Sunday, 5 July 2009

Learning surreal Japanese

Our Man does like his splendid isolation. It's lovely not being able to understand the inane conversations that go on between folk on the bus, leaving him free to focus on more profound matters - like what funny video to put on the blog next. Recently, though, after much pestering from Our Woman, he rejoined a Saturday Japanese language class he'd been far too busy to attend last year. Yesterday was surreal. Here's what he learnt:

Giraffes have long necks.
Japanese have single eyelids while Westerners have double eyelids.
Black folk in white shirts are scary at night.
It is best to stay in the Laos international airport and get drunk through the night until morning, as it's far too dangerous to venture out at night in Nigeria.
Elephants have long noses.

11 comments:

dr kildare said...

and what about the white folks in black shirts?

if memory serves me correctly,they weren't particularly friendly either

ThePenguin said...

Is Laos connected with Nigeria by one of them space-time wormholes?

Our Man in Abiko said...

That, and the lost consonant of Atlantis.

Motsamai said...

1) What kind of eyelids do scary black folk have? Everybody's blinded by the white shirts, so nobody knows?
2) Eeeeeh! Murtala Muhammed Airport – where you end up when you travel on a short-necked giraffe via a space-time elephant nostril to the lost consonant of Atlantis – is NOT dangerous?! I want whatever hallucinogen that student (teacher?!) was drinking while avoiding the Centre of Excellence, as it's called by local La()ossians.
Comrade Motski

Our Man in Abiko said...

Comrade,

That was actually all from the teacher. He was also quite animated about Biafra, though realizing he was losing the students, he helpfully switched into his none-too fluent English to tell as about the warring "tribs of Africa".

Fortunately, a passing Chinese student teacher was on hand to explain the Japanese grammar point the teacher was failing to get across. The point of which Our Man has since forgotten, distracted as he was from the giraffe pen.

Our Man in Abiko said...

Er that would be the "smell from the giraffe pen". Oh, forget it I give up.

the rev. paperboy said...

And they don't believe me back home when I tell them that everyday here is like a stroll through a Dali painting.

Motsamai said...

If he never left the airport, where did he encounter the warring tribes? And if he encountered them in the airport building - very possible - why would he describe the airport as … Oh, never mind. I give up too. Let's rather talk about the political pugilists of Abiko. My main gripe about our local warring tribes …

Wait, I'll post this under the Abiko elections video.

Comrade Motski the Gobsmacked

PS: I sincerely hope we'll hear more about your Japanese lessons.

Prometheus said...

"Black folk in white shirts are scary at night."

Lol this made me laugh. How you can end up learning that at a language class makes me really wonder whats up with this country..

Our Man in Abiko said...

It would have been insulting if it hadn't been so patently odd. Our Man can't wait to expand his mind next week.

Winchester whisperer said...

Maybe you could get a translation job in a Japanese zoo?