The Apologetic Waitress －申し訳なさそうなウェイトレスー

I recently went to a café in Tokyo with my family.  It was the first time for us to visit there, and I enjoyed some carrot cake. 

I noticed something a little bit odd about the way the waitress spoke to us.  She kept apologizing very profusely whenever she talked to us or brought us something. 

“I’m so sorry for being slow.  Here is your water.  My apologies again,” she said, even though she hadn’t been particularly slow to bring us the water. 

“Would you like that with Sauce A or with Sauce B?  I am terribly sorry, but these are the only sauces we have,” she said, even though we hadn’t expressed any dissatisfaction with the choice of sauces. 

I didn’t think much more about the waitress until she made a mistake with the order of another customer at another table. 

“Oh!” she said, “I am such a fool.  Oh, I am so sorry.  I will change it immediately.” 

She put a lot of emotion into her voice to stress how sorry she was.  Then she continued.  “The next time you come in, please scold me.  If I ever make a mistake again, please don’t hesitate to scold me.” 

The wronged customer struggled to answer this. Saying, “Uh, uh, hmmn.” 

The problem I foresee is that one day she will really make a big mistake, and it will be hard for her to make her apologies and expressions of regret any stronger.  What will she do if she spills coffee on a customer one day? 

“Oh my god.  I’ve ruined your sweater.  How can I ever be forgiven?  Pour the hot coffee on me.  I deserve it.  Just pour it all over me, I insist.”

 

Vocabulary:

To apologise profusely – to say sorry or express regret deeply or repeatedly

To scold someone – to tell someone off; to angrily or harshly point out and criticize someone for a mistake or bad behaviour

 

A Home from Home on the Train －家から離れた、電車の中の家

I don’t take the train very often any more.  I work from home, and so I don’t get to see how train etiquette is changing. 

When I did regularly take the train, it was before the age of smartphones.  So rather than spending the whole journey staring down at a phone, I generally used either to look out of the window or look at the other passengers. 

One fun oddity I occasionally got to see was the sight of a female office worker putting on her make up while she sat on a swaying seat.  It was always fun to guess whether she would be applying mascara just as the carriage lurched around a bend, and whether she would make a mess of her face. 

But I also wondered why she hadn’t just applied her make up at home, and what other elements of her morning routine she would be prepared to bring onto the train.  If the situation escalated, would I see her the next day brushing her teeth? 

According to one of my students, the situation has indeed escalated for at least one passenger on a busy train line.  My student said that on a morning commuter train, she saw an office lady who was applying hot irons to her hair.  The passengers sitting and standing around her had to be careful not to brush against the painfully hot metal. 

There used to be smoking compartments on trains.  Maybe they could be converted into “Just like home compartments”, in which busy commuters can happily pluck their eyebrows, shave, and clip their toenails?

 

Vocabulary:

(for something to) lurch – to make a sudden unsteady or uncontrolled movement, especially forwards or to the side

[eg., The cable car lurched forward when it was hit by a strong gust of wind.]

 

What I Didn’t Do During the Summer Holidays －夏休みに私がやらなかった事－

Many parents were struggling over the same problem during the summer: how to finish their child’s homework.

Judging by the stories of my students, it is quite normal for a child’s summer homework to be in fact mostly or entirely done by adults. 

One of my students is the mother of a first grade junior high school student.  She told me that she mostly wrote her son’s account of visiting a museum, her son’s tutor mostly wrote his science report, and her relative helped him with his English homework.  Unfortunately, disaster has struck for the boy.  His science report was selected as the most outstanding work in the class, and now he has to do a presentation on it to the whole school.  He should have just copied and pasted a bland summary from Chat GPT.  The tutor did a lovely Power Point presentation, and now the boy has to work out how to use Power Point and to try to understand what the presentation is all about! 

Another of my students is the mother of a first grade elementary school student.  She forgot to keep a daily diary during the summer, noting each day’s weather.  Her mother had to go on the internet and research what the weather had been like over the last few weeks. 

My forth grade son was supposed to look at the night sky over Tokyo and draw the position of various stars from his vantage point.  The trouble was that every night seemed to be cloudy.  In the end my wife had to take him to the planetarium.

 

Tales from a Life with Too Many Flowers －花があり過ぎる人生からの物語－

I recently read Mark Boyle’s book, “The Way Home: Tales from a Life Without Technology.” 

The writer wanted to live without anything containing plastic, using electricity, or made in a factory.  So he moved to a rural farm in Ireland with his girlfriend, and had no tv, computer, phone, car or electric lighting.  He wanted to do this to show that it was possible to live in a simpler way than we do in developed countries, and have a happy life without damaging the planet. 

It was interesting to read about how he learned lots of necessary skills.  He had to learn to kill farm animals by hand and prepare the meat and other products.  He collected herbs to use in tea or as remedies for colds and fevers.  He started making his own alcohol, and growing vegetables organically. 

I wasn’t surprised, though, when this man’s girlfriend left him towards the end of the book.  Living so simply might have been his passion, but most people would find such a life very limiting. 

It reminded me of a song by the Talking Heads called “(Nothing but) Flowers”.  Two lovers in the song leave human towns and industry behind for an idyllic life in nature.  Everything starts well. 

“Here we stand, like an Adam and Eve -

Waterfalls, garden of Eden;

Two fools in love, So beautiful and strong…”

 

But then the practical difficulties become apparent.

 

“We caught a rattlesnake,, Now we’ve got something for dinner…

There was a shopping mall, now it’s all covered with flowers,

If this is paradise, I wish I had a lawnmower…

I miss the honkey-tonks, Dairy Queens and 7 – 11s.”

 

Vocabulary:

idyllic – of a place, extremely peaceful and pleasant, especially a simple and natural environment

[eg., This riverside is an idyllic spot to have a picnic.]

a lawn mower – a machine for cutting grass

[eg., On a sunny Sunday afternoon in summer, you can see many people in their gardens, using a lawn mower to mow their lawns.]

a honkey-tonk – In America, a honkey-tonk is a traditional working class bar or dance hall where country music is played

[eg., I went into a honkey-tonk for some beer, music and a rowdy atmosphere]

 

 

What’s that you are burning? －燃やしているのは、なあに？－

I tell my son bedtime stories every night.  I listen to an audio book I think he might like, and then try to remember and summarise the story. 

Recently he has been enjoying listening to stories from “33 Strategies of War” by Robert Greene.  Each chapter has different anecdotes and examples from history to illustrate one strategy, such as “Know your enemy,” and “Don’t fight the last battle.” 

One strategy we talked about recently was “Burn your boats.”  When Cortez left Cuba with a small group of armed men, he was hoping to conquer the Aztec empire in what would become Mexico.  But he didn’t trust that his men would give 100 per cent effort if they had an escape route.  So after landing in dangerous territory, he deliberately destroyed the boats that had taken them there.  Now his men didn’t have the option of running away and taking the boats back to Cuba.  They had to fight and win, or else die trying. 

A non-military example of “Burn your boats,” was Dostoevsky.  When he started to feel too comfortable as a writer, he spent all of the money he had saved up.  Then he had no choice but to write and sell his writing at a fast pace, because he had no other money to fall back on. 

How does this strategy work for English learners, I wonder?  Burn Google translate, and force yourself to work out the meaning of English by yourself?

 

Back Streets or Luxury? ー裏道か、豪華さかー

My recent trip to Vietnam with my wife and 9 year old son reminded me of travelling through South-east Asia twenty years ago.  I could see at that time, and I spent about three months backpacking through Thailand, Myanmar and Cambodia.  Since losing my eyesight, and also having a young child, I have taken easier holidays in Japan or in resort areas with good hotels and facilities for tourists. 

In Vietnam we stayed in three different hotels – a small, cheap hotel in Hoi An, then a more luxurious hotel in central Da Nang, then a cheaper hotel near the beach in Da Nang.  The switch from cheap hotel to luxury hotel amazed my son.  When he saw the second hotel, and we were invited to enjoy the free afternoon tea (with a chocolate doughnut), my son kept saying, “I am rich!  I have become rich!” 

The thing which reminded me of backpacking years ago was wandering around a place where people didn’t speak English, and having random encounters and experiences.  There was a banh mi, or Vietnamese style baguette restaurant just across from our hotel in Hoi An, and we decided to give it a go.  It was lovely, and much nicer than the banh mi restaurant recommended by guide books and frequented by tourists rather than locals. 

We wandered through the back streets near our hotel in Hoi An, looking for a launderette.  We found kids kicking a ball up and down a narrow street, dodged passing scooters, found a place to get our laundry done, and bought some wonderful coconut flavoured iced coffee from a street vendor. 

Things became much easier once we reached the luxury hotel in Da Nang.  The beds were bigger.  I broke a glass at our first hotel by kicking it because I was sharing a bed with my son, and sleeping with my feet next to his head, and the night stand with my glass of water.  We could all stretch out and relax in the second hotel. 

The breakfast was also a delight in the second hotel.  I tried dishes such as roast duck, sticky rice, dumplings, and pho noodles. 

But despite the greater luxury and convenience of Da Nang, my wife and I much preferred the back streets of Hoi An.

 

Hoi An Soup －ホイアンスープ

Our taxi arrived in the evening at T and T Villa, a small, three star hotel in Hoi An. 

We checked in, and walked up two flights of stairs, since there was no elevator.  The staff, seeing that I was blind, kindly asked if we would like to move to a room on the ground floor.  I said it would  be fine using the stairs – after all, there was a constant noisy beeping from car and scooter horns at ground level. 

After a short rest, we headed out into the city.  Our first task was to find a mini-mart, said to be about a ten minute walk away, so that we could buy supplies such as bottled water.  Imagine a Japanese lady helping her nine year old son along, with her blind husband tapping his cane and holding her shoulder as they make their way up unfamiliar streets.  The roads were very uneven, and there were many scooters parked on the pavement, meaning we had to constantly step into the road for stretches until the pavement became free again.  Crossing busy roads was very difficult the first few times, since there were no pedestrian traffic lights and several lanes of beeping scooters. 

But we did get used to it.  The locals were very friendly and helpful.  Sometimes a scooter would stop to block the traffic to allow my wife to get us at least half way across the road.  You could stop half way and just let the traffic pass in front and behind you until a gap on the other side became available.  At other times, local pedestrians would gesture for us to cross the road alongside them, as they zipped between the vehicles with a practiced ease. 

We made it to the mini-mart.  We got our water, some snacks, and a bottle of nep moi, a Vietnamese rice vodka.  It is about 30 per cent alcohol, and a few glasses each evening helped me sleep soundly! 

It was already getting late, so rather than look for any particular restaurant, we decided just to stop at a random restaurant that seemed to be selling noodles.  So we had our first meal in Vietnam in a pho restaurant that turned out to serve only vegetarian dishes.  I ordered something that was a light soup with noodles, vegetables and several different kinds of tofu.  It was delicious.  My wife shared a different noodle, vegetable and tofu dish with our son.  It was as nice a meal as you could hope for, and the total cost for the two dishes was 50,000 Dong.  That’s about 315 Japanese Yen or 1 Pound and 50 Pence in U.K. money. 

It was stiflingly hot and humid.  My wife said that as the lady cooking our meal was ladling vegetables and tofu into our noodle soup, a big bead of sweat was running down her face.  As the sweat reached her nose, my wife wondered if it was going to drip into our soup.  It didn’t, and she smiled as she gave us our meals. 

As we were walking back to the hotel, dodging scooters and bumps in the road, the sweat was dripping down my back too.  There were smells all around – coffee, spices and frying food everywhere.  The roads were a chaotic bustle of noises.  I felt like I was in a human soup.  And I loved it. 

As a blind person on holiday with others, I can sometimes feel quite left out.  Everyone else is sightseeing – literally looking at a beautiful view or statue or painting that I cannot see.  But on my first evening in Hoi An, I felt very much a part of the trip.  I could hear it in the bustle of life around me, smell it in the great variety of foods on offer all round, and even feel it dripping down my back.