The girls responded favorably to my suggestion that we do language practice together, and several rounds of email later, I was hosting Easter for three young ladies: Yuki, Yuri, and Satomi. We decorated eggs....
There were some extremely artistic examples; these are a little family, including the dog.
We had an Easter Egg hunt, meaning Rob and I hid eggs before they came. And our guests gamely searched for them high and low....
After all that, we had snacks and tea—their first time trying black tea with milk and sugar!
It was interesting to me, when I stopped to notice, how completely I threw myself into making Easter happen for these girls. They had only vaguely heard of the holiday; they were here to learn about American culture. Perhaps it's because I was so well taken care of in Japan? Or maybe it's beyond knowing. There was a familiar feel to the bustling around, making dye and pudding beforehand, shopping for candy and baskets to hold the eggs...it reminded me of preparing for guests at the monastery...like a completely warm and open heart that takes pleasure in another's inquistiveness and joy.
Fortunately for everyone, these girls were good at being guests. They didn't blink at the Buddhist images everywhere, and they were pleasantly intrigued by the zendo out back. They were interested my attempts at a sugar-free lifestyle, and let us take them to the Co-op afterwards to buy stevia; they took home leftovers; they didn't worry about being taken care of. And I was so happy. It was a good thing, all around.
Today I met with one girl, Yumi, who couldn't make it on Easter Sunday. Although our rendezvous was at a friendly neighborhood Starbucks, we quickly repaired to a nearby pretentious hippie eatery to get a bit to eat and do some "serious" conversation practice. Yumi helped me write a letter to a Japanese friend, and I helped her with some idiom homework. We talked about "dork" and "geek" and "nerd"—with me doing impressions of these things (not much of a stretch ;-)
Yumi asked if she could use these expressions in other countries. Why no, I said, and I launched into British vs American English, and how chips and fannies and calling can have such different (and embarrassing) meanings in the two cultures. And how, when you apparently speak the same language, misunderstandings can carry a lot more sting than if a non-native speaker were to say something accidentally off-color.
I told her, in glowing terms, about a very good book, Bum Bags and Fanny Packs. It's a fascinating and hilarious dictionary that lays out the differences in the two languages.
As we stood up to leave, a man who had been pecking away at his laptop nearby said (in what I would call a British accent), "Excuse me. I couldn't help overhearing you talking about idioms. That book you mentioned—did you know you can find it online?"
Why no, I didn't.
"Well, it took me about a year to write it," says he.
Incredible. We were talking to the author, Jeremy Smith!
We shook hands. He said that no, he hadn't overheard people discussing his book in public before. Although "Corvallis is a special place, and there seem to be fewer degrees of separation here."
Indeed. With that in mind, I wonder who I'll meet next?
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