On Mon, 06 Oct 2003 17:31:31 +0900, The 2-Belo
<the2belo@msd.biPOKPOKglobe.ne.jp> belched the alphabet and kept on
going with:

>Ken Yasumoto-Nicolson and fj.life.in-japan is a baaaaaaaaaaad combination:
>
>>I'm yet to progress to the um-ing and aw-ing in Japanese phase, so I
>>don't know if it naturally follows, but I know a couple of gaigin who
>>regularly point to the nose, rather than to the chest, to indicate
>>"self". To me it always looks like a forced gesture, but I've never
>>actually asked the people who do it if it's natural or not, just in
>>case they get offended or something. I'm no psychologist or whatever,
>>but I would think that it must be forced. What do you lot think?
>
>No offense taken, since I've become a thick-skinned bastard, but I never even
>realized I was pointing to my nose to indicate "self" until I went to the US
>last year and my mother picked on me for days about it.
>
>I would be suspect if the gaigins in question were JETs or something who've been
>here eighteen or nineteen minutes, but with those of us who are under life
>sentences (and rarely come into regular contact with other gaigins), I'd say
>it's a natural result of watching a hundred thousand other people do it 98,263
>times a day.

I agree. It's a natural progression. And while it may feel unusual or
forced at first, it becomes second nature. I used to catch this sort
of shit from fellow gaigins for using "ore" to refer to myself,
together with a regurgitation of what someone had told them about it
being vulgar or uncouth. Well guess the fuck what? I *am* vulgar and
uncouth. So what's the fucking problem?

Anyway, the real cause for concern would be if one picked up the habit
of pointing at objects with one's middle finger, a common sight across
the table in McNovas and the like.