It's always, always delicious.

[maybemay]

Whilst sitting cautiously picking at the rather dubious lunchtime offering today, I had a fair old natter with this lovely, but rather dim, first year girl (so she'd be about 12). I usually engage in (obviously low-level) Japanese banter over rice and miso soup with the first year girls whenever I'm at that school - there's a nice little fan-club to greet me every month. Today I asked her, as I often do, "Teach me some Japanese!" to which she did the usual "Now, what's the morning greeting?" (you'd have to be a retard foreigner to not know this, but she, as many Japanese folks do, tends to underestimate my learning capacity) and I reply, then lunchtime greeting and i reply and evening greeting. I get claps all round and feel suitably patronised before we move on to mealtime etiquette. Naturally I know what I should say before a meal, and what after, but I never classed this next phrase as part of those socially-required set phrases I've just been mentioning. And that is, "It's delicious". So I said to the girl, "But what happens if what I'm eating isn't delicious?" to which she says quite simply, "You lie. You must always says "It's delicious!" whenever you are eating something that someone else has given you."

Now isn't that telling? That's what I was thinking to myself as she started a rather astute, precocious and wonderfully candid talk about the Japanese way of never saying what you really think/feel. That would drive me insane... Despite wanting to understand Japanese like a native, to live in Japan, to get on easily with and understand my Japanese boyfriend, I don't think I'll ever bemoan not being born here, in a society as constrictive and generally wack at this one.