International English

Yesterday I read this BBC article about American English expressions creeping into British vocabulary. The answers fell into four main categories.

1. The Americans are right
"Alphabetize" is a perfectly acceptable shorthand replacement for "to put in alphabetical order." Same for "deplane." A TV series and a TV season are two different things. And if you don't like "normalcy," take it up with Warren G. Harding.

2. The Brits are right
"Bi-weekly" is a nightmare word. Nobody knows if it means twice a week or every two weeks, a matter of some import when scheduling meetings. Fortnightly would be a great replacement. "It is what it is" is a horrible, vacant phrase, that's what it is. "I could care less" should be "I couldn't care less," unless of course it is a topic do you care very much about. You cannot be of "Scotch-Irish descent" unless your lineage involves a whisky-swilling Hibernian (note that this is not out of the question).

3. The Brits missed the point
Americans who say "That'll learn you" are almost certainly using it ironically. Almost.

4.. Just different:
Nobody ever died from pronouncing it "zee" rather than "zed," or "lev-erage" instead of "lee-verage." There is nothing inherently better about "bangs" vs "fringe," or "shopping cart" vs. "trolley." And who knew that British people didn't say "Can I get a..." when ordering at a restaurant?

Anyway, the article made me think about the various words and expressions that have crept into Justin and my vocabulary over the course of our adventures together. We often say things which don't make any sense to the people around us, although this was not necessarily a new phenomenon. I love words, and I'd like to share some of our favorite expressions we've picked up or made up in various places. If I put "invented" after the word, it's either not a real word or it's an inside joke.

Nana and Justin's International Dictionary

"ajumma," as a verb. I was first in line, but I totally got ajumma'd. Korea/invented. "Ajumma" literally means "aunt." We invented this word to describe a moment when you are run over, cut off, or otherwise owned by woman over the age of 50. In Korea, this only counts if she has a large cloud of permed hair, referred to as the "ajumma-fro" or "a-fro."

"Crap," as an adjective. The weather today is crap. Scotland. Precisely what it sounds like.

"Dozo." Can I sit here? Dozo! Japan. It can be used in any "please, go ahead" situation, from holding the door open for somebody to taking the last cookie.

"Goatrope." This school activity day with three hours of homeroom is turning into a total goatrope. D.C., US Navy. A mess. Total chaos.

"Hai!" Justin? Hai! Japan. Officially, it probably means something like "Yes," but you also use it where you'd use "What's up?" or "here?" in English when someone's searching the house for you, or as you'd use "Okay" if someone asks you to do something. The advantage is that it's so much fun to say and so cute that you even trick yourself into thinking you're really excited to take out the recycling.

"I can't be arsed." I would get up to change the channel, but I can't be arsed. Scotland. It's too much trouble. Why bother?

"Kodak," as a verb. Will you Kodak me standing in front of this church? The Philippines/invented? I'm not sure if it's used in English as well as Tagalog. I love how much more efficient it is than the English equivalent "take a picture of."

"meta." We're having an argument about whether or not we argue too much. That's so meta. College. Apparently this is a thing, because one of our fellow bandies who went on to law school reported the following story on her blog: "Legislation Prof: This is how you tell that the author of the textbook is a professor at Yale. He starts to use words like 'meta' and 'exogenous.' You know that when you hear the word meta, the plane has stopped in New Haven.""

"Oh God, why?" We're spending our vacation camping on Noko Island, home of the giant spiders! Oh God, why? Scotland/invented. Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, is by far my favorite member of the British aristocracy, by which I mean he's the one I'd want to sit next to at a dinner party. He's so famous for massively politically incorrect but often completely hilarious statements that there are web sites dedicated to them (a mild sample: to a fashion designer, 2009: “Well, you didn’t design your beard too well, did you?”) During a book history class evening, Justin was told that the Duke of Edinburgh was the member of the royal family designated to knight a particular scholar for services in book history. He asked her what she was being knighted for. She said, "Bibliography." He said, "Oh God, why?" True story. Justin and I use this phrase whenever anybody mentions doing something we can't imagine wanting to do. It must be said as fast as possible and in a nasally posh British accent, dragging out the y sound: "ohgodwhyyyyy?"

"So so so." This picture must be from 1992, because of my hair. So so so. Japan. In Japanese, it's considered polite to show that you're listening to a speaker by making noises of comprehension. Like Hai!, this sound is sort of a reflex for Japanese people, in the same way that English speakers working in a foreign language may still fill in pauses with "um" or "uh," so you can be talking to someone who's fluent in English but nevertheless uses this phrase. I can think of multiple occasions at the school where the Japanese person I've been speaking with has held the entire conversation using only Hai! and So so so:

me: Are you here?
Japanese person: Hai?
me: I'm working on the elementary play, but I need to find some furniture for scenery.
Japanese person: So so so.
me: You know the desks the students use?
Japanese person: Hai!
Me: I'm thinking of using them. I could lower them and cover them with butcher paper.
Japanese person: So so so.
me: Could I get about six, do you think?
Japanese person: Hai!

These are the good, positive Japanese noises. The bad ones are "Eeeeh?" said in a horrified rising tone, and the sharp intake of breath which in Korea we dubbed the Hiss of Death. Had I heard one of those noises, I would have known that I had about the same odds of getting the desks as getting Laurence Olivier to come back from the dead and take over as the lead in the play.

"Sumimasen." BONK. Aaa! Sumimasen! Japan. Excuse me. As with Hai! it's cuter and more fun than the English version, and never carries sarcastic connotations.

"Whiskey Tango Foxtrot." I can't believe he ate all my popcorn when I was in my meeting! Whiskey Tango Foxtrot! D.C., US Navy. This is how you pronounce the common Internet abbreviation WTF, or "What the ...", in the NATO phonetic alphabet. Note that "Whiskey" is spelled with an E, American/Irish style, and not "whisky," which is Scotch. Very useful for expressing disbelief without the concurrent rise in blood pressure that comes with actually swearing. Justin aspires to have three ludicrous small dogs and name them Whiskey, Tango, and Foxtrot.

Please use these words wisely. They have great power.

And the 2011 Women's World Cup Goes To...

Japan!!!!!

Congratulations, Japan, on disciplined and enthusiastic play, on never quitting despite falling behind twice, on clean games, and most of all, on winning the World Cup in your very first finals appearance. I'll admit that once the game got started, I started to feel more partial to the good old US of A, but I can't be disappointed in this great underdog result.

Japan, I hope this puts smiles on the faces of people back home. And world, take notice: Asia's got game!

What are you doing at 2:45 tomorrow? Watching USA vs. Japan Soccer!

Reasons to watch the Women's World Cup final tomorrow - USA vs. Japan

1. Women's World Cup soccer is better than men's. I know, some of you are go on about speed and skills and other subjective nonsense. I happen to think the women play just as well as the men, but that's kind of beside the point. I actually enjoy children's soccer more than professional men's soccer, and half the time kids forget which goal they're kicking towards. I don't give a dang about skills. The important thing is that the result is honest. The primary reason I, and most North Americans, can't get into soccer is diving. When you grow up watching hockey and football, both of which have instant replay, and then you see two grown men bonk arms and fall to the ground screaming as if their elbows have been bitten by Doberman Pinschers and immersed in a bucket of salt, it's not just frustrating, it's pathetic.

Fortunately, for the time being at least, women dive less than men (here's a second study from Germany with similar results). This means that the game moves faster and is less reliant on always-questionable refereeing. And diving was dealt perhaps the sweetest, most cosmically-just own-petard-hoisted blow ever when the US tying goal against Brazil came during stoppage time awarded to compensate for a Brazil dive.

Reason 1b why the Women's World Cup is better: have you ever heard of a men's team blaming poor performance on the team bus getting struck by lightning, and then a failed drug test on traditional medicine to treat said lightning strike made out of musk deer glands? Oh, North Korea. You're the only country in the world weirder than South Korea.

Reason 2: Both teams in the final are awesome. On the one hand, the USA could win. For most of us, that's the home team, who could pick up an unprecedented third women's title. This is awesome. They played a great game against Brazil, simply refusing to quit. A US victory would likely mean increased US support for women's soccer, which is good for everybody, because just about everybody's national team, including Japan's, features multiple women who have played college or pro soccer in the US, where the money is. (Remember the ending of Bend it like Beckham, where they both went off to play soccer in California?) I think the future of women's soccer is heavily dependent on its popularity in the US. So let's go, USA!

On the other hand, Japan could win. Japan made it to the final thanks to incredibly scrappy play despite having only one player taller than 5'7 (beating the Germans, the home favorites and the tournament's tallest team, and the Swedes, who have have 16 over 5'7.) They're playing for Japan's recovery from the March tsunami and earthquake, and being colossally polite, brought a sign to the tournament to thank the international community for its support. If they win, they will be the first Asian team to win any World Cup - men's or women's. Plus, most of the time, I live there. So ganbatte, Japan!

Tune in tomorrow, 2:45 Eastern, because the only way to lose here is not to watch.

Summer Trip: Nana and Jackie in Our Nation's Capital

The National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden: When it comes to terrifying oversize arachnids,
buy American!

As mentioned previously, Justin and I are home for the summer. I spent my first week attending a college counselor workshop at Georgetown while Justin did battle with the Japanese driver's license exam. My sister Jackie, in the meantime, did some exam slaying of her own, conquering the DAT test for dental school. Here is a sample question:

5. Removal of the gallbladder makes it more difficult to digest foods high in
A. carbohydrates
B. nucleic acids
C. proteins.
D. fats
E. vitamins.

I would prefer this sample question:

5. Which of these should not be removed by a dentist?
A. Wisdom teeth
B. Molars
C. Jiminy CHRISTMAS, STAY AWAY from my GALLBLADDER.

In any case, Jackie did better than I would have, and than most other people (my art major sister scored in the 97th percentile on biology, which makes one wonder what on earth the bio majors taking the test did with those four years). To celebrate, or perhaps because she was used to grueling punishment, she came to pick me up at my Washington conference, and we budgeted a day to see the sights of our nation's capital.

This is a good time to mention that Jackie and I did not dress alike on purpose - after a week, my purple tank top was the cleanest thing left, and Jackie had coincidentally brought something similar. At the Smithsonian Renwick Gallery, Jackie and I split up briefly, and she wondered where I'd gone. She went up to a guard and asked, "Have you seen my sister? She's about my height, brown hair, wearing a purple tank top?" The guard said, "Oh, yes! She was just in the other room there." So Jackie went over and thought, "This is strange. I was just in here... how did I miss her?" And that was when she realized that the guard had given her directions to herself. White people all looking alike: it's not just for Asia anymore!

It's also possible that the museum experienced a space-time discontinuity. Not entirely out of the question for a building which displays something called the "Ghost Clock:"

Not that exciting, until you realize that the entire thing is made out of a single piece of wood carved and painted to look like a piece of fabric draped over a grandfather clock. Genuinely trippy.

We also visited the Smithsonian Museum of American History, which was closed for renovations when I lived in D.C. I enjoyed being able to catch up with old friends:


Also, George Washington's clothes. Homeboy was tall - usually estimated between 6'1 and 6'2 - and he had shorter legs, so he seemed even taller on a horse. This set a causally-questionable but still intriguing electoral tradition of tall presidents which continues to the present day.
Being the history teacher, I dragged Jackie to the Vietnam and Korean War Memorials, where I took lots of pictures for classroom use. The art teacher and I co-taught a project this spring in which students looked at various monuments and memorials and then had to come up with a historical event or individual and design a monument of their own. I have a great PowerPoint on that, if you're the sort of person who enjoys PowerPoints on the history of funerary architecture. If you are, we should hang out.

In my opinion, commemorative designs fall into two categories: before and after Maya Lin. Here's her groundbreaking Vietnam Memorial:


And now the Korean War Memorial. Look how heavily this draws on Lin's ideas: the reflective stone, the tall black wall, the carvings intended to help make the participants in the conflict real. I'm not saying Lin invented these ideas or techniques, but she certainly put them on the map.

And that's all from D.C.! Thanks, Jackie, for the great road trip and the fabulous photography!

Four Years of Marriage = Four Years of Blogging!

Four years ago today, on 7/7/2007, Nana made me the happiest man alive by agreeing, against her better judgement, to be my lawful wedded life, so on and so forth.

I responded by subjecting her to two years in Korea, a year in Edinburgh, a year in Japan, and a four-year concurrent sentence of intellectual property tirades and horrible, horrible puns. Even if she weren't already awesome in all the countless ways she's awesome, Nana would be awesome anyway for the mere fact of having put up with me for these 48 months.

Here's to you, Nana! How about four years going on forty?

Earthquake/Tsunami volunteering: Do For Japan

A lot of people have asked since we've been back how much our part of Japan was affected by the Tohoku quake and tsunami in March. As we've said, Fukuoka was essentially unaffected - some people coming and going based on nuclear fears and evacuations, some fluctuations in produce availability and price, but no power shortages and certainly no damage. Fukuoka prefecture (a prefecture is a bit like a state or a county) has, as a consequence, tried to give a lot. The local campaign is "Ganbarou Nippon," or "Do for Japan." You can see its web site here, and here partially in English courtesy of Google translate (scroll to the bottom).

Under the auspices of this campaign and in collaboration with Tohoku International School in Sendai, fellow FIS faculty member Matt and his wife Ashley organized a volunteer trip to the Sendai area. You can see their amazing photographs through their blog and on their Picasa album here. I've pilfered this picture of three of our students in Onigawa to show you a bit of what they experienced:

Obviously, much of Japan is still in serious trouble. In the interests of, as Fukuoka Prefecture put it, "doing" for Japan, I hope that the school will be able to arrange some more volunteer trips when I'm in the country and can go along. If you are interested in "doing" something financial to help, you might consider the Japanese Red Cross (you can donate through Paypal here). On a smaller scale, I have just discovered that Tohoku International School has a fund for families in the Sendai community. You can donate through their web site here.

Belated post: Fukuoka International School Spring Festival

FIS has a spring festival which used to be annual, switched to biannual because of the colossal workload involved, and has swung back to annual largely because it is much easier to advertise when you can get people into a rhythm: it's spring; time to go to the FIS festival.

For all that the day is a ton of work, it's also a big success for the school, raising lots of money for PTA and raising the school profile. We also were able to raise a lot of money for earthquake and tsunami relief - 100% of flea market sales and if I recall correctly 10% of the overall sales. Besides the flea market, there were food stalls showing off the culinary prowess of the diverse parent body, a used book sale (expat GOLD), and tons of games for kids of all ages put on by the various homerooms. Justin's class had a balloon shoot using a dart gun, which was highly popular, but I am proud to say the most profitable of all the games was the 9th grade coin drop. We filled an aquarium with water and cups and invited kids to drop Japan's obnoxiously tiny, plasticky 1-yen coins (seriously; they're like something that would come with a game board) into the cups to win prizes. I think we got a lot of tickets because we were the best game for the under-3 set: you didn't need any hand-eye coordination to play.

There was also a stage with various performances, which was the original rationale behind this belated and really uninteresting post. I apologize to readers who have been spoiled by Justin's excellent posts of the past weeks. We've been in Pittsburgh at family events for the last few days receiving hugely flattering compliments from people reading the blog, and now I have performance anxiety. This, for instance, will be Justin's aunt's hairdresser's inaugural subscription post (hi, Di!) and I am deeply chagrined that it is so below par.

But what are you going to do, complain about it? Before you do, bear in mind that I did this during the Martial Arts club Spring Festival mainstage performance:

(Actually, breaking was about the only part of this performance that went well for me. I help our PE teacher Raffy with his after-school program, which is Tong Il Moo Do. My black belt is in Taekwondo. This means that although I help him wrangle the kids and correct them on basic techniques (pro tip: when you punch, don't lead with your knuckles), when it comes to forms and other choreographed sequences, I have no time to learn and therefore have no idea what I'm doing. After my spectacular failure on one-steps, preset patterns of defense in response to a punch, fellow teacher Kevin voted to demote me to a blue belt, and I can't really disagree.)

If you are not intimidated by my martial arts, perhaps you will fear Justin's African drum club? (I don't know why. Maybe you don't like loud noises, or funk, or you are a Korean baby and you've just caught sight of Justin's beard. He makes children in supermarkets cry, and then I have to bug my eyes out at them to confuse them and then they forget to be afraid. It's very stressful.)

Some of you may be concerned by the fact that our students seem to have no faces. Rest assured, they do in reality all possess eyes and ears, although in the grand tradition of middle schoolers often prefer to use neither. I'm just not comfortable with blogging photos of the kids so I try to blur them for discretion.

Our time in the US continues until August (this is a great opportunity for you to burgle our Japanese apartment, where you will not find enough valuables to offset the cost of the plane ticket) so you can look forward to many future inane catch-up posts until we get back overseas and start doing interesting things again. Carry on!