Neighbors' hospitality

[dorchadas]

On Sunday, as softlykarou and I were out for a walk around the neighborhood, we passed by a house where two of the students from our children's eikaiwa lived. This time, however, the students and their parents were all outside having a barbecue, and they invited us over to eat. They were having mutton, which turns out to be quite tasty when fried over some coals and seasoned with onions. They also had grilled mushrooms, which were excellent with a little salt. The best part was talking to each other in Japanese, though. We talked about traveling, where we had been in Japan, food, linguistic bits, and so on. We got to demonstrate our Japanese and our students got to use their English a little. We're supposed to have them over for dinner some time in the next few weeks. Hopefully that goes well.

I think the main thing I'm happy about is that it happened at all. It's the kind of thing you read about happening, but don't think will actually happen because it belongs to a bygone age where people were kinder to each other and all that crap. I guess I'm being too cynical.

I had a college student tell me, "I love you" today in Suzugamine's lunch room. I'm pretty sure she was using it for two reason A) I'm a guy and she's a girl and B) It's one of 5 English phrases she remembers from her high school days, but even so, it's a little depressing to realize that the Japanese expression I seem to be using more often is 結婚している ("I'm married").