Gaijin Tales! Mother Russia saying and doing things

Australzealand: Is that in Kansai? It takes about an hour to get from Kansai to Kyouto Station.

*

Australzealand: Then here in Kansai, everyone's like “homa ni” and “nan yan...”

*

Rude Boy: Going somewhere exciting?

Lithuania: Yeah!

(beat)

Rude Boy: Don't overwhelm me with detail.

Australzealand: Do you find your sarcasm sometimes lost on people here?

*

Insufferable Dumbass: Whatever, people are gonna talk behind my back. I'm used to it, even back home.

Big Finn: Have you ever tried to think about maybe why that is?

*

Rude Boy: i think my least favourite part was when i was complaining to one of my friends about how i often feel that i'm not being afforded the deference i would be were i japanese, and how i understand why it happens, but it's not about me needing to be the big man, it's about feeling disrespected

Rude Boy: and one of the other guys with us said "well, of COURSE you're not going to be respected. you just have to accept that this is japan."

Rude Boy: and i was like

Rude Boy: um

Rude Boy: no

Rude Boy: not an acceptable answer

Rude Boy: excuse me while i unfriend you in real life

*

Nara (turtle girl from before): She's mad.

Rude Boy: What, really? I didn't even notice.

Nara: Well, she is.

Rude Boy: What the hell did I do?

Nara: Probably nothing. But she's a girl.

*

Insufferable Dumbass: Emperor system and imperial system...are those the same thing?

*

Hot girl's shirt:

Want To Do You All

*LOVE GIRLS*

*

Rude Boy: I only have three beer.

Mother Russia: That's enough for you, right?

Rude Boy: Awwwwwwwwwwwwwww.

Mother Russia: :3

*

Mother Russia: I talked with the Russian girl today.

Rude Boy: In Russian?

Mother Russia: Yeah.

Rude Boy: And was she like, “Um, your pronunciation is perfect, but you speak like a small child...”

Mother Russia: Hahaha! No...but I could see it in her face.

*

Mother Russia: Good night, broken person!

*

Rude Boy: oh and because i was drunk and had been watching too much mad men i kept taking her lighter and lighting her cigarette for her last night loooooooooool

*

Mother Russia: It's supposed to look all relaxed...

Rude Boy: She doesn't look relaxed. Look at the position of her arms, she looks like she's masturbating.

Mother Russia: Well...that's pretty relaxing, right? :3

Rude Boy: Ha! Could be. But judging by her face she looks more into it than relaxed.

Mother Russia: Why do you keep saying 'she?'

Rude Boy: Who is it?

Mother Russia: Me!

Rude Boy: O...h!

*

(halfway through Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas)

Mother Russia: Do you like it?

Rude Boy: Yes, although I have some questions.

Mother Russia: “What is this movie about?”

*

Insufferable Dumbass: In Germany, is it pretty popular with the Japanese food?

*

Rude Boy: [Name]-CHAN!!

1kkaisei: YES!!

Rude Boy: YO!!

1kkaisei: GOOD AFTERNOON!!

Rude Boy: She's really energetic...

Genmaichan: Are you trying to say “young?”

Rude Boy: Maybe I am.

*

Rude Boy: want some cheeseburger pizza

Mother Russia: a mix of both?xD

*

Lithuania: You going to have some coffee with those sandwiches?

Rude Boy: Um...no? What the fuck?

Lithuania: Oh, it's pretty popular in Lithuania. Coffee or tea with sandwiches.

Rude Boy: ...I guess I can't talk. My country's national cuisine is French fries with gravy and cheese curds.

*

The moment when you find yourself in a busy footpath, stealthily trailing after some high school girls in the hopes of stealing a glance at their socks, you begin to question your life choices.

I was trying to figure out if they went to my old high school.

*

Rude Boy: Piss...cocks...fuck...

Lithuania: I wish you could hear yourself.

*

Lithuania: I'm gonna start watching Game of Thrones.

Rude Boy: You might not like it. Apparently there's a lot of fucking.

Lithuania: Yeah, one of my friends said it was more like Game of...“P.”

Rude Boy: …“Piss?”

Lithuania: No! Other “P!”

Rude Boy: Game of...Penises?

Lithuania: No! P o...

Rude Boy: ...oh, “Porn!!”

Lithuania: Yes!!

Rude Boy: Now I'm curious about Game of Piss, though.

*

Rude Boy: I saw something horrifying today.

Lithuania: What was it?

Rude Boy: Do you know those giant spiky caterpillars? I saw one on the sidewalk on the way home, and a hornet was just stripping the fuzzy part off its body...

Lithuania: That's terrible!

Rude Boy: ...and it was thrashing around and trying to push it off like “No, stop!”

Lithuania: Oh, see! That's it, right? You have the right to defend yourself from the attacking caterpillar!

Rude Boy: Uh, yeah, I'm pretty sure the caterpillar was just minding its own business and the wasp was like “Oh hey, food!”

Lithuania: Haha.

Rude Boy: Like if I had to kill to eat, I would obviously try to do it in such a way as to inflict as little pain as possible. But it didn't even kill the caterpillar, it was just like “I'm gonna start from the back,” and just started eating it alive.

Lithuania: That's intense!

Rude Boy: And I'm like, what's my responsibility here?

Lithuania: You should never interfere with nature.

Rude Boy: Right, and even if I did, what then? The same exact thing is going on in a forest somewhere right now. I can't be there every time it happens. It's not like I can just end all suffering. It really got me thinking about how nothing we do matters and we're all fucked...it was a very depressing existential moment.

Lithuania: So what did you do?

Rude Boy: Well, I just left it there.

Lithuania: What! Probably this was a test from God, and you faaaaaailed!

Rude Boy: Doubt it. Do you understand “Deism?” The idea that God exists, but doesn't interfere with the affairs of this world. Cause it's the old argument, either God is impotent, or He is wicked, or He doesn't exist.

Lithuania: This conversation got deep fast.

Rude Boy: I'll show you deep fast. Anyway that wasn't even the worst part. When I went back to school a couple of hours later, it was there in the same spot, only now being torn apart by a small army of ants. And it was still thrashing around like “Nooooo!”

Lithuania: Oh my God! You should have just stomped them allllll!

Rude Boy: Well, maybe I should have at least stepped on the caterpillar's head. Just to be merciful.

*

When I learn a new word, I often spend the next little while trying to insert it into conversation as often as possible, frequently employing it even in instances where I would normally say something else, or stitching together extremely tenuous excuses to try it out. I assume this is normal for most people learning a second language. Partly this is for practise, partly it's to check if I'm using it correctly, and partly it's just excitement. It's like getting a new toy toy to play with.

Part of studying a language formally means memorizing long lists of vocabulary that seems 99% useless. Like “constabulary” or “positron.” When in hell am I ever going to need a word like that? Even if I do, I'm better off looking it up when these specialized situations do crop up, and instead devoting my study time to more common words and phrases.

That said, when, in the course of your day, in some conversation or on some sign, you do encounter a word or kanji that you had to memorize for a test, the feeling is downright magical.

And you know what's even better? To struggle and struggle to grasp the nuance of a grammatical pattern, to hear it but not comprehend it, to come up with a half-dozen example sentences but not be sure if they're right...and then one day, unprecedented, have the spontaneous urge to use the construction in a sentence you're already in the middle of saying. These are the days when you've got this whole language-learning thing under control, you are worldly and educated and intelligent, you really are making progress, and have not been spending hundreds of hours of your life for nothing.

Then usually the next day you can't understand when the konbini clerk asks if you want a bag or not and you feel like the densest sack of shit who's ever walked this earth, which is why you sort of learn to savour the small victories.

*

Once when I was eating an ice cream cone, Mother Russia took it from me, ate the top part, and then gave it back with a huge groove in the surface of the ice cream, because she'd tried to rake it out with her teeth to avoid eating the cone.

Rude Boy: Um.

Mother Russia: Because of my diet, remember! I can't eat carbs!

Rude Boy: Uh-huh. Did you...need some help with this? >_>

Mother Russia: Yeah!!

Aaaaand so we started swapping, with me filing down the cone for her, and her eating as much of the revealed ice cream as she could before handing it back to me to continue my work. Then I pulled out a second one...which she stole, but this time got impatient, grabbed a spoon, and, after a few minutes, gave me back the empty cone.

Rude Boy: Oh, thank you so much. I'm so super excited to eat my, fucking...hard, dry bread.

Another time, she drank four coolers, I drank four beer, and then took down another half beer before she noticed that I was slowing down and just finished it off for me, without asking. Then she took my last beer, also without asking, and drank that too.

She can drink me under the table. It's awesome.

And finally, continuing with the theme of “Mother Russia ganking all my stuff,” she also sometimes takes my meat when I get a bentou, because she knows I don't really like it.

Rude Boy: Wow, you must really like having my meat in your mouth.

Mother Russia: I do!

Rude Boy: Hehe.

Australzealand: -.-

*

Japanese language teacher: What do you know about Liberia?

Chinese student: It's a very cold place, right?

Japanese language teacher: Isn't that...Siberia?

*

On the spur of the moment, I decided to go downtown. I realised partway there that I'd just made two transfers without paying any attention to what I was doing, my mind occupied by the more pressing concerns of essay topics and homework. After taking a stroll through some of my favourite areas, I decided I was hungry and stopped at Subway, where I noted that they'd hired a new girl. I dropped in at my local Round1 for a few rounds of Wang at Midnight before remembering that I needed to pick up Part 2 of 1Q84; considering the locations of nearby bookstores, I opted for Junkudou, in a spot I rarely visit but certainly not far out of my way. Finally I checked BookOff for any desirable new stock before heading home. A year ago I couldn't have found any of these places even if you'd given me a map.