Tuesday, March 20, 2012

The importance of framing it correctly

Yes, I find her highly annoying
The other day, I had taken little toddler Sunshine with me to the local playground for her to romp about and run free, and perhaps more importantly, give Mrs. Sunshine a little breather from the destructive capabilities of a toddler closing in on two years.

This time, there were no other kids in the park, so I let her run free while I amused myself with bouncing the big blue ball with funny characters on it. But after a little while, two girls about 5 year old or so also came to the park to play. They immediately became targets for toddler Sunshine as she approached them and tried to communicate with them in her no-language gibberish. The kids apparently found toddler Sunshine amusing as they indulged her and played with her, lending her their crayon set (yes, it ended in tears from toddler Sunshine when she realized she had to give it back). As I'm more of a mother hen than a chicken-hawk, I hovered a bit in the distance and just restrained toddler Sunshine when she got out of line.

After about ten minutes or so though the girls started whispering with each other while throwing me worried glances and after gathering up some courage they straight up asked me "Toddler Sunshine's dad, you're not Japanese, are you?!", seemingly a bit worried about this turn of events. "No, I'm not Japanese, I'm from a country called Sweden, but my mom is Japanese so I'm half-Japanese" I replied back, trying to keep International relations on a friendly level. This was met with disbelief "How can you be only half-Japanese?!". Realizing that things were starting to get confusing for their little brains, I did my best to put it in an appropriate frame of reference to them. "Do you know the tv-star Becky?" ("Becky" is a half-British-Japanese celebrity in Japan that seem to be quite the hit among younger kids) I threw out and got back a cautious "yes...?". "Well, she's also half-Japanese just like me!" and with those magic words the atmosphere changed from hesitation to a more enthusiastic question of "Wow, are you also on tv?!" to which I decided to not give an over complicate answer and instead went with "No, it seems to be a lot of work, doesn't it? I come here to the park to play with toddler Sunshine instead, it's more fun".

As I took toddler Sunshine under the arm to bring her home for the feeding the girls enthusiastically waved me good-bye and asked me to bring toddler Sunshine to play some other time. As much as I loathe Becky, she did serve a purpose on this occasion in helping me frame the situation but she probably only serves as a suitable framing device for ages six and under...  

11 comments:

Martin said...

You should spend less time playing and more time filling your blog with stuff for our amusement!

kamo said...

'Loathe' is a touch strong, no? She's a far from the worst of the bunch. Though it's possible my expectations have become so low that I'll take to any talento who doesn't want to make be pluck my own eyes out in disgust.

What I don't get is how everyone seems to think she's so amazingly pretty. She's not minging, certainly, but not all that either. She looks like a very pretty girl as viewed in the back of a spoon.

Ἀντισθένης said...

"She looks like a very pretty girl as viewed in the back of a spoon."

Kamo, sometimes you really piss me off with better turns of phrase than I can create.

Michelle said...

Oh, I know her, I know her! :-D
Just from doramas though, where she isn't allowed to speak her mind. ;-)

Sooo, that means toddler Sunshine is 3/4 Japanese, huh.

Cambo said...

*Phew!!* I was worried half-way through that this experience was going to turn ugly. :(

But it didn't! *another Phew!!* Good work twisting that around~~ :)

Anonymous said...

dont care to much for her

Ms.Godzilla said...

Waaait, Bekki has a mind?
What I really dislike about the chick is that she pretends not to be able to speak English...gee, how about another bit of isolationist idiocy?

chochocho said...

Becky is very savvy and smart. She makes a lot of money. You have to admire her success.

Better than the nigerian guy they
drag out who speaks perfect Japanese but on tv he plays a barely speaking savage.

bobby oglung or whatever.

Chris said...

"tried to communicate with them in her no-language gibberish."

LOL

That's an ancient Hebrew dialect and she was asking for help and claiming you kidnapped her :)

Bekki? I haven't heard a peep from kids about her for a few years? I thought she did some porn spread and was doping it up in the backseat of some Yakz car with Noripi.

Mr. Salaryman said...

Martin - I know and I apologize!

Kamo - Well, the loathing does come quite a bit from what she does to the small half-Japanese community! The not being able to speak proper English being generally "cute" is quite annoying.
You do really hit the mark with the spoon comment, never thought of it, but it's really true!

Ἀντισθένης - Indeed!

Michelle - Yep, she's a "quarter"!

Cambo - C'mon, how could this have turned ugly? ;)

Ms. Godzilla - I actually think that she really can't speak much English... I saw a show where she went to visit her family in Britain and she couldn't speak to them... Shameful!

Chris - Huh? No, I doubt that she has a sex tape, she just seem to genuinely non-sexual for that, but I'd watch it, just for the novelty value!

Kathryn said...

I like Becky because she doesn't play the retardly dumb act that most Japanese talento chicks do. That Lola chick, I want to punch her in her puffer-fish face every time I see her on TV.

Is she half-British? I thought she was part Italian but I might be basing that on her looks.

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