I should not have answered the doorbell. I am not prepared to rebuff relgious zealots in Japanese.

They were sweet those two young women with pamphlets. “We are Spiritual Volunteers,” they said in English as they handed me a pamphlet in Japanese. I should have turned and fled. My problem is that I am stupid and curious.

Stupid because I didn’t quite understand them. Most of the conversation was in Japanese with some English thrown in for good measure. I only know how to be polite in basic social situations. Being prostelytised to isn’t covered in my Japanese lessons.

Curiousity always gets me into trouble. I want to understand what’s going on around me. They offered to bring me a brochure in English. I agreed. After I took my Japanese brochure inside with me, I found a URL (http://www.mahikari.or.jp) and checked it out.

They turned up again yesterday to give me my brochure, but after having read their web page, I decided to lay low. They left a note in my mail box written in English on notepaper seasonally decorated with frogs and tadpoles.

Dear MCQUILLIN.

I’m M— Fujimori.

In the afternoon we visited your home

but couldn’t meet you.

We would like to meet you

and we want you to know our

Spiritual Volunteer activity.

We will visit your home tomorrow.

If you wouldn’t convenient please

call me. Tel. 03-xxxx-xxxx

good-bye.

from M— Fujimori.
M— Miyata.

Yikes! Time to look up the words for “I’m not all that interested, sorry.” Posted by kuri at May 12, 2001 09:30 AM