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Sep. 5th, 2004
Interlude: Clan Gathering
Sep. 5th, 2004 11:16 am500 years ago, some guy named Schreiber died in the Hessian hick town Korbach. This guy Schreiber was the founder of the Scriba clan (for we are intellectual and latinized), to which the maternal side of my family belongs. This anniversary had to be celebrated by a family convention (which usually takes place every third year, but the last one was only two years ago; they changed it due to the anniversary).
And since my grandmother greatly emphasized family, although she isn't even a Scriba herself but merely married into the clan, and since my Japanese aunt wrote me a post card that she'd be there to, Jörg and I had to attend in spite of just having returned from the exhausting jûdô trip. Korbach, by the way, is about half an hour as the car drives behind the Wewelsburg, so now we drove the same way six times within one week.
Amusingly enough, Korbach was familiar though I thought I'd never been there. But it looked like the Hessian hick town I got lost in twice on my way to/ from the last Fellowship meeting (actually, it is on the way). Jörg, however, suggested that the familiarity sprang from genetic memory flashbacks, or something.
The event itself was rather boring, as I expected. We arrived for lunch, though a bit later than planned. My mom told me that Emmy had asked for me twice already, so I had to go over to her table and disturb her lunch. To my shame I must admit I didn't even understand her greeting, and after some obligatory ogenki desu ka, nihongo wa taihen muzukashii desu and rainen ni nihon e iku to omoimasu (ouch) I switched to English and introduced Jörg, who is much less afraid to speak Japanese and thus appeared to be quite fluent. Gnah. The Canadians, unfortunately, weren't there at all.
After lunch, Emmy came over to our table and we talked a bit more, mainly in English (her English is excellent; she's lived and taught Japanese in Pensylvania for a while; she's also taking German classes. And she's 79 but looks like 60), because my Japanese sucks horribly after half a year without classes and practice. But she told me to get in touch with her when I come to Japan and to stay a year if possible.
We took part in the sightseeing tour of Korbach, which was not very exciting. While we were following a tour guide telling more or less boring stuff about the history of Korbach (leaving out the interesting stories, like that of a haunted house), some dog followed our group. Now Jörg has that strange way with animals that they just walk up to him and follow him and obey him. So this dog followed him henceforth and listened to him. It was not a homeless dog, though; it wore a collar with name and address and phone number.
After the tour, we lost Emmy when my father invited us to an ice cream parlor, so we waited until supper although we had wanted to drive back home much earlier. We looked at some fairly interesting family documents, and my uncle Joggel thought Jörg was a student as well. She didn't appear to supper, either, so we had to leave without decent farewells. *sigh*
Having a big family like this is, usually, nice, interesting and often useful; but it's also wearisome. Especially when most of the people present are either much older or much younger than me - my grandmother and mother, being emancipated and having both married only in their late twenties, have dragged down the generation border. Most other relatives of my generation are ten or even more years older than I am, and have children of their own...
And I still don't get it. When I went to the first Fellowship meetings, my mother was so worried about me meeting strangers just because we had a common hobby. After all, there could have been perverts or murderers among them. But they all go wild to meet strangers just because they share a few strands of DNA with them - and those shared strands of DNA don't mean there couldn't be perverts or muderers among them, either.
And since my grandmother greatly emphasized family, although she isn't even a Scriba herself but merely married into the clan, and since my Japanese aunt wrote me a post card that she'd be there to, Jörg and I had to attend in spite of just having returned from the exhausting jûdô trip. Korbach, by the way, is about half an hour as the car drives behind the Wewelsburg, so now we drove the same way six times within one week.
Amusingly enough, Korbach was familiar though I thought I'd never been there. But it looked like the Hessian hick town I got lost in twice on my way to/ from the last Fellowship meeting (actually, it is on the way). Jörg, however, suggested that the familiarity sprang from genetic memory flashbacks, or something.
The event itself was rather boring, as I expected. We arrived for lunch, though a bit later than planned. My mom told me that Emmy had asked for me twice already, so I had to go over to her table and disturb her lunch. To my shame I must admit I didn't even understand her greeting, and after some obligatory ogenki desu ka, nihongo wa taihen muzukashii desu and rainen ni nihon e iku to omoimasu (ouch) I switched to English and introduced Jörg, who is much less afraid to speak Japanese and thus appeared to be quite fluent. Gnah. The Canadians, unfortunately, weren't there at all.
After lunch, Emmy came over to our table and we talked a bit more, mainly in English (her English is excellent; she's lived and taught Japanese in Pensylvania for a while; she's also taking German classes. And she's 79 but looks like 60), because my Japanese sucks horribly after half a year without classes and practice. But she told me to get in touch with her when I come to Japan and to stay a year if possible.
We took part in the sightseeing tour of Korbach, which was not very exciting. While we were following a tour guide telling more or less boring stuff about the history of Korbach (leaving out the interesting stories, like that of a haunted house), some dog followed our group. Now Jörg has that strange way with animals that they just walk up to him and follow him and obey him. So this dog followed him henceforth and listened to him. It was not a homeless dog, though; it wore a collar with name and address and phone number.
After the tour, we lost Emmy when my father invited us to an ice cream parlor, so we waited until supper although we had wanted to drive back home much earlier. We looked at some fairly interesting family documents, and my uncle Joggel thought Jörg was a student as well. She didn't appear to supper, either, so we had to leave without decent farewells. *sigh*
Having a big family like this is, usually, nice, interesting and often useful; but it's also wearisome. Especially when most of the people present are either much older or much younger than me - my grandmother and mother, being emancipated and having both married only in their late twenties, have dragged down the generation border. Most other relatives of my generation are ten or even more years older than I am, and have children of their own...
And I still don't get it. When I went to the first Fellowship meetings, my mother was so worried about me meeting strangers just because we had a common hobby. After all, there could have been perverts or murderers among them. But they all go wild to meet strangers just because they share a few strands of DNA with them - and those shared strands of DNA don't mean there couldn't be perverts or muderers among them, either.
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