Family Bonding...

As you have probably noticed (specially noted by my little sister) my english has been getting poorer and poorer. I often speak in a weird hybrid language containing Japanese, English, and Onomatopoeia. This works fine for anyone in Japan who speaks English and Japanese. It doesn't work well on the phone. Phone conversations have been the hardest struggle for me (Phone calls directed to America). I don't know if my family noticed but I fight myself to not say things like "Hatsuon" when I mean "Pronunciation" or "Hai" instead of "yes" or throw in a pretty little "Ah! Sou desune!" when I want to agree with something. It's quite difficult. A good example of what happens is when a friend of mine was looking up "Computer Science" in an English-Japanese dictionary and thought "What the hell...Computer isn't even in here..." He soon realized that he was looking at the "coN" part of the dictionary because that is how you'd spell Computer the way Japanese say it (Conpyuuta).

I'm sure this will all change after a day in America again...saldly, it will most likely mean that my Japanese will start to get worse though. That's a shame. I don't want it to get worse. Today we had presetations in front of a Japanese audience. the 300 Levels went first, then 400, 500, 600 and finally 700. Seeing the 700's was ridiculous. Their Hatsuon (See above for meaning) was great and they flowed so well. They gave a presentation on something serious...something about starving children. I couldn't understand it and some teachers even confessed the Japanese was so advanced that they didn't understand some of it. I want to get to the 700 level one day...but at the same time, I don't. The 300's and 400's were definitely the most entertaining of the presentations.

In other news, since my host Mom is in Hawaii enjoying the rays. I've been eating dinner with my host sister (she's 28). We watched a TV show the other night where there was a big blank Calendar for a week. (Monday - Sunday) and there were two hosts. Each host picked 7 of their favorite shows from other countries. They then explained the shows and showed clips to a Japanese Celebrity Panel and everyone voted on what would be shown on each day of the week at 6:00 at night. Many of these shows I've seen. It included Cheaters (A show where the host helps women catch their boyfriends in the act of cheating), the Swan (a plastic surgery reality show where they choose the ugliest person they can to give them a full body plastic surgery makeover), But Can They Dance? (The Dance version of "American Idol"), 101 Amazing Things Removed from Human Bodies (I don't think this needs to be explained...), the Worlds 10 Best Mummies (...exactly what it sounds like)...and "Hells Kitchen" (Some famous chef is SUPER mean to training Chefs, one is eliminated each week). It was a really interesting experience to see my host sister react to these shows. Especially the Chef one. Japanese are often polite, especially when it comes to complementing others. This Chef takes a bite of someones food and says "This tastes like DOG. SHIT. (They didn't have to censor it...weird.) it was subtitled. Japanese people FREAKED out. They wre like "WHOA! I CANT BELIEVE HE SAAIIIIDDD THAT!!" Or he'd spit food out which is so Shitsure (rude).

They call the shows "Audition Shows" which makes sense. They loved the dance one, especially seeing the audition clips of people who are bad at dancing. The 101 things removed from peoples bodies was way way over the line for them though. No one could look. Even I could barely watch. One was two guys riding on a motorcycle and they crashed into a truck carrying poles and it went through both of them. They both lived, but were stuck together. It shows the process of them removing it and all this stuff...it was hard to watch...This one was up against the worlds 10 best mummies. My host sister was yelling "ZETTAI MIIRA!" which means "DEFINITELY THE MUMMY SHOW!!!"

Everyone seems to think all thes whacky reality shows came from Japan, but they didn't really. I think ideas are taken from them but my host sister claims Japan never has such things. They have more game-show esque games which usually have funny punishments... I explained Fear Factory and she didn't even want to hear about it. All I said was "people eat bugs..." and she had had enough... I love this country. I'm sad to be returning so soon 5 months is not nearly long enough, though I'm glad I'll be returning and thinking "I don't want to go" rather than "I really need to be going home, I'm so tired of it here."