The other day Diego and I were taking our usual stroll at the park across the street. A white girl, probably around age 5, came up to us and started waving her hand and said "おはよう" ( spelled ohayou, it means good morning though it was 3pm in the afternoon already...) a few times. Diego waved back and I said to her, " Hi~~~, we actually speak English too!" Well, she had her mind set on us being Japanese so she continued saying おはよう a few more times and then walked away. I was thinking perhaps she is European so she didn't exactly quite understand what I said to her. ( Though foreign kids here usually attend English speaking international schools, she should understand English regardless...) Later on, I overheard her speaking English to her nanny....! Oh well......
Few minutes later, an old Japanese man approached me and started saying a bunch of stuff. I smiled and responded, " Sorry, but I don't understand Japanese." Well, I guess he has his mind set too so he continued carrying on this one way conversation.......so I repeated. A few seconds later, finally, it registered in his head. He apologized and walked away.
Looks could be very deceiving! Because we are Asian, everyone starts the conversation with us in Japanese and the caucasian moms at the playground would never bother to approach me to start a conversation. Well, the people who tried to talk to me, I don't understand them. The people I understand don't bother to talk to me. As you can see, it hasn't exactly been the easiest for me to make new friends here. Regardless, I am making progress :) ...slowly...with tiny steps! I think it's fair to say that I am getting the hang of it - being a housewife in Tokyo ^_^.
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