January 28, 1990
I met this woman named Martha who has started an English school for children for this man who owns a chain of video rental stores. Yes! It's Screen and Boo's video rental, ramen shop, and English-language school. The "screen" in the title comes from "TV screen" and the "boo" comes from the Japanese word for pig (buta). The company trademark is a pig holding a 500 yen coin. I don't know why; maybe, that's what they charge for a bowl of ramen. I laughed at the whole concept until last night.
Last night Martha invited us to an open house at her school. Martha's got it made in the shade. The school building is brand new with central heating, air-conditioning, carpets, huge TVs and, the latest VCR tape craze, English-language movies with English subtitles. The subtitles enable the student of English to make out what the character has said when they mumble normal English rather than textbook English. I think the same-language subtitling a great idea. I wish they would do the same for my Japanese films so that I could practice my Japanese.
As part of getting everything her little heart desires, Martha (who has dubbed herself "the Princess of Beppu") has subscriptions to Time, Newsweek, and the Daily Yomiuri, an English-language paper about the size of the Daily Texan. She gave me last week's issue (1/22/90) of Newsweek. Last week's! The news was still almost fresh. I read it from cover to cover twice and I don't even like Newsweek. It costs $4.60 an issue and is printed on newsprint sans the advertisement pages.
Posted by M Sinclair Stevens
February 27, 2002
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Screen and Boo