No comment… well, maybe I’ll comment after all

So I just got back from a Japanese restaurant here in Austin, where I had to sit next to an American customer who apparently felt the need to show off his “cultural awareness” to the waitress. He did this by greeting and thanking her not in English, not in Japanese, but… in CHINESE. In a Japanese restaurant. I was shocked.

(Of course, I don’t need to point out that anything more complicated than “Hi” and “Thank you” was in English.)
(Or that he felt his pronunciation was bad enough that he repeated himself in English without pausing for breath. “Ni hau hi how are you.” Upon receieving his bento: “Xiexie thank you.” Arrrrgh!)

Look, even if you’re speaking the right language for the restaurant you’re in, you aren’t fooling anybody. I can’t believe that I have to type this out, but apparently some people need it. Here’s a handy guide to see if it’s appropriate to speak to the wait staff in a language other than English.

1. Are you in a country/region/neighborhood where English is not the primary language?
2. Is your proficiency at said language better than the server’s proficiency in English?

If you can honestly answer yes to either question, then by all means use another language if you think that will help communication. Otherwise, do us all a favor and stick to English; in fact, you’ll probably be understood better than if you fumble your way through some horribly mispronounced words. As a bonus, you also won’t come across as a patronizing ass.

Look, I know Austin isn’t exactly Asian central, but if you don’t know that sushi is Japanese and not Chinese, then you don’t have any business trying to speak either language. In fact, I’m 99% sure the waitress was Hispanic anyway.

41 degrees is perfect

At 6 PM tonight, the temperature was 41 degrees and there was a slight misting of rain. To Texans, this meant that all evening church events had to be cancelled because it was unsafe to drive. To this Northwesterner, it meant that it was perfect weather to run 5.34 miles.

It’s a new route I’ve wanted to try for a while, and should be a blast if you like some variety in your runs, like fording streams and a short rock scramble. If you’re boring (i.e. you prefer track to cross country) I’ve provided some alternatives as well. The only downside is that the Shoal Creek Trail turns to concrete after 15th Street, and they’re trying to pave the rest of it. Apparently the capital projects division of City of Austin Parks & Recreation doesn’t have any runners on their committee.

Anyway, as expected, people looked at me as though I was crazy, although the logic of running in such weather is indisputable: you don’t sweat, and although you’re a bit chilly for the first half-mile or so, you’re in complete comfort for the rest, and when I was done I felt like I could do the whole five miles again. Middle of summer here, and I’m dead after three. Most of the time, running in Austin is a chore, but this was one of the rare times I could just relax and enjoy myself… hopefully we get some more days like this before spring hits.

Since church was canceled, after coming back from my run there was nothing to do except eat dinner by myself while watching Russian parkour videos on YouTube. Oh well.

On another, more sobering note, as I type this, I’m watching the police arrest one homeless person sleeping in our laundry room and sending another one away. Sure, they’re trespassing, but it’s supposed to drop below freezing tonight. I don’t blame the cops (much) for doing their job, but for whoever called them… for God’s sake, have some compassion, your laundry can wait. Then again, I’m the one who just watched the whole scene out my window, yet I wasn’t willing to offer my couch to them for the night, and maybe I’m the one who needs an extra dose of compassion as well.

Deep thoughts from Lewis

When we see how all our plans shipwreck on the characters of the people we have to deal with we are “in one way” seeing what it must be like for God. But only in one way. There are two respects in which God’s view must be very different from ours. In the first place, He sees (like you) how all the people in your home or your job are in various degrees awkward or difficult; but when He looks into that home or factory or office He sees one more person of the same kind — the one you never do see. I mean, of course, yourself. That is the next great step in wisdom — to realize that you also are just that sort of person. You also have a fatal flaw in your character. All the hopes and plans of others have again and again shipwrecked on your character just as your hopes and plans have shipwrecked on theirs.

It is no good passing this over with some vague, general admission such as “Of course, I know I have my faults.” It is important to realize that there is some really fatal flaw in you: something which gives the others just that same feeling of despair which their flaws give you. And it is almost certainly something you don’t know about — like what the advertisements call “halitosis,” which everyone notices except the person who has it. But why, you ask, don’t the others tell me? Believe me, they have tried to tell you over and over again, and you just couldn’t “take it.” Perhaps a good deal of what you call their “nagging” or “bad temper” or “queerness” are just their attempts to make you see the truth. And even the faults you do know you don’t know fully. You say, “I admit I lost my temper last night”; but the others know that you’re always doing it, that you are a bad-tempered person. You say, “I admit I drank too much last Saturday”; but everyone else knows that you are an habitual drunkard….

We don’t like rationing which is imposed upon us, but I suggest one form of rationing which we ought to impose on ourselves. Abstain from thinking about all other people’s faults, unless your duties as a teacher or parent make it necessary to think about them. Whenever the thoughts come unnecessarily into one’s mind, why not simply shove them away? And think of one’s own faults instead? For there, with God’s help, one can do something. Of all the awkward people in your house or job there is only one whom you can improve very much. That is the practical end at which to begin. And really, we’d better. The job has to be tackled some day: and every day we put it off will make it harder to begin.

–C.S. Lewis, “God in the Dock”

A personal note, I saw these words come to life at choir practice back in December. After singing next to the same people for some time, I could point out something about nearly everybody’s singing that annoyed me. So-and-so scoops into notes, so-and-so sings too loud and doesn’t blend, so-and-so sings too soft, so-and-so is always getting lost and singing the wrong words, etc. The people in front of me, behind me, to my right and left, there was something that always drove me crazy. This went on for some time, until (with some horror) I realized that these people probably thought exactly the same thing about me. I mean, I just sing for fun and I’ve never pretended to be great at it, but it had never occurred to me that others are probably just as frustrated at certain things about my singing as I am about certain parts of theirs. Consider it a parable for me… after all, as Lewis says, there’s only one person whose voice I can improve.

Deep thoughts from Hugo

In passing, we might say that success is a hideous thing. Its false similarity to merit deceives men. To the masses, success has almost the same appearance as supremacy…. Prosperity supposes capacity. Win in the lottery, and you are an able man. The victor is venerated. To be born with a caul is everything. Have luck alone and you will have the rest; be happy, and you will be thought great. Beyond the five or six great exceptions, the wonders of their age, contemporary admiration is nothing but shortsightedness…. Let a notary rise to be a deputy; let a sham Corneille write Tiridate; let a eunuch come into possession of a harem; let a military Prudhomme accidentally win the decisive battle of an era; let a pharmacist invent cardboard soles for army shoes and put aside, by selling this cardboard as leather for the army of the Sambre-et-Meuse, four hundred thousand livres in income; let a peddler marry usury and have her bear seven or eight million, of which he is the father and she the mother; let a preacher become a bishop by talking platitudes; let the steward of a good house become so rich that on leaving service he is made Minister of Finance — men call that Genius, just as they call the face of Mousqueton, Beauty, and the bearing of Claude, Majesty. They confuse heaven’s radiant stars with a duck’s footprint left in the mud.”

–Victor Hugo, “Les Misérables”