Sumimasen

Pardon me, the time change hit me a lot harder than it has in the past.  On the other hand, it's a bit more of a time change than I'm used to.  I think maybe on the way over there I just went with it, you know, getting up at 4 a.m. and going to bed at 6 p.m.  Here I have this little work thing that's messing with my hours.

Anyway, I promised myself I'd keep writing and now, at 5 a.m., I have a full night's sleep and a chance to write undisturbed, I think.

Does not consider self to be friend of camera.

A friend asked me for proof that I was actually in Japan.  I think her words were a bit less confrontational, like, "do you have any photos of yourself?"  Well, there are a couple.  I do not consider myself a photogenic person in the main, but I will publish this just because I have it, in answer to that question.  It was taken by my friend Ishida san after I took a photo of her my first day at Ippo-do tea house.  I took a lot of photos at Ippo-do, possibly because that's where my camera and I were a lot of the time.

Since it's up there, I will point out that the subject of this photo does probably look as though he's been walking a lot in the Kyoto June heat, though evidence of need of 8x4 Smart Citrus Japanese Deodorant does not yet appear here.  Of course a lot of the evidence is not the kind that shows up in photographs, if you, uh, get my drift.

Scrining

This blog has the unhappy inability to explain Kyoto and the Kansai area in more than one of the five senses (I say "unhappy" despite the suggestion of the previous paragraph), where all five are important to one degree or another, and hearing and smell almost as important as sight.  Nonetheless, we must deal with what we have, and so I'm going to try to explain scrining.  If the word already suggests the sense of hearing to you, you're getting into the swing of things here.

When I was getting ready to go to Japan, as you know, I spent some time studying the language.  I did this in my own special way, which usually included a computer and about 8-9 books in front of me.  Still, there were questions that my books and even Google Almighty didn't help me with, at least for a while.

One of these was the difference between "youkoso" which I understood to mean "welcome," and "irasshaimase," which means, uh, "welcome."  You'd think there would be a lot of discussion somewhere on the difference in meaning between two words with the same denotation.

Let's dispense with "youkoso" (don't pronounce the u, much, so it sounds more like yokoso).  It means welcome, usually to my home.  That's enough of that.

Irasshaimase "ir ra shy mah seh" could as easily be translated "please come in," and it's used almost exclusively in commercial settings. In fact, it is called out from retail establishments of all kinds.  Called out, and called out, and called out.  There's nothing close to the actual experience.

Oh shut up

Imagine yourself taking a lovely walk through a suburban neighborhood early in the morning.  You haven't had your coffee yet, maybe, that's waiting for when you get back.  It's just you and the quiet yards and the trees, ok maybe a bird or two.  Or you even walk by a yard where a dog barks from the back yard.

The dog across the street is now alerted and sets off on its own barking, either because it now sees you, or because it has to keep up with the Joneses' dog, or who knows what makes dogs bark.  My sister had a dog that barked at the bark it just heard, not remembering that that was its own previous bark.  But then, that dog ate pens, so.

But anyway in no time you have a neighborhood of frenzied howling.

Let us return now to the peaceful days of the Japanese market.  What was the bark in your neighborhood is the market call, "irrashaimasehhhhhhh!"  It's not exactly a whine, and not completely a screech.  It's a scrine.  It almost defines the word "shrill."

Taking a scrining timeout to give the photo v.

The cool thing is, there might be shoppers nearby, or there might not be.  Anything can set a scriner off.  Sometimes they won't even have seen you, it will just be the memory of a customer who was in the store or walking by out front earlier, and an employee will call out, spontaneously, "masehhhhhhhh," at which point a chain reaction will sweep the section, the store, the mall (or those parts of it not already undergoing their own outbreak).

Of course, any time you actually walk into a store (and remember territorial waters are included to a distance of about 100 feet from the entrance), you necessarily set off a round of it.  But making a slight movement while in the store will also set it off.  The employees do it by reflex, and may not even be aware they're doing it.

You: (scratch nose)

1st employee (washing window): Shaimasehhhhhh
2nd employee (straightening stock on shelf): Masehhh
Chorus: Irras-massehhh-shaimasehhhhhh-irasshaiiii (like dogs, each employee has his or her own call).

They're not restricted to that word, but it seems to be the fall-back.

After a good bit of searching, I finally found a scrine clip, from some unknown location.  I'll treat you to it here:

That's what scrining sounds like.

Not a lot of scrining at the fancy places like, uh, Soup

Sometimes there would be scrine-offs.  These were clearly intentional, and were competitions between scriners, possibly on their way to the all-Japans. I'm sure the Kyoto station has a number of all-Japan finalists.  I witnessed one poor beginner in a Takatsuki station drug store being absolutely demolished by a nearby scriner in a waffle shop.

The shops themselves really weren't much competing, but the scriners meant every word of it.  I'm sure one day she'll get her voice, but you could hear the waffle guy probably all the way to Osaka.  I'd mention, in his favor, that women tend to have a natural competitive edge because of their vocal range (as an example, listen to the totally out-classed guy at 0:28 on the above YouTube clip). I don't know what Mr. Waffle Man (not his real name) was using but I was surprised on returning a few hours later that she was still challenging him, giving it her best ("ganbatte").  It's that Japanese spirit of keeping up the manager's honor, I imagine.

Scrining.  It isn't for sissies.

P.S.  Oh my!  Philippines!  Youkoso, Philippines!