Zachary's Lecture



11. Valentine's Day in Japan

SakuraHey, I heard that Japanese girls give chocolate to the boys they love on Valentine's Day. Did you know it?
MadisonYeah, you're right. I remember the hearing that a snack company started it for their sales strategy.
SakuraIs that how it all began?
ZacharyNo, no. The chocolate giving custom started many years prior.
SakuraAre you sure?
ZacharyYep. In Edo period, this samurai imported chocolate for the first time in the history of Japan. He heard that in the central Africa they used chocolate powder to fall into a trance, channeling the spiritual world.
MadisonOh, it's kind of like some guys intoxicate someone with the chocolate in which they put aphrodisiac agent or something.
SakuraHoe?
ZacharyOoh...^^; Anyway, the samurai succeeded in calling the spirit of his mother who had died a few years before. Then affected people started to offer chocolate to condole on someone precious when they died. And as the time went by, the tradition changed, so they gave chocolate to someone they were in love with.
ChelseaOK, thanks for a nice lecture. Come with me, jerk!
ZacharyAw! What are you doing?
ChelseaStop lying, or else I'll send you into the spiritual world.
SakuraUh, Madison, I was fooled by his story again, wasn't I?
MadisonHeh, I suppose so.

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12. Cyber Flu

MadisonOh, my gosh! That again, give me a break.
LiWhat happened?
MadisonOh, Li and Sakura, these virulent mails have been annoying me these days. Four or five a day with Novarg, Mydoom, and somthing like that.
SakuraWhat a bummer.
MadisonThey say that an anti-virus company is ready to pay $250,000 for information to arrest the creator of the computer virus.
SakuraWow!
ZacharyBut this time is a complicated case.
LiWhy?
ZacharyThis time the virus spread more rapidly than any other cases in the past. This is not just a computer virus.
MadisonWhat do you mean?
ZacharySome scientists say that the source of infection was in Asea. As a matter of fact, some experts believe that it's complicated by the bird flu in Vietnam.
LiAre you saying the bird flu infected computers? That's impossible!
ZacharyDon't take the flu so easy, Li. There are a lot of possible carriers to transmit virus to far-off places. It's well known that migratory birds carry flu a thousand miles. However, there was this report that another bird flu was found in the U.S., more than 10,000 miles from Asea. That's beyond the reach of migratory birds. In that case, what could carry the virus so far away?
SakuraThe internet.
ZacharyYes, Sakura, you have a good guess! The bird flu infecting a computer turned into a variant such as Novarg and Mydoom, and spread all over the world. And then it infected a chicken in the U.S.
SakuraHorrible. So can it infect humans?
ZacharyThere's no worry on that score, Sakura. It was originally a bird flu that doesn't infect us humans.
SakuraThat's a relief...
LiHey, I guess it's just one of your untrue stories, isn't it?
ZacharyWhy, Li? How do you know?
LiJust because Chelsea behind you is about to hammer your head.

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13. Chinese Dialects

Composed by Tomoeda-Shou no Jimuin
Translated by Yuki Neco

Names of the characters in this skit are of Japanese version.

Sakura Tomoyo's mother's company being built in Hong Kong—you called it Doidohji Gunsi(1), in Chinese, right?
Syaoran Uh-huh.
Tomoyo I just check it out with this handheld that can pronounce Chinese, but it pronounced it like Dadaosi Gongsi.
Syaoran That's Mandarin.
Sakura Hoe?
Syaoran China is so huge that there're some dialects much different than each other like foreign languages, such as Mandarin, Shanghainese, Cantonese and such. For example, Shanghai which we call is pronounced Shanghai in Mandarin, but it's originally Sanghai in Shanghainese.
Tomoyo Then your pronunciation was...
Syaoran Cantonese. It's spoken in Hong Kong.
Sakura Is that so.
Takashi Speaking of Cantonese...
Sakura Whoa!
Takashi Cantonese was named after Mr. Canton who devised the language. The Republic of China was founded in 1949, when they chose Mandarin as their common language to unify different dialects spoken in China. In addition, the Chinese they teach at schools in Japan is Mandarin in general.
Tomoyo So my handheld spoke Mandarin.
Syaoran You know a lot about Chinese.
Takashi However, Mr. Canton, one of the rebellions who founded the republic was the only one who objected against making Mandarin their common language. So he devided a secret language to communicate exclusively among their clan—the people who selected Mandarin were annoyed with the strange language they don't understand. It was the Cantonese. And he started an activity with a declaration “Propagate Cantonese over China, or even over the world.” Not only the language activity but a political activity had he stared, and Canton's clan ended up causing terrorism...
Sakura Psst, Takashi, I'm afraid it's one of your untrue stories?
Syaoran Right. Canton is a place name. But how did you know it wasn't true?
Sakura That's because Chiharu is ready to hit him with a metal bat with a fierece look hehind him.

(1) See Shorty-Shorties 13.

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14. Demoted Planet

Rita Hey, guys. Did you know the news that the Pluto, the outermost plenet, is no longer a planet?
Madison Yeah, that's what scientists' commuttee decided, but I kind of miss something when there's one less planets.
Sakura What? What's it all about?
Zachary All of us belived that there were nine planets revolving around the sun like the earth.
Eli Huh? I suppose the earth is just a huge flat piece of ground that is supported by elephants, standing on a gigantic turtle.
Li Are you sure?
Eli Don't take it so seriously. I was just kidding.
Li Yea... I know.
Zachary Oops... I should've started the story like that.
You know, the International Astronimical Union has stated the pluto was not a planet, and now the number of the planets is eight.
Rita It revolves around the sun like the others, but why did they have to demote the Pluto?
Zachary Scientists knew that the planet-like object is different than planets in some criteria.
Sakura It's like... Meilin had to leave the show in the middle of the series just because she did not appear in the original manga?
Madison Oh, Sakura...
Zachary The Pluto was discovered much later than any other planets; that's because it hates being watched. When someone trains a telescope, it hides away, so it was never discovered until 1930.
Chelsea Beginning to sound nonsense...
Zachary It's so badly-behaved that it sometimes breaks inside the Neptune's orbit, and that once it gets going it wouldn't come back to where it was at least for 248 years, and such. That's why the astronomical union decided to take its name out of the planet list, as undesirable.
Sakura I didn't know the Pluto was such a bad guy.
Chelsea And, I found one more bad guy here. Come with me jerk!
Chelsea pulls him by the earlobe, dragging him away.
Zachary Talking about planets, they spin on their own for a profound reason. To tell your the truth, in billions of years ago...
Chelsea Stop spinning your stories, or I'll blow you up with Plutonium.

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15. Poster Guy

Composed by Kazumi Shinjo
Translated by Yuki Neco
Sakura Hey, guys. Did you know that Shinjo who once played as an outfielder for the New York Mets retired from the baseball league back in Japan?
Madison Yeah, I know. Plus, his team, the Fighters, won the championship of this year's Japanese baseball.
Chelsea Is it true that the team won the championship for the first time in 44 years? It's amazing.
Li True. It was his glorious retirement.
Rita He's such a poster guy of Japanese baseball that I can't believe he retired.
Zachary Talking about Shinjo, did you know that he once attempted to retire 10 years ago?
Sakura Huh? Are you kidding?
Chelsea Absolutely he is. How come he knew about what happened 10 years ago?
Eli No, it was true.
Sakura What?
Eli In 1995, Shinjo, a slugger of the Tigers, decided to retire as a result of the discord with the manager Fujita, when he himself announced, “I have no sense of baseball.” But he just changed his mind in two days.
Sakura Wow, you know a lot about Japanese baseball, Eli.
Eli I'm a big Shinjo fan since he played with the Mets.
Zachary He likes to amuse people... like he appeared in an animal costume, rode a Harley-Davidson into the stadium.
Eli Like he appeared down from the ceiling, and performed an illusion and things.
Zachary And there's more. He started his brand new luxury car with the hand brake on; the car had to go for scrap.
Eli When he took the French exam in his university, answering the problem to transform “Monsieur Cirac est le président” into the past tense, he wrote “Monsieur Cirac est le pharaon.”
Sakura Sounds like Shinjo is such a freak.
Chelsea Once Eli joined him, it's hard to tell if it's true or not.
Li That can't be true. University wasn't his academic career. The exam and the luxury car were the stories of Shigeo Nagashima, the Mister Japanese baseball.
Rita I know...
Madison How did you know it wasn't true.
Li I like to watch Japanese baseball.
Sakura Then, it's just untrue about his attempt of retirement in the past?
Li It was a true story. He changed his mind in a few days.
Sakura Oh... I wouldn't be able to figure out what he has in mind.
Madison Shinjo's like an extraterrestrial, don't you think?
Chelsea And... how should we do with this lying ET?
Nikki How 'bout handing him over to the Majestic 12?

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Sakura's BME Clinic © 2002–2006 Yuki Neco