Good Times in Tokyo

See what happens when people stop being polite and start getting oolong'd.

08 December 2005

Korean Gospel Time

So today after class I was eating lunch with my midwest buddy Nichole and all of a sudden we were approached by this lady asking us to go to a gospel concert. At first I thought they were inviting me to go to a concert in the future but I found out it was going on right now. I thought this was a perfect random Japanese moment for me to participate in. It got pretty random let me tell you. I ended up going alone with these people since Nichole had class in a bit. So as we were walking to this concert the people (a guy and a girl) tell me that this is like an introduction concert to tell people about the really big concert they are having this sunday. They also tell me they are Korean and the guy just got here monday. So we go to this classroom and this Korean girl is belting out a christmas song in japanese. It was amazing. To me, Japanese isn't a very pretty language to put to music but this lady certainly changed that. After the first song, she started speaking in Korean to everyone. Then another person would translate to Japanese for some of the people. Most of the people were Korean though, so it was jsut for me and 5 or 6 other Japanese people. Kind of funny when the language you understand most is Japanese... Then the girl singing busted into Amazing Grace with three verses, one in english, Japanese and Korean. She sang some other songs but I didn't reckognise them. After the mini concert the guy who came with me asked me to come to the concert sunday and of course I will. If this lady is singing. Plus, a Korean Christmas Gospel Concert...who can say no? Also after the mini concert they gave all of us a "choco pie", basically a marshmalow pie. And they kind of stared at us waiting for us to eat it because apparently it's a big thing in Korea. I didn't want to tell them that we have it in America as wel to make them feel special.

Oh something I forgot to add about the vagueness of Japan is that the language is incredibly vauge as well. Very rarely do you use pronouns, or state the subject of the sentence. I think this has a lot to do with why Japanese people are vague in every area of life. For example here i a perfectly acceptable conversation in Japanese:

A: 明日、映画に行かないの?
([do you want] to go to the movies tomorrow?)
B: 明日はちょっと。。。
(Tomorow is a bit...)

a bit what? In this case it means basically tomorrow is no good since the person is busy. But heaven forbid they say they are busy. Or that they can't actually go. So much of Japanese is implied that I think this gets projected on the rest of their lives. And when they talk in English. Like how in Japanese the word "yes" (はい)doesn't really mean yes, affirmative. Rather it means yes, I am listening/just heard what you said. Hence the reason I get answers that make no since to me whatsoever.

2 Comments:

  • At 9/12/05 03:19, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    sounds like good times had by all. i mean, i had fun...reading it? ugh nevermind. i am redunk.


    thanks for the post! what the boof is the postcard a picture of? is that a bottle of creamer? i am so derunk.

     
  • At 10/12/05 00:39, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Korean Gospel is where its at, I can't wait to feast my ears on it on Sunday! Oh Japan...I am going to miss you in two weeks Scot!

     

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