A Fishy Vegetable —魚くさい野菜—

My seven year old son brought back an aubergine from school yesterday.  He had grown it in the school garden. 

“Daddy,” he said, and switched to Japanese.  “Nasu aru yo.” (“I have an aubergine.”) 

My wife and I asked him if all the kids were growing their own aubergines. 

“No,” he said, “Some of the children are growing ikura, but I don’t like it.” 

“Ikura?” we said.  “Other children are growing fish eggs?  In the garden?” 

With a little investigation, we found that my son had misheard.  The children were not growing fish eggs in the garden – ikura, but were growing okura, a kind of sticky vegetable. 

“But that’s my favourite vegetable!” he said, suddenly disappointed. 

Maybe in the future scientists will develop vegetables which look like fish eggs and cabbages which taste like meat. 

Until then we will have to make do with aubergine salad.

 

Lazy Tongues —怠けている訛り－

Recently I have been listening to an interesting audio book about linguistics, the study of human language. 

One thing the book talked about was how some sounds tend to soften in languages over time, and other sounds tend to disappear.  A hard consonant such as “t’ might soften to “d” over time, or “K” might become “g”.  Breathy sounds, which require the speaker to use a hard breath to make a sound, quite often disappear.  This includes the sounds “th’ as in “think”, and “h” as in “hat”. 

The most likely explanation is that lazy speakers of the language don’t take the time to pronounce each sound clearly when speaking.  If this lazy spoken form can still be understood, then it becomes more and more common until the lazier form is considered the only correct form of the language. 

When the book said that “th” is a sound which often disappears in language, I thought of my English friend, Joanna.  I have noticed that she often pronounces “th” as “f”.  She will say, “I had a baf last night,” or, “Let’s fink about it.” 

I am not, by the way, calling my friend lazy!  In her local dialect, people were saying “baf” and “fink” before she was born.  She is showing her pride in her local area by using her dialect when she talks with me, instead of standard English. 

I do the same by answering her in my Glasgow dialect of English.  We change words and phrases in what probably started as a lazy tongue too.  For example, I often say “Ah cannae,” which in standard English is, “I can’t.” 

Thank goodness for writing.  As long as we share a writing system, we can learn a standardised form of English at school, and be able to communicate with each other.  At some point, Joanna’s son will ask, “Mummy, why is ‘fink’ spelled ‘think’?”

 

I’m not ashamed to say I was scared －僕が怖がっていたと言うことを恥ずかしいとは思わない－

I ate shark meat for the first time yesterday.  It was in Kerala Bhavan, a South Indian restaurant in Nerima. 

I sometimes order chicken tikka, but decided to try the fish tikka for a change.  When we asked what kind of fish it was, we were surprised to find that it was shark meat. 

I associate shark with Chinese cuisine, rather than Indian.  But the shark tikka was very nice.  It was soft and fell apart in the mouth, and the meat went well with the spices.

 

“

I found an ocean under my bed,

As I was tidying up my room.

I stared in shock till a fish came up and said,

‘Do you know the way to San Francisco?’

…

We were surrounded by sharks impressing their friends,

And I’m not ashamed to say I was scared,

Till one came up and said,

‘I know the way to San Francisco.’

 

So there we were – just me, and this fish, and this shark,

All heading to America.

When we got hungry we stopped at a café to eat;

We’re all vegetarian.

”

From the William Nein song, “Join us in San Francisco”

 

I have always like the idea of a vegetarian shark, since I heard this song.  I tried to live without meat for a while and found it difficult.  The songwriter seems optimistic that no sacrifice is impossible, if you put your mind to it.  Even a shark could give up meat and become a hippie.

 

 

The Afterlife Passport Office —死後のパスポートセンタ—

Life isn’t fair.  So why do we imagine that, if there is life after death, it will be any fairer? 

I have been reading a book about a Sri Lankan photo-journalist who wakes up after death to find himself in a chaotic waiting room.  Lots of confused dead people wait in line to be processed by a busy and tetchy staff.  The afterlife seems to begin with a visit to something like a disorganised passport office. 

Here are a few interesting quotes from Shehun Karunatilaka’s novel, “The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida”. 

1

“Evil is not what we should fear. Creatures with power acting in their own interest: that is what should make us shudder.” 

A hungry lion is not evil if it eats you.  Perhaps an oppressive government is not run by evil people either; it is run by people who are too powerful, and who gain some benefit from the oppression.

 

2

“Mirrors lie as much as memories do.” 

People change the image that they see to fit the picture that they already have in their mind.

 

3

“All stories are recycled and all stories are unfair. Many get luck, and many get misery. Many are born to homes with books, many grow up in the swamps of war. In the end, all becomes dust. All stories conclude with a fade to black.” 

In a sense, everybody gets the same thing from life.  They live for a while, and then they die.  Everything else is just a minor detail.

 

4

“How else to explain the world’s madness? If there’s a heavenly father, he must be like your father: absent, lazy and possibly evil.” 

I have had a good father, but I take the point.  Not all parents give their children the best chance in life.  Are we confident that God will give us the best chance in death?

 

Vocabulary:

tetchy – irritable and bad tempered

[eg., He is always tetchy in the morning until he has drunk a cup of coffee.]

to shudder – to tremble violently, especially because of fear or horror

[When I realised what the killer had done, I shuddered with horror.]

oppressive – inflicting harsh and authoritarian treatment

[That country’s oppressive government uses the police to harshly crack down on protests.]

  

I Married a Robot —ロボットと結婚した—

I heard an interesting radio documentary this week about a lesbian woman in America who “married a chatbot”. 

The woman had several failed relationships with human women, which left her feeling betrayed and lacking confidence with people.  So she created an artificial female friend, which she spoke to using a chatbot.  The chatbot character listened to the woman’s problems, asked after her health, and chatted about her hobbies.  Somehow, the two started flirting with each other.  Then the chatbot asked the woman to marry her, which she agreed to do. 

When she told her mother that she was marrying a chatbot, she was worried about her mother’s reaction.  But her mother was supportive. 

“If talking to a computer makes you happy then I am happy,” her mother said.  “But did you marry a male or a female chatbot?” 

The mother had traditional Christian beliefs, and didn’t like her daughter dating women.  She was more worried about the gender of the marriage partner than the fact that it was a chatbot run by a California tech company. 

The story reminds me of the ancient Greek legend of Pygmalion.  He was a sculptor who was disgusted by the behaviour of the women he knew, and so created his own, perfect woman.  He made a beautiful female statue, and fell in love with it, kissing its cold lips and bringing it presents.  In the legend, the goddess of love takes pity on Pygmalion and breathes life into the statue, allowing the two to marry. 

“

I thought, "I will fashion a woman

As I have seen in dreams.

I, who never loved woman

That breathed and spoke and moved,

Will fashion a noble statue

To show what I could have loved;

”

From Alfred Lord Tennyson’s poem, “Pygmalion”

 

Will Aphrodite, the goddess of love, take pity on a lonely woman and breathe life into her chatbot?

Vocabulary:

to flirt with someone – to playfully behave as if sexually attracted to someone

[eg., Don’t be angry, darling.  I was only flirting with him.  It wasn’t serious.]

to fashion something – to make something into a particular form

[eg, This bowl has been fashioned out of clay by a local artist.]