And So It Goes

Exeunt, pursued by a bear
- stage direction from The Winter's Tale by William Shakespeare

I was talking with a co-worker the other day, an effervescent Scotswoman named Marianne, who came into the office on Saturday, rather unusually wearing a bandanna around her head that covered her flamboyantly red hair.

"What's with the 'do rag?" I asked, trying to sound hiply American.

I had to ask her to repeat her answer, because, with her Scots accent, I couldn't believe I heard her correctly.

"I'm sorry, what?"

"I wis uh-tahked bay a bayer."*

"You were attacked by a bear?!?"

It turns out that she was hiking up in the hills outside of the Tokyo area (near Nagano, I think--unfortunately I forgot to take notes), when she suddenly came across a mother bear and her cubs. The bear--no doubt sensing a threat to her cubs--lunged at Marianne, catching my co-worker across the top of her head with her claws. Marianne fought back, scaring off the bear, and some nearby hikers helped her to the hospital to be stitched up.

While Japanese bears are relatively rare and nowhere near Grizzly-sized about a meter long, I'm told), they are still dangerous (a little research came up with a couple of news stories about bear attacks in Japan which have killed unwary hikers. "Next time ah go hiking," said Marianne, "Ah'll probably use the bear bells [to avoid startling bears]."

I've gone hiking in Japan, and jeez, I thought the biggest danger was from maybe being hit by a flying squirrel (which can be found in the mountains west of Tokyo, though since they are mostly nocturnal I've never spotted one).

*So I'm not a linguist. Sue me.

UPDATE: My Loyal Reader points me towards a Mainichi Daily News story that seems to be about my Scottish co-worker. I don't know how happy she'd be being described as "British", though.

UPDATE TO THE UPDATE: It looks like the above link has expired, but the (brief) story can be read courtesy of the Google cache.

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: Marianne gets her fifteen minutes of fame, as the BBC, 8 months later, reports the story.