Just being bored, so

[zeus777]

Hi fellow Fiverrland residents, I hope you are all staying safe and doing well.

The title says it all, I’m at the office right now and in the middle of a rather long break.
Normally I’d go bug my coworkers ( if they are not busy of course) but they all seem to be
busy, so here I am.
Since I am bored, I think I’ll talk about something that happened earlier today.

I was at Starbucks, and I was wearing my candycane earrings, Christmas tie, and “ugly” Christmas vest ( I bought it at Claire’s 3 years ago and it lights up). In case you’re wondering, not many people would dress up like that in Japan, but since I am an English conversation teacher and I like to entertain my students, I choose to dress in a certain way.

I’m pretty sure I stood out in a strange way, standing in line waiting for my coffee.
Then I heard these two guys talking in English, and basically one guy was commenting on how ridiculous I looked, and the other guy was telling him to stop.

Dude, this is Tokyo, there are PLENTY of people who can speak and understand English.
I got my coffee and as I was walking away I heard the guy saying something like hey, the Christmas girl is leaving.
So I went up to them and thanked the guy for all the lovely compliments, also added that he looked breathtakingly handsome in his knit cap with a hole in it. In English of course.

The dude sat there with his mouth opened while the other guy burst out laughing.

That was fun.

If you guys have “They didn’t know I understood what they were saying” story, free feel to share 😉

[marinapomorac]

Hi fellow Fiverrland residents, I hope you are all staying safe and doing well.

The title says it all, I’m at the office right now and in the middle of a rather long break.

Normally I’d go bug my coworkers ( if they are not busy of course) but they all seem to be

busy, so here I am.

Since I am bored, I think I’ll talk about something that happened earlier today.

I was at Starbucks, and I was wearing my candycane earrings, Christmas tie, and “ugly” Christmas vest ( I bought it at Claire’s 3 years ago and it lights up). In case you’re wondering, not many people would dress up like that in Japan, but since I am an English conversation teacher and I like to entertain my students, I choose to dress in a certain way.

I’m pretty sure I stood out in a strange way, standing in line waiting for my coffee.

Then I heard these two guys talking in English, and basically one guy was commenting on how ridiculous I looked, and the other guy was telling him to stop.

Dude, this is Tokyo, there are PLENTY of people who can speak and understand English.

I got my coffee and as I was walking away I heard the guy saying something like hey, the Christmas girl is leaving.

So I went up to them and thanked the guy for all the lovely compliments, also added that he looked breathtakingly handsome in his knit cap with a hole in it. In English of course.

The dude sat there with his mouth opened while the other guy burst out laughing.

That was fun.

If you guys have “They didn’t know I understood what they were saying” story, free feel to share 😉

English conversation teacher in Tokyo

I envy you so much. My daughter is asking me to move to Japan or China like everyday, and she keeps asking me can I find a job there, we can move (like it is easy to do that). She is learning Japanese all by herself, and she is pretty serious about all of it, so I even looked at options on how to move there, prices, rules, and everything. My biggest concern for moving is what happens if I have health issues; how would that go in hospital as a foreigner.

The only reason for staying in my country is beach proximity and I am a summer person. I love to go to the beach and swim in the sea every morning for 3-5 months. It’s five minutes away from the apartment we are renting.

Regarding understanding other languages, there was a funny experiment on Youtube where a bunch of Japanese Americans who speak only English went to a Japanese restaurant with American Japanese born and raised in Japan (perfect fluent in Japanese) and the waiter refused to talk to her and insisted Japanese people speak to her even they tried explaining they do not understand her she refused to talk and listen to an American lady.

[zeus777]

English conversation teacher in Tokyo

I envy you so much. My daughter is asking me to move to Japan or China like everyday, and she keeps asking me can I find a job there, we can move (like it is easy to do that). She is learning Japanese all by herself, and she is pretty serious about all of it, so I even looked at options on how to move there, prices, rules, and everything. My biggest concern for moving is what happens if I have health issues; how would that go in hospital as a foreigner.

The only reason for staying in my country is beach proximity and I am a summer person. I love to go to the beach and swim in the sea every morning for 3-5 months. It’s five minutes away from the apartment we are renting.

Regarding understanding other languages, there was a funny experiment on Youtube where a bunch of Japanese Americans who speak only English went to a Japanese restaurant with American Japanese born and raised in Japan (perfect fluent in Japanese) and the waiter refused to talk to her and insisted Japanese people speak to her even they tried explaining they do not understand her she refused to talk and listen to an American lady.

My biggest concern for moving is what happens if I have health issues;

I’m afraid I can’t answer the question because I am Japanese, but I’ve seen my foreign coworkers have different types of health issues and I saw them going to hospitals and health clinics with no major problems, so I’m guessing my country has a nice health insurance system for visitors?? :thinking:

a funny experiment on Youtube

I think I’ve seen similar videos, and I’ve had similar experiences myself.

I’ve been to restaurants here in Tokyo with my foreign friends (a good number of them speak pretty good Japanese), but when the staffs see us, they TEND to only speak to me, even when my blond and blue eyed friend can clearly speak Japanese. 😅

There were other cases where the staffs will start speaking in English to them which is nice, but they keep speaking in English even after my friends are talking to them in Japanese.

Weird…

[lenasemenkova]

Two Americans (purely based on accents) were making fun of my walk (I have a funny limp) in a coffeeshop line once wondering if it had anything to do with Chernobyl nuclear disaster.

It doesn’t, btw, I was born with a condition that led to it and Chernobyl blew up 3 years later.

So many clever retort ideas about mutants and glowing in the dark came to me later but back then, I just turned around and told them I could understand them. They didn’t apologize but at least they stopped talking.

People can speak English everywhere at this point. And if they can’t confidently speak it, at the very least they can understand most of it. (especially American or your “standard, proper” British accent that they usually teach in language schools).

It makes me happy that you’re spreading the holiday cheer around. Especially this year. I got myself a neon Christmas sweater to do my part in that regard. 🙂

[zeus777]

Two Americans (purely based on accents) were making fun of my walk (I have a funny limp) in a coffeeshop line once wondering if it had anything to do with Chernobyl nuclear disaster.

It doesn’t, btw, I was born with a condition that led to it and Chernobyl blew up 3 years later.

So many clever retort ideas about mutants and glowing in the dark came to me later but back then, I just turned around and told them I could understand them. They didn’t apologize but at least they stopped talking.

People can speak English everywhere at this point. And if they can’t confidently speak it, at the very least they can understand most of it. (especially American or your “standard, proper” British accent that they usually teach in language schools).

It makes me happy that you’re spreading the holiday cheer around. Especially this year. I got myself a neon Christmas sweater to do my part in that regard. 🙂

They didn’t apologize but at least they stopped talking.

I’d like to believe they at least felt very awkward and uncomfortable.

I think you did the right thing, you just turned around and went straight to the point

and made them shut up! 😉

BTW this is vest I got. It was 40% off and it was the last one, so I grabbed it from the rack before anyone else can get it. It has cats on it, it’s perfect!

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[lenasemenkova]

They didn’t apologize but at least they stopped talking.

I’d like to believe they at least felt very awkward and uncomfortable.

I think you did the right thing, you just turned around and went straight to the point

and made them shut up! 😉

BTW this is vest I got. It was 40% off and it was the last one, so I grabbed it from the rack before anyone else can get it. It has cats on it, it’s perfect!

🙂