Bonsai Superstar

In Search of Wabi-Sabi: review

2010-05-18T22:14:00.000-07:00

I blame George Harrison.

In the mid-1960's, the Beatles guitarist was disillusioned. He seemingly had everything one could want - fame, money, and success - but something was lacking. Rather than think through the problem himself, he went looking for readymade solutions. Spiritualism / religion provides a great off-the-shelf "answer" to life's problems for many. Yet, John Lennon had made his "the Beatles are more popular than Jesus" statement, which had alienated many Christians, especially Americans. Yes, a "mystical" foreign belief system, far from uptight America and dull Britain would fit the bill nicely. Harrison became interested in Hindusim, bought a sitar, and later ('68) headed to India to study meditation with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.

Though the Yogi turned out to be a fraud (he is the subject of the Beatles song Sexy Sadie: "Sexy Sadie, what have you done? You made a fool of everyone"). However, this was before the internet, so the Beatles followers had no idea of the letdown - the damage was done. The flowing robes, the vague sense of the exotic and spiritual, the promotion of Transcendental Meditation (not thinking) - all this blended naturally into hippie culture and became a part of it (many of these followers tried to use psychic/spiritual energy to levitate the Pentagon. Yes, I am serious.No, they did not succeed.)

Thanks to George, rock groups started using sitars (a good thing) and the East was exoticized yet again (not a good thing). Hippies made pilgrimages to "spiritual" places such as India and Morocco. Even today, even in Canada, this mindless mindset persists. I recall meeting people in Toronto with plans to travel to Vancouver (Eastern Canada) to "find themselves". Any questions about why they needed to be in Vancouver to do so would be dismissed as "bad vibes" ("bad karma" for any old-timers out there).

This willful ignorance also applies to Japan (the Far East, like Harrison's India). To most non-Japanese, there are two Japans: modern, technological Japan with cosplay, perverts, robots, and "crazy" game shows: basically Tokyo. Japan #1 is more advanced than other countries.

There is also traditional, spiritual Japan with temples, shrines, kanji, and cherry blossoms: basically Kyoto. In Japan #2, everything has a spiritual meaning, origin, or purpose.

To be fair, these Japans are promoted not only by American websites (most promote the "isn't Japan weird?" angle), but also the Japanese themselves. These two Japans - especially/usually "traditional" Japan - are heavily promoted by the tourism industry, books about Japan, TV shows about Japan - basically all media coverage of the place. There is essentially no critical coverage, no Japanese Noam Chomsky. Instead, there's Nihonjinron, the idea that Japan is especially "unique" ("Japanese have different brains than westerners", "Japanese people hear differently than Westerners", "Japanese people have longer intestines" etc. ) I was talking with an older Japanese woman about the concept of wabi-sabi (we'll get to what it is in a bit - basically it's a Japanese concept about imperfection being a natural part of life). She told me, "every Japanese knows what it is". I asked her, what about a person who was Japanese by blood, but was born in the States, didn't speak Japanese, and had never even been to Japan - would they know about this concept? "Of course" was her answer. "It's in the blood.". That the idea of a belief system transferred genetically is racist in concept didn't seem to occur to her (and, polite people here don't talk about those things, so I certainly didn't bring it up).

The BBC have done some great documentaries, including many on Japan. Unfortunately, most seem to promote the "crazy Japan" angle (see Jonathan Ross's Japanorama series). This is understandable, as focusing on modern Japan allows them to talk about sex in Japan - guaranteed viewers! Hmm, sex in Japan or cherry blossoms in Japan…which will I watch? The Japanese themselves have a relevant expression: 花より団子 ("dumplings rather than flowers" - The practical/physical over the sublime/abstract.

Then there's Marcel Theroux's "In Search of Wabi-sabi". This was part of BBC Four's 2009 Hidden Japan series. "Hidden Japan", eh? Hmm, likely focuses on Japan #2: tradition. Well, it does, but….there were four episodes in the series, and the other three were actually pretty good. (actually, "Japan: A Story of Love and Hate" was in fact the most honest portrayal of daily life here that I've seen on film yet. ) Theroux's is the sole stinker.

Who is Marcel Theroux? Maybe he's related to Louis Theroux, who has done some great documentaries on similarly offbeat subjects for BBC. Yep, turns out he is. They're both sons of American travel writer and novelist, Paul Theroux (It's weird - after I watched this, knowing he was the brother of Louis, I wondered if he had a competition thing goin' on. Louis would definitely win, I thought. For some reason, the movie "Sherlock Holmes Smarter Brother" flittered thorough my mind. Later, I saw on Wikipedia that he had written a novel titled The Confessions of Mycroft Holmes: a paper chase . Hmm, maybe I'm psychic and the Yogi is trying to tell me something. Well, I'm off to Vancouver folks…).

Wabi-sabi is by nature difficult to define. In fact, it resists definition by definition. In short, it is a recognition of the natural, an acceptance of imperfection and impermanence, and the beauty of simplicity. Though they are not related, I was reminded of Mexico's Day of the Dead, also a recognition and acceptance (indeed a celebration) of the impermanence of our existence.

So, we have a very abstract concept and a man in search of it. What is Sherlock's system? Knowing apparently not even a word of Japanese and armed with only a coffee-table book on wabi-sabi, he sets off for Japan. Speaking (heavily accented) English, his approach is to simply ask everybody he sees what wabi-sabi is. It is when we first see him ask the hotel clerk when he's checking in after arrival that we realize we might not have the best man on the case (she is understandably bemused and confused). He then ventures out into the street and asks random passersby - again in English - what wabi-sabi is. This results in further comical responses, such as some kids, having no idea what this guy is talking about, looking up the kanji on their cel phones. Dude, your brother plays at being naive in his documentaries, not stupid.

Marcel is disappointed by his results and consults his coffee-table book in his hotel room. Marcel leaves the city and heads off to Japan #2, where the elusive wabi-sabi is more likely to be found. In the end, though he has taken part in a tea ceremony, visited museums, and even stayed the night with monks, wabi-sabi still eludes him. "Waitaminit" I can almost hear you saying, "If wabi-sabi is about imperfection, wouldn't the idea that he couldn't find wabi-sabi be a great, natural ending to this doc?". Yes. Yes, it would. However, as Marcel seems doomed to be forever unclear on the concept, he again misses out. Wandering through the forest outside the monastery and, feeling that he needs an ending, Marcel suddenly declares of the forest: "this is my wabi-sabi.".

Hello people that attribute "exotic" characteristics to other (or their own) countries: please don't make a web page, write a book, or make a documentary on a subject unless you have taken some courses or done some research on the subject. It's insulting to the people/country/culture you are exoticising, promotes misinformation, and is simply a waste of everyone's time. Accepting wabi-sabi (impermanence, imperfection, etc.) is natural, but to strive for perfection is human.

Thank you for sitar, though, George.

English in Japan

2009-07-23T00:51:00.000-07:00

I don't know about you, but "Oops" is the last word I wanna hear when I'm getting a haircut.

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お久しぶりやな！It's been a while...

Since I've taken so long to update this blog, I thought I'd give you a treat: a post about (so-called) Engrish. I have resisted doing so because:

(1) It's kind of a cliche for blogs about Japan,

(2) I am teaching English, and I want to encourage my students. Laughing at their mistakes does not encourage them. If my Japanese teachers posted my mistakes online for others to laugh at, I might lose motivation, and

(3) It gives the impression that Japanese people are poor at English.

However:

(1) Blogs about Engrish are popular and I felt badly for taking so long to update this blog, so I thought people might enjoy it,

(2) Of course, I won't mention any students' names or locations. Also, I will include my own errors in Japanese to hopefully even things out, and

(3) The fact is that most Japanese people study English for at least 6 years and at most 10 or more. Their knowledge of grammar is likely better than yours. It's simply that, for various socio-cultural reasons, they often don't speak English, so their spoken English is weak and they lack confidence about using it.

Written English is looked upon as somewhat of an embellishment than rather to add meaning (similar to how French is used to add a "touch of class" to restaurant menus in North America). Thus, errors in written English often go unnoticed (similar to how errors in written French often went unnoticed by Canadians such as myself, despite my having studied French for years and being part-French).

Also, as I think I've mentioned in a prior post, quite a few North Americans get tattoos with Japanese/Chinese characters riddled with errors, so making mistakes in your non-native language is hardly unique to Asia.

I'll kick things off with some pics:

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it's the famous "Sightseeing Restroom", spotted here taking a rare break from its sightseeing activities. Actually, the English here is actually not so bad: we have a verb turned into a gerund being used as an adjective (like "running shoes" or "shopping bag"). However, for this to be consistent, it would have to mean "restroom for the purpose of sightseeing" (as in "shoes for the purpose of running", etc.). I didn't actually go in, so - to be fair - maybe there's actually some sights worth seeing in there. We may never know.

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In a similar vein to the above....everybody FUCKING RUN!!! It's the FACIAL BODY REMOVER!

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In an email some guy sent to me: "I work at city hole". Somehow oddly apt, I thought.

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A regular student came in one of my jobs and plopped himself down on the floor. "I failed my erection" he announced glumly to the room. I considered this for a moment. Since my job is basically correcting the English of others, I can do this with robot-like precision and speed. Let's see...he said "failed", so it was probably a test..."erection"..."election"...ah, he probably confused "examination" with "election" ("r" and "l" pronunciation is a notorious weak point here). I corrected him and explained his error. It didn't get as big a laugh as it rightfully should have.

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Literally right around the corner from "Oops", we can recover from our haircut experience at "Tits". Their milkshake is better than yours.

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Sometimes, mistakes are somehow charming or poetic. In a text message: "It's heavenly rain" (she meant to say "heavy").

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I taught a "making stories" class at the same job as the "failed erection" guy. It basically involved talking about the method of telling a story in English, then displaying a kind of picture book from which students would choose one picture as the basis for their story. On that day, a shopping mall scene was chosen. In the picture, various people were milling about on the main floor of the mall: families, children, etc. The students basically described the scene. I walked around, checking the stories for tense, spelling, grammar, meaning, etc.I stopped at the story of one woman. She had written, "There is a woman in red. She has a baby in her vaggy." As noted above, I think it is wrong to laugh at students' work. Yet, I laughed. Heartily. I looked at the pic to see what was going on. The woman in red was pushing a stroller. A carriage. A pram. A buggy. Again, "v" and "b" confusion is a common error here ("bideo store" etc.). Again, I explained the error but failed to successfully explain just how classic this error was.

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Who made that beautiful painting? Let's take a closer look...

It's a Rongo! But "Drawed"? "Drawed"? Wrong-o. Actually, as "drawn" is a past participle (and they suck), "drawed" is a good guess. It was more the "Rongo" that gave me a chuckle.

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Just to even things out....
Another error, this time mine, was also not as appreciated as I thought it should be. I had several students that were hostesses. It's bad news to date students, but hostesses are really cute so I thought they might have some cute friends and, hey, it's an opportunity. There is a kind of "social mixer" here, a "joint party" of guys and girls, called a konpa or goukon. Someone, usually a girl, organizes a meeting of single guys and girls. I suggested to my friend that she set one up:

Me: Hey, I was thinking...why don't we have a goukon?

Her: WHAAAT?

Me: You know, a goukon. Just get a bunch of your cute girlfriends together. I've always wanted to do that.

Her: What do you mean?

Me: Don't worry, just call the girls. I'll set everything up. I'll invite a bunch of guys.I think it's a good chance to have a goukon.

At that time, I couldn't remember the word "konpa", so I stuck with "goukon". However, I pronounced it "goukan". Now, "goukon" (合コン) means "joint party, mixer, combined party, etc"). Unfortunately, "goukan" (強姦) means "violation, rape, forced sex, sexual assault, etc."). So, what I had actually requested was:

Me: Hey, I was thinking...why don't we have a RAPE?

Her: WHAAAT?

Me: You know, FORCED SEX. Just get a bunch of your cute girlfriends together. I've always wanted to do that.

Her: What do you mean?

Me: Don't worry, just call the girls. I'll set everything up. I'll invite a bunch of guys. .I think it's a good chance to have a SEXUAL ASSAULT.

-----------Writed by Rongo. I mean, Bonsai Superstar!-----------

P.S.- In a move surprising to no-one more than myself, I have quit drinking. As a result, I have been quite productive recently, so I hope to update this damn thing more often.

English in Japan (Part 1)

2008-09-07T05:08:00.000-07:00

[This post is just a "teaser", such as it were, for the upcoming post on English in Japan. It is English-related, but basically I just saw this ad and wanted to post about it. I left in the guy's contact details in case any readers are interested - hey, age, color, nationality no matter!]

A Fatty Woman Want...

For some reason, this sounds like the title of a reggae song... (sings)

Me woman, she no fatty but
Me a fatty want...
A fatty woman want!
Me a fatty want
etc.
Anyway, sorry Charlie: I can see how you'd be confused with all the "woman as fish" metaphors in English. Yes, she might fall for your line hook, line, and sinker and you'd be reelin' 'em in, or she might not take the bait and end up being the one that got away. But, while tuna can be fatty, people are fat. "Fatty" is used to describe something, usually food, containing a large amount of fat while "fat" is used to describe slightly-overweight, big-boned people with a thyroid condition after they have left the room.

To give this guy the benefit of the doubt, he could be using the nickname (fatty, fatties) in the same way that such guys are called "chubby chasers" in North America but, despite his claims of speaking "properly", his other grammar is want. I mean wanting. If he wanted to use it in that context, he could have just written "A fatty wanted". (A fatty is a noun, fat is an adjective). And though he's South Asian, many of my Japanese students make this same error.

Further, this error is especially noteworthy in Japan, where reticence is the order of the day. There's even a saying about this: iwanu ga hana (literally, "not saying is the flower"). However, here the speaker is not only commenting outright on someone's appearance, they are doing so in a negative way (this is debatable, but in my opinion most people would not be flattered to be called "fat"). Also, they are referring to the other person as an object.

Finally, in Japanese, a person is usually said to have become big, to have gained weight*. There is a derogatory slang term, "debu", which is translated in my 2006 Shogakukan dictionary as, wait for it, "a fatty". It's the equivalent of calling someone a pig in another language. So, get it right, damn it! There's no excuse. Let's pass some good time.

* By the way, there's a trend now in Japan to raise consciousness about weight issues. Worry about so-called "metabolic syndrome" is all the rage. This is a kind of PC-speak for being overweight. It's a bit weird to me, because everyone is already pretty thin here - you rarely see a truly overweight person. Every night I ride home after work past the local temple, there's a squadron of people jogging, stretching, doing jumping jacks, etc. there. I'm not really certain of what everyone's training for, but from the time they're kids, people here are training - not exercising, but training.

I'm Baaaaack

2008-09-03T00:35:00.000-07:00

Like these Japanese mythical creatures, I can never die...

First, thank you all for your somewhat enigmatic yet ultimately encouraging messages.

Yeah, it's been a while. Although I am picky about having only Japanese-related stuff on here, I guess I should update you on why I've been away and what's been going on.

What was my main job suddenly stopped a few months ago (no, it wasn't Nova), so I had absolutely no money coming in. It was very rough for a while. Luckily, some good friends cheered me up and helped me get adjusted to life in Kyoto. Thank you Lisa, (another) Lisa, Hiro & Machiko, and Eiko. You can really find out who your true friends are in such times.

Following that, my hard drive broke. Again. As you may recall, I just had a faulty drive replaced at the Apple Store in Osaka last year, so it was a brand new drive! The "geniuses" there replaced my old one with a drive known to fail. Thanks Apple! I love using OS X but, especially after the three (!) motherboard failures of my iBook and problems a friend had with his iMac (Hi Scott!), I can (and will) never again recommend Mac hardware. Though I had purchased a large back up external and saved pretty much everything, all my recent stuff was lost. Including a full blog post I had just written the night before. Yes. I just didn't have the will to do it all again, you know? It also had some recent self-created teaching materials on it, so that was quite frustrating as well. I won't bother to go to Apple to get them to "fix" it again, I'll just buy a new one myself. UPDATE: done. I bought a 320 Gig and put it in (despite the crack sales team telling me it was impossible. It's somehow reassuring that electronics staff everywhere have no idea what they're talking about). It's all good.

I had a house party.I invited about 45 people and about 30-35 came. Pretty crowded, but a lot of fun. A lot of people seemed confused by the concept of just a "house party" and so brought home-cooked dishes, even though I told 'em it wasn't necessary. Also, the thing ended at 11p.m. on a Saturday night! My goal was for people to mingle like a North American party, but I'm not sure if that really happened. Folks had fun, though.

I grew a beard! I've never done that before. Although one boss (at a conversation school) told me it looked cool ("like Brad Pitt"), a businessman I was teaching business English to at a large company was told me "It is better to remove it. Such a thing is rude in Japan". So I did.

I also changed my hairstyle from George Clooney forward to James Bond slicked back.

I went on a lot of dates. I even went to a gokon (a kind of mixer for Japanese university students) in Osaka. Met a lot of cool people, some okay people, and a few outright nutters.

I studied Japanese, especially Kansai ben. I am taking a class, although it's only once a week and I often am busy.

Which reminds me...I learned two songs in Japanese. Shimanchu nu Takara by Begin and Life Goes On by Dragon Ash. I downloaded the lyrics, learned the kanji, then made sheet music. I played the songs on guitar at home, then sang them at karaoke. Next, I'd like to learn a Chinese song. UPDATE: Did it. I sang Tian Mi Mi by Teresa Teng at a karaoke party for one of my jobs.

I translated another menu into English. Last time was a yakitori (grilled chicken) shop, this time was a soba/udon shop. It's very interesting to know all these food-related kanji/words. There may be many foreigners whose Japanese is much better than mine, but they might not know negi banban or wariko soba!

Oh, I take a cooking class once a month. Traditional Japanese food, taught in Japanese and English to foreigners and Japanese. Pretty cool. A friend taught me how to make katsudon (deep-fried pork cutlet on rice with onions, egg, and broth), so I went nuts, deep-frying everything for a while there.

I met my final roommate, a guy from Fukuoka. He's the sixth, and best of all the roommates so far. The last guy from Italy, was the absolute worst - noisy (the walls here are as thin as Ally McBeal, so you can literally hear a pin drop), dirty, rude, etc., so it was a relief to meet Aki.

However, I'm moving to a single apartment. Aki wants to hang together in a new place, but he has some strange idea about opening up a third room to travelers and running some kind of hostel (?!). No thanks. UPDATE: Moved. The new place is pretty cool: tatami floors and all. However, there's no internet (not even a phone line!) and they told me to put fibre optic (which they're pushing recently here) will take a month - they might even have to put up a special telephone pole for me! I could get ADSL, but it's half the speed and costs more, so I'm goin' for the private pole (wait, that didn't sound right...).

When I was checking the place out for the first time with one boss (very cool lady - she found and paid for the agency without me asking, acted as my guarantor without me asking, and even helped me move!), I saw the balcony has a kind of corrugated metal blocking the view (though why they block views here with dirty rusty ugly metal no-one can explain). I asked if they could remove it and the real-estate guy of course sucked his teeth, "it's a little difficult..." (which means "no"). So, I joked, "Well, at least I can walk around naked and no-one can see!". My boss made this just-ate-a-lemon face and said, "Such a thing no-one wishes to see". Ah, I guess you had to be there.

From friends and sayonara sales, I got some good stuff: fridge 3000 yen (about 30 bux), microwave (1000 yen), washing machine (free - I'm four floors up and there's no elevator, so moving the washing machine was an experience), gas stove (free), cool table (3000 yen) and chair (1000), small table from the new IKEA in Osaka which was a nightmare to carry from the station to home on by bike (1500), small stylish lamp (200), tons of pots and pans (500), etc. I'm having a nameplate made for the door. It's a small thing, but it feels like home now.

I went to some interesting stores. This place sells only chopsticks, this place only umbrellas, and this place only bamboo goods.

I'm thinking of having another party, this time a beach party at Omi-Maiko (in Shiga). Swimming, BBQ, drinking, etc. If enough people are interested, it's on!

I watched a hell of a lot of movies. Actually, I've started reviewing some Japan-related / Japanese movies on IMDB. Please see the list below for most of the movies I can remember seeing.

Movies I have seen recently, arranged by quality:

Great

Chop Shop
In Bruges
Lars and the Real Girl
The Orphanage
No Country for Old Men
The Bourne Ultimatum
Atonement
In the Valley of Elah
Match Point

Good

Cassandra's Dream
Batman - The Dark Knight
Felon
Redbelt
Death at a Funeral
Disturbia
The Onion Movie
Iron Man
Superbad
San-chome No Yuhi
Layer Cake
City of God
City of Men
The Simpsons Movie
Secrets and Lies
The Last King of Scotland
August Rush
Son of Rambow

Okay

The Fourth Man
Tropic Thunder
Hancock
Wanted
Get Smart
Be Kind Rewind
The Brave One
21
Eastern Promises
The Bank Job
Vantage Point
The Bank Job
Definitely Maybe
The Incredible Hulk
Street Kings
1114The Bucket List
The Forbidden Kingdom
Transformers
Rambo
The Mist
YPF
3:10 to Yuma
The Machinist
Live Free or Die Hard
National Treasure Book of Secrets
Cloverfield
American Gangster
I am Legend
Diary of the Dead
Semi-Pro
Sweeney Todd - the Demon Barber of Fleet Street
300
Juno
There Will Be Blood
The Spiderwick Chronicles
Wall-E
88 Minutes
Indina Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
Gone Baby Gone
Doomsday
The Great Debaters
We Own the Night
Hitman
Run Fat Boy Run
Dan In Real Life
Beowulf
Stardust
30 Days of Night
Michael Clayton
Cleaner
Zodiac
Before the Devil Knows You're Dead
Anamorph
Mr Brooks
Fracture
Breach
Flawless
Shooter
Sunshine
28 Weeks Later
Mr. Bean's Holiday
Hot Fuzz
Little Miss Sunshine
Monkey King
Super High Me
The Air I Breathe
Control
Scoop
Across the Universe
I'm Not There
Walk the Line
Children of Men
Inside Man
Chaos Theory
Charlie Wilson's War

Bad

Ghost Rider
Jumper
Fantastic Four Rise of the Silver Surfer
An American Crime
Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay
Charlie Bartlett
Death Proof / Planet of Terror
The Invasion
Big Dreams, Little Tokyo

Terrible

Brick
The Savages
Into the Wild
The Happening

Next post is on English teaching - a big subject - so keep your eyes peeled.

Well Okay Then

2008-03-02T03:46:00.000-08:00

Well, 6 ain't 10, but I guess I'll keep posting. I was almost hopin' that no-one would leave a comment so I wouldn't have to continue. It's just that:

1. I'm working every single day now with 4 (!) jobs, so it feels like I'm giving a lot already. Even when I go out to relax after work, some sap wants to practice his English with me wherever I go, so it's difficult to relax

2. I'm taking courses (cooking and Japanese)

3. I'm posting on another site in both Japanese and English, and responding to comments in both languages takes a lot of time

4. I take a lot of time to write almost book-like posts, and was kinda disappointed that very few people leave comments. As I noted initially, this isn't a boring "what I did today" diary, it's informative and interesting info about Japan from a goddamned witty perspective. From the logs, I can see that lots of people are reading - not to mention "borrowing" my pictures - so what I guess I'm trying to say is "comments are appreciated".

Comment challenge!

2008-01-20T05:41:00.000-08:00

The concept behind this blog was to post everything I know / everything that might be interesting about a particular topic related to Japan. So, it takes a lot of time to write and collect pics for just one post. This site is the kind of site I'd like to read, but I'm not really sure if anyone else is reading it. So, if I have 10, count 'em, 10, comments/requests (not all from the same person) to continue this site, I will. Otherwise, hey, I'm not getting paid for it, so if no-one's reading I'm not gonna bother. Uh, click the "comments" thingy below to comment. Hope to hear from you.

Drinking in Japan

2007-11-25T03:17:00.000-08:00

Yan-san, the patron saint of those who study Japanese (he was the main character of a 1980's/1990's series that was/is widely pirated on the net), enjoying a cold one at his pad in Tokyo. Yan was never afraid of downing a sake or five.

"Will you drink it alone?" The bright-eyed combini worker eagerly asked me. I paused. In Canada, someone who drinks by themselves is usually considered in need of a full-blown, "let's call AA!" intervention. I should have remembered that I was in Japan before I shook my head: "No". She seemed disappointed. She was the first - but not the last to ask me this odd question.

The truth was that, since I was in the middle of nowhere, I would drink it by myself: one (large) beer while watching movies downloaded from the net. Many foreigners have questioned just what the hell it is about this place that seems to increase their imbibing habits. Was it that there was absolutely nothing else to do? Was it that booze is sold everywhere, such as supermarkets, convenience stores and even (until 11pm) vending machines (oddly, these are now only located in front of sake shops)? I only know that, in the year since I arrived here, I have drank more in volume and frequency than I ever have in my pre-Japan life.

The JET shopping cart, that fateful August when we first arrived in Japan....

Maybe it's due to the fact that drinking is intertwined in the culture as much as the language is. There's even a term for this: nomunication. A "Japanese joke" or pun, it marries the Japanese verb for "to drink" (nomu), with the English "communication". It's often said that in Japan most business is done after hours, when everybody heads to an izakaya (tavern)or akachokin (cheap food/drink) to kick back with a few frostys and some snacks. Also, what happens at the izakaya stays at the izakaya - you can go nuts and no-one will mention it the next day.

Actually, I had heard such tales: Japanese guys setting their pubic hair on fire for a joke or stripping off their clothes and running around the place, but I assumed this was the usual "those crazy Japanese!" exaggeration. However, I actually saw something like this go down: a bunch of us teachers went out for a "2nd year teachers" party. One guy, the 40-ish, super-serious gym teacher who barely ever said anything in the staff room, went fairly nuts at a karaoke place. He grabbed the mic, mimicked as if it was his dick, started yabbering flat-out nonsense into it - not any language, but just gibberish - and started humping the wall. For two full songs. I was in tears of laughter - I mean it was absurd - but the other two teachers, two women in their late 40's, didn't seem to notice anything and just searched the book for a good song to sing. No one ever said anything about it then or ever.

On a slightly more sane level, even holidays are just an excuse to get wasted. There's an expression here that kinda sums this up: hana yori dango. Literally, "(we) prefer dumplings to flowers", it means the mundane/practical is preferred over the artistic. This is taken to a literal level at hanami (flower viewing) festivals. Ostensibly, people gather to gaze at the freshly bloomed sakura (cherry blossoms). However, the real scenario is less prosaic: people gather to thrown down a blue mat, drink some (well, a lot of) sake, and howl into a portable karaoke machine before finally passing out.

Another reason I was drinking a lot was the frequency of enkais (drinking parties). It was quite common to have an enkai to celebrate someone's coming or going or wedding or birthday or it's Monday or let's just have a drink godammit. It seemed like we were always at a bar. At the enkai, there was a certain structure: people would always pour drinks for their "superiors" (a habit that I, as the lowest on the totem pole, wasn't so keen on adapting to as it meant a lot of pouring and not so much drinkin'). Also, Japanese drinkers usually start with beer, move to sake, then drink shochuu (usually, women drinkers would stick with chuhai or cocktails).

There are three main makers of beer in Japan: Asahi, Kirin, and Sapporo. I'm a fan of the latter, myself. Be wary not to buy happoshuu (low malt / sparkling liquor) instead.

You probably know that Japan is famous for rice wine, sake (pronounced "sa-kay", not "sa-key" btw). It can be drunk hot or cold, depending on the weather and tastes. It's usually called nihonshuu ("Can you drink Japanese sake?" is a question that has irritated many a foreigner). However, it's currently much less popular than it used to be and beer has taken its place.

Shochuu is a kind of Japanese vodka, kickin' in at 25% alcohol. It used to be mostly an old-man's drink, but is now more popular than sake due to faddish Japanese tastes: young women now drink it because they believe it's good for their health.

Chu-hai is, as its name implies, a "high ball" cocktail. These are mostly popular among young women and come in brightly colored cans. Apparently, quite a few ALT's have shocked their supervisors by drinking one of these in the teacher's room at lunch, thinking it was only a cola.

A further reason I was drinking is that I wanted to be social. I eat out as often as possible for this same reason. Though many native Japanese folks are nowhere near as likely as a North American to strike up a conversation or even chat, I persist. It works sometimes. I'm now translating a menu into English for a cool couple who run an izakaya near my place. The guy told me he wasn't too keen on foreigners before, but recently he's given me free food, a discount on drinks, and even stayed open for me one night when I was passing by. So, I'm making the menu for them, though it's more for the English-speaking customers that might chance by.

Last year, I also went to a regular place, a "snack" bar near my house. A snack bar is kind of like a hostess bar, where there's a "mama-san", who is the owner/manager, and usually female staff who are friendly to customers. No, not friendly in that way - just kind of flirtatious...However, though we had a mama-san, the place by my house was basically just a bar with higher prices than usual. The staff were friendly, but there was never any suggestion of any romance. Michael, the ALT was brought to a similar place in his town where, his co-workers promised, a "sexy lady" waited. She turned out to be at least 50. Anyway, these places usually have the "bottle keep" system, in which you buy a bottle of whatever and it's kept at the bar with your name on it. Also, although there are actual snacks, they are pretty low key: chocolates, chips, salted squid, and the traditional Japanese drinkin' snack, salted green beans (tastier than you'd think).

Full-fledged hostess bars (also called kyabakura, after "cabaret", exist. Despite the name, there's no dancing. The female staff must flirt, talk, and drink with the customers. They are also encouraged to go on paid dates. Some have sex with the customers, some don't. Foreign girls, especially blondes, can do quite well financially. I watched a documentary, Tokyo Girls, about some fairly plain Canadian girls who became well-off by leading on some lonely souls here. Michael and I passed by one of these places in Kyoto, but didn't know what the hell it was - the sign said "Girls Bar", but we weren't sure if that meant women-only or what.

There are also host bars, for women. The hosts are quite visible to visitors to Japan, in that they actually work the street, urging women to come to the bars with pick-up lines. They wear suits, and often have bleached or styled hair. ike the hostesses, the hosts must drink with their customers and thus, many suffer from liver damage. In a scene that is a spectacle of human misery, they encourage their customers to buy champagne to celebrate the slightest event ("Today is your fifth visit here! Shall we open a bottle?" Let's!). Ironically, the clientele is mostly made up of women who are themselves sex trade workers. There is also a great documentary about this, The Great Happiness Space. Though it provides an interesting glimpse into a rarely-seen lifestyle, it makes for depressing viewing. One girl even becomes a prostitute to support her host habit. Another pours her heart out for hours to a host, only to have him reveal to the camera, just minutes after her departure: "I hate her". That she expects to marry this guy makes these hosts worse than any prostitutes - prostitutes provide a service, but these hosts and hostesses provide only lies. I dunno, the idea of paid companionship just seems brutal to me, but maybe I'm just looking at things through my limited, "Western" perspective. What do you think?

You are allowed to drink in public in Japan, but they have a zero tolerance policy when it comes to driving. Even a bicycle. Further, if someone is at your place and gets hammered, then gets into trouble on their way home, you can expect a visit from the po-lice. Yet, like I said, when people get sloshed here they do crazy stuff, just like anywhere else. A few months after I arrived here, I was heading down the road in another prefecture with another teacher (he was driving). We saw a wreck in front of us, so I suggested he call an ambulance (I was kinda surprised that he asked me "What's the number?" as I thought he would know it....anyway, it's 119, in case you ever need it!). As we waited, I noticed the thing was still smoking. "Uh, maybe we should get out and check that the driver's all right?". We were on a bridge, and the traffic was getting backed up behind us. A few Brazilian guys from cars behind us had the same idea, and we headed for the small car, slightly crushed and on its side.

As we approached the car, I was surprised to see that there was someone still inside, an old dude. He was yelling like hell, presumably "get me the hell out of here!" in Japanese. I couldn't hear. So, a bunch of guys began pushing the tiny car, trying to set it straight. I noticed that it was being pushed towards the edge of the bridge and, should it hit it, might well fall off the bridge. I helpfully pointed this out. Finally, they put it right side up. The door was stuck, so a massive Brazilian guy practically ripped the thing off it's hinges and the old guy fell out, cursing. He was stumbling around, and you could definitely smell booze. He was far gone.

I got back in the teacher's car and we waited for the ambulance to arrive. As the teacher was talking on the phone with his brother, I noticed some activity up ahead. Ol' Jack Daniels was back in action! The character had gotten back in his car and was attempting to shut the badly-damaged door. He gave up, turned on the still-smoking vehicle, and took off, weaving down the road. I couldn't believe the car actually worked, and the fact that this guy was on the road again. We followed him for a short while, but he was gone. The ambulance and police passed us, heading towards the bridge. Later, when I told my Kyoto-sensei this story, he just shook his head and said "You have seen a Japanese shameful thing.". However, I was like, cool!

Speaking of my kyoto, he once showed me his small pocket diary. It went back seven years. Every day had either a green or red dot, or both, next to it. The thing had so much green and red it looked like a junkyard for traffic lights and Christmas trees. "What's up with those dots?" I asked. "Green is for when I go running" he said, "and red is for when I have drunk sake". The man had run a lot and drunk a lot. "I usually drink by myself and I watch TV and eat edamame" (salted green beans, actually pretty tasty).

"Do you drink alone? I always do!" said the cute, 24-year old teacher at my last job. "I always drink by myself, every night!" said the cute 28-year old at my new job. They told me the combini worker's question was most likely a subtle prod to get me to ask her to drink together, which I, Mr. Genius, was too retarded* to pick up on. Maybe I should stop drinking...

* apologies if you suffer from retardation and are thus offended by this term.

Okinawa

2007-10-08T02:11:00.000-07:00

Hey. Yes, I'm still alive and in Japan, as yet unharmed by the various earthquakes, typhoons, and lack of good spaghetti. Sorry for the scarcity of recent postings. It's all about:

1. I have recently moved from the countryside to a larger city. I chose not to re-contract with JET. Though I still think JET is the best way to come to Japan and I loved my school, teachers, students, apartment and salary, the place I was living was simply too remote.

and

2. I'm working on a lot of things at the moment, including a book (not about Japan). However, I will continue this blog as I still have a lot of subjects to cover. Next time, I'll talk about drinking in Japan, but this time I'll update you on Okinawa.

As I mentioned prior, I went to Okinawa with the students on a school trip in Feb. Okinawa is famous for its distinctive style of cooking, especially using go-ya (a kind of bitter gourd or melon). To prepare us for the trip, the students prepared some Okinawa-style cooking for us at school. The other teachers didn't seem to like it so much, but I thought it was pretty tasty. The main thing was mimigaa, a meal made from a pig's ear in vinegar (pork is an important ingredient in Okinawan cooking, and every part of the pig is used), which was much better than I thought it would be. No, really, it was good.

You know where Okinawa is, right? It's one of the southernmost islands of Japan, with great tropical weather. Besides the food and weather, the language(s) is/are different, although sometimes people just call it a dialectical difference. Another thing that's cool is Okinawan music. This music is pretty recognizable, based as it is on the sanshin, similar to the traditional Japanese shamisen. This three-stringed instrument is related to the sanxian from China. A Tokyo band called "The Boom" had a hit in the early 90's with a modern version of a traditional Okinawan song called "Shima Uta'" (Island Song). However, my favorite music from there has to be Diego Musume(Deigo Sisters). Their album "Diego Musume Special" has super- basic, ultra-melodic haunting tunes. "みやらび風" is great. Check it out.

After the first day of visiting a cave and the peace museum, we headed over by ferry to a small island to the south. After we dropped the kids off with their respective homestay families (and some teachers had a drink or two to celebrate this...), some of us took a bike ride around the island. The day had a great vibe about it: sunny, relaxed, etc. We rode by fields and passed by this shisa, a kind of protective dragon/lion creature:

Just as the tanuki is popular in mainland Japan, this guy was around a lot of houses, ostensibly protecting them from danger. Speaking of houses, we passed by this oddly-designed place. If I remember correctly, I think it was a dentist's house (I have another, simpler pic, but threw in the schoolgirls passing to make it more "exotic" for you!).

We then went to a kind of WWII museum. Though there were no cases for the displays and you could thus touch/take anything, there was no guard - or anybody - around. The only "guarding" as such was at the gate: these two huge stone devil faces:

We moved on to the sea. Though it was February, it was plenty hot. Nobody (besides me) wanted to swim and, it being Japan, I went with the flow (pun intended) and just cooled my feet off and, for some reason, thought about Canada over the sea.

By car, we traveled uphill to check out this mountain,

and walked to the top to check out the view.

As I believe there was only about 1000 people on the island, we kept running into quite a few of the students, even passing some on the crazy-tiring path up to the mountaintop.

The next day, we took the ferry back to the mainland. On the ferry were a bunch of American servicefolks, with whom my students wanted me to interact so they could see foreigners talking to each other (after the war, the States established a lot of military bases on the island. This fact became more widely known in 1995 when U.S. marines abducted and raped a 12-year Japanese girl. Though the perps were caught, they were declared immune to local laws due to their status. However, this triggered serious protests in Okinawa, and in '96 they were charged. The outcry led the States to declare that they were pulling bases from Okinawa, but have yet to do so. ) As I'm not a fan of the military "mind"-set and, in addition, had absolutely nothing in common with and thus nothing to say to these guys, I declined.

We headed by bus to Naha, the coastal capital city of Okinawa. I was surprised that our tour guide not only talked (helped by her hand-written, phone-book size notes), but also sang (traditional Okinawa songs). during the few days we were there. I was also kind of surprised that not only the students but also the teachers talked over her singing and tour.

We arrived at Kokusai Dori (international street), which is the main strip in Naha, kind of like Vegas. After some traditional food with some teachers and students, we all broke off into small groups and went shoppin'! You have to admit this pig's face was kinda cool, but I had to ask myself, "Sure, I want this, but do I really need it?".

In a kind of farmers market, we ran across this snake herb ("good for sex!" I was told),

as well as more traditional Viagra, ye olde' snake-in-a-jar.

There was also a lot of so-called "American" motorcycle-related clothes and Hawaiian shirts on sale. I'm not really sure who it is exactly that buys these, however.

The main strip was pretty notable for its collection of promotional figures on benches. There was this forlorn-looking character next to a giant goya,

this cheerier looking cucumber thing by another goya,

an oddly-out of place Marilyn Monroe (sporting her famous catchphrase "No Sit Down!"),

Rotten Ronnie (It says "Don't climb on me").

Further down the road is his twin,

accompanied by a drug-store logo elephant and, to Ronnie's right, yes, that's a hot-dog draped in the American flag who appears to be applying condiments to himself; just as those Buddhist monks doused themselves with gasoline so they might more easily burn, ol' Frank is dousing himself with ketchup so he can more easily be eaten. As my mind is being overloaded with possible jokes and metaphors, I think it's best to end on this note.

JET's in Japan

2007-08-09T18:39:00.001-07:00

(click on me to read larger text)
--- JET Calender, August 2007.

So, ol' Pavlos' goal is to "change some of his student's lives". I thought it was interesting that he only wants to change "some" of their lives - why not all? Take a look at his accompanying photo and consider which students lives Pavlos wants to "change".

"I often [...] feel as if others are lacking in some way. Even though they are doing their own best, I tend to think differently and force my own opinion. But in fact, everyone is an existence in the universe and the universe is already perfect."
- David Titternington, "Ten People, Ten Colors" essay.
--- Jet Journal, 2007

Hi David. Unfortunately, you're a bit- well, a lot - wrong. Some people are lacking - such as stupid hippies who believe that "it's all objective, maaan" and actually attach their name to such rubbish as is marring my page above.

I went to a JET conference with my JTE. A cool guy, his opinion of many of the JET's was, "too much confidence". I agreed. There were a lot of, in my esteemed colleague Pavlov's words, "grand prize winners".

But lets start at the beginning... After I arrived here, the group of us (new JET's and the old hands (those who had been here one whole year) went into Kyoto. They showed us a foreign foods store. They showed us an Irish pub. They showed us another Irish pub. They brought us to a salsa dance place. They mentioned the "great French food restaurant" in our city and made plans to go to an Italian place in another city.

As I'm from Canada, where I can enjoy that kind of stuff anytime, and I travelled, you know, around the world and all to come to Japan, I was eager to do Japanese things, eat Japanese food, meet Japanese people. So, as Steve Miller played in the smoky background, and the room full of foreigners (meaning us) drank their Seabreezes and their Guinesses, I suggested to our "leader", a largish girl of Indian descent (mentioned only for context), that maybe it would be fun, you know, next time or whenever, to go somewhere Japanese. Seeing as we were in Japan, and all.

She (let's call her Sharon) was not happy. "You may think all these Japanese girls with their high heels and short skirts are so great now, but we have to stick together!" she shouted at me. Her line of thinking was interesting, especially considering I had never mentioned anything about Japanese girls, girls at all, or their relative modes of dress. "As foreigners, we are like a team and we have to support each other. Nick (another JET) used to be just like you, but now he understands". She was clearly pissed.

Later that evening, this "support" was demonstrated to me. As we were in the traditional capital of Japan, Kyoto, we were of course now enjoying the strains of salsa music, surrounded by Brazilian people. One of the other JETs was telling me she thought I was a "9" (out of 10) in looks, which I mention only to brag. After I went to the washroom for no more than a minute (only drinking beer), I happened to notice that everyone was gone. Yes, every single person from our group was no longer in the place. Not knowing Kyoto well, after some wandering about, I was forced to take a taxi to the station, catch one last train, then another taxi (about 40 bucks) to my city. So, I somehow wasn't feeling that loving foreigner vibe Sharon was promoting.

When I saw her next (at an Italian restaurant, natch), she quickly began defending her actions even as I approached the table: "I didn't leave you, you know! We had to catch the last train! I wasn't the leader of the group or anything!". I heard from other people that she had suddenly remembered about the last train and quickly brought everyone to the train station, where slightly more loyal people noticed that I wasn't present. Though they offered to come back, she reminded them that it was the last train. Where's that supposed solidarity, sister?

Actually, I don't have any hard feelings. A friend of mine once told me that people are doing you a favor when they show you right away that they are assholes, so you don't have to find out when you really need them. So, thank you Sharon (bows).

A lot of the JET's were pretty smart people. However, quite a few of them were like Sharon in that they didn't seem to have much life experience - never lived alone much less lived or even traveled to a foreign country, never even worked before much less worked in Japan (where a lot of what we know as "logic" doesn't apply), so they can be forgiven if they try to handle it by retreating into their foreigners-only bubble world. I only ask that you understand that I don't want to hide in there with you.

An almost opposite situation is the "big fish in a small pond" factor. A guy - and it's usually a guy - comes to Japan and starts to believe the "You can use chopsticks well! Nihongo jouzu (you speak Japanese well)!, You look like Brad Pitt!" hype (which you really do hear all the time). The aforementioned "Nick" is a good example of this. Near the beginning of our time here, I saw him at the station. "Hey, Nick!" I shouted. He trudged over, "Yeah?""What's going on?" "Whuddya want?" "Uh, nothing - just saying hi, I guess". He trudged away. Another great example of Sharon's foreigner kinsman-ship. We probably didn't exchange more than 10 words in my year in this city. Needless to say, Nick re-contracted for a third year, despite - like Sharon, who didn't re-contract - not even being able to order a meal in Japanese. A (Japanese) ex of mine once gave me some advice, "If you go to Japan, remember who you are". There's a whole series of cartoons about these cartoons: Charisma Man. I don't blame someone like this for wanting or appreciating attention, I blame them for believing it. Just the other day, a friend of mine's dad told me I look like Brad Pitt. Perhaps not coincidentally, I was the first foreigner he'd ever met.

I don't want to give you the idea that all JET's act like this. Michael, the guy from the Thailand trip, is on the ball. The other JET's in my city were cool, one of whom stopped talking to Sharon after Sharon "supported" her by trying to kiss her (Japanese) boyfriend. Another was a cool girl from Ireland. The last was a guy who also didn't re-contract but will move to Kyoto to be a normal size fish in a normal size pond (or river, in Kyoto's case). I am also pursuing this course. I think JET is the best way to come to Japan, and loved my school, teachers, and students. I honestly didn't have any problems whatsoever. However, the location was a bit remote for me: I felt like I was wasting my life on those slow, expensive train rides. My city didn't have any concerts, movie theatres, cool hangouts, young people, or really that many people at all. I am a city guy, so I'm looking forward to Kyoto. JET pays well and is fun and private schools (likely my only option for work in Kyoto) pretty much suck from what I've heard, but you can only re-apply to JET after 10 years. There aren't many jobs for foreigners in Japan other than English teaching, so we'll see what happens. I want to have confidence, but not "too much confidence" like Pavlos and Nick, or not enough like Sharon. Or lose my mind like David. Ganbarimasu.

Garbage in Japan

2007-08-02T19:41:00.000-07:00

You can walk - even ride - for miles in Japan without seeing a garbage can.

At the the combini (convenience store) like Lawson or Family Mart, when you buy some yogurt or a drink, you're sure to get the appropriate chopsticks, a straw, and maybe a spoon with your order. Also, your items are sorted into separate bags: hot and cold, big and small, etc. So, you end up walkin' away with a lot of excess rubbish. It might seem odd then, that garbage cans are as rare as leprechauns in Egypt. In washrooms they're also a rarity...unfortunately, along with hot water, soap, towels, or even hand dryers. Even shopping malls lack this item I foolishly took for granted back in Canada. People smoke like crazy here, even in restaurants. Which really sucks, in my opinion. There's plenty of ashtrays for those folks, however. Interestingly, there are special "shiroi posto" (white post boxes) specifically for disposal of porno mags. Just so you know where the priorities lie here. Though they're supposedly not that common, here's one by my local JR station:

While the mags might be dirty, the place is not - it's a real rarity to see any trash on the streets at all. I'm serious - they're usually spotless (of course, these scenes in Tokyo might look familiar to some North American readers, but I've never seen anything like this here in this city, even after a festival).

Why, then, are there no garbage cans in Japan? Well, there's a few reasons: According to this military page , "One small, but remarkable, lingering effect of the terrorist incident on the Tokyo population is the lack of garbage cans in public areas; even 10 years later, they are still associated with the sarin attack." Supposedly, lockers, garbage cans, and other potential bomb hiding places were disposed of in order to maintain safety. Another reason might be that people simply don't eat outside or while walking like we do back home. I have flaunted this unwritten rule a few times, enjoying a Family Mart spicy chicken while walking to school and, more recently, celebrated the opening of a new Baskin Robbins while riding my bike. Both times I paid the price (open-mouhed stares from passing cars). Oh, people also don't chew gum and stick it places like they do back home. The third reason is that garbage cans would encourage people to take garbage disposal for granted and they're big on recycling and the environment here. Really big.

Monday's regular garbage day
But I forgot again
There are two big plastic bags
They're lying on the floor
Gomi day Monday and Thursday
Let's take it out in the morning
Gomi day seems like every day
I hear the truck
I hear the warning

Gomi gomi gomi gomi gomi day
Gomi gomi gomi gomi gomi day
Gomi gomi gomi gomi gomi day
Gomi gomi gomi gomi gomi day
Oh garbage day... hey!

Wednesday's cans and bottles day
But I forgot again
There are four big plastic bags
They're lying on the floor
Gomi day Monday and Thursday
Let's take it out in the morning
Gomi day seems like every day
I hear the truck
I hear the warning

Gomi gomi gomi gomi gomi day
Gomi gomi gomi gomi gomi day
Gomi gomi gomi gomi gomi day
Gomi gomi gomi gomi gomi day
Oh garbage day... hey!

As Shonen Knife's lyrics imply, there are different days for different items ("gomi" is garbage, in case you haven't figured it out). Thus, one must sort one's items into at least four goddamn separate piles (paper, glass, cans, & "PET bottles" - plastic bottles). Supposedly, some cities have up to nine separate groups. There's also special items, like electric stuff and oversized. There are appropriate bags for each and an actual calendar that lists the relative days. You have to peel off the labels from the bottles and jars, as well as clean the insides. "Ha ha", I can hear you thinking. "Screw that! I'd just dump it all into the same bag!". Well, that would be nice. However, the bags are clear and the neighbors are watching. Any garbage screwups and it'll be assumed to be the gaijin's fault. You may get a bag left at your door with a note. One ALT in this prefecture didn't sort his stuff correctly and was identified by the bag's contents. He was called down to city hall and forced to correctly sort the stuff in front of his supervisor. Luckily, I've never had these issues as I eat out a hell of a lot and don't have much rubbish (Interestingly, I just finished packing/cleaning to move, and my JTE was telling me how, when she previously helped an ALT move, her garbage was all dumped into one bag: "Americans are dirty like that".)

You may have heard, based on the legacy of James Fallows' Atlantic Monthly article ("Japan - Land of Plenty"), tales of "sodai gomi". "Yeah, man, the Japanese throw away perfectly good stuff in order to have the latest stuff. Also, their places are small, so they trash the stuff to save space. You can get brand new Sony TV's, fax machines....anything!" Foreigners (Japanese people would be too embarrassed to get caught taking someone's garbage) would go around on sodai gomi day and load up on refrigerators and the like. Unfortunately, this basically ended with the end of the "bubble" (economic boom) in the early 90's. People simply can't afford to throw things away like they used to. However, though I've never seen these discarded diamonds, I have still heard/read that they exist. An interesting note about "sodai gomi" - it's also the sarcastic term Japanese wives use to refer to their husbands, which may give some insight on the power dynamic of marriages here. Conversely, an ex of mine, Junko, was always pissed that people in Canada pronounced her name "Junk-o" (it's actually "Jun-ko").

Currently, people are more likely to bring their stuff to the recycle shop. However, that's a real rip, in my humble opinion. I went there yesterday and was not pleased with the results. Here's what I brought and what I originally paid (in dollarz, not yenz):

a brand new DVD player, used three times (50)
a brand new stool (30)
a brand new mirror (30)
a Muji (like Ikea, but expensive) clothes drying rack (50)
a brand new umbrella pail (20)
a Muji garbage box (25)
a Nintendo DS game (40)
a brand new Japanese study book (30)

I think there was some other stuff too. That's around 275 dollars if my math is good. I expected about 20% (around 50-60 bucks). They offered me 1,200 yen (about ten bucks) for the lot. There's no bartering. I thanked 'em and left (with my stuff), but was actually pretty pissed off. A lot of stuff here is expensive (a book I wanted is 50 dollars in Canada and 600 dollars here!), but has no resale value. No-one has heard of ebay here. People are happy to pay different prices for the same distance on train lines and the same amount for a large size item as a small. So, shopping and stuff like this can be frustrating sometimes.

This ends my knowledge of Japan/garbage-related trivia, so I'm gonna wrap up this mess.

Onsens in Japan

2007-07-03T03:31:00.000-07:00

The "Onsen" (hot water) symbol.

"Can you nude?" My kyoto-sensei (vice principal) was asking me. "Uh, excuse me? What?" Turns out I heard him right - he was inviting me to an onsen (hot spring bath) and was wondering if, as a foreigner, I had any reservations about getting naked in front of not only co-workers, but also total strangers.

I'd been to onsens before and my kyoto is a cool guy - not only the coolest guy I've met in Japan, but probably one of the coolest people I've ever met - so I was in. Since that first visit, I've probably gone to various onsens with him, about 20 or 30 times in total. When I first met him, he told me he hoped I would "work hard and play hard". Which is pretty cool. As he likes cool jazz, the ride out there is always an experience in itself. He has visited Canada in the past and doesn't mind speaking English. So we ride out in the countryside, accompanied by Sinatra, the Third Man theme, or Chris Botti, chatting about stuff small and big in a combination of bad English and bad Japanese. I wasn't a big fan of mellow music before (obsessively preferring unique or extreme music rather than background music), but have grown to appreciate it as it totally meshes with the drive through the countryside and the soothing spa.

Sometimes we stop by a Family Mart convenience store and grab a spicy chicken. Once, standing in the parking lot chomping on the thing, he stared off into the distance and said how great it was to be able to do this. "Do what?" I, understandably, asked. The social situation of a vice-principal is such that, he told me, he could never stand and eat outside in this way in our city as someone might see him and, "That is not how a kyoto-sensei should act." (I was reminded of another teacher I knew who showed me of a picture of himself when he went to America on a teacher exchange program a few years prior. He had a beard and it really suited him - though beards usually suck. "Why don't you still have it?" I asked. Apparently, he wore it back here for a month or so, then parents wrote a letter to the board of ed, who complained to his boss, who complained to him. The beard was a goner). So, even the trip is a nice escape from the pressures of daily life.

Actually, his initial question was a valid one. Onsens are pretty much a Japan-only phenomenon and even have a bit of a negative rep among foreigners here. "Not here for the green tea and onsens" is the rallying cry of those guys - and it is always guys - who feel they have to choose between enjoying "traditional Japanese culture" and picking up girls, as if it's a one-or-the-other situation. Actually, onsens are pretty far from a demanding (and, some *cough* might say, boring) ritual like the tea ceremony or a temple visit : you simply take your clothes off, get in the water, and relax. You can chat if you want or not. The only pressure is the water pressure. Oh, man.

While you are indeed naked with other people, mixed-gender onsens are now few and far between. They had 'em here up until the American Occupation, until the Yanks decided, "Nudity?" There must be sex involved! Cancel it!". Damn Americans, I thought, until my kyoto asked me why they don't have onsens in Canada. "Is it because people can't be nude near each other?" He asked. Yeah, that's probably it, I thought. I also was forced to explain that the closest we had to onsens were the gay bathhouses in Toronto. Not the kind of thing you want to explain in limited Japanese, in a sauna surrounded by nude Japanese dudes.

Finally, there are some cultural differences. You don't just hop in the water. There's showers and cleaning areas with soap and shampoo where you scrub yourself clean before getting in the water. If you do simply hop in, you're making the water dirty (the family bath at home works the same way - same family, same water). This being said, I have seen people get in without washing first. Which pisses me off, as there's a perception that only foreigners do this. This is so true that there was a landmark case here by Japan's pretty-much lone foreigner's rights crusader, Arudo Debito (formerly David Aldwinkle. Though he had given up his U.S. citizenship and became a Japanese citizen, he was still refused entrance to a "Japanese only" onsen. In an unprecedented move here, he sued. And won. Anyway, one of the claims of that onsen's managers was that foreigners wouldn't know to act correctly in an onsen. As I am usually (actually, always, now that I think of it) the only "foreigner" in the onsen when we go, I can't help but be conscious of this fact. As you soap and scrub before getting in, you feel the eyes on ya.

So, I was again kinda pissed when I saw a (Japanese) guy with a tattoo there. Tattoo's are verboten because they are pretty much Yakuza (Japanese mafia) territory - they haven't caught on with folks here like they have back home. If you are found to have one, they can throw you out. He was a nice guy - chatted with him a while, but it happened to be on the same day - same time actually - that another (Japanese) guy was puking his guts out from the next whirlpool - not into the water, but it was still disgusting. I think it was New Year's Day. If it had been me in either of these situations, I am sure it would have confirmed a cultural stereotype or two.

Anyway, here's the breakdown of the procedure: drop your shoes off at a locker outside. Take the locker key to the counter. Pay and get another locker key. Pass through a curtain, then there's two doors with curtains, one marked with the "man" symbol and the other "women". These "sides" of the onsen rotate weekly, so even if you go to the same onsen a week later, you might be on a different side from the previous week. After the mandatory joking about going through the opposite sexes curtain, go in. Take your stuff off and put it in the locker. You should have either brought or been given a small hand towel (tenegui) with which to cover the magic. Boldly leave the locker area and enter the onsen. These come in various shapes and sizes. Usually, there's a variety of whirlpools, herb baths, sauna's, salt saunas, back massager tubs, showers, etc Before you get in, sit on the small stool and wash with the provided shampoo and soap. After that, hop in! Hey, don't let the towel enter the water - just leave it on the side, or you can wear it on your head like some of the older gentlemen there. My kyoto loves the sauna, and I've also grown to appreciate it, though I really dig the herb bath. However, every time I enter the latter I get a serious craving for pizza due to the oregano smell... Oh, if you use the sauna, shower the sweat off before getting in the other baths.

I really wish I could bring the camera in to take pics for you. No, not of the old naked guys, but of the cool surroundings. It really is designed to be comfortable. One I've been to is built by a huge lake (structurally set up so no-one can see your nudeness). There's ducks, a stone waterfall, cool plants and a stone staircase by the outdoor section. You can hear the people (women/men) from the opposite side over the wall. Some have TV's or classical music in the sauna (and some even have TV's in the main room). I went to one place in Osaka with my host family that was packed - five floors of baths, massage chairs, TV's, eating, drinking, or smoking rooms....tons of stuff.
We ate, had a beer or two, slept, then went back in. It's surprising how hungry and sleepy you get from just relaxing.. There's also sentos, mountain hot springs.

Actually, it's pretty inspiring too. There's nothing to do but relax and think, so I've had some pretty good ideas there. Unfortunately, I've never had a place to put a pen and paper (comfortably), so they're lost in the ether. Still, once you come out you're fired up and ready to go. Some people have been here for years and still not gone, but if you visit, check it out. It's a cool concept.

[NOTE: none of these photos are mine. I had a few, but they were lost via the HD crash. These photos come to you courtesy Google Images.}

Safety in Japan

2007-06-06T05:32:00.001-07:00

A suspiciously bulky woman warns us about fires (from a safety pamphlet given to us by - if I remember correctly - the JET folks in Tokyo.

"Japan is safety country" (sic) is the mantra of many a native (usually in contrast to "gaikoku" (literally "foreign countries"), usually meaning America, which we are led to believe is unbelievably dangerous). Most books about Japan will include the mandatory story of the lady who left her purse or passport on the train/on a bench, only to find it sitting just where she left it or have it returned with all the contents intact by a smiling policeman. And, to a large extent, the claims are true.

Actually, I myself have accidently left my back door open, with thousands of dollars, my new guitar, and new computer in plain sight with no problems whatsoever. Even when I just arrived in my prefecture - in what I think was an acting out of subconscious desires - left my 10lb bag full of Tokyo JET orientation material on the train, the police - from another prefecture over - tracked me down and I got the stuff back. Yay.

However, you can never be too safe, apparently, as loudspeakers and signs constantly warn you of even the slightest transgression. Stay on the escalator. Don't touch this. Etc. This toothpick-warning, taken from a chopsticks wrapper, is emblematic of the perception of safety in Japan. While this might seem reminiscent of the "coffee is hot" warnings you get at McDonald's, suing really isn't an attractive option here as it is back home. The perception here is, if something happens to you, it causes trouble for the rest of us, so don't let anything happen to you.

To tell you the truth, while I don't miss a lot of things about Canada, I was surprised to find myself almost missing this: you are walking down a street, but there's some shady characters lurking in an alley. Or, there's a woods, but you don't want to go in because you know some weird people might be in there. However, here, due to various cultural factors (most due to the relatively conformist lifestyle that ensure everyones will be at work / school / sleeping during a certain time period), you never see this. Never. You pass the woods and you know there no-one in there. You can pass by alleys and they're empty. There's no weirdos lurking around. By the way, I figured out that it wasn't the crazies that I missed, it was simply having people around.

This is because, as I mentioned in another post, there's no-one in this town. If you visit here, you'll see - this place is that Twilight Zone episode. Every time I see this road safety boy (for school crossings, I guess), from afar, I think, "Oh, this place isn't so bad. There's somebody over there." Yet, 9 times out of 10 it turns out to be this misshapen safety freak. Speaking of road safety, well....many streets don't have street lights. Many roads are wide enough to accommodate only one car. Many cars have TV's in them in the middle of the dash. Many drivers talk on the phone while driving (maybe about what's on TV!). However, if you're in the car veering around dark narrow streets it may feel dangerous, but I've seen only one accident (I'll tell you about it under the "Drinking" section). Perhaps TV's in cars were to blame for what happened to this safety kid:

This is not to say that the place is 100% crime-free. For example, though I stated that you never see anyone in the woods, I passed this sign near the bike path by my house. It says, bascially, "Be wary of chikans. If there's danger, call 110." The word "Chikan" (made of two kanji characters meaning "foolish" and "man - negative nuance") is Japanese for "pervert" or "molester". So, there may be perverts in the woods in Japan. There are definitely perverts in the woods in Canada, as my mom can confirm. Out walking the dog one day, she ran across a dude furiously pleasuring himself amongst the trees.

These chikan are most well-known for train activities. They're metrosexual pervs! At rush hour, Japan's trains are the most crowded in the world. Chikans take advantage of this close proximity to grope women standing nearby. To combat this, the train companies have instituted "women only" cars, but whether this has been successful or not is in dispute. For one thing, most chikan crimes go unreported due to the victim's negative perception (shame) about the incident (there are tales of foreigners who recognize an incident and point out the chikan, only to be ignored by everyone, including the victim. Causing a scene is not appreciated here). For another, many women apparently still take the shared cars, stating that there is a lack of space due to too few "women only" cars. Another train-related pervert is the businessman who reads "hentai manga" (dirty comics) in full view of women and children. Here, it must be noted that this is not Mickey Mouse stuff, it's pretty extreme (though the naughty bits are censored). Finally, though I have met many women who tell me about their chikan experience, I've never seen one touching someone, nor have I seen Comic Book Guy. However, again due to public restraint about reporting an assault, it is more than reasonable to assume that the assault figures - both physical and sexual - are in truth higher than reported.

This underreporting (or non-reporting) is also present in schools. Ijime (bullying) is currently a hot topic in education. However, it seems to me that this is socially sanctioned. Yes, it's a stereotype, but the society really does encourage conformity. There are famous cases of teachers and even principals of schools disregarding and even participating in violence towards students. Yet, the only reason this appears to have become an issue is that students have been writing suicide notes addressed to the board of education, and killing their parents as well as themselves. I mentioned before that a girl at my school cuts herself, and there have been suggestions of domestic violence here and at other schools. However, the attitude is "that's not our business". So, school might not be so safe for the students.

As far as protection at school, we have one of these sitting in the principal's office. It's called a "sasumata". What is its purpose? Well, basically to keep at arms length any intruder that might be foolish enough to challenge any principal - ours is a 65 year old woman - wielding such a mighty weapon. You might be thinking, "sure, but what if the crazy person has a gun?" and, well, that's a good question. Regardless, most schools have a training day in which one teacher acts as the assailant and another mans the sasumata. Some schools even film this drama as a training film. Yes, I would love to see this and no, I don't have any copies of such a film. Interestingly, we actually had an intruder visit my junior high school twice recently. The first time he had, oddly enough, a bag full of ice creams, and was wandering around the staff room. The second time, he demanded an application form, due to his strong desire to be employed here. I didn't see him either time but, when I suggested, "Hey, why didn't you use that sasumata thing?", some teachers laughed. If you're crazy, no sasumata. If you have a gun, no sasumata. You have to be just crazy enough, or maybe have a knife. Maybe that guy had seen one of those "You don't have to be crazy to work here...but it helps!" mugs here or something. Which would explain the application form.

Like any other, the country does have it's share of crazies. They are at least as spectacular as those in America. There was a cannibal. And of course the cult that wanted to douse the Tokyo subways with sarin gas. Recently, the ijime fallout has been reflected in child violence. There was the kid who left another kid's head at the school gate. And recently, I recall reading something about a kid who showed up at the police box with his mother's head (at the time, they confirmed he had a head, but couldn't confirm that it was in fact the head of his mom.) Another recent crime, a bit closer to home, was the murder of an English teacher in Tokyo. Before ending up buried in a sand-filled bathtub on his balcony, she had agreed to teach private lessons. To a guy who had been stalking her. At his house. You don't want to blame the victim, but wtf? Anyway, the killer managed to get away, running bare-footed down the street.

Perhaps he was a victim of the pressures of society here that drives people to absurd lengths. I saw a rather depressing documentary about how popular sucide is in Japan. The Aokigahara woods near Mt. Fuji is a popular place for those with no hope to simply wander off. The doc featured a cab driver who had let people off there. They didn't ask him to wait. Jumping before oncoming trains is another method. Apparently, the charming, almost cartoonish tones that each station plays are meant to cheer up the downhearted (there's another page that has tons of train sounds, but I can't find it. If you do, please let me know. It even has a related train recording: "Chikan wa hanzai desu" (chikans are criminals)). Following Japan's groupthink method, there are even suicide clubs and webpages, in which folks organize and check out as a group. So, apparently one can even be a danger to oneself here.

So, besides the perverts, crazies, and terminally depressed, what other threats to safety exist? The all-natural kind! Earthquakes. Tsunamis and typhoons (both so natural to Japan that the words were imported into English). I've not felt that latter two yet. However, I did get caught in some weird freak dust storm. It was the only day the students were allowed outside for lunch. This was because of hanami (flower viewing) of the first cherry blossoms in Japan. The students surrounded the baseball diamond, sitting on mats and eating their boxed lunches. Late as usual, I walked across the diamond with my freshly-purchased combini (convenience store) lunch. Suddenly, students lunches were about twenty feet in the air. I was surrounded be a column of dust. It was wacked. Students were screaming and stuff was flying everywhere. The teachers were stunned because I just laughed and kept on slowly walking. I just figured, oh, I guess this is a dust storm or mini-hurricane or something. You could actually see a tornado of dust. Then, just as suddenly, it was gone. Later, I emptied handfuls of dirt from my new-from-Thaliland pants pockets.

My first earthquake experiences, which I was kind of looking forward to, were anticlimactic in comparison. The first was when I was simply woken by the bed shaking. I though I had dreamt it until I checked the net later that day. The second time, I heard the neighbors running around upstairs and then running down the stairs. Except, they weren't. The entire house was shaking. This only continued for a matter of seconds, but it is frightening to realize the ground you're standing on is so unstable.

As noted at the beginning, there's a perception that crime is for the other countries. Thus, there's a feeling that crime - along with disease - is imported along with visitors to the country. This is reflected in media such as TV shows, which seem to report only selective news from other countries (I often hear about murders etc. from co-workers), along with an almost imperceptible "thank god that could never happen here" attitude. American visitors are surely familiar with the "Do you have a gun?" query. Recently (just after the school shootings in the States), despite my assurances that I was only a harmless Canadian, I was even asked this question by a wary cabdriver. Dude, I've never even seen a fucking gun. The recent "mook" (magazine book) Gaijin Hanzai Ura File (basically "foreigner criminal underground file") skipped any issue-skirting and brought its concerns right out in the open: foreigners - here mostly meaning Chinese and blacks - are flouting the laws, taking "their" women, and causing havoc! It wasn't so much the outrageously racist concept (and articles and pictures, etc.) that was offensive to many foreigners here, it was more the fact that the mook was so widely available: not only in the convenience store Family Mart (ubiquitous in Japan), but even on Amazon.co.jp! After all, racism exists in many countries, but it was surprising (and disappointing) to find it so unchallenged here (there are hate-speech laws against this kind of stuff in Canada, for example). You can read more about it here if you'd like.

So, you are safe here. Unless you're a woman. Or a student. Or a Japanese. Or a foreigner. You are safe.

Note: that last part reminds me, I was recently stopped by the satsu (the po-lice) again. Despite our photos/info/etc. supposedly being on record at the station, some other ALT's here have been stopped up to 5 times. I was walking home from school. A police car passed me on the otherwise empty (as usual) road. Knowing how the police "think" (1. we are bored, 2. there's somebody we can get away with hassling, 3. Go!), I knew they'd try to be clever and wheel around and come up behind me. Lo and behold. I was waiting at the light when I hear a motor idling behind me. Despite the fact that there's no cars for miles, I wait until the light turns green. Then I wait a few seconds more so's they can't come up with any nonsense. I sloooowly trudge across the street. At the other side, a car suddenly passes me, the two cops jump out and ask if they can speak to me. They ask for my info, so I whip out the foreigner ID card which we are legally obliged to carry with us at all times (if you don't have it, you may go to jail and/or pay cash money). From the focus of the questions, I get a sense that these guys just want to speak English. But no free lesson today, Kento - from now on it's Japanese only baby! After I ask what the problem is, the main cop's eyes shift back and forth so fast it looked like he was watching pro ping pong. "Well....you were walking across the road....and....you had your head down...and...you were walking slowly...so..." he looked up, triumphant that he was on the verge of sucessfully manufacturing a semi-coherent reason for stopping someone so obviously doing nothing untoward "We thought you were lost!". Later, when a (Japanese) ex-gf came to visit, I told her this story. "Oh, that was very kind of them", she told me. So, I guess I don't have to be worried about being safe. Japan is safety country.

Thailand

2007-05-12T02:50:00.000-07:00

Rotten Ronnie givin' the "wai", the traditional Thai greeting.

The cries of "Sexy movie? Sexy movie?" still haunt me. And I can never watch Mythbusters the same way again. Hot weather. Cheap stuff. Police on Segways narrowly missing legless guys crawling along the ground. Insanely old and ugly European men with hot young Thai women. It was Bangkok, Thailand baby!

Okay, first, let's get all the "Bang Cock" jokes out of the way. Yes, there was a stop on the transit called Bang Sue. Yes, there was another called Thong Lo. Maybe if these places were Wall Street-type centres of commerce there'd be some contrast to these jokes. While they were centres of commerce, it actually was low thongs and Sue-banging that was being sold. So, it ain't funny. Sure, the stories about prostitution were true. But, perhaps it only seemed so because we were staying right in the middle of the centre of it all. How did this happen? Let's start at the beginning....

Spring break was coming up, and a cool ALT (not too often you've heard that word combo, eh?) from a nearby town was talkin' about going to somewhere interesting. I had heard Thailand was cheap, and so...we were off. Our "planning", such as it was, consisted of downloading and compiling lists of info about the country. Because, naturally, we knew nothing other than: the weather was hot; the food was hot; you could go to a tailor and get great clothes for super low prices; it was a centre of prostitution (not a selling feature); there was lots of "ladyboys" (guys with sex-change operations) there (definitely not a selling feature). Oh, and perhaps the most important part: flights from Japan were super cheap. Despite a travel agent who seemed determined to not get our money, we eventually got tickets.

I read some of our comp of travel info on the plane. It told me some pretty interesting things about Thailand. For example, never mock the King as you can end up in jail for it. Also, the feet are considered unclean - don't even point 'em at somebody. And never pat a Thai on the head as it's a big insult. Don't sniff your food. Don't wear shorts or short-sleeves to a temple. Don't point at or face away from a Buddhist statue. And so on.

It was with this little knowledge (and related fear about unwittingly committing some punishable-by-death act) in mind that we stepped up to the tourist counter in the Bangkok airport. We asked the smiling ladies for some good hotel recommendations. Perhaps considering that we were two young men who didn't know word one of Thai and appeared to have no plan whatsoever (we had written only the word "HOTEL" in "where will you stay?" section on the arrival slip, which caused the other ALT to get grilled by the customs guard for about five minutes), they set us up in Nana Plaza.

Nana Plaza, it turns out, is the heart (or one of the chambers of the heart) of the sin district in Bangkok. We lugged our luggage (so that's why they call it that) through the busy streets. We had heard you could get a great quality hotel for what we were paying, so the Ambassador was a bit of a letdown. It was big, with a huge entranceway, but old. When we went out for dinner after checking in, we spoke to the owner of the restaurant. When Coffee (that was her name) heard we were staying at the Ambassador, she threw her head back and laughed, "That place! So old!". The streets of Nana are lined with vendors selling food, clothes, the latest DVD's (and I mean the latest), souvenirs, and pretty much anything else. Taxicab and tuk tuk (the small pedicabs) drivers offer their services by shouting at you from across the street or even touching your arm. In an approach I found somewhat insulting, some street vendors would clap to attract your attention as you passed (hey, I'm not an animal or baby).

The first day, we went to a famous Sunday market. It was hot. Really hot. The place was ultra-cool. There was a Thai band playing American-style country music. These cute girls were selling, of all things, cat food. I didn't buy any, but their costumes did make me get frisky, so maybe it worked. We drank fresh pineapple juice. The endless laneways had all sorts of cool (though probably bogus) clothes at low prices (I saw a "Dadidas"-brand shirt). Inexplicably, I bought some patio lights, which looked really cool at the time but I haven't used that much yet. Maybe when I have a BBQ. I also bought an Adidas bathing suit from an apparently legit place, but the coloring faded after about 4 swims. They were cheap, anyway. The cops were driving Segways! (I took a pic for you, but my camera had chosen this time to crap out on me. It still worked, but the viewfinder would only display a white screen, so I couldn't focus. I used the manual viewfinder to get a shot of the Segways, but it turned out black.). The other downside was when I, struggling through the crowds, looked down and saw a guy with no legs dragging himself through the market by his arms. He was right on the ground and must have taken a boot or two to the face a few times. Actually, we seemed to see a disproportionate amount of legless people. We also saw a girl, who looked about six, sitting by herself among the street stalls.

These twin themes of degradation and commerce were a constant undercurrent to our visit. As we noted, we were the youngest (by about 20 years) foreign guys we saw in Thailand(except for those drunken Brits on the train). Most foreign guys were older, lackin' style, and almost always accompanied by a younger (about 20 years) Thai woman. The perception that, as a foreign guy, you were one of these guys was always there. If we were eating in a restaurant, quite a few passing girls would give us a smile and that frank look right in the eyes. So, you never really know who is legitimately friendly or who is a legitimate couple (rather than customer and paid companion).

We decided to leave the city and head out to the Samutprakarn alligator and snake farm ("The world's largest crocodile farm"!). I mean, come on - they had "over 100,000 crocodiles"! They also have the largest captive crocodile (19 ft, 8 in) as well as albino and other freakish gators. On the long ride out to the zoo, I had noticed a lot of people wearing yellow shirts. This pattern continued at the zoo. And when I say "a lot of people", I mean about 60% of the population.

Our ticket was marked "For see alligator show" (scanned, but lost in the Great Crash of 2007) and the other ALT, who I'll call Michael, wanted to see that first. However, they also had a monkey show. As you might know, I love those guys! I bugged him to see the monkey show first. They fought with swords and the female monkey "sang" (mimicked a recording), but it was a bit underwhelming. The monkeys had a low attention span, so they were always running around. I got some great shots of other monkeys though, and this monkey prayed, danced, and clapped hands in exchange for some juice. Cool.

The alligator show was wild. To an apparently infinite loop of the strains of the Hawaii Five O theme, two 15-16 year old Thai boys descended into an alligator pit to prod and harass the animals with sticks. The animals looked dangerous but seemed to know the drill. They basically just sat in the sun and snapped at the sticks when prodded. For the showstopper, the kids stuck their heads in the gator's mouths. I'll put up a movie if I can. At the end, folks had their pics taken with the gators. Yeah, I like callin' 'em gators.

It was an interesting place. In a scene worthy of a David Lynch flick, as we passed a gazebo with a couple and their baby in it, the father strolled up to a jukebox and dropped some funds in it. The machine proceed to blast out a guitar-heavy song at volumes I didn't think a jukebox could manage. As we tried to find out who the artist was (the Clash, but not that Clash - the Thai Clash), it was painful to stand in front of it. In addition to the monkeys, snakes, elephants and gators, they also had a full zoo. And, uh, a shooting range, which we found a bit odd. Dig this sign: (shooting range, elephants, concert hall - not too often you get that selection).
And how about the shop stocking alligator shoes, purses, etc. They even sold so-called gator burgers which, despite my recent I'll-eat-anything! adventurous streak, I was reluctant to try. I did buy two (non-gator) shirts that I liked at the time yet never wore and later used as rags. Best of all, I bought a commerative plate containing a picture of me with a monkey! Yes, I could post a pic, but I look so ridiculous with this big smile on my face...no way.

Finally, there was an elephant show. The delay of finding the place and waiting for it to start was worth it. The elephants almost looked like they were smiling, and really performed. They rode scooters, painted pictures, walked around on strings, stood on two legs, danced around, and even took money from people with their trunks and handed it over to their trainers . We considered taking a ride on one, but fatigue and the stench of snake crap made us decide to get back to the hotel. Speaking of elephants, on the way back I got some shots of this XL three-headed elephant from the cab. Then, as we got out of the cab, Michael dropped his plate, with a pic of him with a gator. Luckily, he also had a good pic of him taken with a tiger.

The next day we went to another market, this time a clothing and computer area known as Pratunam. Our long ride to the zoo - about 15 miles - had cost us 200 baht (about 6 dollars). Our literature had warned us to ensure that we take only taxis marked TAXI METER and to ensure the driver turned the meter on. So, when we went to the market, we took a TAXI METER taxi. On the short drive to the market (it was only a few blocks away), we passed a Spiderman 3 billboard. Noting how many recent movies were already available on DVD in Bangkok, I mused aloud, "I wonder if Spiderman 3 is out here yet". Our formerly mute driver became excited. "I am Spiderman!" he shouted. "Ha ha! Where you from?" "Canada? America? Ha ha, we are friends!". As we excited the cab, I noticed that we had not asked him to turn the meter on. How much was this trip that took less than 5% of the distance/time to the zoo? "200 baht!" shouted our new friend. I reluctantly forked over the funds to Spidey, chalking it up to a learning experience.

The clothes market was cool, but we didn't buy anything. People were lugging around multiple bags filled with cheap clothing. We discovered that the omnipresent yellow shirts are worn each Monday as a symbol of loyalty to the King as yellow corresponds to Monday, his birthday. They even have the royal crest on them.

After getting lost in the maze of alleyways for a while, we drank some coconut milk fresh from the coconut, then we finally found the computer market. So, our search wasn't fruitless. Fruitless. Get it? Ha ha, good times. Anyway, you can barter down to about 1/3 the listed price in Thailand, so the computer market was pretty cool. This was basically our first encounter with the "Sexy movie?" offer, which was shouted at our white faces from quite a few stalls. As Michael later actually bought some sexy movies on DVD, I can't cry discrimination or anything. It was like I've heard about (but didn't really see) in HK - they had the latest movies for about 2-3 dollars.

We were warned not to take the tuk tuks as they supposedly rip you off or bring you to places you don't want to go, and we had just gotten burned on the taxi, but it looked like hella fun, so I sprang for it. It was like a roller-coaster ride - fun, but you're always wondering if you might be that 1% that dies. I was, anyway. The guy turned out to be honest and brought us right to where we wanted to go for cheap. So, if you go, try it at least once.

The next day, in what was a highlight of the trip for me, we took a long boat down the Chao Phraya river. Our guide was pretty cool: "I have a long boat. Come on my long boat." Okay. I was surprised that he took off after getting only the two of us and didn't wait for more people. The weather was great and the riverbanks were beautiful. Some areas seemed a bit poverty-stricken, so we felt kind of weird touring past in this big boat. Swimming kids waved at us and we saw monks strolling through temple courtyards. Suddenly, a wizened woman in a canoe swiftly pulled up alongside us, screeching, "Floating market! Floating market!". It was, as you may have guessed, a floating market. Michael bought an overpriced buddha souvenir and I bought an overpriced beer for the driver.

We pulled into Ankor Wat. As we were standing on the corner by the large temple-like structure and next to the sign pointing the way to the temple, a stranger suddenly approached us. Gesturing the opposite way, he offered to direct us "to the temple". Having read about this scam (sometimes, people tell you the temple is closed for cleaning or somesuch and offer to take you elsewhere - usually a store they have a deal with - while you're waiting). Though we chose to follow our instinct as well as the large sign, as we walked down the street he shouted, "Not that way!" after us.

Though I was wearing shorts and a short-sleeved shirt, supposedly taboo in the temple, quite a few other people were as well. I asked the ticket guy if it was okay and he resignedly waved us through. The temple grounds were under construction, so there wasn't much to see. Then we got to the famous reclining Buddha, which was great. A smiling god who's just chilin' - that's something I can get behind. Supposedly, there's more images of the Buddha in Thailand than actual people. I tried to get some shots of the great paintings on the wall, but my camera was still wacked and couldn't focus.

We went on to the Palace grounds. A guy approached us out front and told me I couldn't go in with my current wear. I ignored him, but the guards actually did wave me aside and try to get me to rent a robe. As the place was closing in 15 minutes, I decided not to bother. Michael went ahead and I had an ice cream at Baskin Robbins, soaking up the touristy vibe of the neighbourhood. Michael was already pissed off by the scammers and constant sales pitches, so the driver on the way back taking us to the wrong stop (bus station instead of subway station) was the last straw. Then, as we were trying to get a cab outta there, the next drivers told us their meter was broken. Thailand was billed as the land of smiles, but this only reminded me of that "Smiles - Free" that used to be listed on McDonald's menuboard. Yeah, they're free as long as you're buying something. However, the next driver redeemed our faith in people, as he quickly told us the subway station was near and brought us there quickly and cheaply.

I was eager to check out the famous clothes discounts, and the place definitely didn't lack for tailors: there seemed to be at least a few on every street. I ended up shopping at the first place we went to, despite the sales dude's outrageous initial quotes. After I talked him down to (what I hope was) a fair price, I bought three suits, six shirts, and a cashmere overcoat. Spent a hell of a lot of money, but then I love the clothes I got. One suit is standard, one has a Chinese collar, and one is a light-colored casual. The shirts are classy pin stripes and solids. The cashmere...well, I'm almost looking forward to winter so I can wear the sucker. You could choose the quality, and I chose the best (and most expensive), natch. Inspired by my enthusiasm, Michael borrowed some money and got some stuff as well. Suddenly, despite my coming with thousands of dollars, we were down to very little. Veeeery little.

On our last baht, we went out to find a thai kickboxing place that the tailor had told us about ("Yes! Japanese try their karate but Thai boxers...snap! They break their leg with a kick!") but somehow ended up at a huge beer hall festival celebrating we know not what. Our budgeting was suddenly postponed as we drank huge beers. Still, I gazed wistfully at the Brits at the next table who were drinking out of some massive keg-like contraption that looked like medical equipment. Onstage, a variety of bands played, including one who did an impressive cover of Bohemian Rhapsody. Then, in what may have been the highlight of Michael's trip, the female singer of the next band took on "Achy-Breaky Heart" (once his mom's favorite song). The singer must have only seen the sheet music and not actually heard the song or something, as she consistently pronounced Achy as "ah chee". You had to be there.

We also went to an outdoor bar called, appropriately enough, Sin. Later, as we checked out one laneway, we were swarmed by cute girls and encouraged to come in their respective bars. After some discussion, we decided to check it out. They paired off with us, ordered drinks for us, and almost attempted conversation. As the only other people in the place were older European's groping "their" girls and our companions seemed unfamiliar with the idea of conversation, it was kind of uncomfortable. They were definitely attractive, but we weren't really interested in kissing someone that that fat bald guy playing pool over there had been kissing an hour or so before. And paying for it. "Let's go dancing!" one enthused. Then, sternly, "But, you must pay." Perhaps to avoid any later disputation, the latter point was repeated a few times. We checked out.

A little depressed by this, we went out another night to find a "regular" bar. We went in what seemed to be a standard place with doormen and a cover charge. The cute girl next to me started talking to me. Her English wasn't bad. She claimed to be an exchange student just back from the States. When the conversation rolled around to her future goals, hers were simple: a condo and a rich man to pay for it. I wished her luck with that. Her friend showed up and took a strong interest in Michael. Strong enough that, after a few drinks, she invited him to come to the washroom with her. As she looked a bit like Sadako from "The Ring" with a lot of makeup, he politely declined. As there had never been any mention of money (and, in fact, I think they may have bought us a drink), we couldn't figure out if they were on the level or not. After thinking about it later, we concluded that they were likely working girls looking for fun on their night off. When we decided to leave, the girl I had been talking to suddenly grabbed me, kissed my neck, then began crying. Hey, I know I'm lovable, but we were only there an hour-and-half at most. It was definitely surreal.

As we were down to only transportation fees, the last morning was spent watching Mythbusters and odd Thai TV on one of the few stations we could get. There was no movie channel, and, though Michael had bought DVD's, our request for a player from the desk was met with confusion. We checked out, then hung at the pool. The Ambassador's pool has a cool bird sanctuary near it, but the cries of the creatures are kinda nightmarish, echoing off the nearby buildings while you're wading in the warm water. Later, we left our bags at the desk and I was happy to find the cart selling bug snacks that I'd seen before. Michael noted that the charge to take a picture was actually higher than that of the bugs. Again, I declined the adventure and chose not to partake. I'll post soon about some of the weird stuff I have eaten.

Finally, we walked the Bangkok streets for the last time, passing for the last time the lady who always shouted "handsome man" as we walked past, the clapping street vendors shouting "sexy movie!", and the ubiquitous German gents with their Thai tarts. It was interesting. As we were nearing the Ambassador, an old Thai lady - she had to have been at least 50 - grabbed Michael's arm and said something. He brushed her off and then she grabbed my arm and said the same thing, a whispered, "take me with you.". We didn't.

As usual, there's a Japanese connection to this story. There's actually even a Japanese part of town that Michael and I stumbled into one night. Besides it being overpriced, we needed a break from Japanese food so we didn't stop there. We didn't see any Japanese people at all on our trip. Except for...this one character at the pool. If it didn't really happen, you'd swear it was some kind of scene from a cheap laughs comedy. Picture a luke-warm pool, surrounded by seedy Europeans and their girlfriend of the day. The unearthly cries of the birds are careening off the walls like the Hitchcock film. Suddenly, this guy struts out of the hotel with the full gear on. Yeah, he's got the bathing cap, the goggles, the snorkel, and the flippers on, and he's ready to go. He stands at the edge of the pool and does a full flop straight in. He does two laps, then gets the hell out. We didn't see him again. Like Michael said, we wouldn't have been surprised to see a hidden camera or something somewhere as it looked like something you'd see on a comedy show here.

This final pic was interesting for two reasons: the "No durians" rule (a durian being a fruit that, while it tastes okay, emits a crap-like odor) and the rules regarding "lady joiners". Which brings us full circle, I guess.

A Loss for Words

2007-05-09T19:04:00.000-07:00

Okay. Yeah, it's been a while. But I have a reason...

Those of you that know me well know that I like to be organized. Very organized. For example, when I decided to study Japanese, I made these flashcards. There are 1945 Japanese characters in common use, so I made a card for each. One side has the character and the other the meaning, stroke order, readings, and examples. Upon hearing that I was doing this, at least one person remarked, "that's...crazy". It was a lot of work, but I was hoping that the fact that I had expended the effort in making them would force me to use them.

And, because I'm so (some might say pathologically) organized, to further these studies I created a series of documents about Japanese. One was the history of the language, one was a grammar guide, and many were situation-oriented (for example, at school, at the barber's, at the convenience store, etc.). The latter included vocabulary and useful expression (i.e. "Can I get that to go, please?").

I don't want to bore you with non-interesting, non-Japan-related stuff, but listen. Just listen. There's a point here. My methods were important. If I had a book that had vocabulary I didn't know, I would photocopy that vocab, find out the meaning, and add it to my list. I would then throw away that book or photocopy as I wanted all the information on my computer (there's always an idea in the back of my mind that, if there's a fire, I can simply grab my computer and I'll have all my music, writing, ideas, pictures, etc.. It's all about convenience, baby.) So, I amassed a huge amount of organized info - enough for a book.

Since coming to Japan, I've had a lot of time to study Japanese and ask native speakers about useful expressions. Every time I heard something I didn't know or that sounded useful/interesting, I would type it in. I even started a "book" of sorts, with a complete outline and about 30 pages finished.

But, hey, I can hear you saying, if you're so organized, well, why don't you post to this blog more often? The answer lies in my very first post: I don't want to waste your time with useless/boring info. I arranged a series of folders with new topics (i.e. Drinking in Japan, Safety in Japan, etc.) and new pictures. Accompanying the photos were a series of outlines with interesting/relevant stories.

You may have noticed the use of the past tense here. The reason is that all that information is gone. What happened? Oh, let me tell you. Everything was fine. I was listening to music (on the computer, natch). I walked away for a moment. When I came back, the screen was black and it wouldn't wake. I restarted. It would not restart and chose to make a disturbing clicking noise instead. I am computer-friendly and clicking noises or noises of any sort mean hardware failure. Thus, things had suddenly shifted into Non-Good mode.

Failing all other methods, I brought the comp to the Apple Store, where I waited two hours for a one-minute appraisal: the data was gone, the drive was dead and needed to be replaced. The couple next to me, who had been loudly complaining about a minor problem with their comp (I think it had a poor network connection or something) grew quiet as I contemplated the loss of thousands of hours of work, some of which was irreplaceable. My future blog posts, all my Japanese study, even my book-in-progess were completely gone. I did not have a smile on my face.

But, you're so smart, surely you must have backed up, some wiseguys must be asking. Actually, I had backed up about 95% of my other stuff (ironically, relatively unimportant/replacable crap like tv shows or movies) and it was only stuff I was currently working on that was lost. Also, I was using DiskWarrior, which is supposed to alert you about possible disk failure (it didn't, by the way). Finally, the computer, while not even a year old, had failed and been totally replaced about three months prior. So, it was only three months old.

I must mention that, prior to this Macbook I had an iBook that needed a logic board replacement. Three times. As this not-yet-a-year-old thing has already seriously failed me twice, and a friend also had continuous problems with his iMac, I can and will no longer recommend Apple as providing quality hardware. I love the OS, but...

The pain - initially equivalent to the loss of a relationship and yes, I'm serious - has gone down to a dull ache. The prospect of "just start again" is tiring to even think about, yet I suppose that is what I have to do. If you take anything away from my nightmarish experience, I hope it is this:

• No computer system is perfect.
• Back up whatever is important to you.
• Now.

P.S. I will blog about my trips to Okinawa and Thailand next. Those bastards the Fates may have got my notes, but they didn't get my pictures or my memories.

Bureaucracy in Japan

2007-03-27T19:12:00.001-07:00

My friend "Jean-Guy"recently visited from China. As his most recent post stated, he was frustrated. He said there was a lot of inefficiency in China, both in the private and public sectors (please check out his blog for some recent examples of this). With Japan's so-called "Useless people" in mind, I wondered if maybe some of the extra steps / red tape he had to go through was because of the extra jobs that had to be created simply to keep everyone employed. His visit and concerns got me thinking about the bureaucracy or rather, what might perceived as bureaucracy by some foreigners, in Japan.

Shortly before his visit, I had watched the 1974 Sydney Pollack film, "The Yakuza", starring Robert Mitchum. Unlike most films dealing with Japan, this one avoided stereotypes and was actually pretty true to many aspects of Japanese culture (although Christina Kokubo as Hanako is obviously not raised in Japan - check out that accent! She's cute, though). Apparently, according to his Wikipedia entry, Mitchum was even offered protection by authentic Yakuza during the filming in Japan. Which is pretty cool. Too bad the film is currently suffering yet another pointless Hollywood remake (due this year). Anyway, there is a scene in the movie in which Mitchum's character is shown the Japanese Kanji character 道 and asked to identify it. He correctly guesses one aspect of its meaning: a street (pronounced "michi"). However, as he is informed, it also can mean a way or method (pronounced "doo"). He is told that this character's meaning is central to the Japanese way of life.

Indeed, this "do" (actually written with a long o, please don't bother to correct me Japanophiles, I'm just too lazy to type it in) is present in the names and spirit of many traditional Japanese cultures. It is the do of Japanese martial arts Judo and Kendo. It is the doo of sado/chado, the Japanese tea ceremony (literally the "way of tea"). It is the do of Bushido, the samurai code of chivalry. However, please don't be confused by the word "way". In the West, the word implies that there is more than one way. Here in Japan, you are usually dealing with the way. This is usually hard for Westerners (it was for me, anyway) to wrap their heads around.

In Japan, you have a society that is geared towards accommodating groups rather than individuals. There's even a famous saying encouraging conformity: "the nail that sticks up gets hammered down". In the West, the individual is king.There, "the squeaky wheel gets the grease": a person is weak if they don't complain about poor service in restaurants or they are foolish if they don't sue for an infraction that might be perceived as slight elswhere. In Japan, you have a fairly rigid and traditional educational structure that cannot be said to encourage critical thinking. In the West, "individuality" is encouraged, perhaps even at the cost of other developmental factors. In Japan, you have the concept of "kaizen", slow, continual, improvement. In the West, fix it. Now.

Having studied and visited Japan a few times before, not to mention having read countless books and seen quite a few docs on the subject, I was perhaps better prepared than most to deal with the inevitable culture shock. It's easy to be lulled into a false sense of complacency that "it's just like home" when there's McDonald's, tall buildings and TV just like in America, Canada, England, Australia, or wherever you're from. However, that stuff is literally just surface; underneath still lurks the ideas, beliefs, and predjudices of 2000 years of culture (quite a few of which were spent as a country closed to the rest of the world).

Yet, after Jean-guy had boarded his plane home, these thoughts were still milling around aimlessly in my head, kind of like large fish in a small tank. There were already various examples of the bureacracy here to consider:

• When I first arrived here, I was already familiar with the system. Things take a long time and usually involve a lot of paperwork. To get a bank account cost me three hours of my life (the bank stayed open later for us, however). One must get special seals made up to sign papers. To request special treatment or to even attempt to challenge the status quo is usually an excercise in futility. Thus, I willingly went with all suggestions given regarding phone plan, internet, purchases, etc. Despite my advice (and our supervisor's suggestion), another JET requested wireless internet. The papers went through, but he was denied service because "somebody already has wireless internet in that building". He had to spend three hours getting a special seal made in order to cancel the request!

• When I needed to go to the hospital on Thursday, I was informed that the hospital was "closed". Not only that, they close every Thurdsay! "Uh, what do people do if they happen to get seriously sick on a Thursday?" I inquired. Turns out an ambulance will come and take you to a far away specialist hospital. So, if you come, don't get sick on a Thursday.

This bureacratic approach also extends to the JET Programme. There are orientations, meetings, workshops, forms, etc. aplenty. I am of the slight impression that allowances are made to accomodate the Western view, however - people are pretty easygoing and don't expect the same reaction from an ALT as they would from a native. This is appreciated.

Speaking of forms, check out these excerpts from a survey the JET people sent us (please click on them to see a larger version):

Okay...the Mayor? Gestures and drawings? I chuckled.

Then I saw the recent response to this survey:

Out of 5494 JET participants, there were 4216 respondents. So, if .4% claim to have been assaulted by the Mayor, that's 20 people! As more than one JET might be in the same city, that could be the same Mayor... Interesting results.

It took my recent trip to Okinawa with the students for all these thoughts about bureacracy - especially regarding school - to coalesce. See if you notice anything about our schedule:

February 22 - 27: Multiple teachers meetings to discuss the trip

February 28:
6:10 a.m. - Teachers arrive at school for another, pre-trip teacher's meeting
6:40 - Students (and some parents) gather outside for departure ceremony. Though it's cold, some students are dressed for Okinawa weather (shorts, etc.) and are visibly freezing.
7:00 - Departure. Students use the bus microphone to deliver announcements and play games.
9:15 - Arrival at the departure airport. Students again sit outside for another meeting.
11:30 - Arrival at Okinawa. Students again sit, this time inside the airport, for another meeting.
11:40 - We get on the bus. There is a tour guide, who talks and sings through the bus mic.
12:20 p.m. - We arrive at the Okinawa Peace Museum. We all sit, and a woman host talks for at least an hour straight.
1:20 - We pile back on the bus and our guide tells us about our next location.
2:00 - We arrive at a cave, where our cave guide gives us an introduction outside for about 15 minutes.
2:15 - We enter the cave. After walking down into the main cave, the guide tells us the story of the cave. For about half an hour. In the cave.
3:20 - We get on the bus to a guide waiting to inform us about our hotel's details.
5:00 - We arrive at the hotel. After a short rest, we have dinner....
7:00 - after some announcements.
8:00 - Yet more announcements.
9:00 - Teacher's meeting.
11:00 on - Many students call our room until about 2am. Some are crank calls and some are students wanting to discuss their future with the vice principal.
The next two days - More of the same.

So... Too. Much. Talking! I really appreciated that I was allowed to go, but... There was a lot of teachers running around with clipboards, talking at students (and the rest of us), and people standing there with crossed arms trying to look important. It was frustrating. While I don't like having my time wasted, I especially felt sorry for the kids. At another school, kids go to school for at least 10 hours a day, every day, without a single day off for 12 months. At my school, one club is taken so seriously that the parents have requested that their kids get some free time - the kids are here every day including weekends. Every day, sometimes 10 or more hours a day. As I write this, it's a holiday and the kids are here, wearing their uniforms, some cleaing the school and some in club.

So, of course, this bureacracy permeates the Japanese school system as well, but here it has a much more military / authoritarian bent. Based on military ideas borrowed from the Europeans, school in Japan involves:

• Students wearing school uniforms. These are worn even on weekends and holidays. I often see the kids wearing them as I ride around town. These uniforms, made famous through anime such as Sailor Moon, etc., are actually based on Prussian military garb from a century ago.

• A military, march-in-line-while-chanting approach during almost all activities. The other day at school I heard what sounded like solidiers marching, except the voices were very high-pitched. Where once I would have asked, "what the hell is that?", I now am used to this approach to things (as well as the fact that it's difficult to get an answer to your questions). These marches continued for about an hour. Again, as I write this, the students are in the gym chanting while playing volleyball.

• Ritualized greetings at the beginning and end of classes. The student-teacher relationship is based mostly on the outmoded grammar-translation method, which focusses on the teacher rather than the student. One elementary school teacher once spent about 15 minutes (a long time in class) explaining how to correctly address me. Though I told him I really wasn't concerned, he told me it was more about maintaining respect for the other teachers.

• A "one right answer" approach. For example, during the ritualized greeting, students are asked, "How are you?" to which they robotically reply "FIne, thanks and you?" (usually pronounced as "finesanksandyou"). How deeply this response is ingrained in the Japanese psyche was made clear when, during our orientation, one teacher told us this tale of a Japanese exchange student: Suddenly the victim of stomach pains, his American hosts brought the boy to the hospital. Writhing with pain and clutching his stomach, he lay silent on the stretcher. The doctor leaned in and began examining him. "How are you doing there?" he asked. The boy was weak, but managed to croak out a reply...."fine, thanks and you?"

• Students cleaning the school at the end of every school day. This is done to a tape of two cheery, cartoony instrumentals that repeat. Students either use tongs to pick up garabage outside the school, push a broom along the hallway, or literally hop along the floor like frogs while pushing a rag in front of them to clean the floor. Theres also a yearly "grass-cutting" ceremony that involves all the teachers, parents, and students arriving at the school at 7:30 am on a day so incredibly humid that I was sweating on the inside. We were given small (maybe 12-inch) sickles, gloves, and instructed to cut the grass.

• Students of radically different mental and physical abilities and disabilities being thrown together in the same class. This becomes really clear when marking papers - it's either a 14% or a 90%. Also, some students have, well, serious emotional problems. "She's a good kid" I remarked about one cool girl. "Oh, she cuts herself" I was told. Huh? 13 years old and cutting her wrists? Maybe I'm just a jaded Westerner, but that sounds kinda, oh, you know - fucking serious!

• And so on.

Though of course I am from a foreign culture and shouldn't judge, it is perhaps easier for outsiders to view other societies objectively. As most of the problems here are of a social nature, doesn't it seem that the root of these problems might lie in the structure of the society? For example, ijime (bullying) is a recent social concern in Japan. The idea is that the student is different and that this difference should be stamped out. Many of these students take the rejection to heart and kill themselves. Similarly, later in life, if one is found lacking at work, that person is socially shunned (though not necessarily fired) and may end up killing themselves. There has even been a recent trend here towards so-called "suicide clubs", in which like-minded depressives meet each other online and gang up to off themselves. Doesn't there seem to be a theme here?

When I arrived in Japan the very first time, I thought that the reason for this conformity was biological: there was so many people in such a small place so, if even 1% of people deviated from the norm, it'd be messy. Thus, riualized answers are preferrred over critical thinking, uniforms over personal style (I can't tell you how many people don't like underground fashion or music in Japan) , etc. I still believe this to be a factor, though there appear to be other reasons.

These are not criticisms, just observations of real events. I love Japan and would only like to see things improve. This is obviously a large issue, so I'd be interested in any comments, especially from Japanese folks.

The elderly in Japan

2007-02-04T21:33:00.000-08:00

I realize many people won't read a blog entry titled "The Elderly" but, for reasons listed below, they really are a critical part of Japan. Also, you may be wondering why there is a pic of a devil accompanying the post. That will also be explained.

I always wanted to visit the elderly and disabled, at least once. I was inspired after I saw a documentary about elderly Japanese, forgotten by their children, who lived in onsens. I saw it in Canada, with my friend Yumiko. She was interested in palliative care and I was interested in Japan. In the doc, there was a cool old guy who still really enjoyed life: he was always talking to people, lounging around tanning, and such. Seemed like it'd be neat to hang with someone like that.

I was also inspired by Duplex Planet, a comic and CD series a guy had made from the tales of elderly people he had worked with at a nursing home. As far as the disabled, an inspired music teacher had created The Kids of Widney High, a band composed of mentally and physically disabled kids. He figured that it was more fun for them to write their own music for class than to sing boring traditional stuff. He was right; the band went on to become relatively successful, opening for Faith No More (Mike Patton was a big fan).

So, when I was offered the chance to spend a day (albeit a Saturday), chatting with residents of a nursing home and home for the disabled, I jumped at it. "At least once" I thought.

It must be noted that the elderly in Japan are in a unique situation. Though Japan has the highest life expectancy rate in the world, the population in general is rapidly aging. Currently, around 20% of folks are over 65. Also, the birth rates are among the lowest in the world and, if these rates continue, they say the population will drop to 100 million by 2050, and to 64 million by 2100.

Most of that 20% appears to live in my city. Many times, I've ridden past a rice field maintained by a woman who appears as if she SHOULD NOT BE ALIVE. Once, in Osaka, an old gentleman called me over to chat about Mormons. Though it's rude and discourteous to say this, it's also the truth: his shriveled visage made him appear as if he had just stumbled off the set of a Japanese version of Hellraiser (perhaps an poetic version as directed by Kurosawa). I'm exaggerating, but there's a definite trend of younger people moving to the cities.

The co-existence of these elderly folks, most of whom are fairly conservative and traditional in their thinking, with younger people such as the so-called Neets, Freeters, Otaku, Hikikomori, and the like leads to an interesting Japan. In contrast to these non-working loners and drop-outs, the elderly have a super-strong work ethic. This has led to situations such as described on Ed Jacob's Useless people page: elderly people who are given a token job just to keep busy. It's quite often that you can pass a construction site, street corner, or empty parking area manned (and it usually is a man) by an insanely old character wearing a helmet, glowing safety belt, and waving a baton at non-existent crowds.

Despite the exceptional lifespan, most of these elderly will not be around in 20 years. Discussion of this point usually revolves around who will fill the gap in the workforce. As many Japanese are opposed to the idea of immigration, this is a concern. However, there's another, less often discussed element: the loss of tradition. I saw a good example in a documentary the other day; the family of a craftsman in Kyoto had supplied special geta (slippers) to geisha for generations. However, his young son wasn't interested in maintaining the tradition - he wanted to do something he considered more interesting. So, the method will simply be forgotten and lost. That things change is usually a good thing, but you can't deny that it's a bit tragic that a bit of history will be lost. Yeah, I know, as a foreigner it's ridiculous to pine for a forgotten Japan that I never knew...however, I do know that geisha, even if only due to their relative rarity, are more interesting than the inevitable McDonald's, Starbucks, and parking lots that it seems will inevitably take their place; if every place is the same, why travel anywhere?

It was with these thoughts in mind that I rode down to the nursing home. Would my partner for the morning be a traditionalist, or maybe we'll talk about friends, family and the future... I ended up "chatting", though it was mostly one-way, with a lady who told me: 1. "You are intelligent" and 2. "We have different ways of thinking". As she didn't seem inclined to raise her head from her chest after telling me the latter for the second time, I took it to mean "get the hell away from me". So, I did. I moved to another table and talked with some gentlemen. I suggested a card game and they eagerly agreed. Then, I was pretty surprised to find that the place not only had no cards, they had no games of any kind. I dunno...isn't that weird? There was only a big screen TV and what passed for conversations (no-one was talikin' much) to keep these guys occupied. So, there wasn't any war reminiscences or touching "bridging the generation/culture gap" scenes.

After that, we went to a home for the disabled. However, there was way more of us visitors (about 18) than residents (4 or 5). We had a contest regarding Setsubun, a yearly holiday. Luckily, I lost, as the "prize" was being allowed to demonstrate the holiday: people chant "devils out, good luck in" while throwing beans at symbolic devils. So,in what was the highlight of the day, the three "winners" were instructed to don huge devil masks and find a hiding place. After they came out of hiding, they were vigorously pelted with dried beans. By us. The kids that were present had fun, but by the end we were all hurling handfuls of the stuff at the unfortunate demon-people. It was pretty cool, and I'm sure we totally rid the place of any lingering evil. The beans will probably be there for a while, though.

Then, we each took turns introducing our relative cultures. Keira did a great job of introducing Ireland via an interactive song. Our group of Canadians encountered the usual issues regarding introducing the wonders of Canadian cuisine, culture, etc....there really isn't any. Well, to clarify, the place really is international: I used to live in Little Italy, maybe walk through a parade in Chinatown or Little Portugal, eat Vietnamese food, go to Little Tokyo (a store) to check out Japanese stuff, and walk back home through Koreatown. It's a beautiful, multicultural (interestingly, in my research I discovered there is no word for "multicultural" in Japanese) country, but has no clear culture. Which is really only a problem in situations like this one, when your audience is making comparisons between the countries. Visit the place and make your own decisions.

Overall, it was a good day. It's hard to tell exactly what, if any, impression was made upon the seniors, but the second place was cool. Anything that involves devils and whipping stuff has got to be worthwhile. Apparently, my picture - maybe a shot of me annoying the old lady; I haven't seen it yet - ended up in the newspaper too, which is good stuff. Hey, congratulations: you made it to the end of this post on the elderly!

Bicycles in Japan

2007-02-01T02:55:00.000-08:00

There's a memorable Japanese movie called "Afterlife" about, uh, the afterlife. Those people who have died are sent to a limbo where they must choose a defining or happiest moment in their lives. The "staff" of this limbo (composed of volunteers from the dead) are then given the task of recreating this moment. Using props, they do so, and the departed checks out with this memory in their mind.

I have never been much of a cyclist, preferring to walk, but when I arrived in Japan the Board of Ed kindly supplied me with a cool silver bicycle. After seeing my minimalist apartment, I decided to furnish it entirely in black, white, and silver. Thus, I was happy to have a silver bike.

On the first day of school, I rode up to the empty parking lot and parked my bike. It's a cliche, but Japan is very safe. I've left my keys - and even groceries and other items - in my bike and there's been no problem. The only problem usually is the lack of places to park. There's guys that ride around and check if bikes are parked legally. If not, they post a note or chuck it in the back of a truck. Anyway, when I came out after school, I couldn't find the bike.

The problem was not that the bike was gone, it was that the students had come and parked their bikes - all 300 of them. And, of course, they were all silver. All of them. As I'd only ridden my bike for a few days, I couldn't quickly identify it. A teacher saw me stumbling around looking for it. "Need any help?" he asked. "No, thank you - I'm okay". Yet, he recruited a bunch of other teachers to come and look for it. "It's cool - I'm sure it's here...". Then, someone called the kyoto-sensei (vice principal). He showed up, frowning, "If it's stolen, we'll have to cancel these meetings and also call the police". I assured him that it was certainly there somewhere, "Who would wade through all these bikes just to steal mine? It's here, I've just gotta find it". Of course, it was there and I found it about five minutes later. Still, it was an interesting experience. My kyoto kept ribbing me about "losing" it for the next few days.

Police in Japan often stop cycling foreigners (non-Japanese) and request their ID. The idea is that the bike may be stolen. Most, if not all, of the other ALT's here have had this experience. I haven't, although I had it happen to me in Osaka on my second trip to Japan. Unfortunately, I only had about three hours sleep, so I wasn't in the best of moods. Picture a crowded parking lot, with many Japanese people and one foreigner (that would be me.) No other people are stopped or questioned. The conversation (in Japanese) went something like this:

Police: Are you a foreigner?

Me: Yes.

Police: Do you have your passport? (at all times, visitors must carry a passport, foreign residents a special card)

Me: No.

Police: Is this your bike?

Me: No. (it was my host sister's, who luckily was with me).

Police: Can you speak Japanese?

Me: Yes, a little. (remember, the entire conversation so far was in Japanese.)

They then turned to my host sister and confirmed that I wasn't crazy and also hadn't stolen the bike. At the time, I thought "How ludicrous - why would I travel across the world to steal a girl's bike?". I can't remember, but I think I may have asked them if they were also stopping Japanese poeple. However, I now know that they could have made it very difficult for me as I wasn't carrying my ID. I've heard tales of people being forced to write (and present in court!) a formal apology, or even being thrown in jail for this offence. When you consider that the country has a 99% conviction rate, it's best to carry the card.

Returning to "Afterlife", riding my bike through the streets while listening to "Yes, she is my skinhead girl" by Unrest or other such fare might be a choice for a defining moment; there's something special about wheeling past empty fields and pachinko parlours at top speed. It's not perfect: the sides of the roads here have a foot-deep gutter on the sides. Also, many streets don't have lights, so nights are almost like a David Lynch movie: you never knew it could be so dark. Combine this with the driving on the left, the incredibly narrow streets (often just wide enough for one car - the other must back out), and a couple of draft beer and well...I'm lucky to be here. A dive into that gutter at a good speed might be enough to take out any future Bonsai-superstars. Also, 10 years or so ago, Japan was more lenient on drinking and driving (post on this coming up), but now they have a zero tolerance policy. I'm told this even extends to bikes, but luckily there's been no issues thus far.

Still, I've ridden up hills and between mountains. I saw a huge group of birds circling for 10 minutes. I've ridden, many times, with bags of groceries on the handlebars. I rode with an ex-gf sitting on the back wheel. The latter is something couples often do here, which I think looks very cute, so I've always wanted to do it in Japan. Sometimes, the girl is standing, which is alarming when this 8-foot tall thing suddenly comes wheeling past you from behind on the sidewalks of Osaka. Once, I saw a couple riding through the shotengai (a long outdoor shopping mall) in this fashion, whipping through the crowds while a cop chased them on foot, shouting "Orite! Orite!" (get down!). They didn't even look back.

Vending Machines in Japan

2007-01-31T14:06:00.000-08:00

"You're going to Japan? Did you know they have vending machines that sell used schoolgirl's underwear there? It's a crazy place!!!"

I heard this often before (and even after) coming to Japan. Yet, I've never seen or heard of such a thing. Vending machines are ubiquitous here due to the high population, but the majority sell juice, followed by cigs and food. Though supposed urban-legends busters Snopes claim the story is true (based on a '93 article in the Economist), and this page claims to have a pic of one (scroll about halfway down), the legend, such as it is, is debunked here. Wikipedia also claims the story to be true but lacks any verification. Though revered as an authority, Snopes is definitely not infallible; it's funny how they print the date of the Economist article but use the present tense for the claim, based only on unidentified "numerous readers in Japan". A more interesting question is why so many people wish for this fantasy to be a reality. I will write about this later.

Vending machines here do stock an assortment of uncommon items. I've seen some selling milk (doesn't it have to be changed quite often?), fresh shirts (for salarymen that have missed the last train and stay out all night), quite a few sell tickets (for food, queues, etc.) and of course, beer and sake. I was looking forward to using the latter, as my favorite beer is Sapporo and there's something fun about vending machines. I was happy to find one in front of my apartment, but it unfortunately stocks only juice. Investigation revealed that, recently, alchol-vending machines are available only in front of sake shops. This doesn't make much sense to me: given that the prices are pretty much the same, doesn't it seem redundant to have a machine selling beer in front of a store selling beer? Further, they shut off at 11 pm. It's probably for the best anyway, given drinking habits here (I'll write about this later as well).

Many people aren't aware that quite a few celebrities (such as Brad Pitt and Harrison Ford) come to Japan and make Japan-only adverts. For example, here's Tommy Lee Jones hawking "Boss" brand coffee drinks on a vending machine.

Here's another brand of coffee. Can you think of a celebrity that might make a good sponsor for this?

Buddhism

2007-01-29T12:49:00.000-08:00

Actually, this post isn't about Buddhism.... I simply wanted to update y'all while posting Japan-focused only entries. However, there is a bit of karma / cyclic action here in the three things that recently happened:

1. Prior to coming to Japan, I had an iBook that required three (!!!) logic board replacements. I didn't want to bring a crap laptop to Japan, so I bought a new Macbook. Of course, as soon as I got here it started having so-called RSS (Random Shutdown Syndrome), but I fixed this. Then, recently CD's wouldn't eject and the keyboard wasn't able to be cleaned. it wouldn't connect to the net at all anymore. I had to bring it to Osaka to get it fixed and mailed back to me. So I had no way to email or post here. Then...

2. In what must surely be symbolic on some level, my Japanese celphone was doused in maple syrup. I tried to wipe it off with a moist rag, which sent it into "totally non-working" mode (I had put the maple syrup in my bag to show elementary school kids the "foods of Canada"). So, I had no computer or phone. Then....

3. I had a pretty bad day at school. I'm pretty easygoing, but sometimes the kids - especially the 2nd years - can get on your nerves a bit. (Actually, there was a recent article in the Japan Times about how Japan is considering bringing back punishment in class to restore discipline!)

However,

1. When I received my comp back, they had put in a new screen, keyboard, CD drive, and updated the processor to the latest version, essentially giving me a new computer! It's working great. So, I promise to post more here.

2. It took me a while, but I managed to not only fix my phone, but also navigate through complex instructions (in Japanese) to install a cool interface for it.

3. When I got back to my desk on that fateful day, the 3-year students had left something on my desk for me (and only me): a couple of desserts they'd made, along with a personalized note.

So. I recognize that this is a boring entry, but I wanted to update you and let you know that I have more interesting entries (with pix!) partially written and also that I am still alive. The "Food" entry (second in demand only to the "Sex" entry according to reader feedback) is coming up soon, and I'll post at least once tonight. If there's something that anyone wants to see here(besides "pictures of girls" for Bolton), let me know.

Hong Kong

2007-01-13T00:09:00.000-08:00

I was intrigued by the "Acting Special Coffee" I saw in Shanghai Airport. After the waitress told me what it was (coffee with brandy), I responded, "I don't want to be acting that special". Ha ha. Yeah, she didn't think it was funny either. Turns out the name of the restaurant was "Acting Cafe". Arriving in HK early was a bit anticlimactic, as my anticipated host didn't show. This was further complicated by the net being down (due to the recent earthquake affecting Taiwan), and I hadn't brought my cel. All in all, I was at the airport for three hours - longer than my flight! My "plan" (simply show up and hope for the best) wasn't working out as well as my China trip. However, a guardian angel named Cathy (an ex-exchange student from my uni) arrived and brought me to downtown HK. I thought Chinese RMB would work well in HK, but was forced to change my money again.

There was a bit of worry about finding a hotel (it being close to New Year's Eve and all), but we actually found a pretty cool place: the Bridal Tea House Hotel in Yau Ma Tei. We were initially concerned by the name and heart-decorated logo, thinking it was a love (sex) hotel. However, we were assured by the staff and the interior that it was a reputable establishment. It was literally steps away from the famous market street. Thus, we were able to check out pirated Doreamon slippers and other counterfeit goods moments after check-in. Next, we had fantastic seafood from some street stalls. So, everything turned out great after all.

The next day I hooked up with a friend and we spent the day relaxing and talking by the waterfront. The weather was warm enough that a few people were even wearing shorts. We walked along and talked, stopping by a Hollywood-style "Walk of Fame" with hand-prints of people like Chow Yun Fat, John Woo, Maggie Leung, Stephen Chow, and, of course, Jackie Chan (who, surprisingly, is not so well-liked in HK due to frequent womanizing). After another seafood dinner, we tried some desserts. Although I am on an adventerous kick, I didn't feel like trying the "nutritious" dessert made from bird's spit. Just didn't feel like bird's spit at the time, is all. At night, we saw the famous sea side light show. Happily enough, this was accompanied by fireworks. China is known as the home of fireworks, and these didn't disappoint. In fact, they were probably the best I've ever seen. As I've always wanted to check out the HK nightline after seeing it in movies and pictures, the whole thing was a positive experience for me.

The next day, more friends gathered and we spent the whole day sightseeing. We started off with a cable car ride over mountains and lakes. We discussed what might happen should the car fall into the water, and Cathy assured us she would be safe as she was so small she could simply swim out of the tiny, air-vent windows (however, it would be too bad for the rest of us). We all stopped for a small snack, and I had some turtle jelly (anyone know what this is? Is it made from or by turtles?) Next, we went to a cool village built on the water, Venice-style.They had a fishing-based economy, supposedly the last one of its type in HK (possibly due to be preserved by the government). After another great seafood meal, we were lucky enough to go inside one of the resident's houses (Cathy's aunt happened to live there, although she was away at the time). We were all curious about the "toilet", which turned out to be a board in the floor that you simply lifted up. Interestingly, Cathy's aunt had upgraded to a Western-style toilet - which still evacuated directly into the water below.

From the depths of those mire-infested waters, we traveled up a mountain to see Buddha. This was surrounded by a small village that seemed to be based on an unlikely combination of both the teachings of Buddha and Walt Disney. There were many touristy type "shows" that turned out to be the animated adventures of Buddha. For example, we saw one that seemed to suggest that greed (or hunger) is a negative trait: a monkey and his friends strive to get an apple from a statue. Yet, in an unintended mimicry of animal experimentation, he is tortured for his efforts (given electric shocks, force fed food, etc.). After this, he apparently learns that greed (as well as extended pain) is bad. Okay, lesson taken: consumerism is bad. After that, we followed the "Eight Steps" of Buddha (they were literally large steps in the ground) to a "right" existence. Where did these steps lead to, you might wonder? Why, to the souvenir shop, of course, where one might purchase a stuffed monkey such as we saw in the film.

After that, we took the cable car back. However, as there were lengthy lines, we chose to take the quicker route and go for "standing room only". We again discussed our possible deaths by crashing, but were consoled by the fact that we would be cushioned from the blow by the bodies (the other, seated people in the car) surrounding us, as they would provide a buffer between us and the metal. We discussed this in English, of course. Then we met more people for dinner.

From there, we went on to The Peak, a mountain with a great view of the city. It was New Year's Eve. As I had to leave early the next morning and the crowds were incredible, we decided to head back for the city. After I wished the hotel staff a Happy New Year's, I fell asleep to the sound of thousands of car horns honking. It was 2007.

After the anarchy of Shanghai, where no-one, and I mean no-one, pays attention to the street lights (people drive with one foot on the gas and one hand on the horn), HK was surprisingly reminiscent of Japan. My friends chastised me when I didn't pay attention to the street lights. Also, it was very clean, and there was a lot of foreigners. Further, Japanese goods were popular and I even saw a "Nihongo resource center". Again, like China proper, there was a suprising amount of Christmas decorations. The subway was also cool - maybe not as nice as Nanjing's though. When I went to the airport to get omiyage (souvenirs to give Japanese co-workers), one sales-person helped me out a lot as she knew what Japanese customers liked. The coolest thing I got there was Icy-Crispy Dragon Beard Candy, supposedly made for the emperor years ago. I was able to try a piece and... believe the hype: I don't like candy or sweets so much, but it was great. A kind of nutty, cool flavor. I bought a couple of boxes and am saving it for a special day.

Ultimately, thanks to all my friends, I was able to enjoy the best of HK in a very limited time. I am thinking of going back there, maybe even to work. Though it took me four hours to get from HK to Kansai airport, it ended up taking me five (!) hours (four trains and one bike ride) to get home from there. I slept for about 14 hours.

China

2007-01-03T17:59:00.000-08:00

I went to China from Dec. 24 to Dec. 29. At my university, I was a guide to 18 visiting teachers from China, so they invited me to visit them. They picked me up at the airport, some traveling up to 10 hrs to meet me. They planned my entire trip, four cities in four days: Shanghai, Suzhou, Nanjing, and Changzhou. Though I brought a lot of money, they insisted on paying for my hotel, meals, and travel.

Interestingly, there were Christmas decorations everywhere; sometimes, it almost seemed as if there were more than there was in Canada. Quite a few people were wearing Santa hats and most places were coated with decorations. Apparently, there's a bit of controversy over this in China as it's perceived as Westernization (when I entered at the airport, I had to sign that I wasn't bringing in porn, drugs, or anything "deleterious to the morals of China" or somesuch).

Starting off in Shanghai, we walked through the dirty, crowded streets and found the hotel. It was great to see everybody again. We then went to a nearby restaurant. "What are those carts?" I asked my hosts, about a group of street merchants with huge, hand-pulled carts gathered on a corner. "A kind of fast food", they told me. Suddenly, this was literally true as the cops arrived: the guys grabbed their carts and scattered with amazing speed. Everybody laughed. The restaurant was festooned with decorations. Despite a waitress (in a santa hat, natch) openly investigating the contents of her nose, the dinner was great. The fish, freshly killed, was especially delicious. When my host asked me if they have such good beer in Japan, I couldn't help noticing and, yes, pointing out, that it was Suntory we were drinking.

After dinner, we went for a "must see": a night stroll along the HuangPu river. It was quite beautiful. I remembered suddenly that it was Christmas Eve. We went shopping through the street market and I was happy to find an interesting experience I had been warned of (by friends and Wikitravel): a young lady planting herself in front of me, asking in English, "Hi! Where are you from?" Apparently, the scam is to lure you into a teahouse, order some "cheap" food and then pull the old switchereoo on the menu, footing the unwitting foreigner with the outrageous bill. So, I replied to her in Japanese. She knew that too: "Sabishii", she replied while pointing to herself. "Lonely, lonely", she helpfully translated, apparently doubting my Japanese heritage.

The next day, we shopped a bit in Shanghai and I saw a second version of this. We'd be talking, and a guy would wander over and stand there, staring at us and listening to our conversation. I had heard a bit about this, but I couldn't help but burst out laughing how nonchalantly one guy did this. After a while, these guys would ask what you wanted to buy or where you wanted to go and offer their services as a guide. Some people worked really hard to try to get the job, so I felt a bit bad, but my hosts just brushed them away.

Another thing that was interesting about the market was how many people could suddenly speak English when they saw me. "Hello! Hello!" "Come in" "Look around" were the words of the day. However, I appreciated that people tried to speak English and appeared to really want to in contrast to Japan, where the popular reaction to English might even be called fear. Anwyay, I saw a great pair of black silk pajamas, but didn't get them as they were slightly small and regretted it ever since as I wound up looking for them (and trying to explain what they were in my crap Mandarin) in every city. I did however get a great pair of black silk kung fu-styleees.

Then, it was on to Suzhou, which was a really cool city. There was a bit of a trendy area with a lot of younger people (I have especially fond memories of the two girls who smiled and waved while enjoying lollipops. Yes, I know. But it's true), which was cool. Girls' syle in China now is cowboy boots and tight jeans, which works for me. Another great memory was myself and two teachers riding a tricycle built for two (the driver convinced us we could fit) through the lively streets. The next day, we went to no less than three cultural attractions: The Tiger Hill (the #1 sight in Suzhou, it's a kind of pagoda), Hanshan Temple(another pagoda-like structure, with lots of open parlour rooms and a nice garden), and The Humble Administrator's Garden (it seemed that a lot of the English naming and and on the signs was direct translations via the dictionary, leading to some awkward "The Verdant Pond of Viewing Many Lotus Roots" type-English). Though they were all great, the highlight was definitely the latter.

The weather was perfect and it wasn't too crowded. The garden was large and we just wandered around enjoying it. At one point we just sat at a kind of gazebo, not talking, just resting. A really good memory.

That night, we left for Nanjing. As I sat on the train studying my Mandarin refresher, a cute girl sitting next to me basically poked her head in and made comments. "Ni hao", I greeted her. She turned out to be pretty nice, and had good English (the result of being an exchange student).

Though Nanjing was great for the fact that I got to see my friends again, the weather was really foggy and they weren't from that city, so there wasn't much to see. I did some shopping and got a hanko (name stamp) made for a friend in Japan. As we were walking through the shopping area, who did I see but the cute girl again, our meeting awkward this time due to the presence of some guy who was probably her boyfriend.

I took a train alone to Changzhou (one of the teachers paid a small fee for a ticket to ensure I got on the train okay!). This is notable because the trains were like the situation you see in films about travelers through India or something. Everybody fights for a seat, ticket or not. Those without seat tickets or luck stand, for up to three or four hours! I should mention at this point that, when I walked through the train station (and for most of my visit), I was the object of unabashed stares. I had read that this was true of Japan a few years ago - and it's still true to an extent - but this was more straighforward.

Changzhou was almost as cool as Suzhou. We went to a spicy food restaurant where we had "gong fu" (kung fu) tea. This was a tea kettle with an elaborately long spout. Pouring it was an art, so it was something to see. Also, due to my plan to eat as many offbeat/unusual things as possible while I can, I had ...worms. Or, at least, some kind of bamboo bug. Take a look. They were pretty dry - almost dusty. The restaurants were truly luxury: at least one waitstaff per person, constantly bringing food, refilling your tea, refilling your beer... it was nuts. "Eat more, eat more", the teachers urged me. After all, "you are a man!". I laughed: in Japan you have to drink to prove you're a man, here you have to eat. I've gained so much weight since coming to Japan it's unbelievable.

Speaking of Japan, whenever I brought anything Japanese up, there would usually be an uncomfortable silence. Some of the more easygoing people would just admit, "Actually, we don't like the Japanese". This did not surprise me, given the history between the two countries (and Japan's reluctance to admit any culpability). I had an interesting conversation about this with a cool guy who was my guide in the morning. He stated his opinion that, if Japan admitted it's cultural debt to China (language, politics, food, probably even racial/heritage), then Japan would have to accept China's Confucianist "respect your elders" doctrine and admit they were second to China. An interesting theory, to be sure. I only saw a few Japanese tourists in Suzhou, but most of my Japanese co-workers told me, "I wish I could go with you" when I told them I was going to China.

There were a few interesting cultural points brought to the fore in Changzhou. For example, waiters would suddenly bring a fork and knife before the meal, apparently convinced by my foreignness that I couldn't use chopsticks. Though well-intentioned, I never used them. Another weird point was the exaggerated explanations of one of my hosts. Showing me around the hotel room, she pointed to the TV, explaining, "this is a TV". She also showed me an amazing invention: "This is a telephone". I remembered back to our meal when she had introduced me to fish: "This is a fish". At the time, I wasn't sure if she was, unsure of her English, practicing. Or maybe she wanted to say "This is _the_ fish", "This is _the_ TV".

Also, as mentioned prior (nose-picking waitress), the etiquette was a bit different. The rumors I had heard about people spitting everywhere were true. Check out this sign from my floor at an upscale hotel in Changzhou: Yes, that "no phlegm" rule has gotta be worth a star or two to Lonely Planet.

After the meal, we went to a dinosaur park. My host called me over, "Look! Come here!". I came over. It was a fossil. "It is a fish", she told me. I looked at the plaque. It said "Fish". I thought to myself, "my life sometimes is unbelieveably strange. How can I make money or create something useful from these experiences?".

At the park, it looked like all the English signage had been corrected by computers. That is, it would be (relatively) gramatically correct and correctly spelled, but still unusual English. There was a no-photo rule, but I still remember how something or other had been listed as going on for "one-handed years". There's a really good joke in there somewhere. Some other offbeat English I saw:

Sorry, I guess you can't see that red sign on the left. It says, "Crb pink and small basket from southing. Dumpling Med weth the orary and digestive glands of a crab and Zhenjiang. Dumpling stuffed with The ovary And Digestive Glands of a crad" (sic).

I also had to buy a tube of Darlie, the toothpaste formerly known as Darkie. I was reminded of when I first saw the Whity store in Japan. I feel guilty for even wondering if the Whity store ever sold Darkie at one point. I do.

After the park, we went shopping for a few things I wanted to buy: black pajamas, a black jacket, black sheets, and black towels. After being told that I wouldn't be able to find these things because, "In China red is luck and black is....unluck", I wasn't able to find these things. There was also a Borat-like approach to escalators that we won't get into here.

The teachers offered me five (!) seperate jobs, teaching English at their respective schools. Though, as noted, the Chinese seemed like eager English students (as opposed to some "Eigo kirai" (I hate English) students here) and everybody was totally kind, I don't know if I could hack the governmental limitations, the lack of personal space, or the spitting. I will definitely try to go back to see more of China: Beijing, Xian, Dalian, etc.

The Jet Programme

2006-12-23T03:57:00.000-08:00

The Jet Programme was started about 30 years ago by the Japanese government in order to promote internationalization. Those applicants who pass the rigorous interview process are accepted to live and work in Japan as an assistant to the (mainly Japanese) English teachers. Originally a partnership with Britain, it has expanded to around 40 countries.

The Canadian (Toronto) version of the Programme was fairly impressive. Traditionally, a limited variety of misfits and outcasts claim to be "interested in Japanese culture". This usually translates to an unhealthy fixation with manga (Japanese comics), There's also the karate / kendo crew, forever going on about the size of their "dojo". There's a bit of overlap here with the "exotic" Japan crowd, who long to be part of the tea ceremony & flower arranging. Last, but not least, are those who are attracted by the allure of what is claimed (on sites such as Big Daikon) to be easy/high pay for little/no work. Yet, the Toronto crowd were pretty smart, cool people. Further, critics of the Programme say that there is a bias towards blond, blue-eyed males or attractive, big-busted females (the argument is that the Japanese students won't feel they are being taught by a "real" foreigner if they are black, Indian, or, especially, Asian). However, Toronto participants offered a wide range of people: long-haired, pierced, black, gay, you name it.

We had a pretty wide-ranging orientation in T.O. Unfortunately, due to my having focused on Japan in my studies (3 years East Asian Studies and about 5 years personally), I was familiar with most of the info already. It may be overkill, but I'm always ultra-organized, and had already itemized the relevant / necessary info. A few other people did as well, but, as many of these people were leaving the country / living alone for the first time in their lives, it looked like a lot of this was to console Mom and Dad that Timmy / Tammy was going to be okay.

Before we left, we had a final meeting at which we were told not to embarrass the Programme "like two people from Canada did last year". The next day at the airport, I found out that this was referring to a person who had attempted to skip out on a taxi bill and another who had left suddenly in the middle of the work year. Actually, as I waited in the airport lounge, a fellow JET was talking about their reservations about life in Japan. About a week later, this same person dropped out of the Programme (before work had started).

When we went on to Tokyo for more orientation, the quality of the application procedure was confirmed: there were a lot of cool people. However, most people found three more days of orientation and mandatory workshops to be overkill and we were itching to go to our host prefectures.

About this blog

2006-11-19T02:16:00.000-08:00

I'm not really a fan of blogs. I've read that this generation will be the most recorded generation in history. Everyone has a blog, digital camera, videocamera, etc. However, most of the "information" being offered appears self-indulgent and useless: "Hey, thanks to your blog, your grandkids will be able to find out what grandpa had for breakfast on November 19, 2006!" I once worked with a guy who had created hundreds of PowerPoint presentations consisting solely of minute-by-minute photos of his newborn kid. Who wants to see that? I mean, really? What is the value of all this information being presented and preserved?

There's also a romantic aspect to mystery. I once wrote about how *69 technology signalled the death of the crank phone call: now you know who's calling. The case for UFO's has really dwindled due to the fact that everyone has a digicam now; if UFO's existed to the extent previously thought, surely there'd be convincing video footage by now? Finally, how about the ultimate mystery, conspiracy theories? It's much harder to make the case for these due to the internet - everybody's a reporter.

While these are of course all "good things" (and I could never return to the pre-internet lifestyle) you have to agree about the lack of romance aspect. It's like those theories that love is just a chemical imbalance and music is just a series of signals designed to relax your brain - they may be true, but they are unwelcome truths.

For that reason, I considered not creating a/this blog. Another reason was that there is already a plethora of "Timmy / Tammy goes to Japan and isn't it weird here!" blogs on the net. Besides being boring, these blogs promote the "exotic Japan" element that Alex Kerr wrote about - it exists primarily in your mind as a screen that you put up over the "real" Japan. Oh, for example, there's one guy that blogs about being "kancho"-ed all the time (kancho is when someone's, usually a kid/student'a, fingers form a tent and they try to jam it up your butt). According to my experience / knowledge, I believe this person is exaggerating (at best) simply to get web hits. So, I don't want to contribute to the nonsense / misinformation / boredom.

Thus, I decided to create this blog to set the record straight. Though the exotic Japan blogs such as named above are popular, they're simply fantasy. So, while UFOs or kanchos might not exist to the degree we might have been led to believe, the truth can also be interesting. I hope that this blog will, to some small degree, help or inform someone somewhere. Your feedback, suggestions, and comments are mecha-welcome.

P.S. - Hi James & Jamie! I had donuts and coffee for breakfast today!