Friday the 21st was spent getting to know other passengers after the initial embarkment in Osaka I was assigned to a large tatami room with 5 other ladies and 2 children. it is 2nd class much like the people who did NOT survive the Titanic.
I quickly made friends with a young Japanese girl of 23 named Naoka who, in true Japanese form, took me under her wing. I spoke very slowly in the manner I've heard my kids speak numerous times and she gets about 10 percent of what I say. But she knows I get 0 percent of her Japanese and, the truth is, very little of her English.
The two children were an annoyance at first because they stared so much. Staring by the Japanese apparently is not considered rude as I've learned on various buses and subways. I've discovered staring back produces some comical results with some flustered looking away with darting eyes to see if it was safe to stare once more. Children aren't programmed like adults. The staring contest became a no blink contest with both the six year old boy, Hayate, and his 4 year old sister, Lin Then came the giggles. I had created a couple of little monsters. Hayate would come over just to entice a contest and run away with glee when I obliged. This was going to be fun.
Later that evening, Hayate, with Naoka's help, taught me some kanji. A lot got lost in translation. On one symbol, Naoka said "bowl" and I stood up, put my fingers to my head and shuffled my feet like I was a bull which was my understanding of the pronunciation Fits of laughter......and I'm just shaking my head at this remarkable experience I'm having.
Earlier in the day, I became aware of a couple of Japanese men with an affinity for Chinese beer They were loud and obnoxious and as the day wore on I was not proven wrong. Ordering another beer was a banging of the empty on the table which was not the behaviour I had come to expect from the Japanese. One looked fairly normal but I was very certain the one with purple hair was a true eccentric. I like eccentric people but I like to know what same eccentric people are saying. Purple hair joined Naoka and me for dinner last night and it was hilarious. It turns out Purple hair (who wears a ladies white bangle bracelet watch and was really quite harmless and charming) owns a Japanese restaurant and a $3 a night guesthouse in Bangkok frequented by westerners in Thailand (which I thought at first was guesthouse with tiedowns... Naoka was interpreting his English). I also understood Naoka to be telling me his restaurant had no menus. I was glad I wouldnt be frequenting that restaurant as it is hard enough WITH one). That turned out to be her warning to me as "no men". Apparently Purple hair was wanting me to spend some time with him in Shanghai. How do you say "Mamacita, he sounds like fun." in Japanese??
I awoke several times last night with rolling seas. I don't have a propensity for motion sickness so it seemed a little like being rocked to sleep. This morning we were really rocking and rolling. I could barely open the exit door to go out on the deck to feel the delicious sea air on my face. It was hard to walk across the deck without hanging on to something. My guess was around 6 foot waves which I actually thought to be outrageous thinking to keep strictly to myself. No one would believe that. After a short time at breakfast, I spotted a freighter bobbing up and down front to back in the distance like a child's toy in a wave pool. A young Chinese staffer came over to speak to me at that time who told me the freighter looked like it could be in danger and the seas were at 3 to 4 meters. Not 6 feet. It was closer to 9 to 12 feet. Alrighty.
We were still in Japanese waters at morning, soon to depart. I had no idea the country extended so far to the southwest. At around 10 am, the only land I could see were distant port side Japanese islands. The next time I see land, I'll be in China.
No comments:
Post a Comment