Japanese Catcalls
Lately, as I ride my bike, I seem to be attracting a little more attention. When I ride past a certain park on my way to work, there is usually this old guy with a pony tail there. And if he notices me riding by he screems "Hello....Hello....Hello" and I respond with "Ohayo Gozaimas". But once he said his usual Hellos and an Halleluah! Well, I certainly don't here that everyday. Whatever! And today, as I was riding by a bunch of construction sites, one of the guys yelled out Hello. And then after a second "I love you". Well, not exactly the catcalls of NY construction workers in the 80's, but I guess it was the only thing he could think of. But, I had no reply. The things that ran through my head were all way to complicated, and would probably not work in this culture even if he did understand the words. So I just shook my head and kept peddling.
posted by Natalie @ 9:47 PM
1 Comments:
Hey- stumbled across your blogging searching for the new garbage schedule for Toyohashi. My partner and I have been living here for about the same amount of time that you've been living in Hamamatsu- interesting to read another person's interpretations of the same things that have challenged us! Just wanted to illuminate the "Hallelujah" comment- it means "a beautiful, sunny day" in Japanese- Hareru- so that many Japanese think the Hallelujah Chorus is an ode to nice weather. Another one of those linguistic oddities... he was merely commenting to you that it was a beautiful day (you know, the whole weather-small-talk thing). Thanks for the entertaining write-up on our neck of the woods.
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