So let's go back to the time I was in college, studying abroad in Japan. My abroad program had me stationed in Kyoto, Japan. I was attending Doshisha University as a study abroad student. The mostly stayed on the main campus, but at times would have to go to the other campus sites close by. But for the main campus their was a main entrance right at the corner of a main street. My daily routine consisted of going to the convenience store across from campus for a quick breakfast snack and then heading to class. Part of that morning routine seemed to be having people standing outside the entrance to pass out flyers and other papers.
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| Waiting to walk across the street to the university campus with classmates. |
If you don't know already, Japan is not afraid to advertise on the streets. One of their most known forms of advertising in public is to distribute tissues with an ad on it. These tissues are actually really useful when you're in Japan, so definitely take them! But my college campus was passing out papers. It was probably students passing out the papers because they looked about my age. My Japanese at the time was a beginner so it wasn't like I could read what was on the paper but I ended up accepting the papers I was offered for two reasons. It was really cool to look at and just try to find out how much I knew. The second, it kind of felt really nice that they included me in this kind of thing. They could have just skipped over me, thinking that I'm just a foreigner who probably doesn't know Japanese (it was true at the time, but I was there to learn some more of the language). But every time I entered the campus I was given papers they were handing out.
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| A tissue advertisement I got once for part-time jobs for women, I think. |
Like many things though, it was getting old. My desk in my room was starting to collect a lot of these papers and I just kept feeling bad when I had to end up throwing them away when someone else could have benefited from the information being handed out. I wouldn't say it was stressing me out, but it was getting to me.
I was having lunch with my Japanese partner in the university's cafeteria one day. She asked me how I was doing and adjusting to life there. Life was great but I told her I had one problem, how I kept getting people handing me stuff that I really didn't want to take from them. It looked like she understood my frustration and didn't take it to heart. I ended up asking her how to politely deny something, like saying "no thank you." I knew a lot of basic Japanese but my textbook never taught me this. You would think it would teach you such an important phrase but of course not. She ended up teaching me a phrase that would save me from any other future street advertisers. I still use this useful phrase to this day, and it's one of my favorites in the Japanese language. The phrase she taught me was keko desu, a casual "no thanks." The formal way to say this is iie, keko desu.
When she told me of this magical phrase, I was kind of surprised it was something so easy to remember. I asked her about two times if this would really work for me and that no one would give me papers outside the campus entrance anymore. She promised me it would, so the next day I got to use it.
I walked up to the campus entrance like always and saw the few students that were handing out flyers. I was super nervous because I was always scared to use my Japanese on Japanese people I never formally met before. With a deep breath, I walked with the other students who were going into the campus but was caught by one of the students handing out papers. I immediately used the phrase keko desu like I was instructed by my Japanese partner, and it totally worked! I was really happy that they understood me and went about their business while I got to continue on my way to class without having to hold a piece of paper in my hand. After this first encounter, I was excited to keep using it throughout my stay in Japan. I even told my Japanese partner about my success and how proud of myself I was. She seemed pretty happy for me too.
Now, I use this phrase for a bunch of other situations and I'm clearly understood by the people I'm speaking to.
I hope you enjoyed this story time of one of my many adventures in Japan. Maybe you even learned a new phrase for yourself and can start using it too.
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