How to not impress Japanese schoolgirls.

I have spoken briefly about the gaffes that Japanese make when trying to decipher the plethora of clicks and whistles we call the English language, but now it is time to change tack.

Yes, that’s right. I made quite a couple social faux pas… faux pi… er… many fuck ups whilst “trabberring” (traveling) around Japan.

And it extended beyond the “Not handing stuff over with two hands” or “giving money directly to the cashier instead of in their little tray next to the till” thing. Although, there was plenty of that.

I was walking down the main street of Noda, and I was stopped briefly by a group of school girls, all chorusing “Hello! How are you?!”

Naturally, I stopped, smiled and politely replied in English… as they were obviously keen to try out theirs.

Any questions they didn’t understand the reply to, I would do my best to tell them in Japanese.

I heard one remark something along the lines of a surprised “Oh… he speaks Japanese!”

I turned to her, smiled and used the hand gesture of my pointer finger being close to my thumb to indicate that I knew “a little” Japanese.

She looked at me confusedly. She even leant a little backwards, and she mimicked my hand gesture as though it meant something. She stammered a couple lines about needing to leave, and we all exchanged goodbyes and walked off.

I thought the last exchange rather curious, but didn’t think about it too much.

It wasn’t until I returned to my apartment that I remembered reading that using the hand signal of finger to thumb in a similar way to an “a-okay” sign is actually a Japanese method of asking “How much?”

So… I think I had just asked a fifteen year old (approx) school girl “HOW FUCKING MUCH!!?!?!!?!!!?!!!!!”

How. Fucking. Much…?

I think I would’ve caused less offense if I had asked her if all prostitutes wear school uniforms.

Recalling that story always makes me die a little inside.