Darlo's World

Talking to strangers is something that’s been drilled into our heads since the early days of ‘Stranger Danger’, roughly the same time as I recieved one of those ‘Green Cross Code’ card holder … things. Also as I’ve previously discovered trying to start up a random conversation with someone you don’t know can at times be like trying to get a five year old to recite the complete life on Henry the Eighth in detail in Latin. This obviously gets enhanced further when you (wish that you) have the speaking capabilities of someone roughly a fifth of your age (aka a five year old).

However once in a while an anomoly occurs and you get some little smart-arse who’s studied nothing but English Classics in their short little lives and can do such a task. This in turn must mean that there is hope for people wishing to strike up a conversation, even a short one, with a complete stranger and not have it go AOT like someone carrying something very expensive and slipping on a pile of mochi.

To the point then. Today a friend and I were in a park in Umeda practicing kanji on white boards and seemed to draw the attention of a (possibly) homeless man. As he came closer I saw him staring down at my whiteboard (covered in miscellaneous kanji combinations). I explained to him we were doing kanji practice and our conversation began.

The conversation ended as quickly as it started as he went off to join some friends a few meters away and we continued our kanji practice. After a while, partly due to boredom and the kanji for the name 今井 (Imai), we ended up playing a few games of noughts and crosses, followed by me testing whether or not my friend new へのへのもへじ (henohenomoheji).

Quote from Wikipedia

Henohenomoheji (へのへのもへじ) or hehenonomoheji (へへののもへじ) is a face drawn by Japanese schoolchildren using hiragana characters.

The word breaks down into the seven hiragana characters he（へ）, no（の）, he（へ）, no（の）, mo（も）, he（へ）, ji（じ）. The first two “he” are the eyebrows, the two “no” are the eyes, the “mo” is a nose, and the last “he” is the mouth. The outline of the face is made by the character “ji”, with the dakuten forming the ear. Children use henohenomoheji as the faces of kakashi (scarecrows).

This have caught the ears of our visitor who had returned and seemed very eager to show us some other variations of the game. Unfortunately I never had the chance to ask him what they were that he drew, but I did take some photographs of them, and will ask some friends when I next see them.

Speaking of photos, there’re going to be new photo’s on the blogspot page daily for a while! In the mean time, here’s a video of Darth Vader (aka Dave Prowse from Bristol) doing what he does best. Also, did you know R2D2 (aka Kenny Baker) was a Brummie? o_O

Ok, mistake number 1 has been rectified, I have changed the month of the previous journal to December. I’m not sure why I did write it as November, maybe I’m just trying to turn back the clocks so I can stay in Japan for as long as possible.

For the vast majority of the week I’ve been either revising for our end of semester Japanese exams or taking said tests. Starting with the Kaiwa (conversation) test on Wednesday, I chose not to volunteer to go first like I did for the mid-terms. Instead going 2nd to last thanks to the reverse alphabetical order system used. Still, I was pretty pleased with how I performed. However, shortly afterwards I realised that a lot of what I had said was complete and utter non-sense. Still, I hope what I managed to blather on about can save me again, just as it did in Leeds last year.

Thursday was the usually dreaded Kanji test, where we were tested on the first 3 chapters of AIAIJ; the 102 pre-requisite kanji, 125 written kanji and 101 kanji readings (though some of the kanji readings do cross over into the written kanji). Although Wednesday night I did work my ass off trying to remember as much as I could, with time restraints I could only get as far as mastering chapter 1 (50 kanji). However, realising it was possible to master a chapter of kanji in one night made me realise that given the coming winter holiday it just might be possible to really buckle down with kanji practice, something I’ve always struggled with.

Thursday was also host to our reading exam, where we were given two short stories to read and asked various questions upon them. One story was about a trip to … somewhere and it was … cold or something … yeah I don’t really remember that well. The other story I remember more about because it was quite funny. A foreigner (aka one of us ^_^) was talking about how trains in Japan are different to whatever country he’s from (it’s not mentioned). One time he noticed someone couldn’t get off the train (due to it being totally packed) and they looked like they were going to cry. But then at his station he couldn’t get off either. As it looked like the doors were going to close he wanted to say “Oroshite kudasai!” (please let me off) however in his confused state it came out as “Koroshite kudasai!” (please kill me). This in turn made everone get out of his way.

Yesterday was going to be the final test day, where we have a listening test followed by the main grammar test (aka The Biggie). Normally after this day’s testing we can relax a little more, or work on the one or two projects left outstanding. Due in next week is a linguistics project where I look at various aspects of Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei (Goodbye Mr Despair), but more about that another day.

The reason I used “was” is because I didn’t get around to taking them. Yesterday at around 3 in the morning I woke up and had to be sick. To put it in the nicest possible way, I had to make several trips to a toilet throughout the morning.

When it came to my usual time to leave for uni, I considered the possibility of staying home, but given that the test was that day I decided to ‘man up’ and head in. After stopping at two stations (for reasons that should now be obvious … hmm … from now I’ll call it ‘painting the bowl’, it sounds a lot more pleasant) I managed to get to Uni five minutes late, not yet missing the first test (listening).

After hamming my way through the listening test we had a short break. I used this time to go and paint the bowl. When I left the bog there was a member of the KIEC staff waiting for me. I was told that I didn’t have to do the test that day and could take a make-up test on Monday. Knowing this was the case, I wanted to get myself properly checked over so asked if there was a doctor nearby who understood English.

Being sick is no fun, but being sick in a country where English isn’t the primary language is not only no fun, but it’s also difficult. Don’t get me wrong, I know I’m in Japan and people shouldn’t have to be able to speak English just because I don’t speak Japanese well (something some of the other exchange students need to learn), but I thought going to an English understanding doctor could at least be a little bit easier on me.

Ironically throughout this whole excapade I found myself using Japanese for the vast majority of conversations with doctors, staff members and so on, and even learned some new vocab that wasn’t covered (i don’t think) in my text books, such as tenteki (drip).

To cut down what happened yesterday I went to the doctor, was put on a drip, slept, went to the Uni’s sick room, slept, went back to the doctor, was put on another drip, slept, got a taxi home, slept.

Today I went with my dorm manager to a local hospital to get checked up, but thankfully needed no more drips and was told I could start eating again. After that I came home and had a quick rest before writing this.

I really owe a huge thanks to all the KIEC staff members, my dorm manager and doctors for helping me out during that tricky period, especially those who accompanied me to the various locations.

Thank you

In other news, I probably won’t be able to walk to Shirakawa this side of new year. It’s not because of health reasons, but I’d forgotten that I actually had another assignment due for Leeds Uni shortly after New Year, so I really should get that done as a priority. But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to do the walk, it just means it’ll be a little bit warmer when I do.

Oh, I’ve still not got around to having a shave yet, but here’s an animation of a beard design I considered.

And on that note, I’m off to bed.