Desert Stories
May. 6th, 2023 01:06 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rynlingWhen you come from America, it’s always important to bring gifts for everyone’s children. The last time I visited, everyone wanted Transformers action figures. This time, all the nieces and nephews asked for paperback manga. Their parents have a surprisingly healthy attitude about this. I was like, “Are you sure you want your ten-year-old to read Tokyo Ghoul,” and his mom was like, “It’s fiction; what is he going to do, eat people in real life?” Which is fair, and I guess there are worse ways to learn English.
Meanwhile, another nephew has figured out the basic principles of arbitrage. He wanted me to buy a half dozen PlayStation 5 controllers for him. He said he’d refund me at the market price regardless of what I paid, as he intends to sell them at a markup to his friends.
I had to explain to him that (a) you cannot bargain for bulk orders at GameStop, and (b) high-ticket items like PlayStation 5 controllers should be given as gifts, like bottles of wine. Then I told him about Pokémon cards. He understood very quickly. This child is thirteen years old.
Anyway, all the kids are surprisingly knowledgeable about current manga titles, apparently because they all watch pirate streams of anime dubbed into English.
ETA: I wrote this awhile ago but never posted it because who cares. I am now posting it with two updates. First, the kids aren’t just watching anime, they’re watching YouTube personalities commenting on anime. This means they can say, in perfect American English, things like “the JoJo community is toxic.” They are genius child prodigies and I love them very much. Second, the Pokémon cards went over well, but it turns out that what I should have brought from America is Fruit Roll-Ups, which are selling at steep markups because of a regional TikTok craze. Although apparently authorities have started confiscating Fruit Roll-Ups at airports. Pics or it didn’t happen? Okay.
Meanwhile, another nephew has figured out the basic principles of arbitrage. He wanted me to buy a half dozen PlayStation 5 controllers for him. He said he’d refund me at the market price regardless of what I paid, as he intends to sell them at a markup to his friends.
I had to explain to him that (a) you cannot bargain for bulk orders at GameStop, and (b) high-ticket items like PlayStation 5 controllers should be given as gifts, like bottles of wine. Then I told him about Pokémon cards. He understood very quickly. This child is thirteen years old.
Anyway, all the kids are surprisingly knowledgeable about current manga titles, apparently because they all watch pirate streams of anime dubbed into English.
ETA: I wrote this awhile ago but never posted it because who cares. I am now posting it with two updates. First, the kids aren’t just watching anime, they’re watching YouTube personalities commenting on anime. This means they can say, in perfect American English, things like “the JoJo community is toxic.” They are genius child prodigies and I love them very much. Second, the Pokémon cards went over well, but it turns out that what I should have brought from America is Fruit Roll-Ups, which are selling at steep markups because of a regional TikTok craze. Although apparently authorities have started confiscating Fruit Roll-Ups at airports. Pics or it didn’t happen? Okay.
no subject
Date: 2023-05-08 03:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-05-09 02:55 am (UTC)People keep saying that you can't learn Japanese by watching anime and reading manga. Maybe that's true about Japanese... but these kids' English is perfect. They've never been to America, and they don't have any contact with Americans, and they don't study English in school, but they speak English with perfect fluency and perfect Mid-Atlantic American accents. I think perhaps most people in America don't appreciate this, but that sort of "natural" NPR American accent is really difficult to get right, and English is a complete shitshow of a language to begin with.
So thank you Naruto and Demon Slayer for your service I guess. 😅
no subject
Date: 2023-05-11 02:59 pm (UTC)a languagefive feral mink in a trench coat. Good for them.