onomatopoeia!

before I start what I actually wanted to write about, I thought I'd just follow up on my last post... Paper revision due for euro today. So I went to the college office to fix some parts of it and...

OMG... It was gone... I had replaced it with something else with the same name by accident. Had to type out about 5 pages of stuff about Queen Mary I. And I actually wrote this blog during class but it didn't save my draft so I'm writing this over again too... (Technology must hate me.)
--------

So... I was just thinking about how it's funny that some of the people who put up the strongest front sometimes are sometimes the ones who're "weaker" inside. An example.... one of the host brothers I met in Japan. He's about 6' tall and to me, that's like a giant. He also reminded me of a yakuza (Japanese mafia) guy with his shaved head and his gangster speech style (more-than-usual rolling of the "r"s). Even his name sounded yakuza-like. It wasn't your Japanese boy band name like "Takuya" or "Shinji" or childish-sounding names that make you think of an elementary school kid like "Koutarou" or "Yuuta". Yasumasa. I was like "Yasumasa"??? That sounds either like an old man or a gangster.

But while his persona screamed "OMG YAKUZAAAAA!!!" the other host brothers poked fun at him without fear. This scrawny guy (whom my friend and I would later give the nicknames "Nezumi-chan" and "Mouseman" to because he was sort of skinny and mouse-like) seemed like the more assertive one over Yasumasa. Nezumi-chan and the others even told my friend and I that Yasumasa had no friends. They also told us to call him......

"Pokko-chan".

Just by the sound of the word "pokko" makes me think of a small, cute, fluffy/furry kitten or something. Having "-chan" attached to his name didn't make it sound any tough either. And no matter how hard Pokko-chan tried to get my friend and I to stop laughing and to stop calling him that, (he had given up on the other guys already) he couldn't do anything to make two girls, about a whole foot shorter than him to not call out, "POKKO-CHAN!!!" from 10 feet away.

It was kind of funny how he seemed so powerless even though he appeared scary and acted tough. It really must have been a funny sight to see someone like him being dragged around everywhere by two little girls and being poked fun at by a bunch of guys smaller than him. He was so submissive, to the point where I kind of feel sorry for him. But I guess it sort of worked out because he made friends because of his personality. Pokko and the other guys seemed to be pretty good buddies at the end of the trip and my friend and I still send emails and stuff to all of them.