Culture Shock! #2 - Old MacDonald wasn't the only one that had a farm...

Today, totally had a culture-trip!!

As I was climbing out of the cable-car we had taken down from the mountain we hiked up, I heard a very familiar tune.

"*something-something*-EE-I-EE-I-O!"

To say the least, I was QUITE confused, and totally thought I was hearing things. But, no, I heard the little boy singing it again, and I was totally surprised!!!

Had to run up to a Japanese friend, Shige, and ask him whether there was a children's song that has "EE-I-EE-I-O" in it. And, he looks super confused too, as he replied that of course there was! He and his friend that I just met today, Nobu, both looked up the lyrics to this song on their iphones.

The name in Japanese is ゆかいな牧場 ("Yukai-na Makiba" and per Wikipedia, this is literally: "Happy Farm").

And, here you go!

Please enable the captions if you want to read the lyrics! :D

(Btw, for those of you who speak Japanese, my friend Silvia and I thought the "あちもこちもどこでも" part was hilariously quite accurate - don't you think so too?! xD)

Upon looking this up at home, it is quite fascinating. The farmers are Ichiro and Jiro, and they have many animals as well, but since the Japanese sounds are different than English ones, even that is different!

Examples:
In America cows go "Moo" (pronounced "Muu"), whereas in Japan, they go "Moo" (pronounced "mow")!
In America dogs go "Bark-bark" (or "Arrff-arrff"), whereas in Japan they go "Wan-wan"!
In America pigs go "Oink-oink" whereas in Japan they go "Buu-buu"!
Fascinating, right?!

Actually, the really funny thing here was that Shige and Nobu totally didn't know that this was an English (and in fact, American) song. Whereas, I had been completely shocked to hear such a familiar tune (and at some parts even the same lyrics, or sounds, rather ^^) coming from a little kid in Japan!

Really though, surprising exchanges like this are actually not uncommon (though don't often happen in such a funny way!) when talking with my friends that I meet - both from Japan, and also from other countries.

Maybe countries share more things than we are even aware of. :)