We Can't Rewind, We've Gone Too Far

Just after I wrote up Makiko Vories at senzenwomen, Y said “let’s go out to Omi-Hachiman and see some Vories buildings,” entirely coincidentally. So we took a two-day trip, stayed in an inn by the lake with a hammock on the balcony, saw a lot of beautiful buildings in both Japanese and Western styles (they all have big windows everywhere, which I love), went on a punt trip down the river, took a cable car up the nearest mountain to see the site of an ex-castle, and enjoyed ourselves in general.

I’ve been working on one of those awful software translations—I hate software stuff, give me machine tools, screws and bolts, or motion control any day of the week—and it has various This Units and That Units, which is at least mildly amusing because it keeps bringing to mind Murderbot. I wonder if the SecUnits ever came with manuals and if anyone had to translate them.

I’m volunteering with a Japanese class for Chinese teenagers, eight fifteen- or sixteen-year-olds with only very rudimentary Japanese; tiring because they are reluctant and easily distracted compared to my Saturday juku kids (who vary hugely in motivation but are remarkably well-behaved and 乖乖), but a fun challenge, everything from a girl who looks like an aspiring idol (hair to her hips, very slim, very well-dressed) to a kid on the autism spectrum who sticks firmly to his OWN pace in everything to a shy little anime otaku to a smart-mouthed young man who tries to use his fluent English to get away with things with me (I resorted to 这小子! to put him in his place). I can follow maaaybe half their talk among themselves, it’s too fast and too slangy, but it’s good practice for me (although I’m so used to “Speak English! Not Japanese!” that deliberately trying to shift into Japanese and make them speak it too is a real challenge). Haven’t yet had a chance to ask any of them if we have any fannish interests in common.

So when I bought my bassoon it came with a repair contract at the store, a large, high-end-ish musical instrument chain store; I’ve taken it back a few times for tuning up, always with the store clerk who sold it to me in the first place, a helpful, personable young man I’ll call S here. Last week I got a letter from the store in very formal terms: “we would like to inform you that [S] has resigned under the provisions of Employment Regulations Article ###. If you have any concerns about his work with you, please contact either the woodwind department or the accounting department as below…”. I took this to Y to see if he had any ideas and he’d never seen anything like it either; we concluded that S must have embezzled something??? but I certainly wouldn’t ever have guessed at such a thing, and I kind of feel bad for him. Need to check and see if my bassoon teacher knows anything more (all bassoonists have about 1.5 degrees of separation). I feel like I’ve brushed up against the first scene of a detective story. (Also, who am I going to get to fix my bassoon now if I need it?)

Jiang Dunhao song of the post: 最好的我们, a duet from some years ago with Zhou Shen (they are close friends). Apart from being musically lovely it’s kind of amusing visually: the two singers are rather similar in features and coloring to begin with, and on this occasion they had almost identical haircuts into the bargain, so there’s a kind of 水仙 effect an octave apart.

Photos: Just a few, I haven’t been taking that many lately. Might add some of Y’s Omi-Hachiman photos later on. Lake Biwa, decorations on a mountaintop shrine, and a striking evening sky seen from a train.

Be safe and well.