My 1st Japanese Class

Wednesday, 26 Sep 07, 8.50am at home

Hellow again, my little diary..
When I woke up this morning, I still felt so tired and sleepy although I had an enough and sound sleep last nite. Until now I'm still so tired and sleepy, I can hardly open my eyes. *How are you still able to type with your eyes closed?* Typing uses hands, not eyes, rite? Seems like my fingers have their own eyes, they know where to press letter A, B, C, etc. For me, I used both hands to type, however, the most active fingers are only my middle fingers. I guess this is why my middle fingers are longer than my other fingers. It's the same concept as the giraffe' neck's story that I told you, isn't it?

Yesterday I managed to do all the tasks that I mentioned yesterday although there were some little problems. Well, not exactly little, I lost my Tokyo City Map and left my mobile at home! It was such a big problem for me. I needed to go to Ward Office to collect my alien card and to my school that I didn't know whereabout. I couldn't make calls to ask for help, so I used my instinct to find the places. I thought it should be easy like how Ron and I managed to find the fish market by just 'mengendus-endus' the fish' smell on an empty air and following a person who was wearing boots (Fish market people usually wear boots, rite?). On my case, I had no clue what smell I should look for. Smell of aliens? Smell of books? Cut the story short, after going around and around and around I managed to find the places. Lucky that I brought spare sandals, I knew that my feet would pain in my new shoes. I should bring extra sandals wherever I go from now on, it's as necessary as bringing umbrella in my handbag. My handbag now is always full with my necessities, it's almost like a picnic basket without the 'taplak merah kotak-kotak'.

My Japanese class? It was great! There were 13 persons in a class, only 3 were Asian (including me), the rest was Westerners. They were all very friendly. One thing, I hope that my Japanese won't sound like English. Well, it's because my Mandarin once sounded like Hindi since my Mandarin class was mostly attended by Indians. It's true that we easily follow the environment. Anyway, honestly, I've learnt the basics of Japanese in Indo so it was not difficult for me to catch the lesson. However, I still found the class interesting because we were not only taught about the language, but also about Japanese culture and customs, by the local speaker.

-For example, we say 'Ohayo' only in the morning when we wake up and it should be said before 10am. How if I wake up at 11am? Should I say 'Ohayo' or 'Konniciwa'?
-Example no 2, we say 'Ohayo Gozaimasu' to the boss/professor. Then the boss/professor will reply 'Ohayo'. A question, how if the boss/professor say first to the subordinate/student? Should they say 'Ohayo' or 'Ohayo Gozaimasu'? The answer is: boss/professor/whoever with higher level hardly greet first. That's Japanese culture.
-Example no 3, we always say 'Itadakimasu' (meaning: I'll eat this food) before eating with both hands are put together like praying. Does it mean 'I'll eat this food, this food is mine, don't ever take this food from my plate'?? And we say 'Gochisousama deshita' (meaning: Thank's for the meal, your food is nice) after we finish eating (I really see people saying 'Gochisousama deshita' loudly to the shop owner while leaving the restaurant without any expression, although they eat alone! I think it's kind of a habit rather than a real appraisal).
-Example no 4, 'Sayonara' and 'Shitsureishimasu' mean bye2 with different level of politeness depending on whom we are talking to. Omo omo omo.. everytime we should remember the casual word and the polite word. It's really like Javanese where we have Ngoko, Kromo, Kromo Inggil, they are used depending on the situation. Japanese and Javanese really have many similarities!

Ja mata, diary (meaning: see you, diary)

-Abbie-

p.s I'll write some words in Japanese from now to practice my Jap. Who knows I'll write blog in Jap one day?? Or write novel in Jap?? *Hey, there was no news about your novel now, how is it?* I'm still stucked in deciding the names of the players. Haiz..!