Q. What is the most dangerous mispronunciation you can make in Japanese? answered by Russell Watson (knows Japanese) Over thirty years ago, I was at an izakaya (Japanese style pub) with one of my students. She ordered some fried flat fish which we were eating. The tail was quite large. I wanted to ask “Can […]
Q What is an “Only in Japan” moment? answered by Marty Hafner (Owner, Cafe Carp – 2019 to present) One day, in Tokyo, an elderly man stepped a bit too early into the crosswalk. Had I not pulled him back, a car would have hit him. He then followed me around and grabbed me gently […]
Q. What was something small you went to the doctor for that turned out to be very significant? answered by Rachel Jones (Shift Manager at McDonald’s – fast food chain) Went to a routine prenatal appointment at 35 weeks 2 days along. They took my blood pressure, the nurse looks at me puzzled, retakes it, […]
Q.Why do the French drive so many cheap or beat up cars? answered by Michael Kay (Car and engine restoration experience.) I asked my French girlfriend that when we lived in Paris. The question was usually, “Why don’t you buy yourself a better and safer car?” She had three answers to that question. The first […]
Q. What is impolite in Germany that is not in America? answered by Peter Moore (Canadian living in America. I spent 3 years in Singapore too) Birthday traditions. A German friend in America told me this hilarious story from his own experience. An American, lets call him Steve, was working in Germany. He had only […]
Q. What have you grown to accept as you’ve gotten older? answered by Patricia Timmermans (Former Business Process Analyst, thankfully retired at Telus (1976–2001) I’ve grown to accept quite a few things as I have gotten older. I’m 60+ and the following are normal to me now, I might not have believed it when I […]
Q. What don’t you like about Germany? answered by Steve Peterson (Studied at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (Graduated 1982) I attended a German high school as a teenager and lived with a German family for a year. My grandparents are German and met many relatives while living there. The German family I lived with […]
Q. What is the rudest, most disrespectful thing someone has done to you while shopping during the COVID-19 pandemic? answered by Ken Smithy (Lives in The United States of America) I’m a carpenter. So, most of the time I have a tape measure on me. I stopped by the dollar store to pick up some […]
Q.Has a babysitter ever said something to you which was completely unexpected? answered by Michael Callahan (dated and happily married a widowed mother, adopted her son) Our usual “babysitter” is also my wife’s youngest sister who has lived with us for six years along with her daughter (1.5 YO when they joined our household). They […]
Q. Why did Germans use gasoline for their tanks in WW II while the Russians tended to use diesel? answered by Arnaud Dejaegher (Lives in Belgium) The decision to stick to gasoline engines was a consequence of Germany’s hasty rearmament and chronic bureaucratic inefficiency. Gasoline engines were initially the logical choice for the German panzer […]
