私の生きた証拠

Before I begin, I’d just like to say that sometimes doing translation work has its definite rewards - one of the most priceless forms of which is people leaving little notes saying how much they like a particular song (or my translation for it). That in itself is pretty much the finest reward people like me, Azu and DarkMirage can get - just being appreciated for our efforts, and the knowledge that our work has helped someone else out there enjoy a song (or even an artist) more than they would have otherwise. I really think that’s what keeps us going, even though we don’t get paid for doing so, and occasionally get into scuffles with our fellow people over errors and such. Still, I’d like to think we’re all comrades in the same business, and rivals though we may be at times, we derive the same satisfaction for a job well done, and welcome (and indeed, seek) the recognition and appreciation of listeners and readers out there. Yep.

Thanks, people, for reading our (invariably flawed and often noob) translations, and I will try to keep up the good work as best as I can. Be rest assured that any translation that does not meet my own standard will either not appear on this site, or have a note stating this judgement. I will try to make sure that your trust in me is not misplaced. For now, please bear with more angstings and random reminiscing (or alternatively, please feel free to ignore all this; click on the ‘Lyrics’ category on the side menu to escape this randomness).

では、本題に移ります。

The weekend that just past was pretty eventful by my standards (given that I don’t run into hot Japanese women every day or win prizes that I never expect to win every day either), and indeed it was perhaps unusually rewarding (and a tad distressing; more on this later).

Let’s start with Saturday.

Saturday began with the customary math lesson (this time was L’Hopital’s Rule [very fascinating thingy] and other random things you need to know about Calculus), and then I managed to jump into a cab and headed for Waseda Shibuya Senior High School. For some unknown reason I usually get along like a house on fire with cab drivers, so we spent much of the journey bitching about the government and particularly the Education Ministry (of course, what else do you expect?). After getting quite lost for a while (my dad did warn me about the relative unknown-ness of the school beforehand so I wasn’t in for a shock) we somehow managed to make it there unscathed. As it turned out I was like half an hour early (I was supposed to arrive at 11AM Singapore time) so I was like wandering around the garden, looking at the statue of Ookuma Shigenobu and then sitting down on a bench (and if I recall correctly I tried to read something). Before long two teachers came dashing around (no doubt the guard reported that a strange suspicious person completely in white was on the loose and must be restrained) and apprehended me. Of course there was the bowing and awkward greetings regime, and I managed to stammer out some barely comprehensible replies marred with a horrendous accent. And there was naturally the compulsory “OMIGOD YOUR JAPANESE IS LIKE SO GOOD!!!” comment, which somehow or other has started to make me feel quite uncomfortable whenever I hear it (yes the Japanese [at least those who grew up speaking the language, not like poor me] do seem to have this notion that their language is harder than string theory and hence anyone who can even make himself UNDERSTOOD [not well, not easily, but JUST understood] must be some sort of wizard or something).

Anyway they took me to the principal’s office (which features a meeting table that could seat about twelve) and left me there. I was soon joined by my classmates, and before long Chikako-sensei also arrived (I mentioned the event to her and she more or less insisted on coming. ^^). So we waited for a long while, and the teacher (a Mr. Naoi 直井) came by and sort of explained the rules. Then my classmates were all driven out save me and Zhongzhong and we were then joined by the Japanese competitors. One of them was actually my type of guy (studious looking, kind of serious, no dyed hair or weird piercings/hairstyles/etc), and it turned out that his speech was on healthcare in Cuba. Yes I am serious.

We were then led in a procession to the hall (which was pretty small, actually) and everyone was of course staring at us. Turns out that my classmates (and Chikako-sensei) were seated in the front row, very close to where our (the competitors’) seats were at the front, facing the audience. They talked a lot about the competition format (using both languages; it seemed that only the folks from RJ were native English speakers) and then called my name. I went up to the rostrum and waited as they screened a photograph of me on the screen (poor Professor Hawking was cut out of the picture), as well as a questionnaire the teacher (Naoi) mailed to me and which I answered. The audience laughed explosively when the emcee came to the part about me picking up Japanese again due to my frustration at being unable to understand anime dialogue. Well it was the truth anyway, so I wasn’t all that bothered.

I gave my speech with a few mistakes (pronunciation messes; but they probably weren’t all that serious), and sort of messed up the order for a few sentences (but that turned out not too bad; the order wasn’t terribly important anyway). Then I walked off the stage feeling pretty exhausted (and resigned to my perception that I wasn’t going to win a prize), and listened to the rest of the speeches.

The English speeches given were of generally good quality, though with the exception of the Cuban healthcare dude (an Itou Nobushige) they were accented quite strongly (Japanese-wise), whereas Itou spoke with a slight American-like accent (which I honestly found pretty comforting). In terms of content, I wasn’t able to make a brilliant judgement since I had trouble comprehending some portions of their speeches (due to the accent; I spotted grammar errors as well but they weren’t severe). But on the whole, I would say that Itou’s speech was the best researched and rehearsed (not to mention delivered with the best accent). Somewhere through the last speaker’s speech (on colors and their effects on people) a lot of girls suddenly raised sheets of blue paper and waved them around (I was impressed by the support). Zhongzhong’s speech was slightly altered to suit the audience (as was mine), but due to some confusion over pronunciation issues and his lack of exposure to high-quality anime his pronunciation wasn’t fantastic. But then again his speech had more literary merit (since mine was intensely personal), which won him an award.

Now there were two awards. One’s the best speech award, the recipient of which is decided through secret ballot. Everyone in the audience received a voting slip and one choice was permitted per voter. I had assumed that one of the Japanese speakers (with English speeches) would win, the rationale being the Japanese would likely vote for their own people (looking at the support accorded to the Colors speaker). In the end somehow or other I won the award. I remember going up on stage with an obviously shocked look (and I do believe I was muttering 「ありえない」”impossible” under my breath). Zhongzhong postulated that since the Japanese listeners could not differentiate between the English speeches’ quality (same situation as say asking our RJC people to judge Japanese speeches) and hence voted for the better of the two Japanese speeches, which in this case according to them is mine. My opinion was that the authorities might not have followed the vote counts, but I did find Zhongzhong’s opinion convincing, though I guess I cannot rule out the possibility that the listeners really thought my speech was the best (they were told to be impartial; they might have really voted fair, in which case they have my gratitude and respect). I wonder what Zhongzhong would write in his written opinion, which I am expecting sometime soon.

The second award is that of the 「国語家」”Master of the National [Japanese] Language”, which is decided by the Japanese-language faculty at Waseda Shibuya. It went to Zhongzhong, in my opinion the reason being either his speech’s relative merit, or the fact that they cannot award a person both prizes. As to this I have no fixed opinion, but I’m still happy for Zhongzhong anyway, despite my expectation that I would win this award and the Itou guy the best speech award. According to what I heard one of the teachers say, it would be the first time in the history of this speech competition (well this year’s the third time only) that an RJC student has won the top prize, and logically, the first time RJC took both prizes.

After that we went off to Queensway Plaza to eat McDonald’s (yes we were somewhat nuts), and after everyone but Zhongzhong left we stayed behind to argue about various economic and philosophical issues (on the list were music and anime downloading, and ethics issues in the entertainment industry, plus what anime are good for the otherwise-skeptical-viewer-who-wants-to-improve-his-Japanese). After that we went on a tour of the Singapore city area (dropping by some must-go-places for an anime lover), and then came back home where I gave him a brief introduction to anime. As the following day was an important event of sorts, I hit the sack pretty early.

Sunday

Sunday’s an archery competition (organised by the Punggol South Angsana Club or something), and our school team participated in the Novice category (20 meters on an 80cm target face). We went there damn early, and I ended up leaving my phone on the bus (which caused me a great deal of distress; but I recovered it later thanks to the efforts of our teacher-in-charge Mr. Chong, Xianxian our team manager, my dad, the bus company boss Mr. Ong, the bus driver (name unknown) - thanks a lot! ). I didn’t realize that the phone was missing until I finished shooting, though.

There was a team event, and an individual event. On my team were Jinjin and Shanhui. The field was uber waterlogged and my shoes were caked with mud before too long. The area near my assigned target face was so muddy that they placed planks for us to stand on while taking score and plucking out the arrows. Assigned to my target face and shooting the same detail were an ITE guy from Potong Pasir CC and a Temasek Poly year one dude. They were even more of a novice than me (since they started archery later; but wtf they have their own arrows!!!), a fact that quickly became clear once we got one or two ends in (an end is six arrows). I averaged something like 48 or so, and finished 299/360 in the first session. The second end went badly, and I scored 292/360, while my fellow-targeters got better scores as time passed.

In the end our team (me, Jinjin and Shanhui) got Men’s Novice Team 1st position, with Jinjin clinching the Men’s Novice individual 1st placing (621/720), and me the fourth placing (591/720) (Shanhui wasn’t at his best [with 54*], while Jinjin performed as he normally did and I exceeded my normal performance possibly due to the fact that I was shooting the coach’s arrows [they were the right length for me, as opposed to the arrows I borrow from comrades during training]). The girls got team 2nd and 3rd, and individual 2nd (57*) and 4th (53*). Jinjin also won a kettle for ‘Best Distance’ for an amazing score during his second part - 323/360. He’s donating it somewhere if I’m not wrong. SMU won the Men’s Team 2nd, ITE Men’s Team 3rd, and Temasek Girls’ Team 1st. Zhanming was two points away from the sixth position for Men’s Individual (prizes for the top six), and he was pretty disappointed about it. I myself was only two points above the fifth position scorer anyway. I can understand. Anyway for Men’s individual the scores went 621 (Jinjin), 598, 596, 591 (Me), 589 and 581. Zhanming’s 579 is higher than Jiawen’s (who got girls’ second). Oh well. Actually the girls and Jinjin train a lot more than me and possibly Zhanming as well, so while Jinjin deserved his stellar results, the girls’ results were by comparison somewhat disappointing, IMHO. Ken (the koach) was pretty surprised that I won a prize anyway. >.<

The prizes were given out by some resident’s committee chairperson (the MP Teo Ser Luck disappeared before he gave out anything; he was supposedly the guest of honor actually). Well MPs are supposedly busy people - I just wonder with what. Anyway the politics of this country don’t exactly garner my interest, so whatever.

After that we took some uber-ulu bus service (that has four stops on the line and comes like once every half an hour) to Hougang station (losing Jiaying earlier in the day and then Jinjin who was rushing home for unidentified reasons). We went down to Dholby Ghaut where the girls said they were eating at Plaza Singapura. The menfolk followed them, and we ended up at Cafe Cartel. There were many adventures and tribulations, among which was my sojourn to my Dad’s place with my bow and trophies (both of them; they had miniature bows on them that looked like they would snap at a touch) to leave them there for safekeeping. I returned to find my order (fish and chicken combo) not yet at the table. Anyway the meal wasn’t too bad, just expensive.

Overall the weekend didn’t go badly, but losing my phone caused several unexpected problems. In any case, it’s over and I did win three new things to place in my display cabinet (the speech contest plaque has been sent for engraving, though). Not a bad weekend by any measure.

By the way, this post took me three days to write. Sigh.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 20th, 2007 at 6:18 pm and is filed under Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.