Alright I think it’s taken me 6 chapters (), but now I think I’ve understood that we are always seeing the point of view of someone that was first met in the previous chapter (I hadn’t noticed the pattern before and just thought we were switching to someone that had been mentioned before, but not necessarily directly in the chapter before).
Following that pattern, maybe the next person will be the Japanese waitress?
紅一点 was a cool new vocab
湯飲み茶碗 spelt 湯吞茶碗 was interesting too
List of characters so far (this week, chapter 6, included)
Chapter 1: Brown (from ワタル’s point of view, Tokyo)
Young male waiter, ワタル, just got a job at the cafe マーブル・カフェ
Young girl, customer at the cafe, likes to drink cocoa, has an English speaking pen-pal called Mary
Chapter 2: Yellow (from 朝美’s point of view, Tokyo)
朝美, working mom, usually full time, not housewife type
拓海, her son, goes to kindergarten (5yo)
輝也, the dad, is a stay at home dad, also an artist, also did some daytrading
えな, teacher at the kindergarten
添島瑠々, one of the kids at the kindergarten
Chapter 3: Pink (from えな’s point of view, Tokyo)
萌香, kid at the day care
泰子, teacher who’s been her for 15 years
マコ, cousin of えな, studied in Australia during highschool, now an English conversion teacher
Chapter 4: Blue (from 泰子’s point of view, Tokyo)
理沙, 泰子’s friend, about to be married
ひろゆき, the fiance, newly divorced
Chapter 5: Red (from 理沙’s point of view, Sydney)
Couple married for 50 years, daughter is ピー
Chapter 6: Grey (from 美佐子’s point of view, Sydney)
進一郎, her husband
ヒロコ、their daughter, nickname ピー, got her at 36歳, 36 years ago, has a lingerie shop on the same river as the Marble cafe (where 泰子 bought lingerie in chapter 4), 美佐子 has been to the coffee and had friendly chats with ワタル, thinks he might like a customer that wrote 秋の桜 on a Tanabata wish
幼なじみのあっちゃん, got married in Sydney 2 years ago
陽介, someone she liked / dated at work where she met her husband
A waitress, long black hair, wearing a green bracelet
I don’t find it too boring, having fun looking for the connections between the stories. However the paragraph about ＶＥＧＥＭＩＴＥ did feel a bit random / boring to me, but who knows, maybe it’ll be connected to something.
I think she was, it’s a bit blurry now since I’ve read chapter 1, but I remember that there was a lady who had taken ココアさん’s favorite spot, I think that would be her. I think there was also another customer described sitting in the coffee. Could be one or the other. Maybe I’ll have to go reread.
Not always haha, I had completely forgotten about the character buying at the lingerie shop in chapter 4, only remembered thanks to Mara’s recent comment in the thread!
Aw I thought this one was a nice change. These wasn’t really a source of conflict like all of the other chapters and while that sounds bad, having it be the first time in the book made it interesting to me. It’s almost like the story of how they met would have been the conflict in this chapter, except it happened 50 years ago so now you can just look back on it with fond memories.
I’m not sure what happened, but it was like a switch flipped and now all of a sudden instead of reading a couple pages a day I can read a chapter in one to two days. So, I’m no longer behind now!
from the first paragraph in this chapter
たまには酒落てていいものね
Does anyone know what this means? I wasn’t sure.
I totally agree! It was almost jarring at first how different the voice was to the other voices so far, but then I realized who it was and was like “… of course!” And I actually found all of her musings pretty interesting, including her low-key prank of putting vegemite in front of her husband and not warning him about what it was haha.
Could this chapter be considered 間?
I am still wondering what the deal is with 秋の桜 though …
あなたはご存じ？ 秋の桜って、なんでしょう
Hmmm, no I don’t ご存じ. I’m wondering if it’s cherry blossoms in Australia - Japan’s autumn but Australia’s blooming time? But I’m not convinced and looking forward to finishing so I can read what everyone else thought. I guess she will explain by the end…
(… gets to end - Oh no - not explained, will have to be patient! )
なんだろう、これは。チョコレートかな
And that must be Marmite! I haven’t tried it yet but I heard about it from some Australian friends. I thought it was funny おばあさん didn’t say anything so she could see the look on his face when he tried it
Second third
Very authentic account of someone rambling about their life story
She refers to him as 進一郎さん, is that old school to call one’s husband with さん?
And then I kept reading to the end because I was hoping it would circle back to the riddles but of course it stayed authentically with the ramblings. 進一郎さん sounds like a generous guy
Ok that’s interesting. There are so many different ways to refer to family members, and then all the nuance about who is speaking about whom really does my head in.
My Japanese friend said she doesn’t know the name of most of her friends’ husbands because they say おっとand she says ご主人 or だんなさん (I forget maybe both)
I’ve been thinking about this comment and this chapter a lot
thoughts - where the musings led me
I’m trying to embrace the iyashikei nature, but I have to admit halfway through I was like, why is she telling me all this? so I’ve been trying to figure out if I agree whether it was boring or not because on the one hand I was like, what is all this for (in relation to what I care about in the story), but on the other hand I was amused because, yes I have sat next to people like this and reading this really felt like sitting there listening to her natter on. so overall I decided 5/5 for authentic holiday experience when you get into a conversation with someone and they tell you their whole life story.
Precisely because this chapter felt like it had low relevance to revealing wider connections in the book (after the opening), it made me think about how in life in general - how am I thinking about what the other person is telling me? Am I looking for what’s important to me or what is important to them? In this chapter I wanted おばあさん to tell me more about the cafe and her daughter - and she didn’t. She’s going into what she cares about, how she ended up with this man and not that other man, and what happened to him. I read most of that in anticipation of her circling back - and she didn’t. And somehow - that internal tension (for me) is what stayed with me and I was thinking about how much I’m internally maybe rushing other people along their stories to get to the part I want, hmmm. I want to be the person who listens patiently, but am I always that person?
Had a funny interaction this weekend that made me think of this chapter.
Met a little girl, whose first name starts with the letters LO. Turns out that she signs all her drawings with the L big and the O as a small bubble inside the L, imagine L° but closer. The rest of the letters she writes in normal size next to the L°.
Basically just like ヒロコ was signing ピロ
. The story seems to be more like random musings 
), but now I think I’ve understood that we are always seeing the point of view of someone that was first met in the previous chapter (I hadn’t noticed the pattern before and just thought we were switching to someone that had been mentioned before, but not necessarily directly in the chapter before).
So, I’m no longer behind now!
