Transcript of a conversation used to develop listening materials

N: Yeah. I've been to Thailand for a month, though.
P: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
N: That was cool.
P: They eat dogs in Thailand!
N: Do they? They don't eat dogs in Thailand! Maybe Vietnam or something. I stayed with a friend, so I got kinda like to see the not the tourist I went to see tourist stuff, but I also got to see like hi s life, too. And they spoke Thai at home, so I learned a little Thai.
P Yeah.
N: And that was good, 'cause I was with him for five weeks. And my first impression was not like, Thailand is wrecked, but that people were, I mean Thailand is known as the land of smiles, and it's totally true. People are so nice there. And of course, everyone knows I'm a foreigner, just like they know I'm a foreigner sitting here in Japan. No one cared. Everyone was so nice. When I was in Thailand, and here I've never gotten so many stares in my entire life. It's just like, comparing the two, well, I love Japan, but Thailand was just a cool place to visit. It was really hot. Everything was beautiful. The people were beautiful. I learned a little Thai because I -
P: Particularly the women?
N: Particularly the women. So, that was a good experience. Then Japan.
P: That's right, Japan.
N: What languages do you speak?
P: Japanese, sort of, and that's about it.
N: Yeah, but you're studying French., though! ,
P Well I was studying French but in about an hour I'm going to drop it.
N: Well, let's see, I can pretend to speak Japanese, and
P: Spanish?
N: Yeah,  Spanish was a required subject in high school, but I can't really remember it.
P: Oh, you'll get right back into it if you go back to Spain, or
N: If I go back to study it.
P: Or, some espanol American town.
N: So, Japan. What were your first impressions of Japan?
P: Am I on the right planet? Totally, I've probably told you I've never, before coming here, not only had I never gone anywhere on my own, to another country on my own. I never lived in another country on my own.
N: Me too.
P: And specific to Japan, I'd never tried any of the food. I'd barely tried sake, there weren't really many Japanese people in Manchester to talk with. I didn't really have any friends apart from the Japanese senseis. When I came here the landscape was completely alien to me., The way of life.
N: Yeah.
P: The heat. The first two weeks I came I thought, '`Oh God I wanna go back!"
N: Yeah that's kinda like, I had the same impression as you.
P: When did you go to Thailand?
N: When I was in high school.
P: What age?
N: Oh, gosh eight, seventeen maybe.
P: Well, yeah the last time I went on holiday was five or six years ago. And it was with my family, and
I only stayed there for two weeks, and it was as a tourist. So, I've never had a chance like in the past
few years, to live closer to a native of that country.
N: Well I have the same impressions, when I got here, before I got here I thought, oh Japan's cool, Japan's cool, and tried to get anything I could get my hands on about Japan. And study it.
P: Hmm.
N: And I thought I knew everything that was goin' on and I had Japanese friends at school, and I loved: Japanese food before I came here. I thought I'd have no problems, no culture shock, nothing. And I get here, and boy was I shocked. Everything was as I pictured it, but ten times more than that. And everything was so much different than what I thought.
P: Can you go into any more depth? Like
N: Well, just everything, just little things, the streets, the trains, the busses. You know, where's my car you know.
P: Yeah.
N: And I never, and everybody told me that Japanese people are so friendly, so nice, and they are, but Iíve never  been stared at so much.
P: Is that still a problem with you?
N: Yeah, it still really bothers me.
P: I still haven't used the ? phrase, I'm dying to use it. Maybe when I'm pissed off and about to leave and some old obaachan is staring at me.
N: Of course now with my girlfriend being Japanese the staring has increased a lot. So that's one thing that's different than any place I've been.
P: Well, I could live with that.
N: Yeah, it's all right.
P: I want a girlfriend! To bide my time,
N: So do you think Japanese is difficult?
P: Oh, yeah.
N: Yeah?
 
 
 

Back to index