The first week of the new school year in Japan doesn't make much difference to me, but became evident yesterday evening when I was coming back from work. I was going up the stairs at the station behind a group of junior high school girls, who were practising the little bit of English they knew, "Nice to meet you!". One of them, plainly embarassed about speaking English, turned to check no one was listening, and saw me! A knudge and a whisper to her friend followed, and when they got to the top of the stairs, one of them said to me "Nice to meet you", so of course I gave the stock reply "Nice to meet you too!", which got a hand punched into the air with a "Yes!" from the girl!
I followed up with a "How are you?", one of them just repeated "How are you?" back, but her friend said "Chigau (that's wrong) I'm fine". We then exchanged "See you"s, an amusing little encounter at the start of April!
It's actually not just the new school year. Many of the new graduates also start their new jobs in Japan - April is the time for starting new jobs too. So there are lots of young Japanese in evidently shiny new suits as well...
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