We had bowing practice in JBPP today. I kind of suck at it, so I’m sure I looked like a penguin with a nervous tic. The really tricky bit is the “bow while walking past someone in the hall” bow. The tricky bit is to do it without falling or walking into a wall.<\/p>\n
My quick tip for bowing and not looking weird: Present the top of your head to the other person, so they can whack you on the head with a pretend big stick. That’s the polite way to bow. Don’t try to look them in the eyes, it’s creepy.<\/p>\n
Also, men put their hands along their sides, while women cross their hands in front of them.<\/p>\n
I learned a new favorite phrase “\u00e3\u0081\u00a7\u00e3\u0081\u008d\u00e3\u0081\u2039\u00e3\u0081\u00ad\u00e3\u0081\u00be\u00e3\u0081\u2122” (deki kanemasu.) It’s a way of saying it’s not possible to do something without using a negative verb form. \u00e3\u0081\u2039\u00e3\u0081\u00ad\u00e3\u0081\u00be\u00e3\u0081\u2122 (kanemasu) essentially means that something is impossible. So it’s rejecting someone’s request in the affirmative form of the verb, rather than the negative form of the verb.<\/p>\n
I love that concept.<\/p>\n
Of course, if something is \u00e3\u0081\u2039\u00e3\u0081\u00ad\u00e3\u0081\u00be\u00e3\u0081\u203a\u00e3\u201a\u201c (kanemasen), then that means it’s possible. In that case, the negative form can have a positive meaning. It all depends on what you’re talking about.<\/p>\n
We also covered \u00e3\u0081\u201a\u00e3\u0081\u201e\u00e3\u0081\u00a5\u00e3\u0081\u00a1 (aidzuchi), which are these great filler words that don’t mean anything at all. Sort of like “uh-huh, yeah, gotcha, ok, sure, ummm,” etc. \u00e3\u0081\u201a\u00e3\u0081\u201e\u00e3\u0081\u00a5\u00e3\u0081\u00a1 are important in Japanese. In fact, just sitting there like a lump and sounding like a textbook makes you come across as, well, weird.<\/p>\n
\u00e3\u0081\u201a\u00e3\u0081\u201e\u00e3\u0081\u00a5\u00e3\u0081\u00a1 add a little natural feeling to your speaking style, so while it seems silly at first, it’s all social lubricant I’m learning, and social lubricant is important, regardless of culture.<\/p>\n
I did pretty well with \u00e3\u0081\u201a\u00e3\u0081\u201e\u00e3\u0081\u00a5\u00e3\u0081\u00a1 in class, so it turns out I’m an expert at saying nothing. <\/p>\n
JBPP has been great at teaching me a lot of cultural stuff I never would have guessed at, but I still have a ways to go.<\/p>\n
After class, I compared photos with K-san. K-san has done a much better job of photographing daily life in Japan than I have. She managed to find the fireworks on Sunday. I didn’t go out because it was raining. She is made of sterner stuff! I am made of water soluble components, apparently.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Today I learned how to bow, how to refuse something (but not sound like I’m being negative), and how to say nothing. JBPP is handy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[580,894,828,12,533,100,106],"class_list":["post-1056","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-japanese-language-study","tag-bowing","tag-japan-trip","tag-japan2011","tag-japanese","tag-jbpp","tag-okazaki","tag-yamasa","category-4-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stupidamericantourist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1056","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stupidamericantourist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stupidamericantourist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stupidamericantourist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stupidamericantourist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1056"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.stupidamericantourist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1056\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1057,"href":"https:\/\/www.stupidamericantourist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1056\/revisions\/1057"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stupidamericantourist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stupidamericantourist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stupidamericantourist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}