Welcome to LRS

Today was the start of a new club. The Media Club taste tested different coffees in Gastown. The Salty Tongue won the award for best coffee. At the end of January we will provide the students of LRS with a small newsletter with more information about coffee shops in Gastown.

Here are some pictures from the presentation at the graduation ceremony on Dec. 2nd., 2005. taken by In Sik Jin.

Here are some pictures from the Christmas Decoration Party in LRS.
Welcome to LRS's Christmas Party on Dec. 22nd.~!

Korean and Japanese Couples
We would like to talk about Korean and Japanese couples. Most Korean people who were friends become a couple. Usually a man is older than a woman, but nowadays sometimes a man is younger than a woman.
Korean women wait until men make the first move. In Japan we also start from friends, but before becoming a couple, we can approach each other.
When Korean couples have a date, usually men pay for it, sometimes women do. Therefore, if a Korean guy pays the restaurant bill, there is a huge possibility that he likes you.
When Japanese couples go out together, we usually split the bill. When the couple shares some food, usually the woman served the man.
In Korea the most common places for dating are movie theatres, cafes, amusement parks, and driving. After having fun, usually men take women home.
In Japan dating spots are similar to Korean. When Japanese couple goes shopping, some men will carry the bags, but some men still have an old way of thinking. In that case the men won't help women. Korean young couples celebrate many special days, but commonly couples celebrate valentines day, white day, 100th day aniversary, 1000th day aniversary, adn so on. AS a present, men give to women flowers , perfume, or couple rings.
When Korean couples want to break up, gradually they stop meeting and calling each other. Finally they separate. Until getting married, coupels don't live together, because it is not common in Korea.
In Japan couples spend time together until getting married. Nowadays many women get married being already pregnant. Of course almost all parents hope that the bride will be pregnant after getting married.
Usually Korean men propose to women with a ring if it's time to get married, and then they meet their parents and prepare the wedding. Most people have western style wedding, after that they have small traditional Korean wedding wearing Han-bok.
In Japan the couples usually spend a lot of money for their wedding ceremony. They invite as many people as they want. During the reception, the bride changes her dress two or three times.
Anyway Korean and Japanese couples hope they will be happy forever.

I'm going to talk about flying the friendly skys while pardom my French shit-faced. When I stayed in New Zealand, I rented a house with 6 good friends. That's why they had a farewell party for me on the day before I left for Japan. We drank beer, wine, so-ju, and Jaapnese sake.
Eveyone knew that I couldn't hold my drink, but because of the excitement it turned out that I could drink a lot that night. From time to time I have an almost supernatural ability to drink. I got way too drunk. Finally I slept on the floor in the living room, so they abondoned me and didn't wake me up and left me there, even though I had to wake up early in the morning, and I hadn't finished packing my bags. The next morning I got up later than I'd expected, so I said goodbye to them quickly and then I dashed out, because my frined was supposed to take me to the airport. When I got in her car, she said that she smelt alcohol from me, and my foot was still red. Anyway I got to the airport on time and walked drunkenly into the airport. I tried to keeo me cool, but I couldn't. Even though I was in front of a customs officer, my face must have looked stupidly happy. At last, I safely got on the airplane, and then we landed and I had to get a bus at another airport to change from domestic line to international line. I asked soem people for directions whenever I got lost. If I hadn't got drunk, I wouldn't have asked anything because I was still drunk at the time.
While I was on the bus, I was standing behind some couple. I heard that they were whispering that they smelt something from somewhere. I knew that they noticed smell from me. I was annoyed how they kept talking about me. That's why I kept exhaling on them until they got off the bus. I think it was such a strange act, but I was chuckeling at that time, and after that I couldn't stop laughing. I was so happy until I got on the international line, but my feeling was getting unwell after the airplane took off. Therefore I went to the washroom so many times. At first I came and went between the washroom and my seat, but finally I couldn't get out of the washroom. I almost died there. For 5 hours the toilet was my best friend, and I spent almost half of the flight there. When I arrived at Narita airport at last, my friend came to meet me so smiley, because he really wanted to go drinking with me. Then it started all again.

If you are in Vancouver December the 3rd, come down to Robson Square (Robson and Howe) and watch some short films for free at Vancouver's outdoor film festival: Toquefest. I'm acting in a short film that will be playing sometime after eight called Henry Dobbins Dress warm because it's outside. Wear a toque, eh ?
-Kevin

Can you guess what I'm talking about?
I'll talk about a place and I'll give you 3hints about my topic.
1. 60% of Japanese men and 50% fo Japanese women enjoy reading there.
2. Females take 3 times longer than males.
3. An average person visits there 2,500 times a year about 6~8 times a day.
Yes, the answer is "Toilet"

You spend about 3 years of your life on the toilet.
It is reported by the World Toilet Organination. WTO is going to hold a World Toilet Summit in Singapore. And they have started a World Toilet College. It sounds funny but it's a serious fact. Nowadays poor toilet conditions are a worldwide problem. They say that there are 2.4 billion people in the world that don't have adequate sanitation. It's 40% of the entire world population. When we travel out of our country, we can find the diference easily in toilets. We might get angry at disqusting toilets and get upset when we don't know how to use them.
I'll show you some interesting things about our toilet customs.
As you know, in Southeast Asia and in South Asia such as India, they don't use toilet paper. They use water. After relieving themselves, they use water to wash their butts. They use the left hand to wash the butts and the right hand to eat food. When I visited there, I got upset. There were no paper but only buquet and water. I tried it. I didn't know what to use it. I took a buquet and filled it with water but I didn't find a good way. I threw water to my butt.
You might feel upset, at first, but you will end up relizing that the water can clean better than toilet paper. Don't worry about your wet butts because the climate is hot and your butts will dry up soon.
My friend experienced a rare toilet in Thailand. That toilet is located over a pond. In a pond, there are giant carps that is a kind of fish. When we relieves ourselves, carps will eat stool and get nutritions. They are waiting for your stool. If you take a shit a little, they might complain to you. They are served in the restaurants.
When in Rome, do as the Romans do. It sounds cruel.
My country, Japan, has an interesting feature about women's toilets. We flush 2 and a half times each time. The first flush is for drowing out the sound of pee to stop someone from hearing our sound because it's so embarassing. The second flush is to wash it. But nowadays we have a good machine to drown out noises. When I sit down, artificial water sounds paly. This machine is called a "Sound Princess". This products were born from a particular Japanese mentality of being ashamed. These roots came from ancient times, when there lived Samurais. There were noble women. When women went to the toilet, they took a few balls of clay. They threw a few balls into the toilet so that we couldn't distinguish which sound was real. They felt embarassed exactly the samen as present Japanese women. I fell it's amazing. we have diffent hairstyles, clothes, we eat different food but we share our feelings. It's our real culture. I'm pretty sure that in the future, we will have another Sound Princess such as Cyber Sound Princess or active silencer Sound Princess. Even though the time passes, and everything has developed, I don't want to lose our culture.
Thank you.

In my morning class, the topic for the week was crime so students had to write dialogues about what they would like to steal from LRS. Sayaka did a great job of using various forms of the conditional in her dialogue. So far nothing has really gone missing from the school but if anything does we'll know who to look for. - Kevin

Let’s steal from LRS


A: Hello, ( B ) ! …… What’s the matter ? You look sad !

B: Ha…. My room was broken into last night.

A: Oh, really ? That’s too bad ! What a pity ! What did you have stolen ? Your laptop computer ? TV ? Camera ? ID ?

B: No, I had many mugs stolen ….

A: Pardon ? Only mugs ? We use it when we drink coffee, right ?
Oh, only mugs ? You are lucky ! Why do you look so sad ???

B: No ! I really treasure them ! I’m serious ! I couldn’t believe my eyes when I went home last night ! Oh, What am I going to do …. I was supposed to sell them on the internet because I need money now. I don’t have money , so I can’t buy anything even food ! Ha … I already found a purchaser who is a mug collector. I have to send mugs to the purchaser by next weekend ….

A: I see. How many mugs did you have stolen ?

B: 30 ! The sneaky thief might be selling my mugs ! Oh, the thief may already have sold my mugs …. I want to accuse the thief of stealing my mugs !!!

A: I have a good idea ! We always use mugs in LRS …. There are many mugs ! It seems to me that there are more than 30 mugs ! How about you steal those mugs ? I can help you !

B: Are you sure ? I don’t want to be a criminal …. But I have no choice. I should do it. How can I steal mugs in LRS ?

A: How about we take 2 mugs each everyday ?

B: No ! It takes too long to steal 30 mugs ! And someone would notice in just a few days that mugs keep disappearing. If George knew about it he would call the police and would look for criminal. I don’t want to be caught by the police !

A: That could happen. Then how about we break into LRS on Saturday early morning because nobody is there, and the police might be very tired because around LRS are many night clubs, so they must work hard on Friday nights. Don’t you think so ?

B: that’s a good idea ! Let’s carry this out on Saturday !

————————　On Saturday morning　————————

A: Let’s go ! …… Let’s break the door !

B: Yes ! …… But how do I break the door ?

A: How ? Don’t you bring some tool, such as wire or hammer …?

B: No, I didn’t…. Do you know this door is high-tech security, so I hear that if someone tried to open the door 　　forcibly, the sensor would go off loudly ….

A: What ? Did you know it ? Why didn’t you tell me about it ? You should have told me about it…
…, No, you had to tell me about it ! We can’t go in there ! What should we do ? This plan is a total failure ! We blew it !! Let's go home now !

B: s,Sorry…, But my mugs are there ….