Don't Touch My Moustache

New experiences are the spice of life they say. I never really knew who 'they' is. Nevertheless, in August of 2007, I was fortunate enough to recieve tickets to visit Japan for two weeks. The work I would be required to do was minimal so I would have most of the time in two weeks to simply explore and experience the culture. Let me assure you, that was quite an adventure. Language barriers go far beyond mere lingustics.
I visited Kyushu: the southern-most island of the three primary islands that make up the country. I would be working and residing mostly in the city of Kita-kyushu which is a suburb of the more internationally well-known city of Fukuoka. Its latitude is close to that of Florida and the average temperature while I was there was a stifling 37 degrees celsius. It actually got up to 40 degrees celsius one day which prompted me to say to my agent-host (Masahiro), "40 degrees is not an external temperature, man, it's a fucking oven setting. I could bake muffins out here!" He laughed and said that you get used to it. I think I single-handedly burned a hole in the ozone right over the house in which I was staying from the amount of high-powered air conditioning that I ran day and night.
While there, I visited an amusement park constructed by Nippon Steel Corp. called Space World. It had some pretty amazing roller coasters and a really cool Star Wars merchandise store. I bought a puzzle for Rory and I to do together. I enjoyed an afternoon on the beach, went spelunking in some of the most scenic and amazing caves the planet has to offer - granted, they were slightly modified for tourist enjoyment. I went shopping in malls that were built dozens of stories high, but not very wide. In fact, much of the commercial architecture is made in that fashion. As space is limited, everything goes up, instead of out as it does in Canada. I went to one of many amusement centres, that had diffferent activities on each floor: 1st was karaoke, 2nd was video games, 3rd was bowling, and so on upwards to the top floor, which was tennis. My greatest enjoyment was the cuisine which I explored both in restaurants and at Masa's home.
In fact, one of the first intersting incidents occurred at his home while I was learning some of the basic phrases that are used in Japan. I learned that there are various and very intricate levels of politeness to almost every utterance, especially 'thank you'. This, however, did not deter Masa from having a sense of humour. After trying out a version of 'thank you' following a delicious meal of ??? made by his wife, he responded with, "don't touch my moustache", and a huge smile. Of course, I did not understand but the phrase struck me as familiar. He explained that in Japanese, "you're welcome" is "doitashimashite". The phonetic similarity to the phrase "don't touch my moustache" is a joke that was played upon in the movie 'Toy Story 2' when the toy dealer was selling to a purchaser in Japan on the telephone.
We went bowling at the amusement centre several times. During any given round of bowling, occasionally the lights all go out and a very ridiculous attempt at an Americanized accent announcer comes on and shouts, "LET'S PLAY A FUN GAME!". Whomever is at their turn gets a chance to win a prize if they get a strike - one shot only. As it happens, the first time it occurred, it was my turn. Wouldn't you know it, I got a strike and won a set of bowling ball shaped speakers for my computer. The rest of the night was as much fun and we all left smiling. Several nights later, we went back for another round of bowling. Again the "FUN GAME" announcement occurred during my turn and I was lucky enough to get another strike! At this point, Masa looks at me and says, "Your butt is big!" Now this is the second international trip where my butt has unexpectedly come into the conversation so I was, of course, inquisitive.
"What!?!"
"Your butt", he says, "it has something that needs it big inside!"
"You're scaring me Masa. What the hell are you talking about?!"
"You know, . . . how you say? . . . your butt is all full of metal piece on bottom of horse leg. The shoe that horse wears."
"Ooooooooh!", I finally understood. "You mean "I have a horse-shoe up my ass, as in, I'm very lucky."
Yes, yes, that it!" He continued to grin a cheshire-cat-like/Japanese smile. I chuckled and said, "be careful with those English idioms or someone might get the very wrong idea."
He said, "Sank you, sank you for helpimg me wiss Engrish".
I politely said, "Don't touch my moustache."

See you in hell,
Shakes.