Mr. Wake

Are you understand?

Name:
Location: Kamakura, Kanagawa, Japan

Monday, February 21, 2005

My Sweater

After leaving my Japanese class at the Y today, I realized that I'd forgotten my sweater. I called them and had the following conversation (in Japanese).

Y: Totsuka YMCA.
Me: Hi. I'm one of your Japanese language students, and I think I left my sweater there. It's brown. In room 205 I think.
Y: Is this Wake-san?
Me: ... Yes.
Y: Another student turned it in. It's such a long sweater, we figured it must be yours. You can pick it up tomorrow.

She didn`t say "big sweater," she said "long sweater." I've had similar experiences at the cleaners. When I come in the guy at the counter yells to his wife in the back, "Can you get the gaijin-san's pants?" without me having to show a ticket. Also at the Y, I used to complain in kind of a self depricating way that that I was too big for the table. The tables have metal shelves attached to the underside, and I had to slouch a little to keep the whole thing from lifting off the floor and resting on my thighs. Of course, there are worse complaints one can have than being really tall. I only do it because I haven't figured out a way to be self depricating about having blue eyes or blonde hair. Anyway, I come into class the next day and there's a post-it with my name on it attached to one seat at one table. The chair had been replaced with a slightly higher desk/chair combo unit, and the metal shelf had been completely removed.

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