Tomo and I are going to see a Muse concert tonight. Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on your point of view, our tickets are floor general admission, so if we line up early enough we are able to get to the front of the stage. Yippee. Tomo is a dedicated live music aficionado, so he thinks nothing of arriving at a venue many hours before a show in order to line up to get in. And so it is today. I may not have the energy for the front row as I’m a little sick today.
The venue is actually pretty close to my apartment, so I said I would walk to Starbucks and then the venue with Tomo to help him get there. I was joking around in the elevator and pulled my faux-fur edged parka hood over my head. It is quite a large hood and my head was buried deep inside. “Hey, you are a mosquito,†said Tomo.
“What?†I could imagine a reference to Kenny from South Park, but a mosquito? It made no sense to me.
“No, no, not a mosquito, an Eskimo.â€
[photos in public domain, Eskimo family by Edward S. Curtis, Library of Congress]
Ah, yes, that made a lot more sense. Indeed, I did look like an Eskimo. And here was a perfect example of two words that you don’t think could ever get confused, yet have enough similarities that it is just possible to accidently confuse. I thought it was funny.
Now when I say kowai (怖ã„, ã“ã‚ã„) and kawaii (å¯æ„›ã„, ã‹ã‚ã„ã„) interchangeably, I won’t be so embarrassed. Kowai means “scary†and kawaii means “cute.†There is a big difference of course, but I always mess them up.