‘Around you many strange persons’
That is what my manger told me this evening after we handed out fliers in the shopping arcade. I told her she didn’t know the half of it. Of course she didn’t understand, but that’s not the point of this particular entry. Even though attracting attention from the strangest people in the area has been a rather unwanted talent (put me in a room and before the end of the night I’ll have attracted the least appropriate person in the room’s attention - friends in college would make bets before we went out) of mine, though thankfully it hasn’t been particularly active of late. Anyway, I have to admit that it seems to have been doing overtime tonight.
In about forty minutes I met a nice older gentleman who is going to go to Germany soon and simply would not give me back my hand. An older woman (about 4’ nothing) who insisted in speaking to me in long involved strings of Japanese regardless of the fact that I obviously had no idea as to what she was saying. (This actually happens more often than you would think considering the fact that I’m quite obviously not Japanese.) A pair of otaku - that’s rare - who had to walk past three times before they had the courage to walk close enough to me to actually take the fliers, though they couldn’t look me in the eye. A gaggle of high school girls who all said ‘Yes’ with much conviction as they took the fliers after I said ‘Hello’. A group of high school boys, one of which said ‘Good morning everyone,’ when I said ‘Hello’ and he took a flier from me. A mother and her little girl who decided to sit down at my feet and throw a rather ineffectual temper tantrum. The usual junior group of high school boys, two of which decked one of their companions for not taking a flier - I never fail to find this amusing, usually it’s done in stereo by the two guys on either side of the offending boy.
And, the pièce de résistance for the evening was the older gentleman who spoke to me at length in French - strangely enough not the same one I met at the dance recital. Though, this time I think my fluency was probably better since I’d had some recent practice. And, the scary part is that as much as I absolutely abhor the language I might go back to it a little to at least brush up on a couple things. My cheeks are still burning at some of the things that he said that I understood - I can’t imagine what else he was saying. Funny is that he said something along the lines of (if I can remember correctly now, was a bit flustered by this point...) me being a belle la jeune dame étrangère avec les yeux bleus brillants. That’s the second time someone in the arcade has commented on my eyes as blue, I never have the heart to tell them that my eyes aren’t really blue. ^^;;
Hmm, looking back up at the people I met and interacted with today, I can say that at least no one tried to pay me this time after I spoke to them. Talk about really making me feel like I’m selling myself when I have to do this. ^^;; And Manager still can’t understand why I dislike doing this so much.
In about forty minutes I met a nice older gentleman who is going to go to Germany soon and simply would not give me back my hand. An older woman (about 4’ nothing) who insisted in speaking to me in long involved strings of Japanese regardless of the fact that I obviously had no idea as to what she was saying. (This actually happens more often than you would think considering the fact that I’m quite obviously not Japanese.) A pair of otaku - that’s rare - who had to walk past three times before they had the courage to walk close enough to me to actually take the fliers, though they couldn’t look me in the eye. A gaggle of high school girls who all said ‘Yes’ with much conviction as they took the fliers after I said ‘Hello’. A group of high school boys, one of which said ‘Good morning everyone,’ when I said ‘Hello’ and he took a flier from me. A mother and her little girl who decided to sit down at my feet and throw a rather ineffectual temper tantrum. The usual junior group of high school boys, two of which decked one of their companions for not taking a flier - I never fail to find this amusing, usually it’s done in stereo by the two guys on either side of the offending boy.
And, the pièce de résistance for the evening was the older gentleman who spoke to me at length in French - strangely enough not the same one I met at the dance recital. Though, this time I think my fluency was probably better since I’d had some recent practice. And, the scary part is that as much as I absolutely abhor the language I might go back to it a little to at least brush up on a couple things. My cheeks are still burning at some of the things that he said that I understood - I can’t imagine what else he was saying. Funny is that he said something along the lines of (if I can remember correctly now, was a bit flustered by this point...) me being a belle la jeune dame étrangère avec les yeux bleus brillants. That’s the second time someone in the arcade has commented on my eyes as blue, I never have the heart to tell them that my eyes aren’t really blue. ^^;;
Hmm, looking back up at the people I met and interacted with today, I can say that at least no one tried to pay me this time after I spoke to them. Talk about really making me feel like I’m selling myself when I have to do this. ^^;; And Manager still can’t understand why I dislike doing this so much.