＜prologue＞
I started a blog called “The Baby Boomer Generation’s Miscellaneous Blog”（Dankai-sedai no garakutatyou:団塊世代の我楽多（がらくた）帳） in July 2018, about a year before I fully retired. More than six years have passed since then, and the number of articles has increased considerably.
So, in order to make them accessible to people who don’t understand Japanese, I decided to translate my past articles into English and publish them.
It may sound a bit exaggerated, but I would like to make this my life’s work.
It should be noted that haiku and waka （Japanese short fixed form poems） are quite difficult to translate into English, so some parts are written in Japanese.
If you are interested in haiku or waka and would like to know more, please read introductory or specialized books on haiku or waka written in English.
I also write many articles about the Japanese language. I would be happy if these inspire more people to want to learn Japanese.
my blog’s URL:https://skawa68.com/
my X’s URL:団塊世代の我楽多帳（@historia49）さん / X
1. Western-style toilets
There’s an interesting story about Western-style toilets that my English teacher told me when I was in the first year of junior high school. In the 1950s, an elderly man from the countryside went to America on a group trip organized by an agricultural cooperative. He didn’t know how to use the Western-style toilet he was seeing for the first time, so he tried to use it by lifting both the toilet lid and the toilet seat, but ended up splashing in.
At the time, the old man remarked, “Westerners have such big butts!” It’s a funny story that you might laugh at now and say, “No one would make such a mistake,” but it was actually a mistake made because he didn’t know that Western-style toilets require you to “sit on the toilet seat.”
When “washlet” western-style toilets were not yet in widespread use, there was a “washlet” at a golf course, so I pushed the “butt” button out of curiosity. Suddenly, water came out of the back of the toilet with such force that I jumped in surprise. The water reached the inside door of the toilet and finally stopped after wetting it a lot.
One of the Japanese talents also told a story about a failure in which he looked into the “washlet” and pressed the “butt” button, causing water to splash on his face.
2. Library barcoded borrowing card
I was at the city library when they changed to a checkout ticket with a bar code on it. At first, I placed the ticket under the light of the machine to check out the book, but there was no response. I tried again and again, and the same thing happened.
So I asked the staff and found out that if I first press the “Borrow” button in the lower right corner of the screen and then hold up my ticket, the screen will read the “Borrow Ticket Number”. It is nothing if I ask the person in charge, but if I don’t know, it is like this.
3. Pachinko parlor ball lending machine
It was the first time I went to a pachinko parlor with a colleague after I started working. I put money into the ball dispenser, but no pachinko balls came out. My colleague who went with me told me, “Just hold the balls with both hands and push up the cylinder.” Then, a handful of pachinko balls came out. I almost scattered them all over the place. I haven’t been there for a long time, so I wonder what it’s like now?
4. Self-service soft serve ice cream
I was on a trip with my wife. I was in front of the machine and pulled the lever to receive the soft serve ice cream in my cup. However, the soft serve ice cream kept coming out and wouldn’t stop. At that moment, my wife rushed to the machine and lifted the lever so that it finally stopped.
As the saying goes, “When push doesn’t work, pull”.
5. How to insert bills into a vending machine
If you don’t know how to use it, anyone can make this kind of mistake. Once, on a TV show starring Sanma Akashiya, a kind old lady was trying to give a drink to the staff who had gone on location to the countryside, but she couldn’t put a 1,000 yen bill into the vending machine no matter how many times she tried.
This was because the old lady, who was not used to using the machine, had forgotten to lift the plastic cover over the bill insertion slot, even though the bills could not be inserted without doing so. She may have been in a hurry, but it was amusing to see her repeat the same mistake over and over again. (Sorry, old lady!)
6. Smart and Unsmart Animals
While some animals have well-developed brains, such as chimpanzees and crows, there are also animals whose brains are not very developed, such as chickens.
I have heard of an interesting experiment regarding chickens with less developed brains. When a wire mesh partition was set up where the chickens were and food was placed on the other side of the wire mesh, the chickens would repeatedly rush to the wire mesh in front of them. This is despite the fact that if they turn slightly to the left or right, they can still get the food.
A while ago, there was a commercial for BMW in Germany that showed a clever crow placing nuts on the road so that a car could crack them for him, but the BMW avoided them and drove away. This was probably meant to show that the performance of the car was superior to the intelligence of the crow.
I once had my ball stolen by a crow at a golf course. The caddy told me that the crows at that golf course often steal balls. Maybe they mistook it for a walnut or a chestnut. However, the crows at this golf course who repeatedly steal golf balls that are neither broken nor eaten must not be very smart.
7. My story of how my electronic money [Rakuten Edy] became invalid
I can smoothly operate the computer, copier, fax machine, tepler, etc. at work without any resistance, but I don’t use the gas stove, washing machine, dryer, microwave oven, etc. at home very often, so when my wife is away, I ask her repeatedly and am taken aback. I guess once you get used to it it’s nothing…
Recently, I often come across cases where new restaurant staff are confused at the cash register. This is not because the cash register has been upgraded to a new model, but because they are confused by the large number of different types of credit cards, electronic money, and common point cards.
It seems that new store clerks get confused when they say things like, “I’ll use all my points and pay the rest with electronic money.” I’m not trying to “bully new store clerks.” However, it’s true that even the baby boomer generation secretly feels proud of using “common point cards” and “electronic money.”
As an aside, there is something I want to share with you all about the electronic money “Rakuten Edy,” so I’ll tell you a story about a mistake I made when using it. “Rakuten Edy” is often attached to Rakuten credit cards, but this “Rakuten Edy number will change when your credit card expires and you get a new credit card. Also, the Rakuten Edy balance from your old card will not be carried over to the Rakuten Edy balance on your new card.”
I had a bitter experience when I got my new credit card and immediately cut my old card, which meant I couldn’t use the remaining edy balance. When you switch to a new credit card, be careful to use up all your Edy balance before cutting your old card.
<Added on 2019/3/17>
After that, I couldn’t accept that my Rakuten Edy was invalid, so I contacted them through chat and succeeded in getting my Edy balance back. I’ve written about it in detail in the following article, so if you’ve had a similar experience, please refer to it.
<I couldn’t accept that my Rakuten Edy was invalid, so I used chat support to get a refund from Rakuten>
＜「楽天Edyが無効」に納得できず、「チャットサポート」を利用して「楽天から返金」させた顛末記＞