Life with English - 英日日記 -

“Special Food on Special Occasions”

VOIS 勉強会

At VOIS, an English-studying group I belong to, we practice interpreting passages about Japanese customs. Today’s topic was “Special food on special occasions”.
I had a hard time doing the assignment! I wanted to cry! (Well, as usual.)
There is a model translation, but to make it easier to remember, I’m writing down in short sentences with some alterations.



In old Japan, people distinguished the ordinary days and the special occasions.
The ordinary days were called “ke” and days with special occasions “hare”.
We had special food for most occasion and we still practice the customs.
For example, we eat “Zoni – vegetable soup with rice cake” on New Year’s Days,
On vernal/autumnal equinoctial days we eat “Ohagi – rice cake covered with sweet bean paste”. On Children’s Day “Kashiwa-mochi - rice cake with sweet bean paste inside wrapped with oak leaves”, “Toshikoshi-soba – buckwheat noodles on New Year’s Eve” and so on.
Today these special foods are available at department stores, etc. So the rule has been relaxed and we eat them on days other than those special days.
But there still are many people who feel they have missed out on something if they don’t eat those foods on the occasions.
In addition to those for traditional “hare” occasions, in Japan we have many different foods for specials days, like “Grilled eels” on the midsummer day, “Xmas cake”, “seven-herb porridge” on Jan. 7, “red-bean porridge” on Jan. 15, and so on.
Do you have some foods specially associated with some occasions?
Turkey on Thanksgiving Day in the U.S. may be an example. Any other examples?


＜メモ＞
tomorrow week 一週間後の明日


Now I remember, I had one Kashiwa-mochi left. I think I'm gonna eat it now... at this late hour...

Saying good-bye.

June 23, 2007

While watching TV shows/DVDs/movies, there are some parts I find odd.

A man and a woman are drawn to each other.
But he has to go to do his mission, and she understands that.
They see each other at her house and he is going to drive away, probably for good.
They say good-bye, and she closes the door.

Hey! No! It shouldn’t be that way. In Japanese custom, well, custom? , we get out of the house and see him off until he left.

Or do I feel so, because I live in the countryside?
People who live in condominiums may say good bye at the door steps.
But it’s not “See you soon” kind of good bye.
And the scenes I saw were all in suburbs in the U.S.

Maybe some security issue is involved.
Like, even a split second, they do not leave house empty.


テレビや映画を見ていて、よく不審に思うことがあります。

お互いに惹かれあっている男女。
でも、男はやらなければならないことがあって行かなければならないのだ。女もそれを理解している。
彼女の家で会ったあと、男は車で町をでる。おそらく永遠に戻っては来ないだろう。
さよならをして、彼女はドアを閉める。

って、オイ！そうじゃないでしょ。
日本の習慣では、あれ、習慣かな？　家からでて彼が車で走り去るまで見送るのよ。

わたしが田舎に住んでいるのでそう思うだけ？
都会のマンションに住んでいる人は玄関先でお別れするかもしれないですね。
でも、「また、会おうね〜」ってお別れじゃないんですよ。
それに、わたしがみたシーンはほとんどアメリカの郊外でのことだった。

安全意識がちがうのかも。ちょっとの間でも、家を留守にしないってことかな？

Tuna and Peanut Butter Sandwich

May 7, 2007


Once I went to a lecture by a Japanese associate professor, Kimie Oshima.
She has promoted Rakugo in English to let the world know the Japanese have a sense of humor.

This is a website about Rakugo in English. http://www.english-rakugo.com/what.html

In the seminar, she told us one of her experiences during her stay in the U.S. as a high school student.
For the very first day of school, her hostmother asked her what kind of sandwiches she liked. Trying to be polite, she mentioned just two kinds; “I like tuna and peanut butter.” In Japan, I would imagine hostmothers would prepare several kinds of sandwiches plus tuna and peanut butter like, ham, egg, cheese, etc.
Can you guess what happenedd to her?

The next day she had tuna and peanut butter BOTH IN ONE SANDWICHES.!
“Eating tuna AND peanut butter sandwich, I thought l have learned too well that this is a cultural difference.” She said so in her lecture and also in her book.

In Japan, when we prepare sandwiches for school lunch or some events, usually we prepare a couple of or several kinds of sandwiches and that is an unspoken understanding, isn’t it?


I have a similar experience.
When I took some of my students to my host parents’ in Ohio, they had told me in e-mail; “We have just got a new BBQ grill in the yard. If the weather is nice, we can enjoy BBQ together.”

In Japan, BBQ consists of meats, vegetables, seafood, noodle, etc.
Now you can guess; the dinner was nice with fruits, soup, home-baked corn bread, and so on, but it was not BBQ we had expected at all. They grilled chicken on the BBQ grill and called it BBQ!　Before the dinner, they asked me, “Which would you like, pork, beef, or chicken?”, and I felt something was different.

If you have similar experiences, please share them with us here!

以前、大島希巳江氏という大学の助教授の講演会にいきました。
この方は、世界に日本人にもユーモアのセンスがあるということを知ってもらうために、英語で落語を提唱、実践している方です。

英語で落語のサイトはこちら。http://www.english-rakugo.com/what.html

講演会で、高校留学時代に経験したことを話してくれました。
初登校するときに、ホストマザーが「どんなサンドイッチがすき？」と聞いてくれたそうです。それで、遠慮してふたつだけ言いました。｢ツナとピーナツバターが好き。｣
日本だったら、ホストマザーは、ツナとピーナツバターだけじゃなくて、ハム、たまご、チーズ、など何種類か作ってくれるでしょう。
どうなったか、わかりますか？

次の日、彼女のサンドイッチはツナとピーナツバターが一緒に入ったものだったそうです！
｢ツナとサンドイッチが一緒に入ったサンドイッチを食べながら、わたしはこれが文化の違いなんだなあと痛感した。｣と、講演でもおっしゃっていて、著書にもかかれていました。

日本では学校やイベントに持っていくときのサンドイッチは、何種類か作るのが暗黙の了解ですよね。


わたしもちょっと似たような経験があります。
生徒をオハイオに連れて行ったとき、ホストファミリーがメールで、「庭にあたらしいバーベキューグリルを買ったのよ。天気がよければ、バーベキューしましょう。」といってきてくれました。

日本では、バーベキューといえば、お肉や野菜、魚介類、焼きそばとかがやりますよね。
もうおわかりでしょうが、ディナーはフルーツやスープ、お手製のコーンブレッドなどすてきなものでしたが、わたしたちが想像していたＢＢＱとはぜんぜん違ってました。ホストファミリーは鶏肉をＢＢＱグリルで焼いて、それをＢＢＱと呼んでたんです！
BBQの前に、「お肉は、豚肉、牛肉、鶏肉のどれがいい？」って聞かれたとき、「あれ？」って思ったんですけどね〜。

似たようなご経験があれば、教えてくださ〜い。

High Moral Standards of the Japanese

Dec. 17, 2006

I picked up my laundry at a dry-cleaner a few days ago.
With the laundry, they gave me back a 500-yen coin which had been left in one of the pockets.
This is the second time a dry-cleaner gave me back money we had totally forgotten about. Last time it was 2,000 yen and it was at a different dry-cleaner.
We didn't realize we had money in our laundry. Even if they had taken advantage of our lapse, no harm would have done to anyone. It can be “No harm, no foul”, right?

Every time I was impressed by their honesty and felt happy.
Please give them a big hand!　Clap, clap, clap!

A lot of people say the moral standards of the Japanese are dropping, but still they are not so bad!
Could this happen in non-Japanese countries?



数日前、クリーニング屋さんで頼んでいたものを受け取りました。
洗濯されたものと一緒に、ポケットの中の忘れ物として500円硬貨を返してくれました。
洗濯物の中にお金を忘れてクリーニング屋さんに返してもらうのはこれで2回目です。この前は2000円で、違うクリーニング屋さんでした。
お金を入れていたことなんて忘れていたので、クリーニング屋さんがそれにつけ込んでも、だれも困る人もいないのに。害がなければ、罪はなし。ですよね。

クリーニング屋さんの正直さに感心してちょっとうれしくなりました。
拍手お願いしま〜す！　パチパチパチ！
日本人の道徳心は悪くなってるといわれてるけど、まだまだそんなには落ちてないですね！
外国ではこういうことって起こりえるんでしょうか？

Differences between the Japanese and the non-Japanese/Americans Part 4

June 24, 2006

10. In conversation, native speakers of English very often call each other by name.

Japanese don’t.

The reason why Japanese don’t call each other by names originated in the belief of “Kotodama”(the Power of words)　in Japan. Ooops, I haven’t written the sequence of the “Kotodama” article I wrote some time ago. I will asap, hopefully.
When native speakers of English chat, very often they call each other by their names. For example, just asking “How are you?” seems something is missing. “How are you, Tom?” sounds better. (Only me?) Addressing to many people, they say “How are you, everyone?” or “How are you, guys?” Even to strangers, they say, “Excuse me, sir /ma’am/miss.” If you can call their names when talking with them naturally, I guess you are advanced speakers of English. Me? Of course, I fall short of it.
On the contrary, when we speak Japanese, we do not call the other’s names because we feel it is rude. It is OK with family members or friends, but if you call your boss like, “Suzuki san”, people may think you lack of common senses. In business, we call our bosses by the titles like “Kacho”(junior manager?) or “Bucho”(manager / vice president).
Moreover, Japanese language is tricky. The safest word equivalent to the English word “You” is “Anata”, I think, but you can’t address to school teachers or bosses by “Anata”. If you do, again, you will be considered rude. In this case, you should call the teachers “Sensei.” meaning “Teacher”.

Somewhere I have heard that in ancient Japan asking women of their names meant proposing marriage. This originated in Kotodama – Power of Words – belief in which they beieved your names were yourselves. To let others know your names meant you accept to be controlled by them.
Another example is the fact that the Japanese Imperial family members have two kinds of names. For example, the crown prince’s name is “Naruhito”, but another name “Hironomiya” is used in stead of the name.

As people’s names often slip my mind, it is convenient for me to do the Japanese way of not calling people’s names in conversation.
But maybe, when I can’t think of what to say, I can earn some time saying, “Well, Suzy,”. Hmm, I should try this tactics.

Do you often call people’s names when you talk with them?

１０．会話の中で、外国人は相手の名前を頻繁に呼ぶ。日本人はあまり呼ばない。　

これは言霊に通じること(おっと、言霊の記事の続きまだかいてなかった。近日中に書きマース。(望))と思うんだけど、外国人は会話の中で頻繁に名前を呼ぶ。たとえば、How are you?　だけでは、なんか足りない感じがする。How are you, Tom? とか、名前をいれるとしっくり感じる。（わたしだけ？）おおぜいのときは、How are you, everyone? とか、How are you, guys? とか、知らない人に話しかけるときでさえ、”Excuseme, sir."とか、呼びかけの言葉が入ることが多い気がする。　会話中に相手の名前をうまく入れられるようになったら、上級の英語学習者なんじゃないだろうか。　わたしはもちろんできてませーん。
これに対し、日本語では相手の名前を呼ぶのは失礼なのであまりよばない。会社で上司のことを｢鈴木さん｣なんて呼びかけたら、ちょっと常識がないと思われてしまうかも。やはりここはタイトルで、｢課長｣とか、｢部長｣とかでしょ。
その上、日本語ってやっかいだよね。英語のYOUにあたる一番無難なのは「あなた」だと思うけど、学校の先生に向かって「あなた」とか、会社で上司のことを｢あなたは｣なんて呼びかけたら、またまたちょっと常識がないと思われてしまうかも。やはりここはタイトルだ、｢先生｣とか。

大昔の日本では、女の人に名前を尋ねるのは結婚を申し込むという意味だった、ということをどこかできいたことがある。これは言霊の考えに基づいていて、名前はその人自身と同じで、名前を知られるということは自分をコントロールされてもいいということと同じだったらしい。天皇家の人たちに名前が二つついているのはこの考えに基づいているらしい。例えば、今の皇太子は徳仁(なるひと)という名前だけど、浩宮(ひろのみや)という称号が本当の名前を呼ぶ代わりに使われている。

わたしは人の名前を覚えるのが苦手なので、日本式に名前を呼ばないほうが好都合だ。
でも、答えが見つからないとき、またはすぐ英語が出てこないとき、”Well, Suzy, “などといってその間に考えるっていう手もあるね。

皆さんは英語を話すとき、自然に相手の名前をいれられますか？