opinios

Talkin' Dirty Wit' Da Boyz

Today was by far the easiest 10,000 yen I ever made.

It was a make-up lesson for the Wednesday night English class that I teach at a pharmaceuticals company in the countryside. Well, I use the word "lesson" loosely, because all we did was play some word games for about half an hour, and then headed off to the pub for the rest of the night.

Me and nine cancer research scientists.

Chatting outside of the classroom (and with them not wearing their white lab coats) meant a lot of the barriers were swept aside. I mean, my lessons are relatively informal affairs, but to quote my old house mate Bruce, alcohol is a wonderful social lubricant.

And when there are no females present, the conversation invariably turns to the gutter.

Exchanging Japanese and English phrases for various taboo terms became the norm, and pretty soon the worst in everyone came out. I should mention that these are all really quite conservative, decent, family-oriented chaps. I am sure the knowledge they imparted me with is possibly indicative of the nature of some of Japan's underground manga that they read... therefore if you are offended by extremely coarse language then I do advise you against reading the rest of this post.

Don't say I didn't warn you...

As a result of our minds being in the gutter I learnt the words paipan (shaved pussy), musuko (literally, "son", referring to one's willy), Yatte! (F*ck her!!), Yachai! (Let's f*ck her!!), koman and manko (both slang terms for, ahem, c*nt), senzuri (literally, a thousand rubs, meaning masturbation) and some Osaka-ben: Ware, nani sarosh ton ne? (What the f*ck do you think you're doing??).

In exchange for this crucial survival vocabulary, I passed on to them the universally useful phrases of: down the hatch, pork sword, "the gate is open but the monster is asleep", "the flag is at half-mast", whore, whorehouse, bearded clam and Map of Tasmania.

Hey, they specifically asked, ok? They are all grown men, I trust them to use this new-found knowledge responsibly.

And to top the night off, I suffered the ultimate in train-travelling embarrassment - I had to be woken up by the conductor when we got to the end of the line because I had passed out in a drunke stupor, shoes off and feet on the seat and all.

My god, I'm turning Japanese...