Put the Coffee Cup Down, Sir, and Put Your Hands in the Air －コーヒーカップを下して、手を挙げろー

I have a Japanese student who was in a band which toured Europe.  His band’s European tour manager was an Italian woman.  She recently visited Japan, and my student met her and showed her some of the sights of Tokyo. 

“How did it go with her?” I asked. 

“Good,” he said, “But she told me off.” 

“Why did she tell you off?” I asked. 

“Well,” he said, “She was annoyed that I was drinking my cappuccino incorrectly.” 

I had images of my student sucking his cappuccino through a straw, or slurping it into his mouth with chopsticks. 

“What was wrong with how you were drinking it?” I said. 

“Oh,” he said, “I was drinking it at 3pm.  She said that real Italians never drink cappuccino after 11am.  She takes Italian food and drink culture very seriously.” 

The reason that Italians only drink cappuccino in the morning is that they believe that milky coffee is bad for digestion in the afternoon.  There may be some logic to this.  But there is not enough logic to make it a strict rule, if you ask me.  Perhaps my student doesn’t have the luxury of a coffee machine that can make cappuccino in his house.  So if he wants to enjoy the drink, he has to order it whenever he finds himself in a fancy café, whatever the time. 

I can understand the reason for having a strict way of doing things in certain situations.  If you work in a nuclear power plant, say, it might be a good idea to scold people who don’t strictly follow the manual.  But coffee, really?  Isn’t how you drink it a matter of personal taste? 

The story reminded me of something my wife once told me.  When she was growing up, her mother would prepare several dishes for dinner – perhaps rice, miso soup and meat.  My wife’s mother scolded her children if they didn’t eat the several dishes little by little, switching from plate to plate.  It was not allowed to finish all of the miso soup first, for example, even if you were worried that it might go cold. 

Maybe I would have a different perspective if cappuccino were a Scottish or British drink.  Then I would feel proud of the traditional culture around drinking it.  Then I would look down on those fools who didn’t know the correct way to drink it.  I am sure that in a previous blog, for example, I laughed derisively at an American researcher who declared that the best way to enjoy a cup of tea was to add salt to it. 

I am glad I am not Italian or Japanese.  I can enjoy drinking cappuccino at 3pm without feeling guilty, and I can eat several Japanese dishes in whatever order takes my fancy.

 

In One Ear and Out the Other －片方の耳から入り、もう片方から出るー

 Yesterday my son left for school at 8 o’clock as usual. 

“Bye-bye, Daddy,” he said. 

“Bye-bye,” I said.  “Cross the road carefully.” 

I locked the door behind him. 

Twenty minutes later I started teaching an English lesson over the telephone.  As my student was talking, I could hear somebody climbing the stairs to our house.  I thought that it must be a postal delivery.  Then I heard the handle of our front door turn.  Whoever was there was trying to enter my home. 

I was only half listening to my student now, in case I had to stand up and fight off this intruder. 

In the end, I realized that it was my son coming home.  My wife let him in and I returned to my lesson.  “Has he forgotten his schoolbag or something?” I wondered. 

After the lesson was finished I found out what was going on.  Tokyo’s public schools were all closed yesterday, although it was not a public holiday generally.  My son went to his school and couldn’t understand why there was nobody else there.  Eventually he found one other student who had made the same mistake and they decided to go home. 

How did my son manage to miss the information that his school was not going to be open?  I am sure his teacher must have mentioned it.  I can just imagine my son in his class now, paying no attention at all to what his teacher was saying.  I picture him playing some game such as flicking his eraser around his desk instead of listening. 

“What did you do at school today, son?” 

“Hmmn?  Do?”

 

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?