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Long distance communication doesn’t
Long distance communication doesn’t always use the Trans-Atlantic cable. I often dream at night. Vivid technicolor visions with sounds and lght. Sometimes good, sometimes scary. Sometimes just bizarre. Last night’s dream featured my friend, Mike, who is getting married soon. I dreamed that were were standing in my kitchen here in Tokyo, talking about the…
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ne, ne, ne
I don’t know who dreamed up the idea that Japanese needs to be softened when spoken, but I’d like to box his ears. It’s fine to write “Atsui desu,” it’s hot. But if you’re saying that, or almost anything else that expresses an opinon, you must add “ne” at the end. “Atsui desu, ne….” Draw…
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Plums
I can understand why plums are often included in still life paintings. They are very beautiful. For the next few weeks, plums will grace the tables of our local fruit store and our dining table. These plums are not the shiny, tight-skinned, full-to-bursting black globes I used to eat in the US. These are yellow-green…
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Conbini run
“I wonder if they recognise us?” Tod wondered about the clerks at our local 7-11. Of course they do, we go in there every night and buy the same thing. Two cups of Kudamono Daisuki. We call it Frozen Fruits. Kudamono Daisuki means “I love fruit” and it is a wonderful dessert made of slices…
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Gang shoot-out?
HEADLINE: 2 killed in Tokyo gang shoot-out Are?!? Shoot-out? Guns are illegal in this country! What shocking news. I read on to discover that the shoot-out was one way. The other combatants were armed with swords. A dozen sword-wielding yakuza went to settle the score over a business issue with the crazy people who drive…
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Redelivery
Another form in the mailbox. I never seem to be home when packages arrive, so I often see the mailman’s special slip telling me he’ll be back. This one was a little different, though. It was from the Kuroneko takuhaibin (courier) service. Essentially, these forms are the same. They tell what time they tried to…
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Over 6 feet
They towered head and shoulders above the crowd. Half a dozen of them loped across a crowded intersection as I watched. They looked like off-the-scale plots on a scatter graph. Who were these Goliaths? I ran into them again at the train station. Six men, each well over 6 feet tall, not one under 200…
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Chibikko, baby hotelier
“Our next guest is only 3 years old,” the bubbly woman TV announcer cooed. [cut to TV crew approaching door of resort hotel] “Irrashaimase!” two women in komono bow to their guests in greeting. “Irrashaimase!” a tiny voice joins in, a half a beat too late. [camera tilts down to see Chibikko-chan, dressed in a…
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al fresco dinner
“Let’s have dinner al fresco. We can sit outside at T.Y. Harbor,” I suggested. So as the sun cast a fuschia lining on a grey cloud, we sat at the intersection of the Tennozu & Takahama Canals, sipping freshly brewed microbeer and nibbling California cuisine. We watched the sun set; the sky shaded into deep…
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Critics wanted
Critics wanted. My book of essays about life in Japan is nearly completed. The first draft is finished and I’m rewriting and editing it into somehting I think is in top form. But I’ve been looking at it too closely for too long. I need some feedback from you. Would you like to read an…
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