My familiar stranger

Reading is my favorite’s pastime.

I started to read English magazines about 15 years back. It was when I stumbled upon a stacked of Reader Digest in the library of my secondary school. Before that English to me was like the outer-space-alien-language. The simple US English of the magazine had made it easier to read and understand. It was in one of the magazines that I came to know the existence of ‘familiar stranger’. And now, I have mine.

He is a guard of a construction site for a parking lot of a hospital next to the university. They started developing that area about 6 months back which means he has been working there for about the same length of time.

Every day, I cycle passing the area, and he will be standing in front of the gate of the construction site.

First, it started with just flagged-waves asking me to cycle in the safe side of the road, especially made for cyclists and pedestrians. Then, there were hello, how do you do, ohaiyo, good morning and many more words. He simply was practicing his English with me. I would smile and answer his good morning with ohaiyo (good morning in Japanese). Anyway, his antics will sometimes put a smile on my face.

Don’t ask me about anything else about him, he is still a stranger. ;)