at Etrusia UK

Londoner: The words they use might change. Certainly. Vocab would definitely change.
Australian: Yeah. Yeah. That’s interesting. because I have a friend from London and I can’t understand half of what he says. Just the words… the slang. It’s so…
Londoner: You see my accent has been described as “home counties”…
Australian: Mm.
Londoner: … and if I had of stayed in London or where I was and not got a professional job, I would have had a very very coarse London accent. You might have the same problem understanding me.
Australian: Mm.
Londoner: But I came from those roots but my accent has improved through college and stuff like that so I speak probably clearer than a proper Londoner or cockney.
Australian: Mm.
Londoner: I am almost a cockney.
Australian: I get called a cockney.
Londoner: I was born not that far from Bow Bells but….
Australian: When I lived in London I had been there for twenty-four hours and people thought I was a Londoner ..maybe my accent..like the Aussie accent and the London accent are not that different.
Londoner: There are a lot of similarities . Yeah.
Australian: And I mean you know I remember being in…I was working in Sainsbury’s and this guy come up and he said “oh I thought you were a cockney like me” and you know I can put it on like you know what I mean like …
Londoner: Yeah.
Australian: You can kind of talk like this. I can’t do it at the moment. You get in to a roll …Have a beer and that. You know? Lets try something. Like. I will say one thing and you say exactly the same thing: Where are you from?
Londoner: Where are you from?
Australian: I am from London.
Londoner: I am from London.
Australian: What part of London?
Londoner: What part of London?
Australian: The north.
Londoner: The north.
Australian: The south.
Londoner: The south.
Australian: The east .
Londoner: The east.
Australian: The west.
Londoner: The west.
Australian: North-west London
Londoner: North-west London.
Australian: Where’s Wembley?
Londoner: Where’s Wembley?
Australian: It’s is in north-west London.
Londoner: It’s is in north-west London.
Australian: Where’s Wimbledon?
Londoner: Where’s Wimbledon?
Australian: It’s in south-west London.
Londoner: It’s in south-west London.
Australian: Is that right?
Londoner: Is that right?
Australian: Is that right ?
Londoner: Is that right?

My name is Mark.

What is your name?

My name is Ricardo.

What is his name?

His name is Maxim.

What is her name?

Her name is Winnie.

Where is she from?

She is from Taiwan.

Where are you from?

I am from from Australia?

Where are you from?

I am from Brazil.

Where in Brazil?

I come from Curiciba.

Thank you very much.

See you later.

at Starr Gazr

Father: Come and sit on my lap. Ok so once a upon a time there was a…
Little Girl: About this…
Father: There was little girl and she came up the stairs with her yellow laptop and she sat on her daddy’s lap and she put her laptop on her lap. But it wasn’t really a laptop. It was a book. Her laptop was a book. And she opened it up
(the sound of a passing tractor)
And the first page said the words “dining room”. And on that page there were the words “dinner set” and there was a picture of a dinner set. And on the next page there was the word “chairs”
(the sound of a passing car)
And there were two chairs and then there was a picture of a table and there was the word”table” How many chairs can you see?
Little Girl: Ten. One two three four five six seven eight nine ten.
Father: Ten chairs. And how many tables can you see?
Little Girl: One.
Father: One table? Ok would you like to turn the page?
(a pause while the page is being turned)
Father: Now on the top of the next page you can see the word “kitchen” k-i-t-c-h-e-n. And there is a picture of a toaster and there are two pieces of toast sticking out of the toaster and there is the word “toaster” and at the bottom of the page I can see four pots and pans. And…
Little Girl: I want to ..I will count them. One two three four five six seven eight…
Father: Mm.
Little Girl: …nine ten.
Father: Ten pots with lids on them.
Little Girl: One two…
Father: One.
Little Girl: One two three four five six seven eight…
Father: Eight pots and pans..
Little Girl: Nine.
Father: That is nine. And this one is different. The handle is different.
Little Girl: One two three four five six seven eight nine.
Father: These pots have two handles but this pot has only one handle.
Little Girl: One two three four five six seven ..One two three four ..
Father and Daughter (together): One two three four five six seven eight nine.
Father: And this is a kettle. This is a picture of a kettle and here is the word “kettle” k-e-t-t-l-e. Look at the kettle. Here is the handle. Here is the spout. And now the next page and you can see the words “living room”. And there is a book shelf with lots of different books. It is picture of a book shelf. And there is the word “bookshelf”. B-o-o-k-s-h-e-l-f. Bookshelf. And underneath there are lots of sofas. I can see a picture of some sofas.How many sofas can you see?
Little Girl: One two three four five six seven eight nine.
Father: Ah that is a pillow. I think that is a pillow. You are counting the sofa and the pillow but I think that is pillow. I would say: “One two three four five six.” Six sofas.
Little Girl: One two three four five six…
(the sound of a passing motorcycle)
Father: Seven. There is a big one. There is a big one. What’s the difference between this sofa and this sofa?
Little Girl: No.
Father: What’s the difference? Do you know? Look. Look at this one look at the big one. This one is bigger than that one, isn’t it? This one is smaller than this one. And look at the pillows. What is the difference between this one and this one? Look at the pillows. What is the difference?
Little Girl: Sofa.
Father: Hm?
Little Girl: Sofa.
Father: This one has two pillows but this one has only one pillow, doesn’t it?
Little Girl: (???)
Father: How many pillows can you see here?
Little Girl: Two.
Father: And how many pillows can you see here?
Little Girl: One.
Father: Ah so these two sofas are different. This one has one pillow but this one has two pillows.
Little Girl: (???)
Father: We forgot the fireplace. The fireplace is the place where the fire is. It is safe. Fire is dangerous but the fireplace is safe. It is a safe place to put fire. The house will not burn down. I am turning the page now. And what is that word? Do you know?
Little Girl: Mirror.
Father: No. That word is “mirror”. This word is “bedroom”.
Little Girl: “Bedroom”.
Father: Right. And can you see the mirror?
Little Girl: Here.
Father: And is it a magic mirror?
Little Girl: Yes.
Father: And what do you say when you look in the mirror? In the magic mirror?
Little Girl: I don’t know.
Father: Mirror on the wall. Who is the most beautiful woman of all?
Mirror mirror in my hand. Who is the most beautiful woman in the land?
Mirror mirror on the table. Who is the most beautiful woman in this fable?

I

I speak Arabic

You

Do you speak Arabic?

I speak a little Arabic.

I speak Arabic.

You speak Arabic.

He speaks Arabic.

Where are you from?

Where are you from?

One more time.

Where are you from?

I am from Oman.

Where is he from?

He is from Saudi Arabia.

We don’t say Saudi Arabia. We say “Saudi”

Hello.

Do you speak Arabic?

I speak a little.

Where are you from?

I am from Saudi.

Where is he from?

He is from Australia.

Does he speak Arabic?

He speaks a little.

Where is he from?

He is from Mexico.

Does he speak Arabic?

No, he doesn’t.

He doesn’t speak Arabic.

He speaks Spanish.

He speaks Spanish and English.

Thank you very much.

Bye-bye.

You are a man on a train on a journey from Hell to Heaven but nowhere around you can you see the tracks, the carriage, the other passengers or the window, let alone the view from the window.

There is no awareness in you of the linear progression that your life follows.

So you pick up a novel and read of another man on another train and yet on the same journey and you realize then that you are a traveler too. You awaken.

This is the effect that a novel; a good novel, has on me.”

Kensaku in Shiga Naoya’s “Dark Night Passing”

at ichic

A Romantic Young Man in Japan

The plane flew into Osaka at the end of winter. He was nervous at immigration, as always, worrying that they would not let him in. He was entering on a tourist visa.

He intended to work but if he told them this then he would be refused entry. The system required that he pretend to be a tourist when he entered then he could find a job and sign a contract. With that contract in hand he would then leave the country and apply for a work visa from outside, on the basis of the job he then had, and finally a couple of months later he would be allowed to enter with the status that he had originally sought. It was a terrific waste of time but it was the only way. He had done it before.

It was already March but winter still lingered and the air outside the airport was bracing. Happily the bus came after a few minutes and he stowed his bag underneath then sank into the warmth of his seat as the bus carried him down the Meishin Expressway to Kyoto.

When he got to Kyoto Station, Ken humped his bag through the tunnel to the north end of the station then took another bus up Kawaramachi-dori and got off just before the Marutamachi corner. He found Uno House in the alley where he had remembered it.

He had stayed there when he first came to Japan seven years ago and he reflected now on what he had heard about how one’s cells were all replaced after a seven-year period, except brain cells. If it were true, then here he was, escaped from Australia again with a fresh body and ready for another stint in this city of temples and foreigners and mist.

If it were true. But it was not, he decided. He was not a new person. He was the same old Ken Saville, only now he was just a little older and a little more tired.

He spent the first few days visiting old haunts and sitting in those coffee shops and bars that he had frequented during his last stay in the old capitol. Many of the people he knew were still in town and he would read the papers by day looking for a job and studying the news, and then at night he would go out to the Pig and Whistle and lean on the bar, waiting for his old friends to turn up. Some had left. Some had left and come back. Some had married. Some had separated or divorced. Slowly he caught up on what had happened in the two and a half years that he had been away.

He was not keeping a diary at this stage. After he had left Indo-China and wandered back to Australia, his desire to record what was going on around him had waned and he had soon become submerged in the trivial day-to-day search for survival. Now that he was back in the city he loved so much, there was enough of interest going on around him that he felt moved to scribble things down in a notebook but he was not sure where to begin something longer like a diary or a story. He felt himself to be drifting and he struggled to anchor himself to something because he had been drifting for a long time and it had ceased to be pleasant.

On a Monday several days after he arrived, he walked up the river to Demachiyanagi and caught the Eizan line through Moto-Tanaka past the abattoir at Chayama and Ichijoji then on to Shugakuin at the north east end of the city. There was a cafe called Speak Easy, which had been a major hangout in the old days and he remembered the cheap well-cooked bacon and eggs, the free coffee refills and English newspapers and the chance of an interesting conversation with some passing foreigner.

Monday was the day when English teaching jobs were advertised in the Japan Times and April was the month when new terms and new contracts started. He was in the right place at the right time.
He flipped through the classifieds while he ate but most of the jobs were in Tokyo. There was hardly anything in the Kansai area and what was there was teaching little kids.

Ken wanted to teach English conversation to adults. The thought of going through the alphabet “A is for apple, B is for banana, C is for cat” every day with little kids struck him as more like baby-sitting than teaching English. But there was nothing else. That was it then. He would have to wait a whole week for the next paper, hoping that there would be something for him in that one.

Resignedly he closed the paper and gazed out the window. A stocky looking American entered. Ken knew him from before but had forgotten his name. They nodded to each other.

“You were here before weren’t you?” said the American, sliding onto the bench at the table next to Ken.

“Yeah” said Ken. “I’ve been out for a couple of years. I just got back a few days ago. I’m looking for work. Do you know of anything?”

You can practise reading. Read the story of a “Romantic Young Man in Japan”

at striatic

Mark: Ok. So here I am. I am on the golf course at Mosquito City. I have got the ocean on one side and the jungle on the other. I have just had a game of golf.
Peter: That was a great game , Mark.
Mark: That was a great game. Peter. Yeah.
Peter: Wonderful.
Mark: I have just had a game of golf with Peter Bestluck, the richest man in Mosquito City, who is also a rhino lover and the man who funded the Mosquito City Rhino Park, part of the international effort to save the rhino. And Peter, I am going to put you on the spot here. I am going to ask you a difficult question.
Peter: Ok. Fire ahead.
Mark: You told me last week that you…yesterday… not last week… yesterday… that you had purchased a fleet of new jet liners for the Mosquito City Airline Company, which you have just purchased.
Peter: You have your facts right.
Mark: And you are going to enlarge the airport…
Peter: That is right.
Mark: You are going to expand the airport facilities if you can get government funding.
Peter: We will get government funding. In fact I fund…
Mark: Government approval.
Peter: Oh government approval. Oh. Yes.
Mark: Now what I am going to ask you about is the environmental question. Now in this day of climate change, global warming, it is fairly generally accepted that burning fossil fuels causes global warming, pollution and it is changing our environment. How do you feel about that problem?
Peter: Everything in Mosquito City and the surroundings is run on clean power.
Mark: Really?
Peter: Yep. That is right. Hydrogen-powered.
Mark: Hydrogen-powered?
Peter: Yeah. So. Yeah. Right. We considered this a long time ago and … well… we didn’t have to introduce anything. It was already here. That kind of mentality.
Mark: Right. So you…you … you are expanding the airline and you (have) bought a whole new fleet of jets but you are not causing pollution
Peter: That is correct.
Mark: Your carbon footprint is almost nothing.
Peter: Absolutely.
Mark: Wow! … Wow! That is a clean system.
Peter: A very clean system.

at albertopveiga

First Guy: Prohibition; it started many gangs you know? Irish gangs. Italian gangs. You know what I mean? In New York and Detroit and Chicago and all he big cities. And they were all pushing beer and they were driving up into Canada and bringing whiskey down from Canada because it was legal in Canada. And. You know? Created a lot of crime. Ok? And it was like one gang would go into a place and say “you have to buy your beer and whiskey from my gang” and they would buy it from his gang and then the next week another gang would go in there and the people were scared!
Second Guy: Mm.
First Guy: Ok? And some people had actually been murdered and their shops were blown up and so all it does…all it does…these stupid laws create more problems than what they were designed to do. And I firmly believe that if they took a look at some of the drug laws that we have. And I am not saying that they got…they should …you know…make every drug legal. But you know… some drugs should be legal… like… you take marijuana … you know which has already been proven that it is good for people with glaucoma. It increases the appetites in people in hospice who are dying from cancer so there is benefits to many drugs.
Second Guy: Yeah.
First Guy: And I think they should stop and get off this stupid idea…you know what I mean?..that it is going to promote …you know…more crime..actually drugs promote crime being illegal. It doesn’t promote crime if it was legal because it would take the profit out of it by being legal.
Second Guy: Yeah.
First Guy: And that is pretty much what it comes down to and I cannot prove this but it is firmly my belief that my own government, the United States government is involved in drugs to bring in enough money to fund the CIA’s covert operations to run and destroy governments around the world who do not play ball.
Second Guy: I believe that too.
First Guy: You know? That’s it. And I believe we have a government behind the government.
Second Guy: You know like…Have you ever heard of a website called LEAP L-E-A-P. “Law Enforcement Against Prohibition” and its narcotics agents, lawyers; like all people who worked in the war on drugs…
Third Guy: I agree with you. I agree with you.
Fourth Guy: It is a major industry. Lot of money involved.
Third Guy: I don’t think they should have prohibition. I think you should be able to buy your heroin right next to your alcohol and whatnot. Absolutely.
Fourth Guy: With large federal taxes. They should tax hell out of it.
Third Guy: I totally agree. Totally agree. You know? I just think it should be treated as …addiction to drugs should be treated as (a mental illness?) problem.
Second Guy: As a medical problem. Yeah. It’s a medical problem.
Fourth Guy: It’s an income creation problem.
First Guy: Let me just say this. Let me say this. Ok. If you stop…and my first feeling is number one we gotta get churches, synagogues, mosques ; all religions…organized religions out of politics. Ok? They don’t belong in there.
Fourth Guy: Well they are out of politics. But they aren’t. Legally they are not allowed to be in politics.
First Guy: Yeah but they have so much influence.
Fourth Guy: I know. They won’t stay out.
First Guy: And this is the problem because they want to inflict their philosophy and their ideals and their morality on me and you and everybody else and I don’t want these people’s morality on me. I know what is best for me. I know what I have to do. I am big boy now. Ok?

at nicklawes

Mark: Well here I am. I am sitting in the back of a stretch limousine and I am driving along. I am driving down the streets of Mosquito City with the richest man in Mosquito City sitting next to me. Mr Peter Bestluck. Pete! You like Rhinos?
Pete: I don’t know about “like”. Did you say “like” or “love”?
Mark: Well, tell us about rhinos…You ah…
Pete: I got some stories. The first time I came across rhinos was in Chittawan National Park in Nepal.
Mark: In Nepal?
Pete: After doing a trek in the Himalayas.
Mark: Chittawan?
Pete: Chittawan.
Mark: Uh-huh.
Pete: And it is famous for its about four hundred, five hundred rhinos. And when you see…Have you ever seen a live rhino without bars?
Mark: No, I have only seen a rhino in the zoo; in Taronga Park Zoo in Sydney.
Peter: Well you know..? Have you ever seen the film, Jurassic Park?
Mark: Yes, I have.
Pete: Well just imagine walking into Jurassic park because these rhinos are like dinosaurs.
Mark: Right.
Pete: And they are very temperamental.
Mark: Right. And they are big. This is the Mosquito City Rhino? No, you’re talking about the Nepalese rhino.
Pete: The Nepalese rhino.
Mark: Right. Okay.
Pete: And, yeah, they are very dangerous.
Mark: One chased me and I had to … sort of … climb a tree.
Mark: Right. Ok.
Pete: And I was up that tree for about twenty minutes while it grazed below me.

at gbaku

Mark talked with a veteran of World War Two about his experiences in India

Neil: But the countryside was very much like Australia; barren and open and no water.
Mark: When were you there? What year?
Neil: Oh, that was during the war, about 1943 or ‘44.
Mark: Did you…?
Neil: (coughs) Did I what?
Mark: Did you fly there or take a ship?
Neil: No, I was in the air force. Flying.
Mark: Where did you go? Calcutta?
Neil: Everywhere in India: Bombay, Delhi, Colombo. All over the place. Flying all the time.
Mark: 1943. What (for) a couple of years or…?
Neil: I was there for a year and a half.
Mark: Where did you go then?
Neil: Ahm…I think I came back to Australia. Yeah, I left Calcutta by boat at the end of the war…
Mark: Yeah.
Neil: And came back here.
Mark: I went there last year.
Neil: Oh yeah. What is it like? Very populated?
Mark: Now, it is getting rich.
Neil: Really?

at ShellyS

Mark: So you went to high school in Toronto?
Burke: Ahm no actually. I went to elementary school and in grade three I moved to a small town about an hour north of Toronto called “Stouffville“.
Mark: Stouffville. S-t…?
Burke: O-u-f-f-v-i-l-l-e. Named after the Stouffes who were the original settlling family in the area. It is now basically all part of the GTA of Toronto. It is kind of been absorbed into the massive thing that is Toronto. Now.
Mark: Ok. Right. Ok. A small place that was absorbed by a big city.
Burke: Yeah well it is pretty close to that anyway. Yeah. Now it sort of a bed-town for people who work in the city and stuff….Pretty much…So yeah…
Mark: So you did your education in Ontario…like..?
Burke: Yes and as is typical for north Americans moved away to attend university and I went to a city called Hamilton which is a little bit east …No. Is it east or west of Toronto? About an hour and a half west of Toronto.
Mark: So you are still in Ontario?
Burke: Still in Ontario. Yeah.
Mark: What did you study for that first degree?
Burke: I was a … it is embarrassing to say it but a psychology major.
Mark: Psychology. I think psychology is very interesting.
Burke: It is very interesting but it is not really job applicable unless you get a PhD.
Mark: It gives you a good background, you know…
Burke: Mm.
Mark: to a lot of things; a lot of things like; when you first leave high school I think it is good to read and travel and talk to a lot of people and get a general understanding…of many things.
Burke: Well, I remember…The thing is I was reading my sisters psychology textbook in her undergraduate studies when I was in high school and I was thinking “my god! I can actually study this?” Because it just seemed really interesting; incredible. Abnormal psychology.
Mark: M-hm.
Burke: And so that is what convinced me right there that that was what I wanted to study at that point in time.
Mark: Did you read Freud or Jung?
Burke: Yes, of course it is a little bit considered… Jung is considered a bit on the philosophical side of things and Freud is sort of considered a little bit too sexual in interpretation.
Mark: Sex is an unpopular topic isn’t it?
Burke: Yes. Yes. Exactly. Cover it over if you can. So but yeah… We covered all the major people and …. I just became a bit disillusioned with it in the end because it was trying to act too much like a science.
Mark: Yeah.
Burke: Whereas it is very hard to have that kind of criterion on human beings. You know?
Mark: I agree totally. A lot of things… A lot of questions are not easy to answer and we try to get definite answers, like in maths and physics, and you can’t get definite answers like that in some areas like that.
Burke: But I agree with the basic premise of therapy which is to let out, you know, your feelings and have somebody to talk to as a sounding board, and hopefully guide you into an area where you can, you know, heal any problems or dark areas that you have gone through in your life.
Mark: I agree. I think talking is a great therapy.
Burke: Yeah.
Mark: I think so many people; they suffer and they don’t…they have problems. And just by talking to their friends; by opening up…
Burke: Mm.
Mark: … they can solve their problems and yet so many people aren’t able to talk. They are not able to articulate what it is; how they feel; why they feel that way
Burke: Particularly men obviously.
Mark: Yeah.
Burke: Men are from Mars. Women are from Venus. You know. Women are just..I think.. have a natural… a better ability to express themselves. They just talk more. Men tend to hold back expressing of, you know, emotional type issues or things that…
Mark: Yeah:
Burke: You know are a little bit…
Mark: But, you know, I think that is generally true but I think a lot of our male friends are more articulate too.
Burke: Yeah, I agree.
Mark: And I have met some thuggish inarticulate women in my time as well.
Burke: (laughs) There you go.