Jan 7, 2009

"You said it, Chewie."

Every kid who grew up with Star Wars has either wanted to either be or sleep with Han Solo. That's just a fact. If you're between the ages of 18-35, no other figure has demonstrated all that it means to be interplanetarily masculine. Look at what this guy's got- looks, charisma, a spaceship, a giant furry sidekick, a laser gun, and a spunky galactic princess for a girlfriend. Pure awesome. I'm happy to say that here in Japan I've achieved Han-dom in one small way- how I talk to my manager.

My manager understands English, but doesn't bother to speak it. I can understand a lot of Japanese, but, knowing that she understands English, I often just speak English to her. So, she speaks her language and I speak mine. This is the exact same thing as "RAwwwRRAwGWR!"
"You said it Chewie," or "RWAggRG!" "Yeah, I've got a back feeling about this."

I'm not unique in this. Back when I lived in Okayama I was surprised to see lots of conversations where both participants mutually understood each other's languages, so they'd just each just speak their respective mother tongues at each other. At first I thought it was because people were just lazy, but the fact of the matter is that language learners can usually understand of a foreign language far more than they can produce. So, in that sense Star Wars is a completely and utterly accurate picture of intercultural communication.

So anyway, I've achieved one small bit of Han-Solo-dom. Now I want a spaceship.

3 comments:

Kristin said...

hee hee...awesome. That's kind of ironic too...we watched "A New Hope" last night. I hope you get your space ship.

Seph said...

Does that mean I get to be Lando Calrisian? 'Cause that'd be cool.

Joe Streckert said...

Yes, Joseph, you can be Lando Calrisian. I'm sure you could pull off the cape/moustache thing.