“Nanpa For Learning Japanese” is the title and theme of the post.
Recently i realised i needed to step up my Japanese learning and it was highlighted by a few people that conversation with the opposite sex is a great means to do that. This i already knew and it’s something i practice as often as possible but i knew i could do more.
Over several painstaking hours i crafted a letter to a girl in my building, we’ve passed each other several times and she’s always cheerful enough to see me but to date our exchanges have been brief to say the least.
I ran the first cut of my letter past my buddy JT who is a master of the Japanese language and also a dab hand with the ladies i might add.
Without rewriting the letter totally, JT gave me some grammatical instruction and helped me massage the message into a readable format which you can see below. Thanks man, I went the Hiragana option and removed any Kanji i didn`t understand.
Nampa, Nanpa, or girl hunting, is Japan’s most visible courtship ritual. The most famous form of Nampa is “suto-nan” (street Nampa).
Every weekend, across urban Japan, young men (”nanpashi”) and on the odd occasion early 30`s Gaijin (me) hang around busy streets or shopping arcades, trying to pick up passing girls … just kidding about me doing it, my Japanese isn`t good enough yet!
Sometimes the girl does the hard work – this is known as “gyaku Nampa” (reverse Nampa) – but it’s much less common.
A lazy stroll down Kabukicho anytime from lunch time onwards will see many a rooster parading himself, complete with a full blow wave hair-do and usually coupled with a Louis Vuitton Man Bag, it truly is a sight to behold.
I had a few Friends from Australia here a few weeks back and one was lucky enough to get a photo with a few of the boys in question.
Approaches vary from the clichéd “Ocha demo shinai?” (”Won’t you have tea with me?”) which really is the shittiest of tactics and is usually met with a sigh from those within earshot, to more sophisticated tactics, but it’s generally pretty obvious what the guy is really after.
For serious nanpashi, the aim is to get the young lady into a karaoke bar for a few songs then ultimately into a love hotel by the end of the night, but a (genuine) cell phone number is a decent consolation.
