Re: Konishiki name (corr)

[jz8d-smmn@asahi-net.or.jp (Doreen Simmons)]

At 09:44 98.10.9 +0200, Mikael Metz wrote:
>Wha'about Oonishiki, (before small, now:) "The Great Nishiki". Or already
>in use?
 
Very much so, and it belongs to Dewanoumi.

BTW, a couple of Sundays ago at the Dewanoumi party, the most recent bearer
of the Onishiki name (now Yamashina oyakata), put his arm around my
shoulders and firmly steered me to the corner where his wife and daughter
were standing. There were two interruptions as people stopped him to talk,
but he was determined and the arm came around me again. Finally he placed
me firmly in front of the daughter and said, "Talk to her in English and
tell me what you think." Fortunately I'd already heard from Katrina that
the very nice young lady is at college in Australia, and although up till
now we've always talked in Japanese, I gently opened a conversation in
English. For those of you who don't live in Japan, it's best to be very
cautious about this, since your Japanese acquaintance is likely to
immediately switch to English on every future occasion - ("of course this
stupid foreigner doesn't really speak my language, even though we've been
communicating in Japanese for 20 years....")  - and with a bit of coaxing
from her mother, she replied in competent English.  After a suitable
exchange of opinion and information, I restored my own self-esteem by
returning to Japanese to praise her to her mother, and then went off to
tell the former Oonishiki that his daughter was undoubtedly fluent and had
a very nice 'international' accent to boot. Although he has rather a
reputation for shaking the big stick at sumo apprentices, he was clearly
pleased at my report, and I think the young lady's further studies in Oz
are assured.

Cheers,

Doreen in sumoland

  A theory is something that clever people think up much later 
                                    to explain something that already works