NEO is off this week, so we celebrated Halloween last week during children’s classes. The staff dressed up in costume every day and so did a lot of our child students. My sons carved our jack-o-lantern and displayed it in the lobby. On Saturday night I went to a Halloween party at a friend’s home and had a fun time hanging out with a very international group of people all in costume. On Tuesday (actual Halloween), I dressed up to go to the optician’s college that I teach at, and I handed out Halloween candy to the students.

ネット時代に生きていている現代ではお店の営業時間外でもクリポチとしたら商品が玄関口まで届く。100年前の人はこんな世の中を想像できなかったでしょう。いえ、50年前の人だって想像には及ばなかったでしょう。そのネットショッピングを支えている日本の配送業者さんは世界一です。ですがそれぞれ少しずつサービスが違います。必ず手渡しの方、宅配Boxへの置配。この写真をご覧あれ。はて、この配送担当者さんは…どうしたんでしょう。郵便受けがあるのに、その中には入れず、わざわざ外に置いていかれています。「郵便受けのすぐ外に置いておきました」という伝票を出すのではなく、この方が受取主の目に留まると思ってのことかもしれません。

ちなみにこの郵便受けには小包parcelと印字されています。学校英語でも割合よく導入されているかと思います。主にイギリス英語圏で使われることが多い単語であること、また北米では郵送されてくる小包はpackageと言うことが多いです。私は個人的にはparcelという単語はほぼ使わずpackageという単語一辺倒です。ググった結果、やはりparcelは在米であれば郵便局であるUS Mailが発送する荷物のことをparcelと呼んでいます（⇒そうそう）。またparcelは箱に入れられている物がどれもparcelと呼ばれるのではなく、あくまでも配送・配達される小包が対象です。

さて、今回買ったその中身は小学生なら誰もが知る「うんこ」ドリルシリーズです。よく知られているドリルですが私は今回の購入が初めてです。さて、この日本語で書かれたブログを英語に自動翻訳して読んで下さっている方たちもいらっしゃいますが、この「うんこ」ドリルという下品なくだりを一体翻訳機はどのように差し支えない表現にするのでしょうか。楽しみです。

Dave-sensei will be on Radio MOMO (79.0FM) with D.J. Chiaki Kamibeppu on Thursday, October 26th (today!), at about 5:40 pm. They will talk in English and Japanese about the Okayama Marathon and hiking.

10月26日（木）5時40分ごろにDave先生がRadio MOMO (79.0FM) に出演します（DJは上別府千晶さん）。英語と日本語の両方で岡山マラソンとハイキングについて話します。

http://www.fm790.co.jp/

This week one of our students gave us some Mikage Manju, or what many others (including myself) call ‘Konko Manju’. Konko Manju is a well-known manju from Konko in Asakuchi city. You can find the city in western Okayama. I lived there for about five years. Not to mention I was a teacher in the area. During my time there, I would often be given Konko manju as a snack and it quickly became one of my favorite types of manju.

One of my strongest memories of Konku Manju is connected to a mascot character named ‘Konko Manjuman’ (google it and you might get a good laugh). Throughout my first few years in Asakuchi I had a few interesting run-ins with him. My first encounter was during a somen festival in my first few months in Japan. I took a picture of one of my friends eating somen. What I did not realize until later was that Konko Manjuman was sneaking in the background of the picture. Several months later, I was at a local festival watching the school’s brass band play. Part-way through the performance I looked to my right and noticed the mascot standing right next to me pretending to be the conductor of the band. I can only imagine that the one foreign person at the event standing right next to a man with a manju as his head conducting was quite the sight.

Several years passed and I did not have many encounters with him, but one day I was checking writing assignments of some students. One of them piqued my curiosity. “My friend’s father is Konko Manjuman”. This line stuck in my head. I asked some of the teachers of their grade. They immediately responded with “Oh yeah, …’s father is Konko Manjuman”. I had never realized a student I had taught for about two years was his child the entire time. It was certainly quite an amusing memory for me.

Hello October！

Are you ready for this winter to come?

I've come to like winter as I age.. how about you?

In class, I almost always get some English questions.

These questions are from fundamental ones to unexpecting ones！

I learn something new every day thanks to our exquisite and studious students！

One day, I got an interesting question from one of our students.

B : Well, you ______________ visit the museum on Mondays. It's closed then.

(Interchange1 fifth edition p.142 )

What do you think?

「ん？？ can't じゃないの？」と思われたかもしれません。

答えは "can't "なのです。

が、そこでMさん、「ではなぜ shouldn't ではいけないんですか？」とお尋ねになりました。

Mさん「日本語でも〇〇は定休日だから行かない方がいいよって言うじゃないですか」

Tさん、Cさん「うんうん」

「ほほぉ～！」と思った私は皆さんが納得のいく説明をしようとしましたが、簡単ではありませんでした。

can →能力や可能性を表す

should →提案するときによく使われる※日本語では「～するべきだ」という意味になりますが、実際は「～したほうがいいんじゃないかな」という軽い提案で使われます

私の説明が合っているか不安だったので、Nickに聞いてみました。

すると、visitは「その建物で経験などをするという意味も含む」ということを再度教えてくれました。

Nick : 「建物の外に行くだけであれば、「 go to 」などの言葉を使っても良いけれど、建物の中に入って(この場合は博物館)展示品を見たりするときは visit の方が良いんだよね。その場合は shouldn'tにしてしまうと文章の意味が変わってしまうんだ」

「なるほどね～。今までなんとなーくで使っていた表現も意味がちゃんとあるんだ(当然)」と再認識できたと同時にもっと英語を勉強しなければと思った1日でした。

＜おまけ＞

Nちゃんが私の絵を描いてくれました（嬉涙）

実物より何倍もかわいく描いてくれて見せてくれた時には「かわいい～！！うれしい！！」が止まりませんでした！

It is such an honor to teach such cute students!!

One of our cute students drew my picture!!

Believe it or not, I went to Takahashi two weekends in a row in September. On one of those visits, I saw a charming old temple called Raikyuji. It has a quiet, traditional Japanese garden, and it’s a very peaceful way to spend an hour or so. However, on the previous weekend, I spent the entire day in a village called Fukiya.

Fukiya was originally a settlement formed around a copper mine up in the mountains of Takahashi, but these days it’s a quaint little tourist town. It’s quite small – just one main road, really – so you can see everything within a day. There’s an old-fashioned school bus that’s been repurposed to carry tourists through the town, and an all-wooden former elementary school with both historical and artistic exhibits inside.

Besides its copper, Fukiya was well-known for red iron oxide (or “bengara”), which is an earthy red pigment used in ceramics and lacquer. That history is still reflected today in the red-tiled rooftops of the town. For some reason, the area is also well-known for red pepper, so you can find several types of spicy seasonings and condiments at the souvenir shops.

Despite its reputation as a tourist town, I found that many NEO students didn’t know about Fukiya. I think it’s a bit too far from Okayama for most people. Nevertheless, I recommend it as a fun little daytrip, especially for families and couples. Just be sure to get there early – the restaurants and cafes seem to sell out early in the afternoon.

And on the way home, make sure you stop by Bitchu Matsuyama Castle to visit Sanjuro the cat!

Some bonus pictures of Sanjuro and Raikyuji: