Small Talk

Depdending on the situation, I think that I am fairly decent at small talk, especially if it's crazy talk.. the kind where I start spouting crazy ideas and watch as my listeners react with strange faces to my strange ideas.... but that's another story.

Recently, I've realized that I'm starting to face a problem with talking in a non-native language. Which is that I can't really be that funny and I have problems sometime making idle chatter. I have already been labeled as interesting by my friends since I can have discussions atlength, but most of my discussions in Japanese are kind of serious unfortunately... (well there was this supposed conversation where I was gathering information about "love hotels" in Japan which I was reminded of but I cannot recollect anything about... and I don't think I was that drunk at the time.. since I remember everything else about the party... and waking up alone in *my* bed.. but that's another story :P).

The problem is that I gotten tired of talking about serious topics... things like the differences in cultures of Canada and Japan, my opinions of the Japanese education system, my thoughts about working life in Japan, etc etc. I really enjoyed it at first because I was collecting all sorts of information and making lots of contrasts.. but, seriously (excuse the pun), after a while I am kind of bored of it and I'm sure if I meet random people for the first time, I doubt that they'd be interested in talking about serious topics such as these. So the question is, what else do you talk about?

I started thinking about Seinfield... you know, a show just about silly funny things. But wait, I know what the silly and funny things are in English (most of them involves me!). The problem is that the Japanese have a slightly different "funny bone" compared to us Westerners. As some of you know, I do enjoy my sarcasm. The problem is that I have learned recently, if I translate my sarcasm in to Japanese, that I'd have a high probability of pissing guys off and making girls cry (sometimes it can be the other way around too!). The trick is understanding the "spot" for Japanese people (translation note: in Japanese the "spot" is like the humor "spot" or something like that). Meaning I need to know what is interesting for these people to talk about.

So far, I do know what I mainly talk about while I'm in Japan.--it's 1. What I like doing in my spare time (hanging out, cooking with friends, attending events,etc.), 2. Lab life, 3. Japanese life in contrast to Western life and 4. How it's not hard to learn a second language (everyone in Japan has to study English from middle school till high school (6 years) and most of them can't speak at all meaning they are quite envious that I can speak Engish... ) Usually I tend to stay away from topics 3 and 4 since I've talked about them to death. I don't talk much about 2 since I think it's not that interesting and it leaves me with 1. But the problem is that I don't have all that much spare time and while I can say that I attend many "parties," talking about "parties" in the general sense while not being in one is not so interesting.

This leaves me with my hobbies and interests... which include sports, food and events. Now I have a bit of a problem about talking about sports and events. For sports (which are like events) I don't talk about sports in the sense of watching them, I try to *play* them instead (I do make the unfortunate analogy sometimes when talking about porn: "What's so interesting about watching it? It's like watching or playing baseball. I'd rather play baseball-- you get exercise, it's healthy and you might make a few friends out of it!"... right... bad analogy [in more ways than one :)] ). So back to the problem, you know, about talking about sports and events. The thing is that I have a dislike of just talking about the things I do because it creates a disconnect, in other words, a barrier. I much prefer to invite people out and do things instead. Why talk about playing tennis? Let's go for a game and have frozen yogurt after instead!

Well great, the problem is that it doesn't work for certain situations-- for example: professors, superiors, and if you're working in a real busy lab to make much more time to go out and do things with people. So great, what does that leave with me left to talk about? Not a whole lot... which is the problem. So let's cross that topic out. Which leaves me with nothing to talk about.

So how does one talk about nothing? But it brings me back to the Seinfeld episode-- wave your hands, say something silly and people start laughing or something. Perhaps I've missed a topic or something... but there should always be something to talk about.

So what do *you* talk about? Have you ever wondered (and wondered why)? It's says a lot (again, in more ways than one... haha!)