If it’s not strange enough that I’ve come to Japan and started learning flamenco, the class dynamics are definitely somewhat unusual: The majority of the class are japanese women, apart from myself and Amanda. The teacher is Spanish and speaks spanish and japanese. Amanda is still learning Japanese but speaks spanish so instructions to her are given in Spanish. One of the Japanese ladies also speaks spanish (and german and russian) and translates when our teacher can’t express something in Japanese. Our teacher doesn’t speak english so any conversation I have with her must be in Japanese – always fun having two people speaking broken japanese together! On top of that, the person who does admin for the class speaks english, but no spanish. Following so far?!
Anyway, last night we started discussing mistakes we’ve made in the various languages, and how the same words can exist in different languages but have completely different meanings. It started off innocently enough… I was saying how I always mix up ‘to bring’ and ‘to take’ in japanese. Amanda agreed; she always says ‘bring’ and I always say ‘take’. Our teacher said she also mixes those up, and the forms for ‘I’ll pick you up’ and ‘can you pick me up?’ (all these forms are based around the verbs ‘go’ and ‘come’, which are used back to front to how we use them in english.)
Our teacher then told us a story about the first time she went to buy rice at a small supermarket here.
The japanese for rice is ‘kome’ or ‘okome’ if you’re being polite. Our teacher couldn’t find it so she asked a shop assistant for help, only she asked for ‘omeko’ instead – an easy mistake to make. He reacted quite violently, forming a cross with his arms (japanese gesture for ‘no good’). She thought he wasn’t understanding her so repeated her request loudly ‘I want to buy some rice’ Only she was actually saying ‘I want to buy some cunt!’ The shop assistant became very red in the face, emphatically telling her they don’t sell that sort of thing there – leaving her quite confused: why on earth would a supermarket not sell rice, and what’s so bad about it anyway?!
She then told a story about her friend, who when arriving in Japan first stayed in a town famous for butterflies. The word for butterfly in japanese is ‘chocho’, coincidently the same word as ‘cunt’ in the spanish dialect that this friend spoke. Of course, everyone wanted to take her around to all the statues of ‘chocho’, and take many photos of this lady and various ‘chocho’. By the time she arrived in osaka to stay with our teacher she was quite traumatised, thinking that everyone had been obsessed with cunts!
Our teacher was then describing how different words have different connotations in Spanish, depending on where you are from. Even in Spain, she said the northern area speak a more refined Spanish whereas the southern areas – where she is from- speak plainer, coarser Spanish. This initially caused some troubles when she was first going out with her husband, as he came from peru, where the spanish is apparently even more refined, and all his friends were very pious churchgoing folk. One night Mariabelle was having them around for dinner, and as she had no tables and chairs, everyone had to sit on the floor. Concerned about their comfort, she asked them if they were comfortable, that their bums hadn’t gone to sleep. She said all four friends of her husband looked at each other aghast, and then turned horrified faces to her. She knew she must’ve done something wrong but wasn’t sure what until her husband pulled her aside and explained that the word she used for bottom or bum, actually meant ‘arse’ where he was from and was a word _never_ uttered by women. She apologised to their guests, explaining that in her area an arse was an arse, that there was no other word for it and she didn’t mean to offend. Of course hearing this word uttered so many times in one sitting offended them even more! According to her, she always compounds such offences, by repeating the offending word while apologising but she never means to offend!
She said it is ok now, all her husband’s friends know that her spanish is quite rough by their standards and before she meets anyone new, her husband explains to them about the differences and tells them not to be offended.
Other language enlightenments last night: the word for ‘stupid’ in Japanese (‘baka’) means ‘beef’ in Spanish. Going out to a bbq meat restaurant here with a spanish friend, she said she felt sorry for their poor waiter who was quite baffled when her friend asked, in very clear Spanish ‘Is this beef?’ The waiter thought the friend was talking about him and miserably replied ‘yessir, I am stupid’ She apologised, told her friend to let her do the asking and left the restaurant in shame!
Also the word for garlic in Spanish ‘aho’ means ‘areshole’ or ‘dickhead’ in Japanese. So you can have ‘stupid’ cooked with ‘arsehole’!!! Maybe not so amusing on paper, but we were muchly amused last night.
(by the way, I do not claim to be correct in Spanish spellings..I’m just going by japanese spellings here.)
So this is what I learned in flamenco class last night 🙂
All this and they teach you do dance too? Excellent stuff. I’m not sure about Peruvian spanish (castellano) being more polite or refined than Spain spanish (espanol) – swearing was practically a sub-dialect when I learnt it, though mind you, I learnt it at a peruvian boys school, so that’s to be expected. Espanol (like French and Italian) even has the vosotros pronoun for refering to people in the 2nd person politely where as castellano doesn’t. One interesting thing to note between the Spanish and Italians though, is that the Italian word for Hello is the Spanish word for Goodbye. Guess they like each other lots.
thats fucking hilarious! love it. p.s. was nice talking to you on the phone last week. Sorry it was brief and stupid (beef), but i hadn’t woken up properly. Wendy and wifey’s conversation had sent me to sleep beforehand.
I loved the cunt stories! Very cute. Omeko, hmm I’m going to remember that.