Japanese Invasion

I arrived in Dallas this afternoon for a Japanese peanut tour of Texas. It was 49 degrees and raining in Lubbock when I left, and it was 87 degrees and stickier than a slobbered on peppermint when I got off the plane in the Big D.

I have high expectations for this outing. It involves Japanese peanut buyers, BBQ, Billy Bob's Texas (the world's largest honkeytonk), BBQ, a tour bus, a lot of electronics, our mascot Tex P. Nut and BBQ.

We're starting the tour here in Dallas. In the morning, we'll load a bus, drive to Madill, Okla., tour a shelling facility and then come back to the Lone Star State where I will undoubtedly have to teach them how to two-step (and I am in no position to be telling others how to dance).

Tonight, we kicked things off with a reception and a dinner at Uncle Buck's Steakhouse. We're staying at an Embassy Suites that just so happens to be connected to a Bass Pro Shop, which can only mean one thing: I am going to buy some sort of outerwear. Uncle Bucks was filled with fine examples of taxidermy that is helping us live up to the stereotype of Texas that the Japanese were hoping for. Plus, there was buffalo filet on the menu...which tastes a lot like beef, only...wilder.

At dinner, I sat next to a couple from Japan. The man's name was Kazue, which made me giggle intensely, yet silently, because it was strikingly similar to "kazoo". Kazue and his wife were excited I was wearing a Polo brand button up shirt, because Kazue had just bought one while they were in Vegas this weekend at a factory outlet store. Apparently, that trip to Vegas was Kazue's eighth time to go to Sin City.

His wife said, "He very good at blackjack."

Kazue and his wife also thought I was a former Miss Texas. I have no idea why, but one of the American Peanut Council guys told me it would be a good idea to tell them "thank you" in Japanese, so he told me how to say it. I said it, and I'm sure I butchered it. For all I know, I may have told them to go kiss a billy goat.

My first main Japanese observation is that when the translater is repeating back to them what us Americans are saying, it seems to take a lot more words that we use. For instance, if I said, "Welcome to Texas" it would take approximately 58 Japanese words to tell them that. Either that, or the translater was making his own interpretations and making things up. Now I understand why there was a timing issue with the subtitles and the actors' mouths moving in King Kong.