Japanese Uncle Talk (Wednesday 07/02/07)

I remember a conversation with Tsuboi-san, Kenji's uncle, one night during dinner at an Izakaya in Nagoya city. Tsuboi-san was telling me all about his two daughters and their husbands when he started taking his mobile phone out and showed me pictures of his sons-in-law, one of them a dentist, and the other, a white American. So I decided to ask Tsuboi-san a question, something I thought quite related to the topic he was talking about.

"so Tsuboi-san, have you got grandchildren yet?",

I asked.

Tsuboi-san replied,

"no, not yet."

He answered me in a very light-hearted manner, smiling and laughing away, perhaps a bit influenced by the large amount of sake he had consumed earlier on.

Still smiling away, Tsuboi-san then continued,

"erm, I guess 'they' do not know how to make children."

Embarrassed by the statement, I just smiled. Tsuboi-san then looked at me in the eyes. Still smiling as before, he asked,

"do you?"

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I wasn't really sure what he meant by that but I understood his question as "do you (know how to make children)?". I didn't answer him somehow. I just turned to look at Kenji whose face had turned red, and who was looking back at me. None of us wanted to continue the conversation so we ignored Tsuboi-san's question and started talking about something else.