Today at the Sakura Matsuri, I had an extremely amusing moment. Well, amusing to me, anyway.
We were at a booth that sold toy swords (either plastic or wall hangers – not sure which), and two young men (I would estimate early 20s) were there looking at the swords. I overheard one of them telling the other “This is called a katana. It’s what they used…” (I don’t remember the rest of the sentence). The second young man said “So is that what you would use in martial arts, then? Like to practice?”
The first young man floundered a bit, so naturally I decided to insert myself into their conversation and info dump a bit.
“Well, that depends on the martial art. For kendo, they use a sword made of bamboo slats, so you can hit each other without hurting too much. For iaido, they use a sword made of an aluminum zinc alloy, so it’s lightweight but not sharp. For batto-do or other cutting arts, they use a real sword made of steel. There are probably demos of that today or tomorrow!”
Young man #2 said “wow, you really know your stuff!” And I said “Yep!” and wandered off.
This is an example of how Not To Human. In general, this kind of behavior is not considered polite or appropriate. But I think in the specific context I was in, it was okay.
Emilybook 