Mixi and Hot Kisses

Wednesday, April 4, 2007

Before I begin, I have to mention a few things I forgot about Tokyo. I bought a pink Nintendo DS and I don't know what I was thinking!! I have no time to play it! Also, we saw some para para dancers on the street in Shinjuku. Hate to say it, but it was right out of an ANIME!!!

(In case you don't know what Para Para is, it's a dance style where "cool" looking people stand in a formation, keep their feet on the ground, bounce a bit, and and move their hands all over the place....it's actually a really crappy style of dancing but the dancers take it really seriously)

OK

So, I've started reading a book called 電車男 aka Train man. I didn't realize it but a few years ago a couple of my otaku friends were talking about a forum online called 4chan and it turns out that 4chan is the English version of 2chan which is/was the most popular chatting forum in Japan. Well, there was a budding love story posted on it and someone decided to take the entire conversation, spanning over the course of a few months, and turn it into a book. I am now currently reading that book. It became so popular in Japan that not only did they translate it into an Australian/American ghetto slang style English, but they also made a tv series, movie, three manga, and companion guides to the book! I plan to see the movie or series when I finish the book. It's actually really cute.

So anyway, after going to Tokyo and after starting reading Train man, I decided that I too could chat online with the many interesting geeks of Japan! So I got on Mixi which is the Japanese equivalent of MySpace and decided that I would try and write a journal entry in Japanese at least once a day no matter how small. Three days later and I'm still going strong!!! But my Japanese is really crap. I know this will definitely help!

Which brings us to today's Mixi post. I had to get Erinn's help to translate this one but I wrote it nonetheless!

Hot Kiss

今日やさし男の先生が私の机の前にきました。彼はいつもわたしと英語ではなします。でもかれの英語はちょっとへんです。

先生：ニーナ先生,Hot kiss...can you...give me?
私: んん？
先生：Hot kiss, give me?
私：何?！
先生：Hot kiss, hot kiss ちょうだい？
私：？？？！？！
先生：この前！覚えてる？ニーナのHot kiss!
私：... ... ...　あっ！ほちきす！はい、どぞ！


とってもびっくりしました！
ほんとのしつもんしていましたか？ハハハ！

Translation:

Hot Kiss

Today, a very nice male teacher came up to my desk. He always speaks to me in English. But, his English is a little strange.

teacher: Nina-sensei, Hot kiss...can you...give me?
me: huh?
teacher: Hot kiss, give me?
me: Say what?!
teacher: Hot kiss, hot kiss, give me please!
me: ????!?!
teacher: From before! Don't you remember? Your hot kiss!
me:... ... ... OH! My stapler! Sure, here!

I was so surprised!
Was that really his questions? hahaha!

End

So yeah, in Japanese, stapler is hachikisu which sounds like hot kiss. I almost died laughing! I certainly won't forget that word either!

As a side note though, surprisingly, it comes off very rude when you directly translate the Japanese "give me" into English.

See, in Japanese, it's ok to use the word "give me" instead of lend me. Even when I hear it in Japanese I feel like the person is being a bit bold to be like, Nina give me your pencil, instead of Nina, please lend me your pencil. The meaning is the same in Japanese but they always say it really rudely in English. I've learned that their not being bossy or pushy or anything, it's just what they were taught. Just thought I would mention that tid bit :)