ネイティブが教える英会話のジェムスクール☆Teachers☆

Many people probably don't know this but in University (also somewhat out of University) I have become somewhat known as a bit off a scholar of philosophical Daoism and Chinese philosophy.

In the latter half of my University degree it was less focused on Chinese philosophy but more so on western Analytic philosophy (philosophy of language and in particular the philosophy of mind), so my focus on Chinese and Japanese philosophies grew less.

This however changed in a little bit in the new year, I found a new love and or new found love in Chinese philosophy.


Has this happened to you before? Which is to say, have you had an interest of yours grow "new wings" at a later date? For me that was Daoism!


  

With the weather finally warming up, it is feeling like summer! And for me, there is no better way to enjoy the season than enjoying it by the sea with a refreshing cone of ice cream! Enjoy the sun!  

I know a few kanji. Roughly the same amount as a second year elementary student. That alone makes me feel so far behind, it is discouraging. On the other hand, when I can actually read a word containing kanji I feel a great sense of accomplishment.

Now as much as I enjoy studying, and the Japanese language in general, there are times I want to scream. There is a very common and easy kanji that can mean 'book'. Unfortunately, there are at least six words comprised of kanji that can mean 'bookstore', only one which uses the kanji I know that means 'book'.

Beautiful and poetic can border on maddening with great ease. Today's lesson, never assume there is only one correct kanji!  

Lately I'm spending a lot of time in Kanonji which is cool because it gives me a chance to hang out at Kotohiki Park. It's a really cute place. Yesterday Chris and I went there to play Pokémon Go. The weather was perfect, and we managed to catch a snorlax, which was really cool.  

In class, we made Mother's day cards! The front was a jar of fireflies that we painted with our fingers. Then we drew pictures of our Moms and what they like. The inside read "You light up my life" as a play-on-words to mean that the light from a firefly was like happiness received from Mom. I actually caught fireflies as a child---I miss seeing them!



In America, it's pretty easy to find a Mother's day card, but I always preferred making one. This year, I put together a nice present for my Mom but I haven't been able to send it yet. She's going to receive a late Mother's day present and a very early Birthday present!  

I am glad I have been exposed to more than one language. Sometimes it gets me thinking about the strangest things.

One thing I am often amused by is the length of words and phrases, especially when comparing to translations in other languages. Of course, most of what I notice now will be comparing English and Japanese, but I have also dabbled in Spanish, which I also (rarely, now) think about.

One example that comes to mind involves the use of 'have to'. The example sentence would be 'I have to go to work.' Here, the expression is said in six words, using a total of fifteen characters (not including spaces). In Japanese (romaji), it would be written as 'Watashi wa shigoto ni ikanakerebanarimasen'. Even if you remove the first part (to infer that the sentence refers to the speaker), you would still have three words, with a total of twenty nine characters (though it breaks even if you use kana). The part that throws me off is the meaning for 'have to': nakerebanarimasen. Just saying it makes it sound so long, and you still need to attach the verb to it! I think I had trouble remembering the meaning for it just because I thought it was too troublesome to say, hahaha.   

When I was in Kyoto, I loved seeing all of the shrines and temples, but I also had a great time shopping! I really enjoy Japanese-style art. I love the graceful lines and the common imagery, such as foxes, cranes, rabbits, koi, mountains, and flowers. I bought some wonderful pieces in the shops in Kyoto. I love them all, but my favorite is probably the picture of a woman in a blue kimono watching two children play by a fountain. It’s nighttime, and the woman holds a small container of fireflies in her hands. In the background, bamboo was rendered in silver paint to give the impression of moonlight on the leaves. It’s intricate and beautifully done, and I’m so happy that I found it!   

Hello!

I want to tell you about something that I find really interesting today. One of the things that I enjoy learning about is the history of English words. Because English borrows and takes words from all the other languages, and then changes them to fit English rules. What can also happen is that When some one who speaks English travels to another country tries to learn the language, but has a difficult time with the accent, we can get lots of weird words from that as well!

For for the next couple weeks, I'm going to try and find some interesting English words and give you the history of them! I'll start next week, so keep checking back!
  

Being shown just above is a cup of Family Mart’s Japanese rendering of their signature halo halo (ハロハロ). I had mentioned the beverage once to a coworker in a bid to shock her into wanting to try the greatest dessert on the planet, but was myself shocked to learn that halo halo was available here in Japan! Halo halo is a signature and traditional Filipino dessert, as well as my favorite dessert of all time. The original concoction is made up of shaved ice, a variety of dessert beans, condensed milk, evaporated milk, sweet corn, jello, ube ice cream, shaved coconut, and a variety of other sweet ingredients. The expression “halo halo” means “mix mix” in Tagalog, the major Filipino dialect in the Philippines. Family Mart offers two different varieties or flavors, Fruit and Dango, of which I opted for the latter, since I had already become familiar with the traditional fruit mix from its land of origin (the Philippines). Yummy as it was, I still must encourage you to seek out the traditional form of the halo halo, perhaps at a Filipino restaurant. Or to just YouTube about it and make a bowl of halo halo yourself!  

One of my Japanese friends moved to England last year. I really missed her and her cute son. Her son is half Japanese and half English. He can speak both languages too. Right now they are visiting Japan, so I invited them over for lunch. And then we played at the beach.   

I met a new friend on a bench in Naoshima. We had a great time. He has a great sense of humor and likes to keep up with recent events. I don't think he ever told me his name though... I guess we were just having too good a time to realize. Well, I'm not sure we'll talk again since toward the end of our interaction I realized he was a statue. How unfortunate.



  

I was able to spend a full day doing nothing but art. It was such a wonderful day and it made me realize how much I miss painting and making art. I ended up painting some designs on small wooden tiles and a small portrait of my cat, Daisy. I felt so calm and relaxed at the end of the day. Having spent an entire day submersed in art was extremely therapeutic. I am striving to make this a more of a routine.



  

After a few days in Kanonji, I made my dad hope on a bullet train and we went to Hiroshima! It was the thing my father most wanted to see in Japan, because he has a large interest in history. We left our bags in a locker at Hiroshima station and went straight to the Peace Park. We spent a lot of time walking around and looking at the various monuments. We had a snack and then headed to the castle! It was really interesting, but we sure were tired after all that walking.

We decided to head back to the station and eat supper. One of my students recommended an okonomiyaki restaurant called Re-chan, so we went there. It was really delicious, and my dad got to have both okonomiyaki and yakisoba for the first time. We then went to our hotel and spent some time relaxing, because the next day we went to Miyajima!

I will tell you about more of our adventure next week :)


  

Not that while ago I took the trek to the small island of Naoshima. Many sights were seen, many bottles of water were consumed, many many memories were made at Naoshima. I might have to take the trip to Naoshima again sometime next year! What a wonderful time!


  

Me, my motorcycle (whom I have affectionately dubbed Baby Blue, after the great Bob Dylan and the great color), a backpack, and nowhere to be but wherever I want. This was the recipe for a fantastic Golden Week, and I had a marvelous time. The beauty, the fun, the memories!
  

As promised, today I'm going to talk about pigeons. I have lived in a few cities, but none where birds had been an issue, so this is my first experience with bird control. They are pretty interesting to watch, they just don't know an appropriate place to relieve themselves.

If you have never dealt with pigeons, then you may not know their droppings are very acidic and can eat away paint. They definitely need to be cleaned away soon. A mop seems to be the best way for me to clean my balcony, but you wouldn't want to use the same mop for your floors later.

I don't know how I feel about having a dedicated pigeon poop mop. Maybe with lots of bleach. I do love the smell of ammonia in the morning.  

I'll be taking a trip home in July, and I'm getting pretty excited for it. I've talked about how my hometown has one of the largest parks in America, and one of the things I'm most excited about is to hang out and ride my bike through it again. It's especially beautiful during July, and Ohio's weather is usually perfect around that time of year. One of my favorite spots on the route I would take is called the "Fairy Tale Bridge" or the "Princess Bridge," although my mother always called it the "Witches Bridge." It always used to spook me a little, in a good way, because she would tell me all sorts of ghost stories about it. It's really quite a beautiful bridge, and it's right next to a rather large picnic area called the "Hippie Flats" where my mother used to hang out as a teenager. Beyond it is one of the steepest hills in the park, and it was always a thrill to ride down it and around the curve of the Hippie Flats and over the supposedly haunted Witches Bridge. It's one of the things I look forward to most about visiting home.  

SWEETS!

During my vacation, I braved some pretty heavy rain in order to bring Kendall to a cool place called SWEETS PARADISE. I used to go there on occasion when I was a Kansai Gaidai student. We got lost because the map on my phone wasn't working too well, the directions were actually backwards! But we finally made it.

Why go through all the trouble for some sweets? Because for an hour and a half, it's All you can Eat! There were wonderful things like sakura jelly cheesecake, brownies, and many kinds of cakes! It's a wonderful place for someone like me but I definitely ate too much!   

I don't know about you, but in general I don't talk about myself so much. That's not to say that I don't ever do it, and there are times when I have a lot to say, but for the most part I keep a lot to myself. I definitely don't volunteer the information either; usually someone will have to ask me the right questions to get certain information from me.
I think one of the reasons is that, unless people are interested in what I have to say, there is no reason I need to try to say anything. Of course, this is not all of the time, but I definitely feel it often. What's more, I notice that people tend to not be interested in what I have to say; they are just looking for someone to talk to about themselves, whether it be their problems, something good that happened to them, and so on. So more often than not, it becomes more of a monologue, rather than a conversation.
Like I said, it is not always that way, and that is not the only reason. Sometimes I feel it is too bothersome to mention anything about myself, especially if I have to fight for your attention to say it. Of course, I also sometimes feel like it is too bothersome to talk about myself just because I don't know what to talk about, hahaha.   

I had such a wonderful time during Golden Week! I went to see a lot of places, but my favorite was probably Fushimi Inari-taisha. The torii were beautiful, the hike was fantastic, and there were so many cute fox statues! We also went early in the morning, so there weren’t a lot of people there yet, lending the place a very peaceful atmosphere. It was such an amazing place!