Nov 7, 2024 Salon
Guests:
K-san, A-san
Discussion Content:
For some reason, we talked about triple numbers such as 333 or 777. I said my wife likes to see repeated numbers, such as on a shopping receipt or on her phone – she feels it means good luck. K and A feel the same way.
K was using the keypad on her phone and it was making a clicking noise each time she pressed a key. She said she wants to turn the sound off but doesn’t know how to. She finds it embarrassing on the train. I suggested she could put the earphone into the phone to cut off the sound, but she said she doesn’t like using earphones. I then suggested she try turning the phone’s volume completely down, and that worked. But she’ll have to remember to turn the volume up again after she finishes with the keypad. She said she likes to have the volume all the way up so she will hear if it rings.
I said my wife never seems to hear her phone if it rings or if she gets a notification from Facebook. Usually, she only notices messages from me after she gets home. A asked if I use LINE with my wife, but I said we use Facebook/Messenger. I said Facebook does everything other SNS apps do so I wondered why people stopped using it and switched over to LINE and Twitter and Instagram, etc.
I said Instagram is less convenient because it only shows a photograph, and then you have to click it to see the story, whereas Facebook and Twitter show the text and photo at the same time.
I showed them a photo on my Twitter of Anpanman at Yaoko supermarket. It was funny because he was just placed on a counter in a slouched position and looked exhausted.
I said we are having a Christmas event and asked if they had any suggestions for activities. K suggested musical chairs, but I said I think that’s more for kids than adults. She said adults can have fun with it as well. She then suggested a Japanese game called “Hankachi-Otoshi”, and she explained that to me.
I thought this exercise of explaining Japanese games in English was itself a good activity and so asked A to explain a Japanese game. She explained the well-known game, “Daruma-san-ga-Koronda”. K said there’s a part two, where the demon catches somebody and then holds onto their hand. The other people then have to sneak up on the demon and chop their hands apart to rescue the person.
I explained that the word “sneak” is where the name for the shoes “Sneakers” comes from.
K said she had a nightmare where she saw a UFO outside and she got scared. When she ran inside, somebody’s hand reached out to her and said everything is okay. She thought it was her son’s hand, but she didn’t actually see her son, so it could have been an alien.
Useful phrases:
triple numbers
notification
register
exhausted
car exhaust
exhaust fan
musical chairs (game)
melancholy
sneak
sneak up on somebody
scary VS scared