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  06.25.04
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A couple of weeks ago while out at the local
matsuri (festival) I made two new friends; Tim Jones,
a fellow Canadian from Woodstock, Ontario
who married a local Japanese girl, and his
good buddy Naoji Ito, a funny young Japanese
guy with scruffy hair, his parents own a
dry cleaning shop in the neighbourhood.
I went out for beer with both of them last
week. We were talking about how hard it can
be to practice speaking Japanese even though
we live in Tokyo, and Naoji told me this
story. A few weeks earlier he and Tim had
been sitting around Tim's apartment watching
European soccer. After a while they started
to get hungry, so they decided to order pizza.
Because Tim's Japanese is only so-so, Naoji
made the call for him.
Naoji dialed up the local Dominos Pizza,
the place where Tim always orders from. They
have all his information on the computer.
The Dominos guy answered the phone and said,
in Japanese of course, "Hello, Dominos
Pizza, Kita Senju branch, may I take your
order?"
To which Naoji replied, again in Japanese,
"Ya, I'd like to place an order for
delivery."
"Can I have your phone number please,"
asked the Dominos guy.
Naoji gave him Tim's number.
He entered it into the computer. Then there
was a pause, and the Domino's guy awkwardly
read Tim's name to Naoji for a confirmation,
"Jonesu Timu san?...?"
"Yes, that's right," said Naoji.
"You live at 3-33-6 Kotsu dori?"
asked the Dominos guy with a slight stutter.
He was obviously shocked that he was, so
he thought, speaking to a foreigner in Japanese.
"Yes, that's right."
There was a lot of humming and hawing for
a moment, so Naoji just started to place
his order.
He said, "I'd like two medium pepperoni
pizzas with garlic crust, no drinks, and
a side order of chicken wings."
"Ahh, Ahh, what was that again?"
asked the Domino's guy.
"No drinks and a side order of
chicken
wings," repeated Naoji.
"I'm sorry Mr. Jones," said
the
Dominos guy, but I can't understand
your
Japanese, I'm going to have to get
my manager,
and he put the phone down and did just
that.
I guess the manager wasn't so off put by
the thought of a foreigner speaking Japanese
because he could understand Naoji without
a problem.
 06.21.04
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Karen and I try to read regularly to our
son Jack, and recently we've been using a
lot of picture-vocab and alphabet books.
One thing that we've noticed is that the
subject matter for these types of children's
books, especially the alphabet books, absolutely
sucks. It always consists of the same old
trite cliches involving farm life, zoo animals,
and plants that any child born after 1950
would have a hard time to relate to. I mean,
our son Jack is growing up in Tokyo, how
much relevance does "E is for elephant"
or "C is for cow" have to his life?
The pictures that accompany the letters are
supposed to help the child understand the
sounds that the letters represent, but because
modern, urban children have absolutely zero
experience with either elephants or cows
the appearance of these essentially mythical
creatures beside cryptic alphabet symbols
only seems to complicate things.
So, what Karen and I were thinking, is why
hasn't someone published an urban kids alphabet
book, full of things that kids today find
themselves surrounded by. Wouldn't it make
much more sense for the alphabet books to
read "E is for electrical socket"
and "C is for computer"?
Karen thinks that we should actually go ahead
and put such a children's book together and
see if we could have it published. I'm a
bit skeptical because although I think it's
a pretty good idea, it seems to me that we
already have enough things on our plate to
deal with right now.
So, I'm wondering, if you could make an alphabet
book for the modern child, what kind of pictures
would you use to accompany the letters?
 06.17.04
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Tokyo, like a lot of cities in Asia, is dotted
with little neighbourhood shrines and temples.
One of the great things about these urban
religious facilities is that, unlike Christian
churches, they often have a courtyard and
grounds that are open to the public. You
can just walk in off the street and sit down,
and when you do, suddenly all of the traffic
noise and glaring lights of the city that
surrounds you receeds into the distance,
and you can catch your mental breath and
forget for a moment about the frantic and
gritty rush of the world outside.
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For those of you curious about the little
Jizo statues with red hats in today's pictures,
more information can be found here.
 06.13.04
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A couple of new people recently asked
to
be included in my list of photolog
links:
22catcher.com
visualfront.com
Please check them out, you'll find some good
pictures.
The person from 22catcher.com also has a
photo series on a cow butchering that makes
my recent dog butchering photos from Thailand
look like an old episode of the Smurfs. WARNING:
very gruesome pictures, don't follow this link if you're squeamish.
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