Yes, Pepsi Baobab, inventive indeed. According to the label, they "Used the baobab trees that tower over the African plains as a motif to create a refreshing cola brimming with a sense of openness!" Based on that description, it's not really clear if they actually used the flavor of the baobab fruit, but it has an earthy-herby taste that is pretty good (and tastes even better mixed with Malibu, heh-heh).In non-beverage related news, I recently went to a talk by a professor who did anthropological research on the host industry in Japan. It was a really interesting presentation that offered some great insights into the reasoning behind both the hosts and their clients. The event took place in an informal setting with exchange students and normal students as well as other professors and a few non-students like me. A home-cooked dinner was served before the presentation, and it was then that I had the following, not quite as interesting, but much more ridiculous, conversation with a Japanese girl:
Japanese Girl: What year are you in school?
Me: I'm not a student anymore, I'm already working.
JG: Oh, what do you do in Japan?
Me: I'm a translator.
JG: Oh, wow, neat.
Me: Yeah, I like it.
(a few minutes later)
JG: Ooo, can I see your engagement ring?
Me: (while showing her the ring I'm wearing on my right hand) Um, sure, here's my ring, but it isn't an engagement ring...see, people wear those on their left hands.
JG: So, is your fiance Japanese?
Me: Uh...I don't have a fiance...like I said, this is not an engagement ring.
(a few minutes later)
JG: So is the wedding going to be in Japan?
Me: Um, OK, like I said, I am not engaged...I don't even have a boyfriend...
JG: But you said you were engaged!
Me: No, I said I was not engaged...
JG: Yes you did!
Me: Uh...when?
JG: At the beginning of our conversation.
Me: Yeah, I don't remember saying that... I am not engaged, so you must have misheard me or something...
And then I just kinda stopped talking to her.
Later, I realized that she had misheard when I said "I am a translator" (honyakusha) and thought I had said "I am a fiance" (konyakusha).
So through this conversation, I learned:
1. The response I get from a Japanese person if I tell them I am engaged, is the exact same response I always get when I tell them I am a translator, "Oh, wow, neat." (Which is why I did not realize right away that she had made a mistake...because I probably would have realized something was amiss if she had said, you know, "congratulations" or something.) So, is getting engaged not really that big of a deal? Or is being a translator really, really exciting?
2. Answering "I am a fiance." in response to her question "What do you do in Japan?" really doesn't make much sense grammatically. Yet rather than think it was strange and ask me again to make sure she had heard me properly, she just assumed I had terrible Japanese (as I suppose a foreign mail-order bride who really is in Japan to "be a fiance" might have). So terrible in fact that, no matter how many times I told her, "I am not engaged" she refused to believe it. So, now I know that if someone mishears a foreigner in the same way they might mishear a Japanese person, they will just assume that it is the foreign speaker's fault and go along with whatever implausible thing they thought the person said... (I know that I did not mispronounce the name of my profession, since someone else misheard it in the same way when a Japanese professor said the same word...)
