May 8, 2025
Guests:
J, S, K, A
Discussion Content:
S and A arrived first. Since the weather was so nice, I suggested we could go to the local park. I asked them if they thought that was a good idea or a bad idea, and S said it was a good one.
I said we’d have to wait until about 10:30, so that any other people would have time to arrive late. I then said to A, “We could do that, ne?”, using the Japanese word “ne” (ね) just for fun, and said it’s much easier to use than the English way (“We could do that, couldn’t we?”), which changes depending on the verb.
Then, K arrived, and I got S and A to tell her what we had been talking about. I asked K if she thought it was a good or bad idea, and she hesitated, saying “Goo, goo…”. She said that she’s worried about the sun on her skin, and so today she brought her sun umbrella (parasol). I said there’s a bench with a roof at the park so we’d be in the shade.
Following that, we talked about how Japanese people, especially women, are very worried about getting freckles and sunspots, and prefer to have light-colored skin. I asked, “Do they feel it’s the whiter the better?”, which allowed me to introduce the useful English phrase:
“The …er, the better”,
and J explained what that meant in Japanese.
I said that my wife got lots of freckles and sunspots when she used to drive to and from work in Sydney. In the morning, she was driving north and the sun was in the east, thus hitting her on the right side of her face. But when she was driving home, even though she was heading south, the evening sun was now in the west and was once again hitting her on the right side. J said you can often tell people who drive a lot because they have a darker colored right arm.
I said that I told my wife her freckles and sunspots are like the pictures you see of galaxies and stars in space – lots of small dots which are the stars, and then larger areas that are the galaxies – so it’s like she has a map of some part of the universe on her face. Also, that it’s like a collaborative work of art between her skin and the sun.
K said I was good at giving compliments/praise, but J jokingly wondered if his wife would be happy if he told her she had a galaxy on her face. I said you have to choose the right time and place, and the right words. J said that Japanese people call that thinking about the “T.P.O.” (Time, Place, Occasion), but that English speakers don’t use that expression.
We then asked A why she had been away from the salon for so long, and she said she had been busy at her Japanese style pub – especially during Golden Week. I asked her if she ever uses the pub’s karaoke machine when she’s by herself, and she said she does. I asked what song she sings, and, after thinking for a while, she said, Nakamori Akina.
That was a big coincidence to me, because my wife and I had just been talking about that singer the day before. (It was a story that I had been thinking of telling during the salon, but decided not to as it was too long and complicated. However, now, since by an amazing coincidence her name came up, I decided to go ahead and tell it.)
Finally, I asked everyone if they knew what special day it was that day (May 8th, 2025). No one did, so as a hint I said, “It’s the 80th anniversary of something”. S did the maths, and realized that would mean 1945, so he thought of WW2, but as the Japanese war ended in August he was still unsure, so I explained that it was the day the war in Europe ended.
(Also, by another coincidence, May 8th is my son’s birthday).
Useful phrases:
parasol
sun umbrella
beach umbrella
freckles
sunspots
“The …er, the better”
galaxy
collaborative work (collaboration)
compliments/praise
coincidence
anniversary