Apr 17, 2025
Guests:
K, S, M
Discussion Content:
K and S arrived together. K said “It’s a nice day”, and I said “Yes. I wish all days were like this because I don’t like summer”.
I then further explained that, when it’s cold in winter, it’s fairly easy to get warm, but in summer when it’s hot, it’s a lot harder to get cool. I feel that getting cool in summer is like simply going from a minus position back to zero, but in winter, getting warm feels like going from a minus position to a positive position.
S said he had a boss in the USA who said the same thing. He said that in summer, once you’ve taken off all your clothes, there’s nothing more you can do to get cooler, but in winter, you can keep putting on more clothes, or warmer clothes.
S then further explained that, airlines in the USA tend to have a lower average cabin temperature than Japanese airlines, probably because Caucasian people feel the heat more than Japanese people.
K then showed us her new bag which she made herself. It’s made from wool (felt), but has no sewing, and looks like one piece of material in the shape of a bag – including with a flap at the top for opening/closing. She said it’s made by joining separate pieces of cloth by mixing the fibers together in soapy water, which makes them become fluffy. Then, once the fibers mesh together and then dry, the whole thing looks like one piece of material.
The style of the bag was one which is worn on your back - and so these are usually called a “backpack” - but I thought there should be a more fashionable, stylish name for such a ladies’ backpack. However, looking on Google, they all seem to be called backpacks, with some simply having the word “stylish” added.
I said wearing a bag on your back could be dangerous though, as it could get stolen, or pick-pocketed. M told us her daughter once had her bag stolen by pick-pockets in Europe, and lost her passport, so she had to contact the Japanese consulate and then remain in that country while her friends continued travelling to another country.
K said that when she was shopping at Walmart in the USA, she just left her bag on her shopping cart, but the staff told her she shouldn’t do that. It’s a common experience that Japanese people are often naïve or too trusting when travelling overseas - probably because Japan itself is a very safe country.
A friend of K’s, who had already been living in the USA for a long time, always carried her passport and social security card with her when she went out, and one day it was stolen by a team of pick-pockets in a supermarket. One of them pretended to ask her about cooking, while the other one stole from her bag. After that, she had a lot of trouble with getting credit and new ID, and apparently there were a lot of fake credit cards in her name all over the place.
M then suddenly asked me, “Have you ever stolen anything?”, and I answered honestly that perhaps when I was a kid I took some coins from my mother’s purse. However, M was confused, as it turned out that the question she had intended to ask was, “Have you ever had anything stolen?”.
We laughed about that, and compared it to how the question is asked in Japanese – which is just by using the same passive form of “stolen”.
I gave them three sample sentences in order to see the difference:
“Have you ever stolen anything?”
“Have you ever had anything stolen?”
“Have you ever been stolen?” (kidnapped)
However, since they found the sentence “Have you ever had anything stolen?” a bit tricky to remember – and feared they may accidentally ask “Have you ever stolen anything?” – I said an alternative way to ask it would be, “Has anyone ever stolen something from you?”, and they felt that was probably easier to remember and use.
Useful phrases:
Caucasian (white people)
feel the heat
mesh together
pick-pocket
consulate
all over the place (meaning: a wide area)
to steal/stole/was stolen/to have stolen
too trusting
naive
“Have you ever stolen anything?”
“Have you ever had anything stolen?”