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THERE IS NEVER one moshi.  It is always two.  Moshi, moshi.  It means hello.

The denwa (telephone) in Japan buzzes to the tune of moshi, moshi.  Americans say hello and British say are you there?, but the Japaneses always give out with the echoing statement.

With takusan Americans and Japanese simultaneously sending the phone dials whirling, making a telephone call in Japan is sometimes somthing of a challenge.  The serviceman may pick up a phone in Tokyo with the intention of calling a buddy some fifty miles away in the country town of Oppama, down near Yokosuka.  The connection, however, may never be made because lines and circuits often run wild.  And the Tokyo GI may get a talkative Yokohama papa-san on the end of the line.  Papa-san moshi, moshis all over the place and the serviceman is left floundering in a sea of unfamiliarity.

But exactly as he becomes infiltrated with other Japanese customs, the GI soon adopts the telephone etiquette of Japan.  He buries the trite, old hello greeting and Asiatically sings out with-the two magic-sounding words.

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