Posts Tagged ‘french’

Japanese Woman Brings Rakugo to France

A report from FTV news about a Japanese woman who traveled to France to perform rakugo comedic storytelling in French:

• The woman in the video is Masayo Kondo, the 53-year-old manager of a winery in Osaka. She studied French when she was a university student.
• She translates the story for her performance into French with the help of her teacher Nikola. She practiced quite a lot for her performance, and the report shows her practicing at a cafe upon her arrival in France.
• The story she tells is about a man and his pet crocodile, which has a taste for human flesh.
• She performs at a Japanese restaurant, and several of the audience members seemed to have liked their first rakugo experience. (Didn’t hear very much laughter in the video, though.)

Beautiful French Women

The same Japanese TV show that brought us Colombia’s most beautiful women, Thailand’s hottest ladyboys, and Taiwan’s most beautiful women travels to Paris to find that city’s most beautiful woman. As in the previous cases, the idea is to find a pretty girl and have her introduce the host to a friend she considers better-looking than herself, repeating the process until the most beautiful woman is found:

Ishihara Wins Trial Against French

A French language school in Japan has sued Tokyo Gov. Ishihara over anti-French statements, and the results are in:

Outspoken Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara and his capital government were cleared of a claim Friday filed by 91 French and Japanese citizens, who were demanding an apology and damages for his 2004 remarks that were taken by the group as insulting the French language.

At the Tokyo District Court, Presiding Judge Katsuhiko Kasai said, “What he said is not true, but it was not targeting any individual either. His remarks surely lack consideration to the feelings of people associated with the French language, but it cannot be immediately concluded that the remarks hurt their sense of honor.”

According to the ruling, Ishihara said in October 2004, while attending a meeting of a support group for Tokyo Metropolitan University, “French is disqualified as an international language because it is a language which cannot count numbers.”

Ishihara said after the ruling, “The court made a logical conclusion. People cannot sue me just because they don’t like what I say.”

The number 91 may literally be “4X20+11″ in French, but simple memorization shouldn’t make it too hard for a foreigner learner of French to remember how to count. Maybe Ishihara would have preferred the French adopt the 10,000-based numbering system used in the Japanese language (100,000= “ten ten thousands”).

Ishihara’s statements about the French language were stupid, but is it realistic for the defendant to demand millions of yen in damages?