I stumbled upon this e-book, Understanding Japanese Women, as I was surfing around yesterday for English teaching material (yes, I’ve gone back to teaching conversational English as a part-time thing) and I perused it with the expectation that this was going to be a cheesy dating handbook.
But it wasn’t. I was truly surprised to find it not only witty, but full of useful information in just the sampler I downloaded. It may be angled at Western men looking to date Japanese women but I can see that there are layers of cultural tips you can glean if you have a keen interest in socializing with Japanese.
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I honestly didn’t expect anything from the kangaroo on Valentine’s Day. It’s become kind of embarrassing to celebrate, especially in the land of giri choco (obligation chocolate) where it’s more work-related and only teenagers give honto choco (sincere/romantic chocolate).
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Cupcakes on my desktop!
You can download them here at the Apple website. They have tons of other cool and quirky icons to dress up your beloved Mac.
By the way, did I mention the kangaroo has evolved from being a PC to a Mac — in spirit at least. During our Sydney holiday, he was so frustrated with his Vista-powered machine that he declared his next purchase will be a…..MAC.
I didn’t do a thing to influence him (he used to inflict insults on my Mac, like “Macs just don’t have the grunt of a PC!”) nor was it just a perfect alignment of the stars when he made that earth-shattering announcement. He even bought Apple shares and an iPhone.
Who says men can’t change?
Apart from buying a piece of glass (thinking it was a bench) and going through the nightmare of applying for an apartment, I think Tokyo hasn’t been too harsh on me. I always feel lucky that I can read most kanji and even enjoy getting reacquainted with Mandarin, my mother tongue, which has gone rusty from lack of use.
But sometimes, I would feel like I’m a two-year-old pretending to be an adult. This moment came every time I sent in a new application form for a telephone land line. In all, I have sent six forms. They were rejected because they were either filled in wrongly or the telephone company claimed they didn’t receive it. The last form was also exactly the same as the first one we filled in that wasn’t successful. What the hell was going on? Well, the ordeal is finally over and we got our phone.
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When I come back to Singapore, I fix my schedule according to what I want to eat. It sounds so controlling and obsessive, but I am sure others in my position think the same.
You see the flavours of Japan can get a little too subtle for me and the two-week lead up to a home visit always makes my taste buds particularly restless.
When I touched down on Friday night, the kangaroo informed me he was at a friend’s apartment drinking wine and listening to music.
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Last week, the kangaroo was unwell with exhaustion, flu, and two hangovers. I have never really thought about what he would like to eat when he gets sick until his last bout of flu which happened last month (he tends to get ill after his hardcore business trips).
Usually he hoovers anything on his plate, but that evening, he asked me what I was going to cook and I chirped, “Teriyaki salmon!”
“Oh babe, nooooooo. No salmon. That’s not sick food.”
I was so puzzled, “Honey, why not?”
“It’s just not sick food. Remember I grew up on a farm and never had any seafood until I was 20.”
I was tickled but dismayed: What do I cook?
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One of the things I find surprising about the kangaroo is that he loves gardening. It’s such a contradiction to his high tech brain that runs like a CPU, but I think once in a while, he likes to chill out at home with his plants and flowers. Being a city gal like myself, I find this highly amusing and fascinating.
In Singapore, our rented apartments always had potted plants and blooms of several hues which the kangaroo would love splurging on. Then he would spend glorious hours tending to them like pets on weekends. When we moved to Japan, most of them went to my parents’ home for safekeeping.
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One very Chinesey thing about the kangaroo is that he loves reading Chinese astrological predictions. He even got his mum into it, so back from Singapore last Saturday, he announced, “Babe, I got a pressie for you!”
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“I can’t understand what Singaporeans say sometimes,” the kangaroo declared in exasperation yesterday after he finished a trying conversation with his Singapore accountant’s assistant. He cast a meaningful eye at me and quipped, “I wonder why…?”
I cracked up. True, I don’t use Singlish (Singapore English) with him because he just wouldn’t understand me, or if he did, he would imitate me.
So what was it that he didn’t get?
“Eh?” is what he hears when Singaporeans pick up the phone. I assured him it wasn’t a grunt but a quick, “’Ello?”
“I sen it” means “I am sending it”. The kangaroo was puzzled and asked if she had already sent the email or if she was sending it at the time they were speaking. I told him if she had sent it, she would say, “I sen already.”
Debating about language is a fun thing for us as a mixed couple. I’ll be flying to Sydney in about three weeks and I wonder what I’ll pick up from the Aussies this time…
I got an idea from a friend in Sydney who listens to Class 95 online. It’s weird that out of all the Mediacorp stations, this one works on my iBook. The rest work on a format not recognized on Macs.
But the connection is so poor — the music gets cut off every other minute. I wish I could tune into it better.
So now I’m listening to Australian pop rock station Triple J because they have an mp3 stream option that plays through iTunes. How cool is that? Mr. D loves tuning into this station when he has an hour or two at home.
Plus. I’m so psyched to be going to Sydney. I’ve been there every year at least once to visit. It almost feels like home. Of course, all this fondness is born out of having an excellent time every time. But living with a kangaroo has also made me very partial to Australian culture. I don’t get all the jokes but I just love the breezy, cheeky remarks they make on radio.
Mr. D views Singapore as home for him. I guess it’s a reversal for us. We both don’t want to live in our home countries because the rest of the world is just so fascinating. One of the things I enjoy about our relationship is this constant cultural exchange. Before I make this sound like a sociological bore, let’s just leave it at this: it’s fun being different from each other.
Right now, I feel I’m full of contradictions. I have to admit part of the reason why I’m so looking forward to Sydney is to see Mr. D’s family. They’ve kind of become family to me as I’ve got to know them little by little over the years and they are always very warm peeps. I miss my folks but my gut tells me it’s not time to see them yet. Maybe I’m becoming more aussie than the kangaroo….
Alrighty, gotta hit the books again.
