One missionary was heard preaching in the main station in Tokyo. You have to admire his courage especially when you hear his message. He meant to say "Tsumi o sutete, kami no miko o shinjinasai", which means "Throw away your sins and believe in God's Son". Instead he said "Tsuma o sutete, kami no neko o shinjinasai", which means "Throw away your wife and believe in God's cat"!!!

Oops at the wedding

Once during a wedding I told a couple to kneel (so I thought). The bride gave me puzzled look and did nothing. Eventually they caught my meaning and knelt. At home with a dictionary I realised I'd said "Please fall flat on your faces" !!!

Our son Andrew never had any problem communicating. If he didn't know the right word he just made it up. (We used to say he spoke the accent without a trace of the language!). For example, wanting to take a Japanese boy up to his room, he'd say something like "upstairsu?". The funny thing was that his Japanese friends copied the words he used eg "Un, upstairsu ikkoo" = "Yeah lets go upstairs"! and they taught them to their friends.

One couple were very embarassed about doing the wedding kiss at the rehearsal. Eventually they agreed that he would give her a little peck on the forehead. During the wedding she was wearing a large tiara. When the groom leant forward to kiss her he collided with this thing and it went up his nose! The whole place collapsed in laughter... poor guy!

For this one you must understand that "is it sore?" and "do you want to speak?" sound very much alike in Japanese. One newly arrived foreigner was having a tooth filled. The dentist kept saying "is it sore?". He shook his head and thought why does this guy keep asking me if I want to speak and went on enduring....

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