The story of how I became a man who buys a jacket at JUSCO every two weeks as a result of constantly running away from 'Hello, How are you?'
This happened back when I was attending a well-known major English conversation school.
It was a group lesson with about 3 to 5 students per teacher. Every teacher would always ask this at the beginning of class.
Hello, How are you?
Apparently, it's used as a greeting in America, but I always found it difficult to answer.
I think "Fine, thank you." is the most popular answer, but I always replied with just one word: "Fine."
Once, when I really felt like I wasn't doing well, I answered "Not good."
The teacher immediately asked me in English, "What's wrong?" with concern, and I became so flustered and embarrassed that my face felt like it was on fire.
Ever since then, no matter how bad I felt or how exhausted I was from working until late at night, I became a machine that would instantly reply "Fine." (I'm doing great).
If I said something wrong and got probed further, I'd rather just end it safely.I was in a state where I didn't even know why I was attending English conversation classes anymore.
The main part of the class followed a format where the teacher and a representative student would go to the front of the classroom to demonstrate a conversation, and then several designated students would go to the front to practice the conversation using that as a model.
There were also many young women attending that class.
Office workers in their early 20s and college students. A shy guy in his 30s (at the time) had to invite these young women, whom he would never have a chance to talk to in normal life, to a party in English.
・The embarrassment of talking to someone you've just met
・The embarrassment of talking to young women
・The embarrassment of speaking in English
It was a dream collaboration of the "three great embarrassments" that I don't usually encounter.
Among them were high school girls attending as a supplement to their school classes. I had to invite such a girl by saying, "Would you like to go for a drive tonight?"If you did this in real life, you'd be violating some ordinance.
One time, the high school girl and I were designated to go to the front of the class together to do a roleplay where I invite her to a party at night.
When I nervously invited her using the English I had studied so hard, she immediately replied "No!" with a mischievous smile.
The other students laughed, and the classroom was filled with a friendly atmosphere, butI was just standing there in front of the class with a bright red face.
Even in that state, I was diligent about preparation, so I was relatively able to handle textbook-style questions and answers.
However, I was extremely weak at unexpected ad-lib questions.
The teacher would suddenly ask me about my private life in English, like "Where did you go yesterday?" or "What did you do last weekend?"
Since it was embarrassing to struggle too much, I would always answer in the same way: "I bought a jacket at JUSCO"... using JUSCO, a large supermarket that was famous locally at the time and easy to talk about.
Before I knew it, I had becomea man who goes to JUSCO to buy a jacket every two weeks.
I had been attending the class for about 8 months, so I must have bought over 10 jackets at JUSCO.
By the way,I have never bought a jacket at JUSCO.
It was somewhat fun while I was in the beginner course, but as soon as I moved up to the next level, I couldn't understand what they were saying, so I quietly faded out.
By the way, at the English conversation school,my favorite food is "McDonald's hamburgers".
I realized that before polishing my language skills, I was missing something much more important.
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