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I met with Kisako yesterday afternoon for our tutor hour, which turned out
to last for about 5 hours! I met lots of Kisako’s friends from her course,
as well as lots of teachers. Everyone was really nice, and very curious
about England. One was a teacher of Japanese literature, and was pleased
to learn that I had an interest in Japanese novels and poetry. Another was
a teacher of English literature, which sparked off conversations about
Charles Dickens and Charlotte Bronte. Yet another, a teacher of English
pronunciation who had once taught in America, expressed his love of the
British accent – he says it sounds very musical compared to American
English, which he uses (and very well!). Moreover, he also had a romantic
English poem that some of his students had written, and wanted me to check
if the English was ok. There were a few mistakes, but overall I thought it
was a really impressive poem to be written in a foreign language!
The students also set about giving me a kanji name, based on the sounds of
my English name. For Megan (ME-GA-N in Japanese), the options were
“Bud-Wish,” “Blessing” (for just Meg, which sounds very much like the
Japanese name Megu), “Give Me-Anko” (very apt) or the amusing “Eye-Face!”
For Balanck (BA-RA-N-KU), the options were the beautiful
“Leaf-Orchid-Palace,” the colourful “Banana-Orchid-Black Jewel” or
“Horse-War-Bitter,” which apparently looks like a Yakuza name. The Yakuza
like to corrupt Japanese words and names by changing the kanji to those
with negative meanings, but with the same pronunciation. Thus, in Yakuza
language, the phrase “YO-RO-SHI-KU,” which simply means “pleased to meet
you,” is written “Night-Tears-Death-Bitter!”
Now I’ve got some possible kanji names, I might get myself a hanko – a
personal name stamp that the Japanese use instead of a signature for
identification and documents. Nick has already got a hanko (which says
“Niku” – the kanji for “Meat!”), and it’s very cool.
In the evening, we went out to a hyaku-en sushi restaurant, where all the
dishes on the rotating sushi conveyor belt cost just 105 yen – just over
50p! It was all very tasty – I ate my way through nine dishes, but the
really champion of the night was Ian, who ate 22!
Andy, and his stack of finished plates at the hyaku-en sushi joint
Ellie peering over my stack of finished plates (nine).
None of us could beat Ian - he had 22! All these plates stacked up
here are Ian's! We rounded
off the night with a trip to Sanctuary, where there was a rather amusing
incident where Tom, Oliver (a German student) and Nick were groped by a
drunken Japanese man at the bar! I thought only women had to worry about
such occurrences in Japan…apparently not…
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