Okaasan seems to be in a spell of clear conversation.
Meanwhile I am all talked-out.
Yujiro went off to an end-of-ski-season party last night with other instructors from his ski school - so I had the pleasure of Okaasan's company for dinner.
I wasn't filled with joy because I'd spent FIVE hours locked in a recording studio doing the English voice-over for many promotion videos about a major Japanese hotel chain.
Ostentatious, luxury hotels in Japan - conceived in the 60s and built in the 70s/80s- are now on hard times and trying to woo Chinese guests with their gaudy appeals.
1,000 seat restaurants!
3-story atrium!
Blue Nights Karaoke Lounge!
Roman-style Jumbo bath!
They do videos in English and Chinese to show at travel fairs in Hong Kong, Shanghai etc
I get this narration work sometimes, mainly because I have a plummy English accent...and can say "a quintessentially Japanese experience".
Anyway....5 hours of blather in an spring-tight room was no warm-up to Dinner a Deux, even though Yujiro had cooked dinner all ready.
But Okaasan was uncommonly clear-minded and talked from topic to topic only occassional hamster-wheel repeats (3 times instead of 6 or 8).
I set her off with "rich Chinese tourists" and from there she went almost naturally to.... Hong Kong, my trip to South Africa from HK, then Kenya, then HK and Japanese schools, diamonds, Stonenge, Chinese, Korean food and people, my friend Yanagi Tamako at school, end of war, Koreans....
Okaasan should do video narration. She can talk almost seamlessly!
And repeats in the same voice and word are a cinch.
# in other news...the kittens have already conquered the newly positioned babygate and plastic wall and made it into the entrance hall by the kitchen door. They should be snuggling up under the kotatsu with Okaasan by mid-week at this rate!
No comments:
Post a Comment