Elves!
I've decided that the Japanese people are really bred from elves. Now, I know that while some of you are nodding your heads in agreements, others are wondering, "What the hell is she talking about?" or maybe getting ready to write "you racist bastard!" in my comments box. Allow me to explain:

It always catches my attention when I'm not looking for it. Even more than the pointy shoes and the pointy hats, the tiny bodies and birdlike bones. The Japanese just sometimes look like elves. It's not one thing or the other, it's everything put together. The shoes, the feathered hair, the too-large hats, the clothing that hangs off their small frames like tents but is all made of gauze-like material thrown together in myriad clashing layers. I'll be walking somewhere and -OOP!- there's another elf! It's not just women, it's Japanese men, too... those cheekbones, slanted eyes and shaggy locks... they seem more faerie than human. Every now and then there's some particularly sidhe-like individual that makes me stare as if there is some actual possibility of magick in Tokyo. But most of these Japan-elves aren't elegant, waify faeries but short, petit brownies. They don't notice me staring... they're always too busy chatting on their cell phones on the way to work or school.

And, I might add, where else on earth can you find grammas who INTENTIONALLY dye their hair bright purple, blue or green? I don't know what's up with this but I've seen it a handfull of times and it always makes me smile.

Oh. OH, I had a rather amusing conversation with host mom this evening after we came back from [=D =D =D (Secret cool thing)]. We were talking, as usual, about the differences between English and Japanese when she suddenly busted said that oh, her English teacher told her, if it rains, it might not be good to say, "Oh, I'm so wet!"

O. Kay. Stopped me in my tracks.

I had a bit of a start for a second thinking, well, do I have to explain this to her? Yes, it's gramattically correct. Yes, it makese SENSE... but what KIND of sense? I kind of chewed on it for a second... "Yeah, uh, that's a little personal," I said vaguely. But by then she'd launched into her second example which was that the same teacher told her that when inquiring of someone's hobbies, it's better not to ask, "What turns you on?"

I couldn't help it, I just started laughing. I laughed so hard, I almost cried. It was too much.

It's so true. I never saw these strange things about English before I came here, or the way someone else might see my native language... but it is full of damn weird idioms. Thankfully, my host mom is a good student and understood that these idioms were, well, sexual... and so I didn't have to lead for more than an awkward sentence or two before I was sure that she understood WHY she shouldn't tell a room full of Americans that she was oh so wet and then ask what turns them on.

*dies*

I love Japan.