Agony or Fun?! Second Language Learning
I am a native Japanese speaker teaching Japanese in a university somewhere on this planet. This blog is usually written in English, but sometimes Japanese and Chinese appear. Please don't care what you cannot read. They are for my students.
I harvested beans from my garden. The easiest way to cook them is to put into rice cooker together with rice. Rice can be as “O-Sekihan” which Japanese like to eat in celebration (though I don’t have anything to celebrate these days).
I can see the blue sky behind.
If I had time to repair…
Every morning I eat this kind of dish with Miso soup, one slice of toast, and a cup of hot milk.
Residents in our community are required to check “Trash Gathering Station” once a several months. The last Thursday was my house’s turn. So I went to the place in the afternoon in order to check whether or not the place was clean and if there were any trashes left uncollected.
Thursday was the day to collect Plastic trashes. I found two trashes were there; one was a pile of carton boxes that was to be collected only on 2nd and 4th Tuesday, the other was the trash that is shown below.
This one contains plastic and burnable items. That day, Thursday, was to collect Plastic. And Burnable trashes are collected on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Those were not separated and put together in one carton box. Carton box is the type that is collected only twice a month. Simply put, this one was not separated as designated by the city government.
When I saw this one, I thought that a bad person must have done that. But a little later, I changed my speculation.
I guess there are type of people who take actions according to habits and rules in old times when they were young. It is hard for them to do things with new habits and rules. Currently trashes must be separated to at least eight types before being brought to the trash gathering place. But I remember, 40 years ago, the rule was so simple. There were only two types; Burnable and Non-burnable trashes.
So I realized that the trash was okay if following to the rule of 40 years ago. The items were all burnable. Probably the person thought that if she/he put burnable items, including plastic, together in one carton box, it could make the collectors work easier. The person was not so bad as I thought at first, but may be an ordinary citizen in our community.
I didn’t want to leave those two trashes there. Because If I left the two, the next person in charge would be at loss how to deal with them. I took them to my house. I will separate them and bring each trash to the place again on the day as ruled.
No, “Do Not Pass Thru” on that white board means that an automobile and a motorcycle are not allowed to go through that riverbank road.
It is very rare to see the birds of Japanese Tit in my garden. I heard their songs Yesterday morning and then quickly picked up my digital camera. Actually sparrows are always here. But this time of year sparrows don’t come to my garden because there a plenty of food in rice field. Perhaps the absence of sparrows made it easier for Japanese Tit to come to my garden. But I am not sure.
I saw three white birds from a distance. I used my telephoto lens as much as I could. If I can see them spreading their wings from short distance, I would be surprised by their wide wing span, although I know that it is impossible to get closer to them.
Is that black bird thinking about inflation rates or climate change? Probably she is thinking about how to survive the coming winter.
Rice reaping has already been done while I have not been able to take a walk for weeks. We Japanese eat rice as staple. That is the reason I call them “energy source”(not sauce). They will make a long journey from rice field in Niigata to customers.
That’s it. I don’t have time to write words on my post because I am so busy for my job as a Japanese language teacher.
Agony or Fun?! Second Language Learning 