Halloween

Last Friday my friend held an impromptu Halloween party at his house. I think the Japanese people got into more than the Americans. Pretty typical really. Then on Saturday I went with my new shopping friend to the gigantic mall in Sanda. We were on a mission to buy tracksuits to fit into Japanese society. Tracksuits are regarded as semi-formal wear in Japan, so you have to take advantage of it. Then plans changed all of a sudden and I ended up in Kobe for a night out celebrating Halloween again. As always it was a good time. I dressed up as a Japanese punk, but unfortunately no one got it. It’s comparable to dressing up like a CEO and going to a company party. The key to being a Japanese punk is squatting outside a convenience store drinking and smoking. So all I had to do was squat and make a smoking gesture and they got it. Oh, and these people are called “yankee” in Japanese. I don’t really know why. Yankees aren’t related to America in any way. One girl gave me a yankee name, Ryuuji. And she even claimed to be a former yankee. So I’m in the club.

Sunday night I went to dinner with my Brazilian friend. She had met some people from Africa at a festival earlier in the day and wanted me to come along for dinner to meet them. So we ended up eating dinner with a guy from Tunisia. He owned a date jam making business and wanted to sell his products to the Japanese. It was all around an interesting conversation because my Brazilian friend doesn’t speak English and of course this guy didn’t speak Japanese. So I played translator mangling Japanese and Portuguese to form coherent ideas.

And now I’m at work going through lessons about “Because” and learning all sorts of new things. Like how “because” is actually pronounced “bee-coze”, with a long o sound. Another wonderful fact about the English language that I learned today is “ Because it’s raining.” is a complete and grammatically sound sentence. The grammar check on my computer saying “fragment, consider revising” is obviously an error. I’m glad I’m in Japan so I speak English with more good skills.