Located in Dob utca near Mummus, but completely unrelated to it, is Budapest’s very own second-hand sex shop. Many words come to mind, such as gross, nausea and disgusting. Got any of your own?

You’ve doubtless seen this all before – I just wanted to point out that my EFL students are better listeners than Sarah Palin.

Couric: When President Bush ran for office, he opposed nation-building. But he has spent, as you know, much of his presidency promoting democracy around the world. What lessons have you learned from Iraq? And how specifically will you try to spread democracy throughout the world?

Palin: Specifically, we will make every effort possible to help spread democracy for those who desire freedom, independence, tolerance, respect for equality. That is the whole goal here in fighting terrorism also. It’s not just to keep the people safe, but to be able to usher in democratic values and ideals around this, around the world.

See, my students would have either said something specific or asked me what “specific” meant at least.

Couric: You’ve said, quote, “John McCain will reform the way Wall Street does business.” Other than supporting stricter regulations of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac two years ago, can you give us any more example of his leading the charge for more oversight?

Palin: I think that the example that you just cited, with his warnings two years ago about Fannie and Freddie – that, that’s paramount. That’s more than a heck of a lot of other senators and representatives did for us.

“Other than”, “except”, “aside from” and “besides” are words most of my intermediate students know – and if they gave me an answer like Palin did I’d have started writing the words on the board before they finished talking. Maybe I should suggest they run next time… if people think this sad hayseed is qualified, they should be able to overlook my students’ non-citizenship.

Not believing in any and all equally improbable and equally unsupported deities doesn’t really warrant a special word.  I don’t think rationality needs an interest group, and I think banding together under a proper noun would only make atheists and agnostics vulnerable to the charge of being just another religion.  It’s not a religion.  It makes no claims about the universe, and no further claims predicated on the other unproven claims, that have gone wanting for evidence for thousands of years.  Giving it a name and giving its followers an official label would only serve to lower it to the level of “competing theory” with Christianity and Islam, as if renaming modern medicine Laboratory-based Treatment Theory and calling for comparisons between it and the implicitly equally valid Guardian Angel Theory.  Being at minimum agnostic about claims of supernaturality should be the default among those having completed a basic public education; so common as to render the term “atheist” about as practical as “freeman” drawing up someone’s relevant personal characteristics.

I walked by this place on Kazinczy utca about a week ago.  The sign on one side said bor, or Hungarian for wine. I figured this must be a wine establishment. But then my sister saw that on the other side, it said sör, otherwise known as beer.

So you see, you and your significant other can both frequent what must be a fancy establishment, as not only do they sell beer or wine, but both. Now isn’t that just classy right there?

You all know my last name – as Japanese as sweet red bean stuffed into glutinous rice cake.  What you may not know is that because of my non-Japanese nationality, all official documents have my name written in katakana, the official script of foreign objects/people.  Some people here are actually a bit surprised by this as well, so don’t feel too bad for being taken aback, assuming you have any idea what I’m talking about here.

After I learned this, it took a bit of time for me to realize this didn’t need to bother me – I realized it’s not preferable to be arbitrarily a member of an unfairly exclusive and discriminatory system than not to.  I now balk at comments put forth by well-meaning but anachronistically racially-minded Japanese people that I have a clearer understanding of Japan because of my family’s ethnic background or that I seem sympathetic because I “have a Japanese face”.  Understanding my familiarity and comfort level with Japan is not helped at all either by the blanket categories “foreigner” (I’ve been here almost 5 years, making me neither Lafcadio Hearn nor Harrison Ford in terms of acclimatization) or “haafu” (I never learned Japanese at home or had any Jero-style firsthand experience with Japanese music, art, or popular culture).  I’d actually rather people ask me questions not simply to direct me to one or another pigeonhole.

But back to names – the fact that my Japanese name, though it is written as far as I know only one specific way, is written in katakana due to my non-Japanese nationality, I am free to choose the kanji (pictographs, which almost everyone’s name is written with) to write it should I ever take Japanese citizenship and escape the katakana catacombs.  This is obviously also true of my first name as well, but not nearly as ironic.

Some people upon naturalization simply choose vernacular Japanese names for themselves – Lafcadio Hearn became 小泉八雲　Koizumi Yakumo (little spring eight clouds), and Kim Sin Rak became 百田光浩　Momota Mitsuhiro, aka 力道山　Rikidozan.  I don’t think I’ll do this – the emperor knows there are already way too many Hiroyukis crowding up these isles.  Other people, like David Aldwinckle, adopt sound-sorta-alike names composed of well-known kanji, like his new name of 出人有道　Debito Arudou (exit person existing road, with the first and last names given in English order).  I don’t have to worry about limited Japanese phonology shredding my last name like it did to his – but I am going to have to make some sacrifices with Mark.  Mark in katakana is マーク　Maaku, which sucks but is pretty much as close as you can get in a language where consonants can never be neighbors and every syllable must end in a vowel (n is the only exception; tsu is considered one syllable).  I’ve thought about this a fair bit and so far the only semi-graceful kanjification I’ve come up with is  魔悪　(demon evil).  I like it but I’m afraid it wouldn’t go over well at any future PTA meetings I might need to attend.

I’m guessing some of you have seen this before, since it’s not that new, but I still think it’s funny. A very Hunglish telling of the story of the Three Little Pigs.

250 forints ($1.50) will get you a beer glass fight, apparently, but chip in another 100 forints or 60¢, and you’ll get a proper battle. And they say everything is expensive these days in Budapest!

To me, this was the best speech of the last month of many, many speeches. It makes one doubly sad that he for some reason saw fit to jettison any admirable quality he had, including his ability to speak like this, in 2004. I wish more candidates would campaign as if they had nothing left to lose.

Okay, so I know it’s actually a power building, which would explain the lack of windows on the building, which incidentally is located in Dob utca, but still, isn’t it more fun to tell your kids that it’s where the vampires sleep during the day? That’ll get them to stop asking you all those questions, provided they know what vampires are.

There are certainly some packaged foods here, meaning chips, soda and the like, with flavors that would surprise Americans.  Some of the best-known ones include melon soda and consomme chips, which really aren’t bad, once you get past the heresy of it all.

What is really odd to me is the abundance of food items “flavored” with things that most people back home would consider not “flavors” but “ingredients”.  “Milk” is a widely-enjoyed flavor of ice cream, which I suppose would called “unflavored” in the US.  One of the top three official ramen broth flavors, alongside miso and shoyu, is “salt”.  “Butter cookies” are quite popular, and although these exist in the US too, I think they take the name quite a bit more literally here.  It’s like eating a stick of butter dipped in flour and left to congeal.