Season’s Greetings

A big Christmas tree stands in Piccadilly gardens, a huge Santa Clause sits on the town hall and the Christmas markets open; Christmas is just around the corner in Manchester. Some of my friends have already gone back to their home countries so I have been thinking of Japan a lot recently. Since I came here, I haven’t been back to Japan even once because I decided not to go back to Japan for two years unless something exceptional occurs. There are two main reasons; the first one is that I am supposed to be back in Japan in the future so I would prefer to visit other European countries during my stay in England and the second reason is if I went back to Japan, I would miss it even more. After one and a half years, I am more comfortable living here than before, I’m more flexible now, for instance:
Last Tuesday without any notice water stopped coming out of taps, I was shocked because this kind of problem has never occurred in Japan however this is the second time at my place in Manchester. The first time, I panicked and I didn’t know what to do but this time I already knew the place I could ring to ask for help. I also knew I could use the toilet at the nearby station and I had bottles of water to drink so after making a phone call I calmly waited and water came back to the taps in about two hours. Many unavoidable troubles have happened here but I’ve learnt they can be solved if I would complain then wait.
When I came I didn’t have any friends here, I could speak with my friends at home on Skype but after hanging up the line, I felt very lonely. I had no friends for coffee, lunch or shopping, I sat in front of my PC for many hours each day and I didn’t feel like I was living in Manchester, but now I have friends to go out and speak to in person and I’m feeling alive. These facts made it a lot easier to live here, however still miss my family and friends in Japan. Luckily, my family are coming to see me from Osaka for the New Year holidays. I look forward to talking and catching up on all the stories, every day I listen to NHK radio news and read articles about Japan on line, the Internet brings me lots of general information however I know my family will bring many other interesting or local stories.
I’ll stay here another three years from now on, because I’m getting used to living in Manchester, it is much easier to stay here than moving to a new place to start from the beginning again. I have places I would like to visit in Europe so staying three years would give me more opportunity to travel and of course I’ll also try to visit Japan sometimes. To tell you the truth, I wasn’t sure whether I could come back to Manchester if I went back to Japan before, but now I’m ready for it.
I wish all my friends Merry Christmas!

V for Vendetta

I started to read the graphic novel “V for Vendetta” on 5th November and finished reading it on 28th November. As I’m a very slow reader, a month was reasonably quick for me and I’m happy that I could understand most of it. I skipped some parts because two characters spoke with strong dialects for instance:
“EH, BOAB, Y’ GETUM EN, EH?”
“EH, YIZZA TIGHT BASTUD, YU’RE...”
Unfortunately for me these are accents from the Northern part of England including Manchester. Now I understand why I don’t catch people’s words in daily life. Of course I’m not saying everybody speaks this way, but I overhear these words many times and I still can’t translate them well. When I came to Manchester I got a shock because I couldn’t understand people’ speak, but if I went home and watched TV, I could understand TV or News. Every time I speak with Japanese friends in Manchester I asked “Do people in Manchester speak English? Can you understand them? ”. All of my friends are struggling with the strong accent.
Let’s try to translate a phrase with my friend’s help.
“NAW, THAS JEM’S BERD, WHASSANAME, DIYAAN...”
The above phrase is translated to:
“No, that’s Jim’s bird, what’s her name, Dyane...”
I also should have known “bird” means “girlfriend” which my Japanese English teachers didn’t teach me at school. I still have to learn so many words to fully understand daily conversation. This graphic novel gave me some opportunities to think about that.

To better understand the story, I also watched the movie “V for Vendetta” which was produced by Warner Brother’s. The story is based on the graphic novel but adapted with extra romance and a dramatic ending for the cinema. After watching the movie, I was thinking about these differences, in the original story the girl, Evey was weak and small but after her ordeals with V, she changed into someone much stronger, however, in the movie, the same girl was played by Natalie Portman and she was already strong enough from the first scene. In the book, Evey was attracted by V, but it wasn’t romance as was portrayed in the movie. I read the book using a dictionary, but it doesn’t help explain everything I don’t fully understand. The movie revealed me different aspects and gave me “food for thought” regarding the story; it helped me to understand it better.

Turning Japanese

I watched a TV program called “Kelly Osbourne : Turning Japanese”; even though I didn’t believe she would actually be turning Japanese, the title interested me.
Kelly Osbourne is the daughter of a legend in heavy metal music: Ozzy Osbourne, she is a singer, actress, television personality, radio presenter and fashion designer. It’s challenging for her because she doesn’t know much about Japan and it’s a whole other world. The purpose of this program is for her to stay in the so called “the politest place in the world” for five weeks to learn something. This introduction sounded interesting however the first place she went as a part of her working holiday was a “Maid Cafe”! The poor girl, she wore a classic French style maid costume, adopted a servants persona and served coffee to a table. She asked whether a customer would like to have some sugar and milk and according to his desire she added sugar and milk and stirred his coffee with a spoon for him. Kelly was complaining about having to give this service, despite this however she managed and passed the first step. The second step was “hand massaging”; a customer sat on a chair and a maid knelt down next to the chair and massaged his hands. She was politely refusing to do it, then the manager of the Maid Cafe said, “what about shoulder massages?”
“Punch him!” I shouted in front of the TV.
After the work, she asked one of her Japanese colleagues “Do you like this job?” The Japanese girl answered, “Well....yes...” whilst smiling. This is a typical Japanese vague answer but Kelly understood it clearly and said “I’m sure she definitely dislikes her work.” It’s interesting to see our culture from a different perspective. Her trial continued and the second place of work was a “Love Hotel”, but I’ll stop describing her work experience at this point.
This program doesn’t just focus on the wired aspects of Japanese culture; she went on to learn the skills of Japanese sword play. This was now more serious and on the first day the master was mad at Kelly because she left the Dojo (training hall) before him without cleaning up. Showing manners and respect to your master is very important in martial arts and no exception will be made for any VIP person. Kelly was complaining about the strict manner and hard training however after two days of this, she showed her work in front of an audience and she had achieved a lot. I look forward to seeing how her experiences affect her personality over the five weeks.

Stonehenge and Bath

Stonehenge is a mysterious and very attractive place and I’ve wanted to visit there since I came to England. At last, I had a chance to participate in a bus tour which was organized by International Society in Manchester. It takes about five hours from Manchester by bus however there is nothing else but Stonehenge so the tour was planned for a Stonehenge and Bath trip. On the first day, I went to Bath and had free time there so we went to the Roman Bath Museum. It’s nice and well preserved since Roman era. Nowadays it has changed to the museum and I couldn’t take a bath, but natural hot water is still available and I could drink a small amount of natural hot water there.


I also found a spa and it said “natural hot spring”, but I didn’t know what it was like; I may need to wear swim suits there. And it costs 13 pounds (around 2,000yen) for an hour and a half so I didn’t try it. I miss Japanese onsens very much but it didn’t look like what I expected it to be.
After sightseeing, I stayed at a youth hostel. I’ve never stayed in a youth hostel before including in Japan so I was half excited and half nervous. It was a clean and nice room and far better than I imagined. The best part was breakfast; I could have ham, sausage, bacon, beans, eggs, toast, croissants, fruit-juice, and coffee as much as I wanted so I had a big breakfast there. It took an hour from Bath to Stonehenge by bus. Finally I saw Stonehenge! Some of my friends told me it’s disappointing however, I felt it was huge, mysterious and impressive.


After sightseeing at Stonehenge I came back to Bath and had time till departure to Manchester. I went to The Jane Austen Centre. Jane Austen is a British female writer and famous for “Pride and Prejudice”, “Sense and Sensibility” and “Emma”. I didn’t read any of these novels but I watched “Sense and Sensibility” on British TV so I was interested in the stories. Her novels were based on her life and I feel closer to her now and I’d love to read her works.
Before leaving Bath, I found a restaurant called “Jamie’s Italian”; Jamie Oliver is one of the most popular chefs in England and popular as イケメン(good looking) chef in Japan. In his cooking program, he uses lots of olive oil and in the food which is served at his restaurant he uses it as well and it was very tasty. After having nice food, I could sleep well on the bus and come back to Manchester.

Introduce Japan

My English teacher suggested that I make five minutes presentation about Japan so I prepared the following one:

I’d like to introduce my country, Japan. The population is 120,000,000 so it’s approximately double the UK, it is an island divided from other countries by oceans. However unfamiliar you are with Japan, you probably know the words SAMURAI, GEISHA, KIMONO, JUDO, SUMO, TSUNAMI and KARAOKE. All of these words are originally from Japan and some of them have been popularized by Hollywood movies like “The Last Samurai” and “Memoirs of a Geisha” or “SAYURI”. Samurais are Japanese warriors but they don’t exist anymore. Geishas are sometimes confused with prostitutes but in recent history this is not the case, they are talented dancers, musicians and entertainers at meetings and parties. The Kimono is a traditional costume and we wear it for the “becoming an adult” celebration at age 20, wedding ceremonies and traditional events like tea ceremonies. If you go to Japanese restaurants in Manchester, some of the waitresses wear traditional costumes called Yukatas. The Yukata is a kind of Kimono but it’s more casual and less expensive than ordinary Kimonos and we can wear it easily and going to fireworks and some festivals in summer. In some countries, the uniform for Judo is also called a Kimono, but it’s called Judo-Gi in Japan.

The Emperor of Japan called TEN-NOU is very unique, during World War II, he had the authority to command air, sea and ground forces, however after the war, he was defined as a symbol of Japan and he no longer has any authority in politics or the economy. Still imperial families are popular as role models and the current emperor’s birthday is celebrated as a national holiday every year.

We are also quite unique in terms of religion; according to the data from “The agency for cultural affairs”, the number of Shintos in Japan are 160,000,000, 9,600,000 Buddihists, 2,000,000 Christians and 11,000,000 others. The total number coming to 215,000,000 which is double the population. In Japan, if people pray to a religious god, they are regarded as a believer. Kamidana and Butsudan are the symbols of Shinto and Buddhism respectively; we believe that spirits live in here and we pray toward these symbols at home. Some Japanese houses have both of these charms together, but this is not unusual. These days, many people have wedding ceremonies at Christian Churches, and organize their funeral at a Buddhist temple. If you watch the famous Japanese animated movie “Spirited Away”, you’ll see many gods in there.

The life expectancy in Japan is 79 for males and 85 for females and this is the longest in the world. The main reason might be healthy food; we can buy fresh fish and eat it raw as Sushi or Sashimi. We also eat a lot of sea weed which contains many minerals. Taking vitamins or other tablets isn’t popular, but people care about healthy food and some restaurants show the amount of calories besides the menu, cooking and health orientated TV programs are also popular.
Thank you.

Bonfire Night Part 2

On Bonfire Night, I wasn’t sure whether I would go to see some fireworks and a bonfire in the evening. I had lunch with my American friend and it was a big day for American people not because of Bonfire Night but because of the American presidential election results. All of the newspapers in England reported about it; perhaps the new American president, Obama, might be more famous than British Prime Minister Gordon Brown in England now.
I asked whether she would go to somewhere for Bonfire Night, but she told me she was probably not going. Bonfire Night reminds her of the Hollywood movie “V for Vendetta” and she asked me whether I had watched it or not. What a coincidence, my other friend just recommended reading the graphic novel (マンガ) before watching the movie. So I said “I borrowed the manga from my friend and I’m trying to read that first.” Then she asked “Did you start reading it? Where are you now?” My answer was, “Not even a single page. I haven’t started to read it yet.”

After having lunch, I went to my English class and my teacher informed me about the event this evening. I asked where the closest Bonfire was and he gave me directions; I could walk there in one hour. As long as I walk, it’s possible to avoid the traffic jams, this is not a bad idea so I asked my husband and we decided to go.

After an hour walk, we arrived at the park and we saw the fair and some food stands there. We didn’t know where we should go for the fireworks, it was dark, but the amusement grounds were lit up so we went there first, followed the crowds toward the field and waited with them, then the fireworks started. Actually cold air is clearer than warm air and the fireworks in autumn were more beautiful than in summer.


Sometimes I recognize how hungry I was while I eat something, this time was analogous to that, during the fireworks I found I really enjoyed watching them, they were fantastic. After the fireworks, the bonfire started; the flames were big, magnificent, and the best part was it was warm enough. I was happy to be part of this event in Manchester.

The next day I started to read the British graphic novel “V for Vendetta” which is the original story of the Hollywood movie with the same title and again I noticed how much I was enjoying reading it. I read manga a lot when I was a kid, but I’ve never tried to read any English graphic novels except for English translations of Japanese manga. The story started on the fifth of November although it is fictitious; just after experiencing Bonfire Night I found it very interesting. At first, I struggled to read it because all of words were capitalised and I couldn’t recognize peoples’ names. If the characters’ names were SMITH or CAMERON, I could easily recognize them however some of their names were “DASCOMBE” and “ALMOND”. They were sometimes called by surnames or first names and it confused me. Now I’m getting used to capitalized words and strange names. I hope I can read them faster and finish reading the full story in English.

Bonfire Night Part 1

November 5th is Guy Fawkes' Day and for the celebration many fireworks and bonfires are done. My British friend recommended me to have a look at the event because I’m in England and it’s a typical event in England. However, for me fireworks in November are unbelievable. In Japan fireworks are usually a summer event except in Tokyo Disneyland and some special places. And November in Manchester is much colder than November in Japan. I checked where I could watch the fireworks and the time schedule as well. Still, I think I wouldn’t come to see it. I’d love to watch fireworks, but I hate crowds and heavy traffic and cold weather. We’ll see.