those kind of dates where you really get to know a person to tell if you can live the rest of your life with them.

That's all for now, maybe I'll write a little more later. I'm always open for a discussion too if anyone has any comments or questions.