Engrish Time!

****Warning, this is a rather long post. If you have something pressing to do in the next 5-10 minutes, go a head and wait. Grab yourself a beverage and come back when you are ready. I will still be here.****

It has been too long. Seriously. I wish I had more interesting things to write about and keep you all waiting on the edge of your seats. At this point, most of what I see in Japan isn't as new and confounding as it was when I came here. Things that happen are just like life, and I have made the switch to noticing American things. It is weird to be "through the looking glass" so to speak. In my mind, I take note of the Western way of doing things that I encounter rather than the other way around. I guess it is a good time for me to go home then and do this all again. 

Speaking of. This guy has been in Japan for 11 months to the day today. It is all sorts of crazy to think about it because it feels like just a few months, and several lifetimes. I am in an especially good mood because for the first time in 11 months, I am drinking bona fide bottled-in-America Diet Coke. I had a friend go to a U.S. Military base to work with the Special Olympics and, knowing my abiding love for DC, got me a 12-pack. It  is a welcome relief. I could write an entire blog post on the difference and Diet Coke and Coke Zero here in Japan, but I won't. Suffice to say that it tastes even better than it ever did. If I were to use a film reference to let you know how good it tastes, I would point you to the Shawshank Redemption when Andy almost gets killed by the guard during the roofing duty to get his fellow inmates some beers upon completion of the job. When Morgan Freeman takes the sip of the beer and looks at the bottle, that is about as close as I have seen Hollywood depict what I felt. 

Wouldn't you know? I found a link to the moment I am talking about. Go to 1:07 to see it. 

Right, back to the title of this thing. If you are like me, you may have been disappointed with the lack of Engrish communications during my time in Japan. I had hoped for some really awesomely terrible things to take back home in the form of stories. Well, I hit the mother lode last week. 

Let me preface by saying that if there was one person in this entire country to who I like to be around least, it would be the tea lady from one of my elementary schools. She always stands to close when she talks to me, and there is something...weird going on with her eyes. I don't know if I would call it sinister, but something about her gaze makes me inherently not trust her. If I were to pick out a hidden ninja in this country, it would be her (it doesn't help her case that I have only seen the lower half of her face 2 times because she is always wearing a face mask). Whenever I see her, I just dread it because she always talks to me and it is ALWAYS uncomfortable. 

I have run into her at 7-11 on random days of the week to make me think that she may be following me around plotting my demise (ninja). She always comments on what I am buying and says strings of Japanese that she knows full well that I don't understand. She has also been there a few times with her kids and it is even weirder. I should say at this point that she is not the same age as most Tea Ladies. Most are in their late 40's or 50's. Miki (as I found out her name is last Tuesday) is probably in her 30's, though it is impossible to tell the age of Asian people to me. 

Last Tuesday I was at my desk being a good employee. I was reading a book/playing NBA Jam on my iPod. She came up and started speaking rapid Japanese to me and gesturing to her smart phone and pointing at my iPod (thinking it to be a smartphone). I produced my actual smartphone as she showed me an application called Line. It is evidently a program that will send text messages using the internet on your phone, but it will translate between Japanese and English. She decided that we would be using this program, and sat hovering over me while I downloaded it and got set up to message each other. Red flag #1

I installed the program and she was excited and went over to the vice principal and started sending some test messages. The first message was this (I have not altered these in any way for comedic value). The italicized text is what was translated that I read:

where lunch was delicious?

Assuming this to mean that she was asking if lunch was good, I responded:

Yes, very delicious. (it translated this into Japanese and she read it)

What is the hobby? 

Simple enough right? The program appears to be working well. I responded:

I like golf and cooking. 

That was all the conversation we had for the day. I finished a few games of NBA Jam, taught a class and went home. Unfortunately my phone died, and I didn't get her next two messages until later that night as I was going to bed. She sent this message at 8:07pm:

Good evening Jeffrey (Sounds like a bond villian right?)

Is it home cooking today? 

I didn't get the message, so I didn't respond. On Friday night at 8:30, she started another conversation:

Good evening Jeffrey

until ALT summer? 

It was at this point that I realized that the translation service kind of sucks. I said:

Hello! Yes. I am an ALT until July 22nd. Then I go home to America. 

Normal stuff. When the next text came, that is when the red flags started coming. I will not editorialize the rest of the comments, just read the conversation:

I become lonely

When do you return to the United States?

I am visiting Thailand and Cambodia, but I fly back to the USA on August 15th. 

When does Japan stand?

July 22nd

I say that my child wing does not reach Jeffrey lonelily

Hmm...that last message didn't seem to make any sense. Sorry

(^-^) English shortage

Exactly

Is Japanese difficult? 

Very difficult! Especially for English speakers

Do you like Geoffrey Beale? 

I have never heard of him.

Carry it on its back Jeffrey (later tuesday) society now; good night

It looks like it.

It will be again next week

First impressions? Me? I thought she was hitting on me. Maybe that is a little vain, but she said she was lonely 2 times in 10 lines. I was all sorts of freaked out. My favorite is the translation "I say that my child wing does not reach Jeffrey lonelily." I looked up Geoffrey Beale when she sent that, and guess what? Geoffrey Beale is a dead French geneticist. So...sure I like him? 

I went to dinner with some other ALT's who are proficient in Japanese to see if I could get some clarification on what she was saying. What we determined is that this program is designed to organize international incidents. The translation is legendarily terrible. 

The first lonely comment was essentially saying, I will be sad when you go back to America. The second one about the child wing was saying "I am sad that my child won't get to take classes from you." She wasn't hitting on me...I think. 

The very best one though is the Geoffrey Beale comment. In Japan, beer is sounded out as biru. The name Beale would be sounded out as biru also. What she wrote was Jeffrey, beer do you like? The top-notch translation software decided to translate that into "Do you like Jeffrey Beale?" She asked me if I liked beer, and I responded that I have never heard of him. When this happened, I lost it and laughed until I started crying. 

Evidently the translations back to her of my words were about as bad. None of it ever made any sense. I am full up on my Engrish now.

Carry it on its back everyone!