New town! sort of
Yesterday was the official opening ceremony of Asagiri-cho, the newly amalgamated town formed from the previous Menda town, Ue mura, Okaharu mura (where I live), Fukada mura and Sue mura.
What this meant was a day of meetings, receiving new contracts, trying to look busy and cooing at the new board of education, with its million staff all brought in from the previously separate villages because you really do need twelve tea ladies and a confusing mix of half a dozen superintendents, none of whom is yet sure whether he has authority over the other.
Although our contracting organisation is the Asagiri board of education, we are possibly the only staff without desks. We were informed that we were to be deskless some time after they happily informed us that we would definitely have desks. The reason for the change of heart is that apparently, there is simply no space. Henceforth most of the day was spent criticising their use of space in a kind of ultimately inconsequential self-justification that we could have in fact easily fitted in the building. Aside from the totally vacant second floor, we noticed with slight annoyance the enormous aisle running down the entire length of the building, filled with ’seats for the public’. I think Brett verbalised our opinions most eloquently by pointing and blurting out,
“who is going to sit in these seats? This is a Board of Ed, not a fricking bank”
but oh listen to our desk-loving whines, we are just going through desk denial.
Anyway. Throughout the day at these types of ceremonies, you will hear the same Japanese phrases repeated over and over. These are the stock phrases that any worker can use and ensure a positive response, whether from the fact that they actually carry some emotional significance for the Japanese or whether the responder is just relieved that the user has not allowed himself to actually speak his own thoughts. Lets take a look at some of these.
Yoroshiku o-negaishimasu Literally translated, this means “I wish for your greeting”. It is a knee-jerk reaction during bowing whenever you meet someone new (related to work), or if you are about to undertake something at work involving other people. It is sometimes mutated into a super-honorific form, for example o-zettai o-taihen o-yoroshiku o-negaishitai to o-omoimasu ga watakushi wo o-sashinai tte o-kudasai to o-omoimasu, perhaps if your boss is about to give you something really crap yet important to do.
O-sewa ni narimasu This is usually said with a kind of fleeting apathy to people you only meet occasionally, or meet by accident. A loose (not literal) translation is “I appreciate your kindness”, but I like to translate this in my head as “thank you for not hitting my face” or “who the hell are you”. This phrase is so inconsequential in meaning that I have even seen people say it to the phone after replacing the handset from having a conversation with someone.
Otsukaresama deshita Literally translated, this comically means “I was Mr Tired!”. This is the universal phrase used when leaving your place of work to go home at the end of the day, or after you have done something faintly strenuous that involved a 2nd person, such as lifting a bench, completing a teachers meeting or having greasy sex (probably). This phrase is used so much that most people don’t even bother pronouncing it properly, thus it becomes more of a “eeeeeeesha!”, where its meaning is interpreted entirely from context.
sods straightforwardly salaried?plaintively:widening!.