Earthquake

Manchester was hit by an earthquake on Wednesday. It happened just before 1am. I was half asleep. Actually I wasn’t sure if it was real or in my dream. A text message to my cell phone woke me up. It was from my colleague. He said “OMG” in his text. I thought something serious happened at my work place. However, he just asked whether I noticed the earthquake or not. I tried to answer “yes”, but I fell asleep before sending the text message.

On Wednesday, everybody talked about the earthquake. In Japan, the scale of an earthquake measured both of magnitude and 震度(shin-do). I checked 震度 in the dictionary and found it was translated to “Japanese scale”. So, the quake measured just 5.3 on the Richter Scale here. I estimated that it was 2 or 3 on the Japanese scale. And a news paper said, “There were no reports of any injuries.” Still it said, “The quake was the largest since 1984 when an earthquake measuring 5.4 shook North Wales.” The earthquake is quite an unusual thing to happen here.

Pay As You Go

Pre paid cell phones are called “Pay as you go” in England. It’s not popular in Japan anymore, but it’s quite convenient here. I don’t need any ID for getting a cell phone. By just telling my name and birthday, I can buy and use it immediately.

I said it’s not popular in Japan, but I used a pre-paid cell phone before I came here. I brought it with me, but I can’t use it here. I can use it when I go back to Japan, however, my cell phone company is TU-KA. They will stop all cell phone services after the end of March 2008. Because TU-KA was merged into au. I have to change my TU-KA contract into an au one. They sent me the procedures. They have to confirm my identification through my current TU-KA’s cell phone. They’ll call it and I have to pick the phone up. If I were in Japan, it would be easy, but now I’m in England. How can I do it? All procedures are free and if I could finish the procedures, I could get a new au cell phone. In any case, I have to cancel the current contract with TU-KA, otherwise they’ll keep sending the cancelation procedures. So, I filled out the cancellation form for TU-KA and the new contract form for au and sent them to Japan. After a week, I got an international call from au. He asked me “Do you want to change your TU-KA contract to au?” I couldn’t imagine I could change my contract in Japan from England. So, I said, “If I could, I’d love to do it.” All procedures were finished by phone and they are kindly sending a new one to my parent’s house. Wow, again Japanese company is awesome!

Rose

My new English class started last week. The wonderful thing about my new teacher is that he remembers every body’s name in his first class. It’s amazing. My class mates are Brazilian, German, French, Italian, Austrian, Turkish, Chinese, Korean and Japanese. Some of their names are hard to pronounce for others. My Chinese class mate uses an English name because no one can pronounce her name in the correct way. My Turkish class mate’s name is complicated for non-native Turks as well. She said her name meant Rose in Turkey, so to be called Rose in English is OK.

When I was a college student, my major was English. I was thinking that people’s names might be a key thing that Japanese couldn’t say English well. I always pronounce my name in Japanese even when I’m speaking English. It means Japanese words, even when it’s my own name, interrupts English conversation all the time. So, I tried to use English names as a trial. After I graduated from my college, I started to work at a pharmaceutical company in Japan. There were German colleagues. I introduced myself as Rose to them. At first I couldn’t react when I was called Rose because it’s not my name. However, gradually I recognize myself as Rose. Some of Japanese colleagues also called me Rose sometimes for fun. As my trial, it was fun and I succeeded I thought. However, I’m not sure if it helped improve my English or not, actually Eriko is no problem to pronounce for non-native Japanese people. So, I’ve not used Rose for ages, however still now I react when my teacher calls Rose. It’s ridiculous, but I can’t stop it.

Love

It’s Valentine's Day, so I talk about love in Manchester.

When I walked in a busy street, I hit my shoulder with a stranger. He said,

“Sorry, love.”

When I got on a taxi, a driver asked me,

“Where to, love?”

A customer bought a 75pense snack and handed me a coin.

He said,

“One pound, love.”

Manchester is filled with “love”:)

Free News Paper

I pick up free news papers on my way going to work. There are two kinds of free news papers, one is “Metro” and the other is “Evening News”. Both of them are issued by the same company. Metro is handed out from early in the morning till around 10:30am. After that time, “Evening News” is handed out. I go to work around 11:30 am, but still I want to get Metro as well. Sometimes some extra papers are left. I always ask the man who is handing out free news papers, whether there’s extra ones or not. He says,

“Your work must not be busy. Because you have time to read both papers, don’t you?”

I said, “I learn English from these papers.”

Him: “Leaning English from these papers? Come on. This English is rubbish.”

Me: “Do you hand everybody rubbish papers?”

Him: “Yes, I do. For making money;)”

He’s always kind and popular. Sometimes he talks with others. In that case, I just pick up news papers from the pile and leave. After some days, he says,

“I’ve not seen you for ages. Did you travel somewhere?”

Me: “You talked with someone else. You’re popular:)”

Him: “I’m not popular. The papers are popular.;)” “Even when I speak with someone else, you should say hello to me at least. OK?”

Me: “OK!”

We have nice talk sometimes.

Him: “Hello. Are you OK?”

Me: “Is “Are you OK?” just a greeting? What shall I say if people say “Are you OK?””

Him: “Just “I’m OK” in case you’re fine. Of course if you’re not fine, you can say” I feel terrible” or anything that describes your feeling.”

Me: “I see. At first I thought everybody was worrying about me. Because everybody asked me “Are you OK?””

Him: “No, it’s just a greeting. Or yeah, maybe everybody is worried about you;)”

British weather is terrible. Sometimes it rains with strong wind. Not many people use umbrellas. I thought it’s because of the strong wind.

Me: “My umbrella is broken. It doesn’t work here.”

Him: “Umbrella? It’s for girls. British men don’t use it. I never use it.”

Me: “Really?”

Him: “You know what? The rain helps my hair grow. See, I’m not bald. It works. You know people who wear hats are usually bald.”

Learning From my Work

I learn British English in my daily life. Sometimes it’s different from what I learned at school.

My colleague sent me text mail and it said “please bring five pound notes.” Five pound notes? I imagined a notebook which costs five pounds (1,200 yen). What an expensive notebook it is! However I noticed it meant five pound bill.

The shop sells カルピスウォーター (CALPIS Water) and カルピスソーダ (CALPIS Soda). Sometimes customer asks me the difference. My explanation didn’t work well because I used the word “soda”. I should use “fizz”.

A customer asked me which one is dry sake? “Dry sake?” I only know “dry” as “Asahi super dry”. I thought it’s the word to describe taste of beer not for sake.

When my supermarket isn’t busy, I have to pick up the reservation call for the restaurant. I ask “would you tell me your cell phone number?” The customer lets me know her home phone number. She may hear my “cell phone” as “telephone”. Here, they call cell phone “mobile”. I should ask for her “mobile” number.

One day a gray haired Japanese gentleman comes to the shop. It’s not his first visit. I know he would speak to me when he needs help. However, my boss speaks to him, “If you need any explanation about items......” Suddenly my boss notices that the customer is Japanese. He turns to me and moves his mouth without sound and asks me “IS HE JAPANESE?” I answer him “YES HE IS JAPANESE” without voice. Then my boss says to the customer, “Sorry sir I didn’t notice you were Japanese. Actually you don’t look Japanese”.

It’s hard for me to stop laughing to hear his excuses. After this customer goes, my boss blames himself “How stupid I am. I asked a Japanese, do you need any translation.” This is the first time he could make me laugh:)

My PC Travelled to Japan.

Suddenly, my PC showed nothing on the screen. Oh, no. This must be something serious. Even in Japan, my PC was important, you would know how important if you were in a foreign country. All of my Japanese information was coming from my PC. I was afraid this would happen. So, I’d bought a new PC before I came here. BUT now it’s broken. It had a warranty, but I couldn’t find a shop where anyone could repair my Japanese PC. Fortunately, a Japanese company could cover all the fees for the repair, including the postage. So I decided to send it back and repair it in Japan. I emailed the Japanese company on Friday. There’s a time difference, so it was Saturday in Japan; however I got a reply from them on Saturday in British time. I gave them all the information they required. Then Nittsu (a delivery company in Japan) in London called me on Monday for a picking up date for my broken PC. It’s brilliant! I claimed on Friday to the maker and the delivery company picked up my PC on Tuesday. It took only 4days! I asked Nittsu to pick up my PC before 11:30am because I had to go to work. Then they said they’ll come before 11:00am. On Tuesday, the driver called me at 10:00am and told me would come in 30 minutes. Actually he came 10:20am. Everything is on time or earlier. THIS IS THE JAPANESE SYSTEM. Just impressive and I loved this. After finishing the repair my PC was back. Even broken, Japanese products impress me.