Cherry

That one happened a little before first term (semester) exams. I was with some Japanese friends at the university's cafeteria. As usual, they were talking among themselves about many things that I couldn't understand completely, but I was participating the conversation as much as I could (which wasn't that hard since one guy occasionally asks me something about Brazilian "culture").

As the topic turned out to girls (and they were all male engineering students), they started to have more interest in inquring me. Well, asking the gaijin about girls wasn't that surprising, especially after one of them mentioned his view of Brazilian girls... Sexy. But the first question they asked completely floored me.

"Are you cherry?" Exactly like that... in English.

Now what question is that? After thinking for a while I gave up and supposed that was a meaning for cherry that I didn't know and that acually existed, so I searched for that word in my electronic dictionary (it saved me more times than I can count). No matching meaning in Oxford. I asked for more explanations and they told not to say that word aloud... Hum... dirty word?

I asked one of they to type it on the dic and he went to the Jap-Eng dictionary. Nice... Katakana-go (Japanese words created from foreign languages words such as "miruku" for milk). I know that some words have their meanings changed when turned to "katakana-go". He typed "cherii" and the result is really "cherry". But that dictionary also shows some synonyms and he wasn't satisfied with them. So, a word that has a meaning apart from dictionaries? Doesn't look good...

He then typed another word in Japanese (that I won't write) and then the meaning he wanted appeared. I looked at the English meaning and what was there...

...... Virgin.

?!?! Asking this before most common ones like "do you have/have you ever had a girlfiend?" or "Is there someone you like?"?! Usually the order of the questions asked reveals something... I don't want to know the meaning of that order, though.

Ah, and later they asked the "other questions" as well. Only the "first kiss" was missing (and, again, I don't want to know the meaning). And remember that we were at the cafeteria that, although wasn't crowded, was far from empty. They even demanded to point at one girl there who was more like "my type"... And some went to look at her closer later...Anyway, at the time I was surprised. But now, after seeing stranger things and listening to some stories from some friends who are teachers or other sources, it's not so surprising anymore. Just didn't know the "dark" meaning of "cherry" (and that Japanese could ask that kind of questions out of the blue)... Wonder how the original meaning was distorted... Might it be related with the Japanese cherry blossom (sakura in Japanese)? Besides, there's a music called "Sakuranbo" (the original Japanese word for "cherry"). If we put that meaning in the music...