Japanese with anime voice: episode79
Hello, I’m Sachi.
The other day, I had a meeting with a girl I’ve been asked to film for YouTube. It was supposed to be a 30-minute meeting, but we ended up talking for about three hours. And I’m sure the meeting lasted only a few dozen minutes out of the three hours. The rest of the time was mostly chatting. I felt like I had a great rapport with this girl, and even three hours was not enough time to talk. When I was leaving, she said the same thing, that she didn’t have enough to talk about, and I was happy.
She is 12 years younger than me. I was surprised to see that we have the same way of thinking.
During our conversation, I mentioned that I had been thinking about getting rid of my cell phone for a while. The girl told me that she was thinking of doing exactly that right now. Well, it is difficult to completely stop having a cell phone now that we are so accustomed to this era. So, he is planning to switch from a smartphone to a ガラケー (garakei). A ガラケー (garakei) is a button phone before a smartphone. The girl says that she is not going to be stuck with a smartphone, which can do everything, because she thinks it is not the life of a real human being. I agree with her. Smartphones are convenient, and thanks to them, I am able to do YouTube, which I fully benefit from. I am very grateful for that, and I understand that. However, I also think that it is not good to be constantly watching your smartphone.
The reason I decided to stop carrying my cell phone was because I thought that this was the reason why people were always late. I thought that if I didn’t have it, I wouldn’t be late and I would be more punctual. When I told this to the girl, she told me that people used to be like that. For example, if they misunderstood the time of meeting or were late for some reason, and no matter how long they waited and looked for each other, they could not see each other, they gave up that day as if it was the day they could no longer see each other. She said that if both of us wanted to see each other strongly enough, we could see each other. I thought, “I see.”
When you hear that, you might think it’s a bit spiritual. But if you think about it, if you are serious about the person you are talking to, you would never remember the wrong time or place. Even if the other person is late because of a train delay or something, you would still believe in them and wait for them, wouldn’t you?
When a type of person like me has a cell phone, somewhere in the back of his/her mind, there is a feeling of relaxation that it is okay to call even if he/she is a little late. When I think about it, I feel as if we human beings are now being controlled by a small device called a cell phone.
When LINE started to spread. At the time, I didn’t have anyone I was in frequent contact with. In fact, I had already met my current partner at that time and we had exchanged LINE IDs. I thought I could use LINE on my tablet, so I tried to change the device on which I used the app. What did I think? Before I changed the device, I sent him a message from my phone. After that, I tried to communicate with him on the tablet app. After I sent him a message asking what he was doing, I deleted the LINE app from my phone. Then I installed the app on my tablet. I thought it would be easy for me to take over. But at the time, I could not transfer the contents of the application to another device! When I switched devices, I had to start from the initial state. So, of course, the LINE installed on my tablet had no subscribers and none of the messages I had sent to him earlier were there. I was surprised and quite impatient. I asked someone who seemed to know a lot about LINE, and he told me that if I changed the device, the contents would not be transferred. I was shocked to hear that. It would have been better if I had not sent him any messages. But there was no way I could have lost touch with him after asking him myself what he was doing right now. In fact, we were planning to go out for a drink the following week or so. So it would be a problem if I couldn’t contact him. I was really worried about what to do. I thought I had no choice, so I asked one of my seniors at work if I could get his contact information so that I could get in touch with him. I really didn’t want to ask her. But we had met through a senior colleague at the company. But I didn’t tell her that I had exchanged LINE IDs with him because I didn’t want to bother her. Then she asked me why I wanted to know. I couldn’t answer because I was afraid of her overbearing attitude. So I gave up asking her further. It was more of a hassle to deal with her than anything else. Well, we had already decided on a place and a date to go for a drink, so I figured I would just have to ambush him at the station and get him. One chance or the other. If I couldn’t meet him, I would just have to give up. Then, he made up a good reason and offered to get in touch with me through my senior. So we got back in touch on LINE before the day we went out for a drink. When I met him, I told him that I was thinking of waiting for him at the station if I couldn’t get in touch with him, and he said he thought the same thing. We were thinking the same thing. I would rather have done that. I wondered if I would be able to meet him.
He told me about the situation when he could no longer contact me. He said that while he was typing a message saying that he was at home right now, his phone suddenly shook and he was surprised to see that Sachi had left. He then checked his friends list and found that my name had disappeared. It’s a joke, really. So, I am now living a life benefiting from and controlled by my smartphone, but sometimes I would like to take some time away from it all.
