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August 14, 2002 - 4:29PM
Wes Ehrlichman
Yes I was indeed in the newspaper yesterday. I have loosely
translated the article to English too. Here it is, available
in Japanese and English. If you're studying Japanese you may
want to try to read the Japanese version.
You may notice a couple of things in the
interview that don't quite sound like me. Most notably the
stuff about sports. This is in there because he asked if I
was into sports and rather than saying "No" and
having everyone in Japan think that I don't want to be invited
to play sports with them I said that while I was in Elementary
school I played Baseball, while I was in High School I used
to play Basketball with my friends, and while I was in College
I threw the Frisbee around with my friends a lot. I think
he took this to mean that I am really into each of these three
things. I'm not, but that's OK.
I didn't get to talk about my newspaper
achievement last night because I went out with the Seo family
to the Beer Garden. The Beer Garden is like an all you can
eat buffet, but with Beer and Shochu (Japanese Sweet Potato
wine... yes it's as bad as it sounds) included in the price.
It's the popular thing in Japan. If you're wondering, I'm
not sure how much it costs because I've never had to pay for
myself.
Mr. Seo is Kedoin's Chairperson (whatever
that means). He came by my desk a couple of days ago and invited
me to go, saying that his daughter would be going and she
is 23 years old like me. Man these guys really like to hook
a brother up! Too bad I already have a girlfriend. Too bad
for these girls that is :-)
At the time that he invited me I had very
little idea how much English Mr. Seo knew, so when he picked
me up at around 6 with a translator in the car I was a little
worried. I soon found out though, that the translator was
one of his daughter's best friends who had been to Australia
for a year and learned English. She was really cool. While
in Australia she stayed with a Swedish family, and she has
studied German in the past, so instead of an Australian accent
she had some weird mix between an Australian, a German, and
a Swedish accent. All on top of the standard Japanese person
speaking English accent. It was a strange mix to say the least.
She was also 23 years old.
A total of five people came, me, Mr. Seo,
Mrs. Seo, their daughter Wakako Seo, and the aforementioned
translator Shoko Miyazaki. Apparently it was Wakako's birthday
on the 10th, and this was a birthday party of sorts.
When we first got there I was having a hard
time coming up with conversation. I only know a limited amount
of Japanese and it just feels weird to go through a translator
for dinner table conversation, so it was fairly quiet on my
side for the first few minutes. During the lull I
started to think about things I can say in Japanese that tend
to spark conversation. I asked Wakako, "What is your
hobby." She thought about it for a second and
replied, "drinking beer." I guess the beer garden
was a good place to be for her birthday party! She
definitely took advantage of it too. Actually everyone did,
so even though the night began a little awkward it ended up
being a whole lot of fun. Their family really likes to party.
It was funny because every time I would stop drinking for
a little while, even if it was just to eat, Mrs. Seo would
point to my glass and say "drink please."
Eventually everyone at our table drank so
much that we moved to the next table over and started talking
to them too. I spoke some English to their kids, trying to
get some practice in for when class starts. They had a little
girl that was very shy, but eventually we got her to say "Hello"
and "Nice to meet you." It was very cute.
Eventually we talked to the people at the
next table for so long that the beer garden started to close
down! We made our way out the door and a Taxi picked us up.
Actually it was pretty weird because the Taxi came, but only
me and Mr. Seo got in. The girls all had to walk! It was pretty
strange. I didn't know that was going on when we got into
the cab otherwise I would have walked too. It wasn't really
too far.
Mr. Seo and I got out of the cab at my house
and before I went inside he said something to me in Japanese.
I didn't understand what he was saying for sure, but it sounded
like he may have been asking me to come over to his house
sometime. "Shall we go?" I said.
"Yes, lets go now," he said, and
pulled me with him to his house, which is about a block away
from mine. When we got in the door he answered the messages
on his answering machine while I messed around with the Piano.
A few minutes later the girls showed up and they busted out
a few more beers. I had milk myself.
As we sat around the table and talked some
more I began to practice some Japanese writing on a nearby
pad of paper, showing them how to spell my name in English
and Japanese. Mr. Seo left the room for a minute and when
he returned he brought with him a small matboard and black
calligraphy pen. He tested the pen on the notepad in front
of him and handed me the board and pen. He said something
to me in Japanese that I didn't understand. Shoko translated
for me, "He wants you to write something. It doesn't
have to be in Japanese. It can be in English."
Talk about being put on the spot! I had
no idea what to write. I put the pen down and began to write
in English:
On August 13th, 2002 I went to the Hotel Kedouin
with the Seo family and Shoko. I had a lot of fun. We
should do it again sometime.
-Wes
Shoko read through it and started to talk
to me as Mr. Seo took the matboard from her. I looked up from
the conversation and there it was. Framed. Luckily what I
had wrote had filled up the entire matboard, and despite what
it said it was in pretty good handwriting. So now that's going
to be up on a wall in their house for who knows how long.
If that's not a story I don't know what
is!
A little bit later Wakako and Shoko walked
me home. They came inside and I took some pictures as Wakako
passed out on the carpet. Shoko woke her up and they went
home. It was so much fun! Today I got some e-mails telling
me how much they want to do it again. Seo family, if you're
reading this I'm down for whenever!
 
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