Porco Rosso/紅の豚

 キャンパスに有るココナツの木。俺がいつも三線を練習する場所の池の周りに二本有るんだ。一昨日初めてココナツの木だと言う事に気が付いた。危ないなぁ。実が落ちる時に、もし下に居れば、もう死ぬかも。本当ばい。こういうのキャンパスに植えていいかな？

I took these pictures of this coconut tree at the pond where I often practice sanshin.  Coconut trees are pretty tall, so I actually never noticed before that these trees were coconut trees.  It's kind of dangerous really.  There are two of them around the pond, and it's a pretty area with lots of benches where people hang out.  If anyone were to be standing under one of these trees when the fruit fell...  From what I understand, coconuts are pretty dangerous really.

で、今日はジブリーの「紅の豚」を中国語で見た。聴力の練習する為に中国語のアニメを見る事にした。アニメは基本的に子供を相手にする物だから、分かりやすいだろうと思ってアニメにした。因みに、宮崎の映画の中に、「紅の豚」だけは見た事が無かったので、今日は本当に聴力のテストだった。、、、恐らく５０％も分かっとらんかも。あ〜、まだまだねぇ。でもゼロじゃなかったから良かった！これからも頑張っていかんばさぁ。
実は、ジブリーならこういう体験は以前も有った。大学生の時に、日本に留学して、学期の終わり頃、「ハウルの動く城」を映画館で見に行った。殆ど分からなかった。（でもね、あの映画のストーリーは元々分かりにくいと思う。そのせいも有るたい。）その何年後、もう一回ハウルを日本語で見て、問題無く分かったので、中国語の映画を分かるには、単に時間と努力の問題に過ぎないね。いつか絶対来るだろう。

On a totally unrelated note, I decided recently to start watching cartoons in Chinese to help my listening ability.  I watched "Porco Rosso" today.  It's one of the Ghibli movies, and the only one by Ghibli's most well known director, Miyazaki, that I've never seen before.  I didn't know what the story was ahead of time, so it was probably not such a bad test of my ability to understand.  Unfortunately, I didn't pass.  I doubt I understood even 50% of what was said, though since it's a movie I of course still knew what was going on for the most part thanks to the visual component.  But still, I did better than zero %, so that's good.
Actually, I remember watching another Ghibli movie, "Howl's Moving Castle" when I was studying abroad in Japan in college.  At the time I didn't understand much of that movie either--though in my defense, the plot was pretty tangled in that one to begin with.  I later on saw it again in Japanese though and was able to understand all of it, so it's just a matter of time and continued effort, right?