Post-Neo-Classical-Comedic Comments

Monday 30th March 1998

Humour | General | Work | National stereotypes | More TV | Competition | Fridge Update | Japlish

You know, it's not easy being funny all the time. Even once a week can be a bit straining, to be honest. We at Tokyo Tales fully recognise this, and cleverly subvert the issue by pledging never to be funny. Ever.

If it occasionally seems that a would-be "joke" has fallen flat, then you can rest assured that it was in fact cunningly designed to collapse under its own weight in what is actually a post-neo-classical-comedic comment on the very nature of humour. It was not, I repeat not, meant to work in the first place.

Tokyo Tales - consistency is our watchword.

But a better one would probably be something like "quartz".

General

Life is pretty good right now. The weather has picked up a bit, so the walk home from the station each night isn't quite so chafing. I might as well enjoy it while it lasts, as it won't be long before the humidity kicks in, and the cockroaches break out. The cherry blossoms are blooming now, as well, which is more significant here than it might sound. Japanese make a big deal of going for picnics under the blossoms and, unsurprisingly perhaps, getting completely inebriated in the process. In Britain I don't think we'd even bother inventing such a flimsy excuse, somehow.

In addition, I've bought a Playstation, to while away those boring evenings when I would otherwise be doing something useful like my washing, or learning a new language. I've got a driving game which is so realistic that it actually requires you to take and pass a number of tests before you can get a racing license; not reading Japanese, though, it took me about 45 minutes to work out what I had to do for the first exercise, which turned out to be "drive in a very straight line for 400 metres and then stop in a box painted on the tarmac". This could be a long, long summer.

Work

What *is* scary is the notion that I am now an experienced teacher. Three months in, and the new teachers have of course arrived, so I'm now meant to be fully versed in living in Japan. I hardly like to admit that I still don't know where the nearest laundromat is, or that I still prefer to take my empty cans to the bin next to the vending machine down the road rather than wash them, sort them into a semi-transparent bag, and leave them out at 8:30 in the morning of the 3rd Friday of every month.

Work, 7-11, dry cleaner's, sofa, Playstation, Internet cafe. What more do you need? I'm sure my mother could think of a few things.

National stereotypes

Even though most of my free time is now spent trying to decipher the Japanese script for things like "lightweight clutch" and "soft compound tyre", I am finding time to catch the odd bit of telly. I've discovered that all the various language programmes tend to paint rather stereotypical views of the nations they represent. Over the last couple of weeks, the messages they seem to be sending have been:

* The French make crepes
* Brits are hypochondriacs
* Italians go to concerts and museums
* Germans don't wash ("Drei monate habe ich night gebadet")

So, no surprises there, then.

What is particularly funny is watching the English language programme, with a Japanese woman patiently explaining everything to camera in Japanese punctuated with the odd phrase like "have a fever", "paracetemol" and "stomach pump", and an English girl slowly voicing choice phrases off an autocue - "Tell me where it hurts. (pause) Tell me where it hurts. (pause) You'll be fine in a couple of days. (pause, etc)".

You can see her trying very hard not to smile between phrases, and not quite managing it. I can see her point, it is a fairly ridiculous job. TV company: "Here's lots of money and a spot on TV." English girl: "Thank you. Here is some old rope.(pause) Here is some old rope." I could probably cope with keeping a straight face, but then, I have had a lot of practice recently; like that time I had an adult class all chorusing "Really? How interesting" like the Harry Enfield aliens. Superb stuff.

One great TV programme, though, has a camera crew with a bilingual gaijin presenter roaming the streets, asking people to explain something to them (an example of a recent misunderstanding, for instance) first in Japanese and then in their inevitably fractured English. We're not just talking pigeon English, either - it's more of a bastard albatross, really.

This has produced some top Japlish; one recent "explanation" went something like this:

'So we are walk, walk... and she has big... very big...uh huh, and I am "No way!" "No way!"... and I hand... hand is... I don't see, and... you know? Brash? Brash? [presenter looks suitably confused at this point] [the guy mimes a groping action] Brash her, and he is [suddenly shouts] "Sit down! Sit down!" [Presenter looks very confused and sheepish, and sits down in the street - hilarity for the studio audience].

Looking back at what I've just typed, I realise that it makes almost no sense at all, which is actually pretty indicative of how it sounded at the time, so it stays. All of this happens with subtitles, too, just to make sure you don't miss anything. It all gets too much after a while, though, when it starts to become just a bit too similar to my day job for comfort...

Competition

Congratulations to all of you (um, well, both of you, anyway) who responded to the last question with such feeling. You will all be receiving something through the post any day now. Probably a letter, or a bill. Maybe some junk mail. If you've got a bank account, then presumably you get sent statements once in a while, in which case I'm sure the next one will be along shortly. In the meantime, please ponder and reply to the following question:

How many exits are there from the train station at Ikebukuro?

Please send your answers in before I announce the winner, this time. Thank you.

Fridge Update

Contents at the moment:

* The grapes-in-jelly-thing
* Gerald
* Two cans of Drafty Special Lager

Built for both comfort *and* speed.

Japlish du Jour

(again, from a student's pencil case:)

This is BITS WORLD. Let's use this!
What a useful stationery this is! ALL THE TIME!

Take together, will you?

(Somebody actually sat down and thought of that. They probably got paid for it. There is no justice in the world.)

Until the next time;

Chris

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