English is everywhere.
Advertisements use English for effect, everyone says ‘bye-bye’ and lots of English words are used just with a more Japanese pronunciation - like ‘ice cream’, which comes out ‘aisu cremu’. I found several examples in a Japanese text I’m starting to study. ‘Koru bakku’ means to return a phone call (‘call back’ for the linguistically challenged), ‘mane kado’ is Japanese for ‘money card’ even though the Japanese for money is ‘okane’. Actually, I’m not sure just what a money card is. It’s not a credit card. Japanese for credit card is ‘kurejitto kado’. ‘Mane kado’ is like English words for a Japanese item without an English equivalent, which makes it doubly weird. According to this book, there’s also a ‘kyasshu kado’ (cash card) which is an ATM card, but I suppose a ‘mane kado’ could be the same thing. The book isn’t all that clear and I doubt if I’ll be using it much. In the clothes section, the book also taught me how to say ‘gabardine’ and ‘pique’ in Japanese (‘gyabajin’; ‘pike’), but I can’t see any way to work ‘gabardine’ into a conversation right offhand and I don’t even know what ‘pique’ means in English, so I don’t think I need to add it to my Japanese vocabulary.
These are some more pictures from my apartment. The building is one apartment wide - my front windows look out over the street and from my back windows, I have a nice view of the New Ace pachinko parlor and a couple of parking lots, actually published in yesterday's post. In the distance, there are mountains on all sides and the view can be very pretty in the evening with the sunset, as here, and in the morning when there's a bit of fog in the foothills.
What I found strange today was that the train that I take to work gives station announcements in Japanese and English, too. Now you may think this is very polite and very handy for English speakers in a foreign land and you’re right. The bullet train to Kyoto and Osaka has English announcements and I’m sure it comes in quite handy for travelers on that popular route. The thing is, I live out in the countryside and as far as I can tell, I’m the only person on the train that the announcement could be helpful for and since I only have to go one stop to get to work, I don’t think I’m going to get lost all that often. But it’s like the whole system was put in place just for me.
Put it in perspective - outside of airports in the U.S., where do you ever hear announcements in Japanese or any other language for the benefit of tourists? Of course, in California, where I’m from, there’s an effort made to include Spanish speakers in the daily signs and announcements. The thing is, I can’t figure out if it’s being polite or being condescending. I was in a Home Depot in California recently and noticed that the bathroom signs were in English and Spanish. What does the management think? If the signs aren’t in their language, Spanish-speaking people aren’t going to be able to figure out what ‘toilet’ means? That’s more insulting than accommodating. That’s what the little universal ‘man’, ‘woman’ signs are for, anyway.
And speaking of toilets, there ARE public restrooms everywhere in Japan. In California, I don’t know how many times I’ve had to sneak into a fast-food restaurant when I’m driving somewhere, pretending to be a customer just to use the facilities. Of course, one reason there aren't many public restrooms in the U.S. is vandalism, which is rare in Japan. How did I get on to this anyway?
Oh, yeah. There was a group of Jehovah's Witnesses outside the train station tonight. They were handing out pamphlets and magazines, of course, but aside from the strange feeling I had on seeing Witnesses in Japan (actually similar to the feeling I have seeing them in the U.S.), they had a sign in English offering to send out free copies of the Watchtower. No surprise about the magazines, but English? Why? I felt rather targeted again, since I was the only person in town that might possibly need to see that information in English. That was a lot of work to go to for... nothing. I almost felt like signing up to reward them for the effort. Almost. I wonder if they know where I live...
Anyway, English in Japan is endlessly fascinating to me and it’s going to pop up here quite often, so stay tuned.
