Birthday

Saturday (October 29) was my birthday. It was also a very very busy day in the magic bar. The day started with a group of 20, which is tiring in itself. At the same time there were people coming in small number too. There were other large groups coming later too, and our magic bar was pretty much full from opening until 1 A.M. or so. We even had to put people who did not know each other at the same table since we ran out of seats. And we had to turn away 10 people or so (on a normal "good" day, we get between 10 and 20 guests, so turning away 10 is quite a lot; though we get slightly more people on weekends).

土曜日（10月29日）は僕の誕生日だった。 マジックバーで非常に忙しい日だった。オープンから20人の団体も少人数の人も来た。団体だけで疲れる。その後も10人とかの団体も来たし、カップルとかも沢山来たし、午前1時までずっと忙しかった。ほぼ満席だったから、初めてお客さんが知らない人と相席になったり…入らないお客さん10人もいた（普通なら、1日に10～20人しか来ないから、多い。週末はもうちょっと来るけど）。

Happy Birthday ヨーナス (Jonas)

At around 1 A.M. when things were calming down, one of my colleagues produced a cake and said "Today is Jonas's birthday! Happy Birthday!" Right when I finished blowing out the candles, more customers appeared and we had to put the cake back in the refrigerator right away, though...

1時頃にやっとちょっと落ち着いたら（トイレに行くチャンス！）、同僚がケーキを出して、「ヨーナスの誕生日だ！おめでとうございます！」と叫んだ。ろうそくを消した瞬間、またお客さんが沢山入ってきた。ケーキをすぐまた冷蔵庫にしめた…

At around 3 A.M. it finally calmed down again, and I could have some cake. Two of our regular guests also brought tai-yaki (fish shaped waffles with sweet fillings) for us that day (unrelated to my birthday, though).

3時頃にまたやっと落ち着いたから、ケーキ食べれた。 常連さん2人もタイ焼きを持って来てくれた（僕の誕生日と全く関係なかったけど）。

Tai-yaki, a colleague eating tai-yaki, and two customers who brought tai-yaki!

On the cake, "Happy birthday" was written in Latin letters and my name in Japanese... In our magic bar, if people ask for my name I usually reply "Jonas, as in the 'you' from Hokuyou-ginkou and the 'nasu' from nasubi". Japanese people often explain what Chinese characters they write their names with, since there are many possibilities for writing what is pronounced as the same name. I deliberately chose two words that people would not normally use to exemplify (the name of a bank and the word for eggplant), which sounds funny to Japanese people. So my colleague wanted the cake to say my name like that (洋茄子) but decided it would probably not be possible to get the cake shop people understand that over the phone, so we ended up with the usual ヨーナス. "Jonas" would have worked for me too, though :-)

ケーキに「Happy birthday」ローマ字で書いてあったが僕の名前がカタカナだった。マジックバーで「お名前は何ですか？」と聞かれると、だいたい「ヨーナス。北洋銀行のヨウになすびのナス、ヨーナス」と言う（北海道で茄子のことはなすびと言うんだ。方言かな？）。ヨーナスだけ言ったら、名前に聞こえないから日本人に伝わらないことが多い。ヨーナ？とか…北洋銀行やなすびで例えるのがうけるみたい。

同僚がその例え方が凄く好きみたいで、ケーキに「Happy birthday 洋茄子」と書いて欲しかったそうだが電話で伝わらないと思っていたからカタカナにしたそうだ。ローマ字の「Jonas」でもいいんだけどね、笑。