Hanami has started!

Last week, I started getting excited about hanami and the budding of the sakura (cherry) trees. Well, they're still budding, but the ume (plum) trees have already started blooming. We went for a walk on the weekend and found some in the park near our house.

They're pretty from afar.

Useful phrases in Japanese #1

My Japanese is still at a state that could best be described as somewhere between "non-existent" and "severely broken". I can read some of the language although for the most part I can either pronounce it because it's written in kana or I can understand it because it's one of the kanji I have learned, but typically not both.

However, I do know a little and some of the little I know includes useful phrases so you can go about life without being a total jerk. I thought I'd start sharing some of those in installments.

Today, I'll discuss what is possibly the most useful word in Japanese.

Sumimasen (すみません)

This word can be used for anything from getting a waiter's attention to apologizing to thanking someone or trying to plow your way through a crowded train station (it's a flexible word). If you are going to visit Japan and only learn one word before coming here, this is probably it.

In cases like getting attention, it's a bit like "excuse me" and is acceptable to use in restaurants, when requesting assistance or generally on the street (e.g. if you see someone drop something). In cases where you're moving through a crowd the meaning can vary between "excuse me" and "sorry" depending whether you're just cutting through or whether you're (lightly) bumping into anyone. It can also mean "thank you" in the sense of "thank you for doing me a favour" (e.g. "thank you for finding that thing I dropped").

Note that while "sumimasen" is fine for lightly bumping into someone, if you totally plow into someone because neither of you were looking where you were going, you probably want to use "gomennasai" (ごめんなさい) a few times instead of "sumimasen" since it's more apologetic. If it's both of your fault, the person you plowed into will probably also apologize profusely.

Hanami is coming!

Those little buds will become awesomeness!

Hanami (花 = hana = flower, 見= mi = see/viewing) is a custom that seems to consist of going somewhere nice, having a picnic and watching the cherry blossoms. It's not supposed to start around here for for a little more than a week, but I'm excited for it already.

Odd suggestions from cracker companies

Since we've been having a fair bit of hummus lately, daid and I have been buying a bunch of crackers. These are not native to Japan and the cracker companies seem to include some "interesting" marketing strategies on their boxes.

For the most part, these involve strange suggestions for what to pair with the crackers. I mean, who over the age of five wouldn't love to eat some Ritz crackers plain with some milk or juice?

The box on the left also suggests topping crackers with cream cheese and
coloured sprinkles or marshmallows. The box on the right suggests potato
salad as a possible cracker topping.

Timezone issues

I thought I would make this post now because it's rather related to this recent xkcd comic (which is neat and you should check out anyway). One of the issues I've noticed moving from the Eastern timezone to Japan is that I'm offset by about half a day from most of the people I know.

This means that when I log into gmail, nobody is online or if they are I'm aware that it's late (or early) where they are and I'm reluctant to bother them. It also means that when I check facebook, the things I reply to are typically at least 8 hours old. Or that when it was my birthday, most of the well-wishes arrived the day after my birthday here because that's when it was my birthday there (on a similar note, I might be sending birthday wishes half a day early to people back home).

On one hand, it's awesome that I can keep tabs on friends back home and I know that some of them are reading my blog and keeping up with me in a sense (a lot of my visitors are from Canada and I'm going to assume it's not just random people). It's also not something that would have been possible for most of human history (e.g. even 20 years ago, it would have barely been possible) so I appreciate that I'm fortunate that I don't have to make a series of long distance phone calls (or wait weeks for letters back and forth) to even see what's happening with everyone.

It's still not the same as going to the pub to get a drink and catching up or even the same as instant messaging.

I am having fun here and enjoy getting to hang out with new people too, I just also miss you guys back home too.

Train safety poster

Around train stations, I'll sometimes see these posters which I find inexplicably funny.

I suppose it's the way the salaryman is depicted as being drunk that's so funny. It's effectively conveyed without the usual sort of cues of drunkenness. He's not holding a bottle or half-passed out; instead, he's merrily (if haphazardly) walking along the edge of the platform without a care in the world and only his loosened tie, rosy cheeks and obvious poor decision making tell you that he's probably not sober.

It might also be funny to me because it's a businessman who is drunk instead of a student or someone who is more typically associated with drunken behaviour in Canada (like people wearing hockey jerseys after a playoff game). While I assume that business people go out and get drunk after work with their colleagues sometimes in Canada, it's not something I think of as happening as much (perhaps in part because the transit isn't generally as good so many people have to drive to work).

These posters advertise the existence of these emergency stop buttons (shown on the centre left and bottom right of the poster), which can stop an incoming train if someone has fallen onto the tracks. It's also possible that it's supposed to give some lesson about how safety on the platform. In the bottom right of the main image, there's some statement about alcohol (presumably about alcohol-related accidents around the train platform, though I mostly understand "platform", "alcohol" and "63.5%") and one might note that the drunken salaryman isn't the only person being unsafe (there's someone strolling along the wrong side of the yellow line reading a book as well).

One thing that I quite like about Japan is that even though I can't read these kinds of posters especially well (yet), the message is relatively clear and the posters themselves often pretty cute. I'm not sure I can say the same about posters I'd see on mass transit in Canada (where images of poorly-rendered cartoon characters standing around are sometimes supposed to tell you to be polite on the bus).

If you're a dude...

...and you were ever confused about how to use the washroom, this sign helpfully illustrates correct usage.

Personally, I think that the best parts are that he has an ass and is leaning back ever so slightly. Whoever came up with this sign was clearly going for realistic motion.