Hello, it's been a while. Welcome back into my life. I could talk about the special type of angst that comes with early adulthood in a foreign country, but that feeling comes and goes in waves, so let's talk about something stupid instead.
Japanese has a lot of filler words you use in conversation to tell the other person you're listening. Not unlike nodding your head and saying "oh that's cool," while actually meaning "I'm not actually listening." One that they teach you in beginners Japanese is そうですね (Right, I totally agree), sometimes romanized into English as "Soo desu nee?" which if you didn't know how to pronounce it correctly you might assume that it sounds something like "Sue desu knee." This particular example I saw in Pachinko -- which is a great read 10/10 would recommend, but the little bit of Japanese interspersed throughout the book was very cringe.
Anyway, I'm getting derailed. What I wanted to say was that I change my mind. I change my mind about へぇwhich sounds something like "helicopter" if you gave up at the beginning and only made it to "he-" and then dragged it out"-eeeeeeeeh".
A year ago when I started living full time in Japan I thought it was the dumbest sounding word ever. It's one of those filler words that you use when someone tells you a "fun fact" and your like "wow." but feels a little more like saying "herp derp." It sounds hella stupid, and I used to think that when people used it, that they sounded like a dumbass by association.
Recently I've been finding myself using this...word... more and more often. And I've come to the realization that it's actually quite useful. It skips completely over the pretense that you care, and goes straight to "I don't give a shit." It's short. And for a language that people say tends to beat around the bush, it sounds pretty much exactly how you feel.
Herp.
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