10th January, Year of the Nerd

I've got a bad case of yellow fever. What's worse than not being able to get the thing out your system is that for some reason, it can't get you out of its. It appears that I’m irresistible to East Asians in general and Japanese in particular. Even half way across the world I get accosted; from random Chinese guys asking to take pictures to Hitori-sensei. Who?

December 25th 2007, Christmas at the Shajendra's had me locked in a never ending conversation with Hitori-sensei ('sensie' is what I called him. To everyone else, he was Hitori, the crazy conceptual artist, who'd subject you to pictures of his new sculpture on digicam if he got his hands on you. Indiscriminately.) It started off with where I was from, took a detour through "Your name means 'alone', right?" "Eh? Who told you!?" "No one, I can understand some Japanese." And then ended with The Historical Friendship of the Turks and Japanese. 'Aha.' -I must not have sounded convinced, so he rambled on for another 20 minutes about how the Turks know very well of the great episode when said friendship was forged, but the Japanese seem to have irreverently buried it in the past, along with the emperor of the time. I conclude, and his wife assures me afterwards, that Hitori-sensei loves Turkey.

Eventually, I did manage to get away, but along the course of the evening, the more he got pissed, the more he'd try to get me to come sit at his table with him. At 5am, when the party was still booming, I got tired of trying to tell him I was sleepy, and just went to bed.
End of Part One.

Part Two will commence when his daughter contacts me in a few weeks time upon her arrival from Tokyo. The arrangement is that I teach her Turkish and she helps me with my Japanese.