foolish_m0rtal | You Jokers...

A list of hilarious people I have met in Japan:

Mike From Sheffield:

This guy lives in the same boarding house as I do and was recounting a story about how he sees the same Japanese schoolkids on the way to school every day.
One day, he passed by and they said "Hey, it's the same white guy," in Japanese.
Mike said, "Hey, it's the same Japanese kids," in Japanese back. They were very surprised that the gaijin knew good Japanese and they talked for a bit and then challenged him to a race.
"Okay," Mike said. "To that building then."
He thought they were really fast for a bunch of kids but then realised he was going at regular pace while they were running full out, so in the end, he started messing with them and then put on a burst of speed and beat them to the building.
"Good race," they said approvingly and went off. As soon as they were out of sight, Mike keeled over and fell gasping to the ground. If they'd come back, he would have said, "Er, look! A penny!" and jumped back up.

The Grad Student in the TV:

Every Tuesday and Thursday, the people in our lab have meetings with other members in a lab somewhere in another building via webcam. Whenever they call, we always seem to be eating something. During one week, Matsuura-sensei had received a package of dorayaki for Ochugen, so we were sitting around eating it during the conference. The people on the other end were...less than pleased.

Then on Thursday, I brought in some anmitsu I'd prepared for the people in my lab, because they had to defend their thesis on Saturday (after which we all went out to get drunk, obviously). So we were eating THAT during the conference. I don't know a lot of Japanese, but it was pretty clear the guy on the other end was like, "WHAT? You guys SUCK! What do you DO over there in your lab?!"

He was over in our lab today and Okuda was in their lab. I'm pretty sure he asked Okuda if they were going to eat something in our lab. Okuda was like, "Yeah, yesterday we had some tea biscuits the exchange student brought."
"What was that, Okuda?!"

The guy that wrote the software I'm using:

Because it's called JUDE (Something about UML development environment, blah blah) but in Japanese, the pronounciation is "judo." So after my first project was done, my professor was like, "Okay, are you familiar with judo? For your second project, you are going to use judo." And I was thinking, "WHAT KIND OF LABORATORY IS THIS?!"

Tomoaki:

I had been mourning to the guys on my futsal team that I was learning men's Japanese because my lab was full of men, and I was picking up Japanese from them. The guys were alarmingly pleased about this, and Tomoaki said, "No, that's good! I can feel more relaxed around you. We can hang out like tough guys."
This is not good, you guys!
But I just sighed and said, "Osu," because it was futile at this point.
"Osu!" they replied back in manly voices. Guess I'm a Japanese guy now. I thought the Japanese found this inappropriate?

The Police on the Train:

I'm in transit from Yurakucho to Higashi-Omiya (usually about a 45 minute ride, so I usually sleep) and about five policemen and a loudly protesting guy board the train. Three of them stand guard while two of them sit him down in one of the benches and interrogate him. He's shouting loudly at them and they're all speaking in low sharp voices. This goes on for about fifteen minutes, and I contemplated moving away, but the old woman in the next seat was just drinking her milk tea unconcernedly.

Then they find out it's apparently a huge misunderstanding, and at the next station they're all bowing and smiling and waving at him and cracking jokes as they get off.

After the doors close, this guy whips out his cellphone as is like, (of course in Japanese) "Dude, I'm at Ueno station right now. You're not going to believe what the hell just happened."

The Salaryman I Messed With:
I'm walking back home in my cute Japanese heels, which make a very distinctive click-click sound as I walk. There's a salaryman walking home in front of me, and he can obviously hear I'm there.
When we get to the bridge, he goes straight, but I decide to take a left and start walking really quietly in my heels. So he turns around because he doesn't hear anything anymore, and no one's there.
Then I didn't orchestrate this next part.
He goes straight and takes a left. I go left and then go straight. So our paths cross.
From his point of view, the footsteps stop and then as he keeps walking on down the creepy dark road, they start getting louder and louder.
He finally gets to the intersection and sees me walking towards him, but at this point he's creeped out as hell. XD The expression on his face was beautiful. I am a mean person.