I told one of staff members at my present office “To say goodbye is to die a little.” as farewll. I am moving to a new satellite office. I just quoted this message from Philipe Marowe in The Long Goodbye that I just finished yesterday.
I enjoy most of his phrase style. They are very cool. Expression might be a bit old fashioned, though. It is really cool. We need to enjoy more old fashioned cool phrases in our life. It should be cool. Cool is nice!
About 35 years ago I atteded a customer from Taiwan for technical training at our factory. He stayed for a month, and my boss told me to attend him durihing his stay and asked me to study Chinese as well. This was my fist experience to hear Chinese live.
His language was Chinese only – no English and no Japanese.
The first day at Narita Airport – I met him at the airport and brought him to a hotel in Ueno. On the way to Ueno, I tried to communicate in hand writing with Chinese character, but I realized that I could not get enough communication with my Chinese character in Japanese style. Meanings were slightly different.
When he checked in the hotel, he would not let me go. I wanted to tell him that I would come back with my boss who could speak Chinese, but he was so worried and he would not be alone. Finally I called to my boss from his room, and explained our schedule, then I left.
Then I started learning Chinese with him during his stay with us.
A couple of month after he left Japan, we received other customers from China – we called main land China at that time to distinguish – anyhow, I talked to them with confidence as I had studied Chinese for a month from morning to night with a Taiwan customer, but we could not get proper communication. Then I learned that my Chinese was not actual Chinese, but very local language – a kind of dialect – Oh no! From that day, I started learning Mandarin. Please be careful!