Japanliness

How to exist in Seoul

2011-02-11T16:53:00.000-08:00

Yesterday: DMZ, Pizza Hut, Participation in a high school class project, Seoul Tour, North Korean beer, 2 consecutive dinners, makkoli.

Today: Making Kimbap with hostel staff, browsing street markets, eating stall food, etc.

I'm back

2011-01-10T22:50:00.000-08:00

Hello again. It's been a while and a lot has happened. I have changed jobs, moved, and decided to extend my stay in Japan up to a 4th year. I no longer teach. I work at the prefectural office now. My bike was stolen along with my house keys. I have visited home and been visited by friends and family.

I believe strongly that one of the biggest reasons that one continues to not do something is inertia. So rather than trying to begin the burdensome process of bringing you up to speed, I am just going to post this short paragraph saying hello.

It's good to be back.

New policy

2010-05-27T23:15:00.000-07:00

As of next month, for the first time, we can come to work without a necktie. Wooo! The rules are turning upside down! Anarchy!

No seriously though, that will be nice. Also it's been a while. How are you? I have been to Bali, as you know, and I became a certified Advanced Adventurer in scuba diving. Despite my better judgment, I went out for the 5 day advanced course, despite coming down with HORRIBLE BRONCHITIS on the first day and CRIPPLING CONGESTION. I was uncomfortable, but at least my lungs didnt explode and I'm no worse for wear.

I am on the up and up. I am rapidly readapting to single life which, it turns out, isn't that bad. I have been staying very busy on purpose and exercising almost every day for the last month. After all, becoming sexier is the best revenge.

Anyway, here are some pitchers:

Jenn's mom meets us for some authentic charsew in Hong Kong. We wash the utensils in the complimentary tea "just to be sure they're clean."

words cannot describe how good this is.

Welcome to Bali.

Our first dinner? Fresh seafood. We picked our own lobster from this bin.

Grilling our fish.

About half the inhabitants of bali at any one time are obese Australians in Bintang tank tops. This one is eating a chili dog.

Balinese cuisine

A fisherman. Taken from our scuba diving boat

Our hotel had a really big bathtub.

Certified "Advanced Adventurers!" This arm thing was my "trip pose"

Artists at work in Ubud

Musicians accompany a performance depicting the folk history of Bali

Playing in the "Monkey Forest" of Ubud

In addition to the "visa fee" there is also a fee to be paid for LEAVING, which they dont tell you about until you are about to board your flight. And the only ATMs are outside of security. Way to leave a bad taste in our mouths, Bali.

Completely unrelated, but I MADE RICOTTA CHEESE! WOOO! This is so good. You have no idea. Yes, I'm better than you.

I love you, Hong Kong

2010-04-29T03:56:00.000-07:00

I am on a much needed vacation after getting dumped last week. More on that later. Right now I am smitten with a new love: on the way to 8 days in Bali, we stopped in Hong Kong overnight.

Hong Kong is AMAZING. Let me rephrase that. Hong Kong is maybe the coolest place I have ever been. Between eating plae after plate of Carsew pork, duck, and fried noodles; mulilevel tech bartering markets that fill whole office-sized buildings; hookah bars; Chickin Tikka kebabs, affordable, decent beer, and impromptu dance performances in the middle of the streets on Wednesday nights, it seems I have falled deeply in love with this city. And we've only just met. Oh dear.

I have to give props to Jenn Chan, who was the best tourguide a boy could ask for during our short romp through HK. She spent 8 years of her life there, and so it is less of a magical exciting affair for her and more of a chance to show some friends her hometown. Our 22 hours there felt more like a week, and now we are settling into our resort in Bali. Much of day 2 has been spent waiting in customs at Despansar airport, which is an unfortunate place with poor organization. and lots of confused people in crowds.

Bali has a high bar to reach, but I have a feeling that it won't disappoint. More later. BYE.

wandering mind

2010-04-14T00:13:00.000-07:00

I was in the office retrieving some supplies for the new year and as I closed a sliding door to a drawer, a corner of one folder was sticking out so that the door closed on it.

At that same very moment an office dude let out a pained groan and I had a private little moment of entertainment imagining that the office staff is connected physiologically to the office supplies which they purvey a la Avatar.

Also I think maybe I've been slowly losing my sanity.

Over and out.

Names to remember for when I become an MC or DJ

2010-04-12T20:37:00.000-07:00

O.G. san (Ojiisan)
MC Escher
Spatial Ghost

Saturday morning

2010-03-05T21:46:00.000-08:00

I have nothing special for you today, besides the fact that I'm eating this divine brunch on a leisurely Saturday afternoon. However, it's been a while since I have had a day like this to write to you, so I thought I'd hit you with some fresh thought-juice.

The third semester at school is rapidly drawing to a close, and I have been working the poor first-years like a slave driver to complete a final project for my class: Show and Tell. Much like American kindergartners, my students will each bring a small object (or picture of a larger object) and describe it to the class in English. It has been a major improvement on last year's final project, wherein the students gave a speech about their "future plans." What I like about Show and Tell is that the topic of discussion is linked directly to a tangible object from the kids' own lives. Needless to say, it has been interesting to see what they bring.

Hands down, the top popular choices have been: cell phone charms, keychains, and mechanical pencils. This represents a good 60% of the speeches because (a) everyone has them and (b) they are often given as gifts or souvenirs. On a linguistic note, these are called keitai charm, key holder, and sharp-pen respectively in Japanese-English.

While there are plenty of such cop-out topics, some of the more interesting choices have been: The autograph of an stunt pilot who subsequently died in a later airshow, a picture of a pet parakeet, a science magazine, A ring from Australia, and so on.

So as you can see, it is just as interesting for me to observe the students, as it is for them. Moreso, actually, by and large. I like watching the decision process and seeing their attempts to describe what is important about these things. The downside is that I have had to hand-check about 300 1-page essays, but as always with that process, I have learned as much about Japanese as they have about English. A lot of the same mistakes seem to come up over and over again, and the more Japanese language I know, the more understandable these errors are. But that's a topic for another post. Another blog entirely in fact.

And on that note, I would like to introduce you to a spin-off blog I have been working on. It's called Student English and it will be devoted entirely to the funny things my kids write, say and occasionally do, with an emphasis on highlighting their written work.

By all means, c heck it out at your liesure. Names will be blurred to protect the insane.

Also, I have begun a collaborative blog with a few of my friends, dedicated to the things we eat here in Japan. I have been meaning to start a food blog for ages, so this is right up my alley. The last 12 posts are mine, at the moment. Give it a gander.

THAT WILL BE ALL. STAY TUNED.

「バッ〜ン’」していいよ

2010-02-21T21:54:00.000-08:00

Last Friday I met up with an old teacher from my school. He had been working here for over 10 years already by the time I rocked up at the school, but he was transferred the following spring for a stint at the bureaucratic "Education Center" for purported self-study and training.

Though he was not an English teacher, he had an interest in international culture and always made an effort to make small talk with me in English. Not the boring thoughtless small talk that people usually make either, such as "So do you like Japanese food?" "Cold today isn't it!," etc.) ...No! he'd ask me interesting questions and treat me like a peer, so we became casual office friends.

Anyway, he still lives in my town, so the other day he took me out for dinner at a great local Yakitori shop and then we hit up a local Snack Bar, where he has been a regular for 16 years. Apparently he has a bit of a crush on the hostess who was young, as was he, when they met in his single days. He would often go there on weeknights, pass out and spend the night, heading to work in the morning. He says that the students used to make fun of him for having whiskey on his breath. But to see the gentleman today you'd never know it.

At any rate, the man whom I happened to pull up a stool next to at the Snack Bar happened to be the father of one of my students. To be specific, he was the dad of the loudest kid in my loudest (40 boys!) class. This guy was good people and we more or less had the following conversation:

"Hey, you know if my kid is being a dumbass in class, feel free to just whack him upside the head"

"Hahaha! Ok got it! But seriously though, no i wouldn't dream of it!"

"No seriously, it's cool!"

"Awright, awright."

{20 or 30 minutes later}

"Hey you know... if my kid is being a dumbass in class, feel free to just WHACK him upside the head."

"Hahaha, okay okay, but i wouldn't dream of it! Really!"

The kid is really clever as hell, just rowdy. In fact he is the pupil mentioned in the PAIZUREE post.

Later he called his kid up on his cellphone and forced him to talk to me. The poor boy seemed kindve confused, and not all too pleased. But a funny night nonetheless.

びっくりした

2010-02-01T16:46:00.000-08:00

In Japan, very few things are less desirable than an event occurring without a plan. Even worse is when things do not turn out as planned, or when a person breaks from the plan. Of course the whole social web of etiquette is one big plan to keep everyone happy, or minimally at peace with their misery.

Enter the foreigner, who is not literate in the language of the social landscape. Or, enter the KY Japanese man or woman who may be socially dimwitted, or simply does not give two shits about maintaining the cherished group harmony--and yes these people do exist in droves, even in Japan. All of a sudden our happy bullet-train to social harmony is derailed. The plan is shat upon and expectations are foresaken.

All this came to me while I was thinking over the expression "Bikkuri shita!" (I was surprised!) and how it is used. Obviously it is deployed in shocking situations, like when a baby panda sneezes...

but it it is also applied as a sort of scathing remark dealt to somebody violates the expected protocol (*note that there is nothing more rude than violating the expectations of others). It is not directly confrontational (making it perfect for the Japanese), but it gracefully draws attention to the fact that the speaker has had his expectations violated by the actions of the listener. With the proper intonation, this can be skin-blistering. Observe...

Let's use this to our advantage!

肉定食１／２７：ヒレカツ

2010-01-27T21:17:00.000-08:00

A look at what goes on my pale green lunch tray at school:
We have a cafeteria staffed by six wonderful people who prepare our food every day. They have a dirt-cheap menu with over a dozen delicious items to choose from, including udon, fried rice, curry, katsu and all manner of donburi. But usually i go for the teishoku, a set meal consisting of a main dish (there is always a choice between meat and fish), some healthy vegetable sides, miso soup, and a bowl of rice for 380円. It changes every day and it's almost always delicious.　The only downside of the cafeteria is that you come out of there after 30 minutes smelling like fryer grease.

Today's meat teishoku was hirekatsu, which is a phonetic abhorration of "fillet cuts" in English. They are little pork medallions deep fried in panko. smaller and leaner than the average tonkatsu. very tasty. side dishes were a mixture of tuna, mayo and gobo (burdock), and oden: daikon and konyaku boiled in dashi. cabbage salad is served with almost everything, and the rice and miso soup make it a set.

The tea is oolong every day. Hot in the winter, cold in the summer.

いただきます！

The problem with paisley

2010-01-27T20:02:00.000-08:00

I was teaching a class last week on the colors and patterns of clothes. We got to the word "paisley," which is pretty tricky to pronounce, so we worked on it together a few times.

One student kept saying it in an exaggerated katakana way and his friends were laughing "PIE-ZUREE?! PIE-ZUREE!?!"

Then I realized that what he was yelling with all his might was not an honest struggle to achieve natural pronunciation, but 「パイズリ」, which is Japanese slang meaning "titty fuck"

I had to lol at this. It was the first time i've totally lost it due to a dirty joke in class. Freakin' hilarious.

Japanese TV: You are my best friend

2010-01-27T04:01:00.000-08:00

On this gameshow, contestents were playing 5-team pentagonal dodgeball, with pictures of "obscure" things like the Mexican flag silkscreened onto their uniforms. If a player managed to hit a member of another team, both players were brought to a corner of the stage where the striking player would have a chance to answer a question about the picture. A total of 4 players failed to identify this flag before the announcer gave them a hint by telling them to look closely at cactus in the emblem.

I think I've said it before, but it's worth saying again. I love Japanese TV. A man on a drama I'm watching just decapitated a doll in a wee-little guillotine and then stared at the woman in the room dramatically for like a minute.

Iloveit. Iloveit. Iloveit.

Then the other day I was watching a variety show. The episode was called "lonely christmas" even though it's late January. it was either a rerun or they were just pretending it was christmas. One member of the cast had recently broken up with his girlfriend and apparently he was really upset. To cheer him up, his friends decided to give him a girl for Christmas.

First, because his girlfriend was half-japanese (abbreviated "half"), so they said, they brought him to a terrace filled with 'half women nonchalantly checking emails on their cellphones. They urged him to go ahead and nanpa whomever he fancied. When that yielded no chemistry, they brought out a crowd of "new half" transvestites who ran on-camera and ravaged him in a dog-pile. One of the trannies tripped while running away, and all the variety show members yelled at him/her about it.

Then they brought him to a girls'-night-out style drinking party at a karaoke bar and plopped him in the middle of it. But all the women were overweight, eating fried food, and over-aggressively flirting at him. One of them kept getting up to go out for something, awkwardly having to traverse across everyone to get to the door, but every time she wound up with her ass or cleavage in the dude's face. Then she would promptly realize she forgot something at her seat and go back for it. This repeated itself 3 or 4 times. Finally, our hero ended up getting so fed up that he twisted her arm behind her back and plunged her face into the salad bowl. He held her down in the salad for a good minute or so as if he was trying to drown her in the toasted sesame dressing. Everyone on set had a good laugh.

Finally, because apparently the guy is good at saxophone, they put him on stage with a band at a 1950's Americana style hop. But unfortunately everyone at the hop was already in a couple, so finally one of the female crew members decided to go into the field and turn the tides. She ended up doing a flash-dance inspired routine, which abruptly turned into thriller and they wound up in a graveyard. At the end of the dance routine, they pushed the single guy into a grave filled with mud, and the tombstone read "AWFUL CHRISTMAS" in Japanese.

Hell yes.

weak sauce

2010-01-24T17:44:00.000-08:00

Just a word of warning to those who love Italian food:

when you order a pasta in Japan, it will be spaghetti 99% of the time.

If it comes with a tomato-based sauce, the main ingredient is ketchup 99% of the time

Japanese people think this is an acceptable way to make sauce 99% of the time.

But one man has dared to think differently. On a variety program last night, I saw a piece on a very fancy restaurant in Tokyo that serves Western food. The announcers were interviewing the head chef in the kitchen and learning all about how he makes the food so delicious. He was cooking a tomato sauce and had a nice pan of eggplants and green peppers going in olive oil. Then he slyly he produces a small glazed ramekin containing a tablespoon or so of a mysterious dark red substance. He turns to the camera and basically says "Now here is the secret: first I add a bit of tomato paste. THEN the ketchup. Because there is less ketchup in the sauce, it doesn't taste so sweet and vinegary."

Everyone in the studio audience ooo'd and ahh'd at his culinary innovation.

Damn. Damn damn.

And that is the story of why I only eat italian food when I cook it at home.

朝倉農業高校 and 日本の普通テレビ

2010-01-19T16:56:00.000-08:00

おはよう and good morning to you all.

On Monday I took my last visit to the soon-to-be-closed-down agricultural school. I have visitted this school every 2-3 months during my time here and seen their English department go from two teachers to just one as the school is slowly phased out. Upon arriving home I put a little something together which is now ready for your immediate consumption.

This episode features me rambling about my day for over 7 fun-filled minutes, followed by a brief, but rousing display of what's found on Japanese basic cable. I usually keep the tv going in the background whenever I'm home so that I can constantly practice listening to the everpresent and very difficult formal Japanese:

This week also features MikeMoments™, a hilarious outtakes reel highlighting my crippling awkwardness on camera:

Facebook users please see the original post for embedded video content.

evidence

2010-01-18T02:36:00.001-08:00

Some of the images from this year's exciting trip to Niseko, mentioned earlier.

Me and マイボード in FUK, terminal 2 (photocred Ryo).

Line starts here (photocred Ryo)

Coming into Sapporo. "Can you spot the snow?" (comment and photocred Andy)

The bus from Chitose to Niseko.

Finally. we arrive at our frozen paradise. (photocred Andy)

Our home in Niseko.

Morning view from the pension window.

Wake up, Niseko.

Wake up, Mike.

Wake up, Andy.

I'm probably explaining how totally gnarly and/or vertical i got on that last run. (photocred David)

A decrepit snow-anpanman or doraemon.

Bro grabs. (photocred Andy)

Snowboard monster: my newest, Frenchest friend.

A beautiful day on the Annupuri face. (photocred Andy)

Going up? What the lifts looked like on every other day besides the previous picture.

View from the top.

We ride and snap.

Imaginary girlfriend. "Wish you were here, Chiharu!" (comment and photocred Andy)

Cold, cloudy and windy. That's -10 Celsius. (photocred Andy)

Luckily the lifts run 12 hours a day.

Night boardin' till 9. (photocred Andy)

Crabs for th'eatin'

Susukino in Sapporo: "Like Tenjin but cooler."

The crab building.

"えびかに合戦," (SHRIMP CRAB BATTLE) was the name of our restaurant

The nomi/tabehodai FEAST!

tabehodai item 1: king crab AND snow crab legs

tabehodai item 2: crab, shrimp & shrimp tempura nigiri

tabehodai item 3: shrimp tempura

I was tempted to buy this but then I remembered cats are laaaaaaame

Kani 'tache. (photocred Andy)

明けましておめでとうございます！

2010-01-15T18:32:00.000-08:00

Hello blog! It's been a while. Have you been seeing other writers?

It's 2010, the year of the Tiger. MY year. I think it's going to be a good one. During winter vacation I took another, longer trip to Niseko up in Hokkaido for 8 straight days of snowboarding and 1 crazy night in Sapporo. Niseko may as well be Australia, by the looks of it. over half the people there are from Oz it seems. The goods and food there is generally westernized and overpriced, but we managed to find a really nice old izakaya nearby our hotel operated by a friendly elderly couple and populated by locals. It was nice to be in a place where we can't use English again :)

I love hokkaido food. They have
-Genghis Khan, a special type of seasoned lamb
-Miso ramen (often with corn and butter, which are also specialties of Hokkaido
-Crab. Oh my god dude, this crab is off the chain.
-Soup curry
-"Raw" caramel
-Really good chocolate.

I ate a lot and took a lot of pictures, but for now I am just going to give you this vlog. WATCH ME EAT GIFT ITEMS FROM HOKKAIDO:

Return of the worst day ever (son of worst day ever)

2009-10-21T08:28:00.001-07:00

Woke up the other day with a hell of a head cold, feeling like an entire roll of toilet paper had been stuffed up my nostrils while i dozed, none the wiser. That might have well been the case because for the remainder of this week I've proceeded to use entire rolls of toilet paper to mop up the snot that keeps spewing forth from my head as if it's going out of style. Such is the nature of changing seasons in Japan. By my best estimate, a good 40% of the staff at school seems to have the same cold or something like it.

Well today I just got through the day at work and decided to take a holiday from my Japanese class downtown, which necessitates a 1:30 hour commute which costs about $20 round trip. I'll just relax, I thought, and get some shopping done. Hooo boy.

I headed to Uniqlo after work and dropped a cool 15000 yen (about $165) on some nice new work clothes and jeans. Then I picked up some beer and other basic amenities before meeting Chiharu for dinner. Tonight's going to be a good night, methought.

We went out for yakiniku and then returned to my apartment. Once there, I discovered that my clothes and beer were missing from the back seat. Could they really have disappeared, I thought? I must be suffering from some sort of cold-induced delirium.

No. Somebody in my piddly, boring town did in fact open my unlocked car, while we dined in plain sight through the window of the restaurant, took my nice, new, just-my-size clothes and my beer. I'm going to repeat that. AND my beer. I could maybe get over someone stealing a bunch of M-sized clothes from Japan's equivalent of The Gap. But did you have to take the beer? I bought a $5 can of Belgian weissbeer that I was really looking forward to. Not to mention an overpriced 6-pack of regular ol' Kirin.

The real roscoe to the face was what they didn't steal; the only item left in the car was a 12-pack of toilet paper that I had purchased while waiting for them to finish my pants. Bastards! Well it's a good thing they didn't steal that toilet paper, because I was almost out, and I am still going through it by blowing my nose at an alarming pace.

When we got back to my apartment, we decided we might as well call the cops, which turned into a ridiculous and long, but really hilarious experience. They came to my apartment and proceeded to dust the car for prints! How old school is that!? They had a comically big chalk-duster and everything. Following that, they interviewing me thoroughly about all the details: the location of the bags. The label and art on the bags. What clothes I had bought, the color of the shirts, long sleeves? short sleeves? the cost of the beer, the brand of beer, how many ounces of beer in the cans ("were the regular 350 ml cans or tall boys?"), and so on. Then they came up to my apartment and took both my fingerprints and Chiharu's (to compare against what they uncovered on the car). Then we returned to the scene of the crime, outside the restaurant, where the police snooped around for clues for like 10 minutes. It was all exhausting but very entertaining.

But I dont want to come off like a Negative Nancy on this blog, so without further adieu, I present you with one of the most beautiful places I have ever been; Yakushima. It's a rocky island off the south shore f Kyushu, and home to deers, monkeys, and a ton of cedar trees, some of which are thousands of years old. The oldest of the bunch are honored with individual names, and the oldest of them all is named Jómon Sugi. Standing next to something that has been alive for that long is a pretty humbling experience. My friends and went there a couple weeks ago for a 3-day excursion.

EDIT: oh yeah, I almost forgot the part about how, when I was taking a shower tonight, as I went to dispense some body soap onto my humble loofah, the soap squirted in an outrageous trajectory, right into my eyes, as if god himself had decided to ejaculate on my face. The only thing I could do at that point was laugh.

one thing you should never do

2009-10-02T04:42:00.000-07:00

One thing you should never do is tell a Japanese girl that her nose is flat. Turns out it's a big faux pas.

The worst first day back in Japan... ever

2009-10-01T08:55:00.000-07:00

I just got home last night from a week-long hiatus in America. I was going to postpone writing about it until I could get pictures up, but this has been the worst first 24 hours back in a place ever.

Despite my JETlag, I woke up on time. That is when things stopped going right. From that point I worked for 11 hours straight. Then I came home and was so exhausted I didn't move for 3 hours. Come 10:00 when it was finally so late that I had to get up if I wanted to score some dinner, I began to mobilize and promptly jammed my finger into an old wood door frame in my apartment, shoving a shard of wood all the way down to the root of my 5th digit fingernail. Taking a second to process what had actually happened, I realized I was in for an unpleasant little bit of time.

I pulled out the splinter but half of it remained, now buried safely underneath the nail completely. I saw the blood start to pool up under the surface where the bigger part of the spliner had been. I knew things were about to get worse before they got better. I called up my girlfriend to whom I couldn't exactly explain the situation over the phone, so I covered my pinky with a paper towel and drove over to her house, yelling "fuck!" the whole way.

She realized what I was talking about at that point and took me to the hospital, where a kind young doctor informed me that they were going to have to break away the nail. For the next half hour or so, I sat face up while the doctor scratched away the cartilage of my nail with a sterile sewing needle of sorts. Eventually he got most of that sucker out with tweezers. I was bandaged up and sent on my way.

Thanks for the welcome home, Japan. Fuck you.

Sports day

2009-09-10T20:03:00.000-07:00

It's been over a year now, marked by the passing of my second Sports day. Although it wasn't as completely new and alien as my first Sports Day was, just weeks after I arrived, it was still a fun experience, because we have nothing like it in America, besides old school Field Days and Pep rallies that arent really practiced anymore.

picture placeholder:

Oh hey I just realized it's September 11th. Happy September 11th!

Called it

2009-09-01T17:24:00.000-07:00

Just as I predicted, the headline reads:

Change has come to Japan

slide dog

2009-08-30T17:03:00.001-07:00

Don't get between this dog and a roller slide.

(seen on Japanprobe)

NB: It's not the election result I predicted; that was obvious. I'm talking about the headline, people.

triple shot

2009-08-30T07:05:00.000-07:00

Ramune drinking contest last night
___________________________________________________
Yesterday, taking a 10 minute break from an amazing 8-bit breakcore concert, my friend and I sat chatting on a couple concrete flower beds outside the venue in Fukuoka's Nakasu district, the club/redlight part of town. We were approached by two girls, who were not on top of their game. One of them took off her sunglasses (it was midnight) and revealed horrible fake eyelashes that were falling off of her face as the glue failed. The girls then proceeded to proposition us: "Drugs... Please." They persisted in their plea desperately asking "please... please... please..." despite our insisting that we were not the drug dealing kind of foreigners. They mentioned that they were interested in buying "cocaine... or heroin." Oh my god. Patrick wanted to leave them with the police, but I was kind enough to hail them a cab and send them home. Being asked for drugs just because I'm a foreigner was a little insulting, especially because every time a celebrity is caught with drugs the media is quick to assert that "they bought the drugs from a foreigner."

At the concert, we also met some transvestites and Patrick touched their dicks.
___________________________________________________
Current status:
DPJ: 258 LDP: 70

The election results are still streaming in, but regardless of the remaining districts, the DPJ will have a ruling majority in the Diet. the news is now confirming that Aso Taro has stepped down.

Judgement day

2009-08-29T06:17:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is a big day for Japan.
The elections for the Diet, Japan's legislative body, will be held around the country, and the Japanese Democratic Party (DPJ) is poised to win by a landslide. This will spell defeat for the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) which has ruled almost uninterrupted for 54 odd years, i.e. since the end of WWII.

As an American who blindly embraces all change as inherently good (lol), it is exciting to see the whole country electrified with anticipation of reform. Perhaps Japan is partly fired-up by the recent Obama frenzy of the US election, which was heavily covered and glorified by the Japanese media. During the campaign, this kind of programming was on TV almost 24/7 and children I didn't even know yelled "YES WE CAN" at me from their passing bicycles. Drive-by English.

But it would not be fair to give credit for the current fanfare to America. It is genuinely exciting to see so many Japanese people in my own community and all across the country coming together in droves to give a damn about their own political grievances. With little control over the political process, and therefore lacking a sense of responsibility, my Japanese counterparts have been shockingly ambivalent up until now towards all things political. On the other hand, perhaps this is simply a derivative of Japanese reservedness, for even now, amidst the great energy in the air, people are still reluctant to share which party they support.

Indeed, my girlfriend, whose parents are both local politicians, joined the DPJ effort by volunteering to canvass; talking to her friends and neighbors door-to-door and and asking for support for our local DPJ representative amidst local malls. Determined to make a difference in our fairly rural, conservative community, she donned a mic in one of the infamously boisterous announcement-vans: huge RVs which drive around in the evening dispensing political messages from giant loudspeakers which can be heard for miles.

This kind of campaigning may seem dated old-fashioned because direct internet campaigning and news coverage of campaign events has been barred in an effort to control media bias. This gives the whole election a wholesome grass-roots consistency.
___________________
The stars seem to be aligned
...for the DPJ to overtake the long-obsolete LDP. Things are slow to change in Japan and this has been long in coming; the LDP has shuffled in and out three prime ministers since 2007--which would be like having the Republicans switch the president without an election every year for 3 years. And now it has all come to a head: people are fed up with corrupt autocrats and mismanaged resources, and the resulting economic stagnation. The last thing Japan needs is another Lost Generation.

Indeed, the DPJs message "change," hoping to replicate Obama's success. The system certainly needs an overhaul; the DPJ has pledged to phase out corrupt local officials and crack down on backroom dealing, promoting an unheard-of brand of transparent politics.
___________________
But all is not perfect in the world of Japanese politics.
While they are slated for an historic victory, the DPJ hardly appears prepared to take the reigns of the world's second-largest economy. A series of bribery scandals does not further their case against corruption, and the current head of the DPJ, Yukio Hatoyama, who will likely become the new Prime Ministerm, has managed to bungle issues as sensative as the role of the passive Japanese Self-Defense force. He has also been looking a little less than professional lately:

...Then again, who doesn't have a bad hair day every once in a while?

Another problem is The DPJ has recently been targeting capitalist free-markets as a source of economic downturn, and plans to promote more over-regulation in a market already strangled by government policy. At the same time, they have already agreed to protect many markets from Free Trade. What Japanese businesses need is more freedom to fire and hire, to grow and to die if need be. Ever increasing are zombie companies barred from firing employees and staying afloat only through aide from the federal government. Sound familiar? This will do little to reverse the tides of a culture that was once reknowned for it's innovative businesses, now more famous for it's droning, drunken bureaucrats . Unfortunately this may continue to be the shape of things to come. Nevertheless, the normally passive and indifferent general population seems desperately hungry for reform, and that is as promising a sign as any.

___________________
Judgement Day
And so today marks the closing of the campaign season, and the openning of the ballots, news coverage has reached peak melodrama, and has resorted to sweet CG graphics:

Yes, they actually used the theme from Terminator 2: Judgement Day
___________________
Prediction:
I'm calling it... somewhere in tomorrow's headlines: CHANGE HAS COME TO JAPAN!

Special Report: Thailandliness

2009-08-25T22:42:00.001-07:00

Photo! You buy! You buy! I give you good price. Hey... you want Bang Bang? Ladyboy? ... cocaine?

(click to enlarge)

Bangkok.

Mangosteens, Longkongs and Rambutans as far as the eye can see.

Children begging after school.

The best Pad Thai I've ever eaten also happened to be the cheapest.

Taking advantage of the strobelight to take some well lit shots in da' club. See the ladyboy?

Another ladyboy approaches. Beware: they ensnare drunk tourists as they exit dance clubs.

Wat Arun, The Temple of Dawn in Bangkok.

Behold, the Black Buddha

King of the currency; the exact same picture of him is on all the bills

This Buddha was GYNORMOUS.

Told you.

Shameless racism.

Gilded Buddhas

This whole business of being immature with the statues embarrassed James terribly. I admit I'd feel the same in his shoes if we were in My Japan.

2nd class "sleeper" train from Bangkok to Chumpohn. Protip: if you want to book 1st class, purchase more than two days in advance.

Ahh Ko Tao! This is "Japanese village," one of our dive sites.

Our baller accommodations at Chawengburi resort, Ko Samui.

Even the flies seem skankier in Thailand.

Scuba class!

Our Isreali classmate dives in.

Quaint, wooden water-taxis with truck-sized motors.

Official postcard shot of the trip.

See the full set on flickr

Honkies in Kimonos update

2009-08-25T19:33:00.000-07:00

...Yes, the Yukata was donned, just like in the video!

The fireworks festival was splendid fun, all in all. There was little wind so the smoke did not clear between fireworks, making visibility difficult, but also adding an interesting soft effect. Here are a few photos...

(click to enlarge)

See the full photo set on flickr.

Since the Amagi Fireworks festival, was one of the first events I attended after I arrived last summer, it made me very nostalgic to be back again at the same riverbank, now understanding it in a completely different way. Just like last year, we went under the bridge where I met the new OISCA people.

Hard to believe I've been here a whole year! Frankly impossible really. It always seems like there is so much I don't yet know-- and yet comparing myself to the new batch of ALTs who just arrived, even those whose Japanese level surpasses me from years of college study, i realize how far I've come and that I've learned a lot in Japan.

When I arrived last summer, I was basically an infant. I couldnt even take out the garbage for fear that I would not sort it correctly. It was a very frustrating experience for the first few months with no predacessor, no local community, and little help from my Supervisor, but I feel like over the course of one year, I have really come into my own.

obligatory cultural posturing

2009-08-21T07:50:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow my I'll be scampering around the hometown with my girlfriend, taking in the Summer Fireworks Festival in a yukata borrowed from her brother. Yukata are the Japanese summer version of the stuffy kimono. Less complicated and constrictive than the average kimono, yukata are usually the attire of choice for enjoying hanabi (fireworks, lit. fire-flowers) and grilled squid at the very uniform summer festivals. They come in both men's and women's styles, the men's being loose and free-flowing, much like a bathrobe, and the women's being constrictive, creating a giant gift out of the human female, complete with colorful wrapping paper and a decorative bow.

And with that, I will be joining the ranks of white people in kimonos/japanese clothes, at whom i have long scoffed at. Oh well. Here's how it's done:

And yes, we will necessarily be enjoying Suntory Premium Malts beer during this experience.

blocked site

2009-08-18T18:24:00.000-07:00

It turns out the English Wikipedia article on the Japanese use of the letter H is blocked by my net filter at work. Reason: "PORNO ADULT SITE"

Beer review 4: Coedo Ruri

2009-08-03T04:55:00.000-07:00

Recently, a crop of bottled (not canned, wow!) microbrews seem to be appearing in my regular supermarkets. Naturally I'm thrilled and a new load of Japanese beer reviews seems to be in order. My fridge is stocked with many exciting new additions.

First up is Coedo, which amazingly has SIX varieties of choose from, with different names which do not indicate the flavor or type of beer whatsoever. Each are labeled indiscriminately "Premium All Malt Beer" so it is up to the discerning taster to decide how to categorize each blend. I am no expert but I'll do my best.

First I'll be cracking open "Ruri," also known as "the dark blue one.

It pours a slightly dark amber color, with a thin, bubbly head which quickly dissipates, leaving no lace on the glass. The smell is very crisp and... dare I say... hoppy.

As for flavor, it is light, crisp, and drinkable, but much maltier and a lot drier than your typical Japanese lagers. Exciting!

Well this is a nice change of pace. A delicious 4.5 out of 5 mugs.

The best beer yet! ...Foreign Equivalent:

一年の日本

2009-07-27T18:16:00.000-07:00

Happy anniversary! Today marks it; a full year since I became a registered foreign resident of Japan: this island nation which brings us 2-dimensional lovers and life-sized gundams.

Ironically, I spent the day not in Japan, but making a connection in Taipei after a 9 day holiday to Thailand. How fitting that the week leading up to my one-year centennial with Japan was spent enjoying a well-deserved first-trip outside the country.

Here are some things I've learned during my one year in Japan.

The strap that dangles from your cell phone is more important than the phone itself.

It's better to be cute than hot.

Leave things the way you found them.

Take off your shoes.

The best place to nap is on a train.

"On time" is late.

Home insulation was a very, very good idea.

Sometimes just showing someone that you thought of them is more important than how you express it.

All-you-can-drink menus are so overrated. All-you-can eat menus are not.

In the pursuit of a harmonious, conflict-less society, Japan has accidentally become one of the most socialist cultures in the world.

Emoticons are extremely important.

Tie clips are awesome.

A human being can get used to just about anything.

Reaching escape velocity: followup

2009-07-17T21:12:00.000-07:00

Well the planets seem to have aligned, ladies and gentlemen.

I am writing to you know from Teipei international airport, featuring free wifi throughout. I'm here for an hour, connecting to Bangkok on China Airlines.

In the era of web 2.0, why wait until after my trip to see the pictures? Here is the progress so far:

My meal aboard CI10111, "seafood rice." Complimentary beer. Thanks, China Airlines!

Ciggs at Duty Free. Nice graphics!

Taiwanese Aquarius... Oooooo, different!

Coming to you live.

Terminal A2-- Home sweet home.

i passed

2009-07-01T07:25:00.000-07:00

4 tries and 350 bucks later, ive passed the japanese driving test. More to come on this later.

Just needed to put up a crappy space holder to motivate myself to write this post

new bug alert

2009-06-23T19:47:00.000-07:00

now this thing is weird. about three inches long, I initially thought it was a caterpillar, but now i'm just not sure. It had a triangular head, and about 6 pointy front legs, no legs for most of its torso, and then a strange foot in the back that could stick to things. crawled like stereotypical caterpillars crawl in cartoons and whatnot, scootching its back legs up forward, creating a big loop out of its body, and the moving forward. SO WEIRD. tawny brown in color. hard body.

small realization

2009-06-21T17:21:00.000-07:00

Knowing only English in Japan is like being able to read exclusively filler text in foreign languages that they throw on "exotic" products in America.

You can read all of what you're not supposed to understand and none of what matters.

NB: Often yields hilarity.

Reaching escape velocity

2009-06-18T20:04:00.001-07:00

If somebody told me before I arrived in Japan that I would not travel outside the country during my first year, I would've clocked em right in the puss. Yet that is how the situation seems to be shaping up.

James is now teaching in Bangkok, through an English-education scheme somewhat like my own. As a good friend from college and a well known party-monkey, he tops my list of people to visit abroad while in Asia.

I first attempted to visit him Thailand during Golden Week, an week-long holiday in early May that is chock-full of national holidays. Naturally everyone wants to travel during that time. Naturally the airfares are hiked higher than a schoolgirls skirt at an agricultural HS. Travelling to Thailand for JUST the holiday was about $800, double the normal rate. No problem, I thought, I will move my classes around and take a few days of nenkyuu (paid vacation) around Golden Week so that I can snag the regular price. Nope. I received a "chotto" speech from my boss that went a little bit like "Moving classes around is extremely hard on the other teachers. We need you here to teach when classes are scheduled, you're an important part of our team."

I could understand and agree what that. My job is to be here and teach. It's not really fair for me to just take off when there are classes scheduled, asking everyone else to change the school's schedule. Besides, I can easily take time off during final exams and school holidays. My vacation time won't be wasted!

Nope. Now that final exams are upon us, my second attempt to flee Japan was crumbled. This time by Swine Flu. When the time came for me to apply again for nenkyuu, my boss gravely informed me of the the outbreak of H1N1 in Osaka, which was old news to me. We had a conversation about how statististically speaking, Japan had 80 times more cases of swine flu than Thailand's "3 suspected." Furthermore, the disease, pandemic though it is, has entirely mild effects. Doesn't hold a candle to regular flu, truth be told. No problem. My boss agreed with me and said he'd check with the board of education.

Nope. As of the Japanese outbreak's outset, the BoE drafted a policy which states: "Any teacher or employee of the Board of Education who travels to any of the countries below [list of all countries affected AT ALL by H1N1] must be quarantined for 1 week upon re-entry to Japan. He/She must not come into contact with other employees or students. This time will be designated special need and will not deplete the employee's nenkyuu." Which is to say basically free vacation time. No problem. I'll go and be quarantined for a week after I get back.

Nope. Obviously being kept from teaching for a week after coming back defeats the whole purpose of waiting until final exams to take a vacation. My boss vetoe'd the whole thing. He asked me to wait until I can travel without interfering with classes. Understandable? Yes. Infuriating? Yes.

I can understand that I am a public official and a teacher. I can understand that even though H1N1 is extremely mild, the government's job is to minimize exposure and risk to the general public. But the fact is that I actually have a highly REDUCED chance of catching H1N1 while in Thailand vs. staying here. I jokingly (half jokingly) told my boss that i thought Japan was getting too dangerous and I had better flee the country to a safer country like Thailand.

Now, months later, the policy shows no sign of budging, so the next time I'll be able to travel will be during summer vacation, a bit after the one year mark in Japan. A fact that is as saddening as it is an indicator that time is really flying by.

Dear Japan, please relax.

always on duty

2009-06-18T20:02:00.001-07:00

At one point, my general marker of time was "one day at a time." But that unit quickly evolved into weeks slipping by, and now it hardly seems like long between my monthly paychecks. In fact one arrived today and I had forgotten it's payday.

I like to tell myself that every day here is one less day in Japan. Of course that helps get through the rough, busy days, but it also encourages me to enjoy everyday to the fullest as part of a once-in-a-lifetime adventure. I ask myself, if I were to go home tomorrow, what would I wish I had accomplished. I would wish I had painted more, I would wish I had become more skilled in Judo and Japanaese cooking, and I would wish that I had seen more (any) of Pacific Asia outside of Japan. Luckily THAT pandemic has a cure- new experiences, like travel to yet unseen countries and seeing brand new sights. The itching in my shoes is becoming too much to bare. I'll be jetting somewhere at the first opportunity.

This brings up one more interesting point. I was having a conversation on Saturday afternoon last week with a Japanese English teacher, after doing a volunteer weekend English/cooking class where we made cheeseburgers with Jr High and Elem. students. (that in and of itself was awesome). Anyway, she was complimenting me on volunteering and singing the praises of what a fine ALT I am. I told her it was fun and that many ALT's are doing much greater things. She retorted with an example to illustrate that not all ALTs are great: a few years back, apparently one ALT was traveling, and some small disaster occured in the country while he was there, preventing him from flying back to Japan for almost a week. She left it at that.

Not seeing the connection between having no way to return for a week and being a bad Assistant Language Teacher, I scratched my head and asked "Did he know that something was going to happen? I mean it wasn't his fault, right?" To which she gingerly said "AH! soudesune! Bunka wa zenzen chigao" which means "Oh, of course! your culture is totally different!"

"But he didn't do anything wrong, right? Even if he really wanted to come back and teach, there is nothing he could have done short of not travelling at all"

"Yes but in Japan, you must always be thinking of your job."

I left the conversation confused and kind of scared. I ended on an awkward note by somewhat indignantly stating "Well I do my best when I'm at work, but when I leave my school, I am not thinking about my job." Which only prompted awkward silence.

That conversation has stuck with me. I discussed it with another ALT who has been here a year longer than me and speaks Japanese fluently, and he said that after a long time here, he identifies more with the Japanese culture of work.

I don't want to do that. My time is MY time. My goal is to travel. I will fulfill my work duties to my best capacity, but I hope I never lose sight of the fact that work is work and life is life.

Fast times in Asia-Pacific

2009-06-18T19:44:00.001-07:00

Swine flu has swept into Fukuoka (brought by a foreigner, of course). Meanwhile, seismic shockwaves are echoing out of North Korea and the economy worldwide continues to crumble. The popularity of Japan's prime minister wanes endlessly, and the opposition leader, offering little reform in the first place, has fumbled, resigned, and been replaced by someone of equally unimpressive stuffing. By November a general election will be held, promising to replace one sack of bricks with another. (1)

As if scripted by this worldwide dark comedy, a 63 year old man in China approached a young chap contemplating suicide on a bridge. The old man shook his hand and gingerly pushed him over the edge, greeting the crowd of onlookers with a salute. These are fast times in Asia-Pacific.

Hero
_______________________________________________________________
(1)A quick survey of the Japanese around me yields little interest, let alone enthusiasm or unrest for the political stagnation. The PM is elected by officials elected by other officials who are, they themselves elected by local populations. Since the top of the government is several levels away from common control, people have no sense of control over what happens on a national level, and seem to care little about which laws are passed or the prospect of reform.

Summer bug post #1

2009-06-04T00:33:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I was assaulted by a number of horrible Japanese bugs

1. a hand-sized huntsman spider
2. a 2-inch cockroach
3. a disgusting slug

I discovered the crab-like spider creature stalking the inside of the window curtain as I went to let some fresh air into the classroom before my next lesson. He scurried around the curtain a bit, creating an eerie silhouette, lit from outside. I ran to get my sandal while the college-age student teacher asked me "Are you going to SMASH it?" "Yes," I thought, "That would be the plan." I didn't know if a bite from these things could land a teacher or student in the hospital, so I shooed my new friend onto the floor and slammed sole to carapace. Success; the huntsman became the hunted.

Turns out that these spider is actually pretty innocent. An import from Australia, they are found throughout Asia and North America. They CAN bite if provoked, but they are mostly harmless to humans. But let's be honest, the huntsman has a face for radio:

and they do cause a number of deaths every year. You see, the huntsman spider tends to seek shelter inside homes and cars before a rainstorm, creeping into the nooks and crannies shared with humans. They tend to dart out of hiding spaces at a top speed of 1 meter/second, which tends to illicit surprise/shock.

Once in a while, a huntsman will pounce out from hiding in a fast-moving vehicle. An ill-timed appearance in a fast-moving car has spelled doom for many an Aussie. Anyway, now that I know these things can't really hurt me, I will try to simply shoo them outside in the future. Poor spider.

Now, I yesterday I stayed up until 3AM, trying to finish the English club (ESS) project for Cultural Festival tomorrow. We are doing an English dub of a scene from Totoro, but more on that later. Anyway, at around 2:30, while I was hard at work like any good Japanese employee, a finger-sized cockroach goes scampering across my tatami. Now this is not a welcome sight; I know that roaches are common in these old apartments, but it was my first, and I have been hoping that my proactive use of boric acid traps would ward them off. Apparently not. God damnit. I tried to sneak up on it and smash it with a book of medical schools, but it escaped, scurrying under my bed before the tome came thundering down. Under my bed. I went to the closet and grabbed a spraycan of insecticide with a picture of a rooster emblazoned on it in red (we ALTs tend to call it the Cock brand). I directed it into the crack under my bed and filled the crevace with deadly gas. Luckily it did not seep up through the mattress and kill me in the night, as I am still typing this at work.

So finally I finished my work at 3AM. I decided to reward my efforts with a hot shower. No sooner did I get my hair all good and lathered up than did I spy at a dark brown piece of paper dangling from one corner of the tub. As a I brought my un-spectacled eyes closer for examination, I realized that I was not looking at a scrap of paper, but a huge slimey slug, slithering across the pale blue fiberglass tub. UGH. After I quickly finished my shower, I went to get my camera so that I could at least show you what I have to put up with, but it had disappeared. Surely under the tub. Surely to return when I am showering again.

Let's review the Kyoshokuin Jutaku (if you are coming to Fukuoka as an ALT, chances are you will be living in one of these beautiful apartments).
-The temperature inside is basically the same as outside (in summer and winter).
-Huge bugs to be found scurrying around at night and in the shower...

living in an old Japanese apartment is basically camping in a square cave with plumbing, if you're lucky.

Speaking of which, I'm going camping this weekend. At least I'll know what to expect from living HERE.

Help me help you!

2009-05-21T18:25:00.001-07:00

Dontaku photos

2009-05-18T18:48:00.001-07:00

(click to enlarge)

The Americans:"Grassroots internationalization" at work:

Indonesian boy:

We are the world:

Taking pictures of people taking pictures of me.

The parade begins:

Attended by over 2 million people-machines:

We are the world

2009-05-15T18:42:00.001-07:00

While I have a few seconds to write, I wanted to mention that, as I began to talk about in my video below before getting cut off at the 10:00 mark, my friend from Elementary School was visitting me during Golden Week. We had been best friends in Elementary School, but his family moved in 3rd grade, and I had seen him only on brief intermittant occassions over the last 13 years. How trippy it is that we have both ended up teaching English in Fukuoka and Seoul. I mean he is only about an hour away by plane, and Korea is just 2 hours by BOAT. Far closer than Tokyo, for instance, to give you some perspective.

Anyway he was visitting with a couple of his friends, other English teachers in Seoul and seeing them captivated by the magic of rural Japan gave me fresh eyes on my situation, and kind of rekindled the magic which I have been becoming desensitized to slowly. Hosting first time visitors always has that effect in a way, doesn't it? Japan made such a good impression on them that a couple of them are considering applying to JET next year.

To be fair, they had absurdly good timing. They were right in time for Dontaku, a giant festival that takes place in Fukuoka and is attended by 2 million people. I had signed us up to march in the parade as part of the "International Troupe" to fulfill the requirement of wearing our country's "traditional clothes" I donned an American flag tshirt and bags from McDonalds. Ben didn't have time to change from the night before, which ended up being great because he was wearing a stained white tshirt and green gym shorts. Very American college student, indeed. As the first American to sign in at the event, I was granted the privilege of carrying the big "AMERICA" sign to represent us in the parade (every country represented had a huge picket sign). So there I am, marching past 2 million people, bearing the America sign and waving my giant McDonald's bags gleefully.

Grassroots internationalization, indeed.

seriously?

2009-05-10T07:37:00.000-07:00

I just saw a mosquito buzzing around so, lightning fast, i reached out and grabbed it. clenching it in my fist as hard as possible for a good second, before openning my hand to see if I had snagged it. The damn thing just flew out, a little shaken, but fine.

These god damn mutant bugs.

Summer draws nigh.

Here is a new, awkward video that I vlogged:

Happy Mothers' day, all you mothers

酔拳Fit's 5歳の場合

2009-05-08T20:23:00.001-07:00

International East Asian industrial conglomerate, Lotte has a new gum out called Fit's. They have recently been advertising it in Japan with this eerie dance sequence on TV:

Apparently they are also hosting a video dance contest wherein contestants have to record themselves doing the crazy Fit's dance. Looks like the winner will get $100,000. Here are a few examples:

and my personal favorite...

One more thing. Good luck getting that song out of your head ;)

a night in the kitchen

2009-04-26T08:12:00.000-07:00

Today's meandering rant will be an uninformed lecture on Japanese cooking. Keeping the average gaijin in mind, I'll be writing this as I prepare my own dinner. Here goes~

Today's Menu consists of 2 main Japanese dishes taught to me (in Japanese) by Jeanette, my Japanese tutor. A round of applause for her. I'll be cooking:

-nikujaga (lit. meat'n'potatoes)
potatoes, carrots, onion, sliced beef, soy sauce, mirin, sake, sugar, dashi,

-fried renkon (lotus root)
1 renkon (lotus root), flour, corn starch, water, vineger, ground pork, grated ginger, green onion, oil for frying

...I'll also be "cooking":
-salad
whatever you like. I used chopped lettuce, carrots and a sesame dressing

--rice (of course)
Japanese white rice

First I start the rice:

After months of preparing my own Japanese meals, I have learned that I eat about 1 scoop of rice with a typical dinner, so I shovel a bit more than that amount into my rice-cooker pot --I want to make enough to have leftovers for tomorrow's bento-- and begin the long process of washing it. I fill and dump the pot with cold water 5 times, stirring it with my hands. This produces seemingly endless loads of cloudy water. Finally, the rice rinses just about clear and i can twist the faucet closed. In case you hadn't picked up on it, I am not a fan of washing rice. It's so tedious. In fact the Japanese word used to express the washing of rice is the same verb as honing a knife. Even half-assing it means a good 5 minutes running the tap feeling like a damn fool. But everyone agrees that washing rice is an important part of producing delicious flakey goodness; It removes excess starch and powder that is insidously mixed into the grains. Apparently you can buy "no-wash" (prewashed?) rice but I haven't seen it in my local grocery store yet. Until then, washing is a necessary evil. Anyway, i finish that and i set the pot into the cooker and just press start. it'll be ready in about half an hour.

Next let's take a look at the renkon, this strange Japanese vegetable. In English it's known as lotus root, though we don't really use it outside of the occasional very-authentic Japanese restaurant. Straight from the grocery store it looks like this:

Yes, it's a muddy potato-shapped blob. I wash it off and peel it. Now it looks like this:

Then I slice it...

The internet-savvy among you will recognize this porous form as the pattern photoshopped into pictures of boobs that spread around the internet a number of years ago.I have omitted a photo for the sake of family and friends. sorry internet people, Google "lotus boob" for more information.

I take the sliced renkon, and let it soak in a solution of vinegar:

This apparently cleans it and doesnt adversely effect the flavor. While that soaks, I peel and slice some potatoes and carrots:

Sidenote: carrots and most other fruits and vegetables come needlessly (by my standards) packaged in plastic bags. You dont get to pick your own from a pile like in most US grocery stores.

Anyway, I let the vegetables sit in a bowl and I sprinkle instant Dashi and sake on them while they rest.

By the way, dashi is a base used in almost all Japanese recipes. It is the broth in miso and clear soup. Dashi is made from boiling konbu (a type of seaweed) and any of a variety of small fish in water, and removing the skimmate. However, nowadays it is sold as an instant powder that can be dissolved in water:

Now I take some sliced beef...
...and I sautee the meat in a tablespoon or so of vegetable oil:

By the way, meat comes almost exclusively in the thin-sliced variety here in Japan because few Japanese recipes call for steak or chunks of meat (besides curry). Basically, most Japanese cooking techniques happen very quickly over a high heat, so thin-sliced meat is best as it does not require a long cooking time over a gentler heat. Traditionally Japanese cooking was developed by travelers. presumably katana-clad samurais who built fires, which is a pretty strong, uncontrolled heat. At any rate, steak is overpriced here and not very delicious. Even at Costco.

oh yeah, i forgot about the onion! Ill need some of that too, so I slice one up while the meat sautees.

After the meat is browned, I toss in the potatoes, carrots and onions which have been soaking in that dashi goodness. I also add (just eyeballing it) about 2 tablespoons of Mirin (a japanese cooking wine), 2 tablespoons of sugar, 2 tablespoons of soy sauce, and about 2 cups of water. All of that starts to simmer together and work its magic:

Not unlike cheese, beef, tomato and tortilla to Mexican cooking, a few ingredients comprise the flavor of virtually all Japanese food:

From left to right- soy sauce, sake, mirin (a sweeter cooking sake), vinegar and sugar. Actually vinegar isn't always used and dashi IS always used, though it's not in this picture.

Anyway, I stir it all together and bring it to a boil. Then I reduce the heat and cover it. That will continue simmering for a long time, until most of the liquid has evaporated. As these ingredients begin dancing together and steam escapes, my house is starting to smell delicious. We are on the road to victory, people. "ii nioi" means "good smell."

Now I turn my attention back to the renkon. I pour some flour into a shallow bowl and coat each slice of lotus root on both sides. I rinse off my cutting board and lay out the slices there.

My rice is done at this point...

...but I am not finished cooking. i hope you internet people appreciate me slowing down so much to narrate to you, step by step. You're lucky I don't just pack up and leave. Anyway, the rice cooker will automatically keep my precious grains warm while i wrap this up. Yokatta.

Now I play the matching game with the renkon slices, trying to put together the pieces that were originally sliced consecutively because they will fit together perfectly. Using a mix of ground pork, grated ginger, and diced green onion, I make little renkon sandwiches:

and now I mix equal parts flour and corn starch with water and a smidgeon of mayonaise (the mayo is Jeanette's suggestion, though she didn't use the word "smidgeon"). Meanwhile I heat some vegetable oil in a pan, and dip each renkon-pork sandwich into the batter mixture. You can guess what happens next:

I fry them for a minute or two on each side, until they turn golden brown. Then scooping them out and setting them on a plate over some kitchen paper.

And my nikujaga is just about done reducing too! good timing! I prepare some soy sauce and spicy mustard to dip the renkon in and make a quick chopped salad.

And we're done! Itadakimasu!

I will enjoy all this with the local beer of choice. Kirin Draft is produced at the Kirin "beer farm" just down the road. It's a tasty, aromatic lagar.

oishii! US equivalent:

And of course the finished meal:

Sooo good. A+. Good job me.

beer review 2: Kirin Stout

2009-04-21T06:30:00.001-07:00

A sip of Kirin's "ichibanshibori" stout is a splash of nostalgia-inducing variety. Japan is a land of light bubbly lagers. Here, beers seem to be designed more to match the cellphone emoticon than to be delicious and refreshing. In fact, there is a strange cultural feedback loop between cellphone graphics and beer that warrants discussion. Certainly beer emoticons were once upon a time modeled after the pre-existent product, but today it seems to work in reverse, or at least in both directions. Beer tends to be straw yellow in color and is always served in a glass, and while we Americans pride ourselves on the headless pours, Japan strives to create large, cartoon-like heads of foam in every mug. I tend to forget this ettiquette and my friends always seem little dissapointed when I turn the glass 45 degrees and proudly produce a tall glass of pale yellow gold with no white foam at the top whatsoever. To understnd this phenomenon, consider that the average Japanese teen is exposed to cellphone emailing and emoticon graphics long before becoming old enough to order a beer (drinking age is 20 here). Consider that all your life you have seen pictures of beer on tv and in email graphics that depict roughly 30% foam and 70% beer. Your first beer damn well better match that perfect mental image, right? It is admittedly a bit of a cultural Chicken-or-the-egg thing, but funny nonetheless.

Well Kirin Stout is out to change all that. At least the pale yellow part of the equation (see image).

The aroma is a bloom of roasted caramel and malts that become appearant upon exhalation, and it features a creamy smooth texture. This beer complements my spaghetti bolognese pretty well, but on the other hand, dark beers don't do much for most Japanese food, which is very light and easily out-competed by stronger beers.

The can claims that just a taste of Kirin's ichibanshibori stout will " enrich my precious time" and i have to agree; these times are quite enriched. It's definitely a nice change of pace from the usual lagar fare. Unfortunately finding even the domestic stout is just about as hard as finding actual Guinness (maybe 1/5 grocery stores). Anyway, 4/5 solid oishii!

American equivalent:

日焼け and three vials of blood

2009-04-16T16:41:00.000-07:00

.
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Today's Japanese: Hiyake (日焼け), meaning sunburn

Yesterday was the "school excursion" which means we walked 2 1/2 hours into the mountains; to 'explodin'-with-nature' Akizuki, where I partook in most of my hanami a few weeks back. Now most of those cherry blossom trees have been blown bare by winds and rain, but the pale pink blossoms have been replaced by brilliant green leaves. However one species of cherry blossom remains in late bloom, the Kikuzakura (pictured left) whose larger flowers can have as many as a hundred petals on a single blossom.
(photo by Lillakanarie of flickr)

Having arrived in Akizuki, the students were filed into a field, where they played a quick batsu-maru game; a kind of true-or-false quiz game where one student with a megaphone asked a T or F question and all the other students went to one side of the field or the other to make their choice. Losers were eliminated to the sidelines until only a few students remained (it was clear that they were choosing together and would not be separated into individual winners and losers in order to determine the champion. The questions included kanji quizzes, the type of tree that is in front of the school, and knowing whether or not Obama's middle name is Hussein. The interesting thing was that apparently they one for their entire homeroom. I was chatting with one kid who was eliminated early on, but he gushed to me "my homeroom won!"

Then we ate lunch in the pretty feild. Students brought lunches prepared by hardworking moms, and teachers at bentos prepared by the school cafeteria for free (these are delicious).

After about 45 minutes at our destination, we marched another two and a half hours back down the mountain to school, and then students were dismissed for the day. caught unprepared for the sunny day, I got so sunburned that everyone was telling me my face was red all afternoon. When it continued at my evening Japanese class, I just started telling them I was drunk, which was a lot more fun than it may sound like.

Today at school was a health check, which meant all the other employees and I had to:
1. not eat breakfast
2. get a blood test where they filled three vials of our life juice
3. bring my pee to school in a test tube
4. consult a doctor
5. get a chest x-ray
6. have a hearing test
7. have an eye exam

Pretty comprehensive by my US standards, but in Japan most all offices do this kind of physical for their employees once a year. My coworkers were surprised that this doesn't happen in the US.

Big O

2009-04-10T00:07:00.001-07:00

completely unrelated to Japanbut i found a website of horrifying obama clipart:

Yeah don't ask me. I dont know why he's white or in the carnivale mask.

Japanese Beer review: Asahi Honnama Draft

2009-04-09T03:51:00.000-07:00

I have had a mixed sample of beers accumulating in my fridge, so I've decided to start a beer review that will survey the major Japanese brands. I'll begin on this unassuming Wednesday night as I dine on salmon and stewed veggies that were brought for me in a laquered wooden bentou from the school cafeteria's head cook. He studies English, so I stop and chat with him any time I am passing through the cafeteria for a meal or just a snack. At almost 60, he is quite an amazing intellect, self-studying from the animated TV English lessons, he is actually very talented! ..More fluent than some English teachers I know, anyway *ahem*. Anyway, in an amazing ongoing gesture of kindness, he often brings me dinner or leaves it hanging in a plastic bag from my doorknob when I am not at home, always complete with a set of bamboo chopstocks.

But I came here to write about beer, not people. Today's random selection is Honnama Draft from Asahi:

Looks like a bought this one by accident; Honnama is actually not real beer, but happoshu, a cheaper beer lookalike produced only in Japan, as far as I know. Rather than pure barley malts, happoshu relies a variety of other starches are used, including everything from rice to potatoes, to pea protein, to soy peptides. Compared to it's maltier counterparts, happoshu is very cheap because it escapes the high taxes on beer by lowering the malt percentage below 25% of what it should be. Some beer substitutes even have zero malts. Instead they play up the smoothness, or hoppy flavor. clever, clever.

The red can tells us that Honnama should be smooth and tasty, but lets take a closer look. Weighing in at only 5.5%, the yeasty flavor of alcohol is surprisingly predominating and the other flavors seem subdued and blunted. Nevertheless, It is refreshing with a meal and goes down the hatch smoothly. I believe it was Budweiser coined this quality "drinkability." This strikes me as really scraping bare minimum so long as we're talking about beverages. Drinkable? I would hope so! Not the first thing I look for in a beer, but a redeeming quality nonetheless. I will give this one an uncontroversial "chotto maamaa" (kinda ehh). 2/5.

US Equivalent:

入学校式 and Daikon Legs

2009-04-07T05:59:00.000-07:00

Today was Entrance ceremony for the new first-years. I would write it up a nice little play-by-play of the event, but truth be told, it was exactly the same as the last 4 or 5 ceremonies I have already blogged. Lots of speeches from the same people. Many a name called, many a bow exchanged, and so on for about an hour and a half. The interesting thing is that I got to check out the freshman class for the first time. These will be MY students. They looked so grave as the marched into the gymnasium/auditorium today. Grave as hell, poor things.

One poor, unfortunate class consists entirely of boys. 40 of em. Ah, they must've been seething as they discovered their homeroom assignment today, and looked around at the other classes which are evenly divided between testosterone and estrogen. I'd've been pissed (like that double contraction?). the best part is that this all-boys class seems to have all of the bigger guys in it who look like they practice judo. There is also one boy who, i'd estimate, is about 6'2". No joke. All that nonsense about Japanese being small is hogwash. These kids come in LARGE, even at 15.

The second-year homerooms were also shuffled and wound up with one all-boys class too. I dont understand why they are doing this, as it seems like a recipe for disaster, but hey, it's not mine to judge. Well it is, but I will do so quietly and on the internet. Vice Principal tried to explain this restructuring to me, but I didn't really get it, other than that it has something to do with the gender-divided gym classes and or the electives (Art, Music, Calligraphy). I will report back if i figure this out.

One interesting thing about today's ceremony that differed was that the parents and guests were asked to put away their own folding chairs, then the new students were instructed to put them on dollys and cart them into storage by themselves. this struck me as rude, but I guess it is intended to set a serious/strict attitude about our school. I was chatting with one of the new English teachers as the chairs were being sorted and she asked me how years I have been living in Japan. Later, in the break room as we fixed our respective coffee and tea, she asked me if I had studied Japanese in college. Apparently the basic Japanese I have accrued so far was enough to make her assume that I had been here several years already. She was surprised that I was only 8 months in. That made me all happy and proud inside. One advantage of living where out here in the rice-paddy wilderness is I do get a lot of practice. But unlike many assume, this is not sufficient to absorb Japanese skill. Many inaka ALTs spend years in the countryside and still can't order food. I think the advantage lies in the fact that... what litle studying i DO accomplish pays off immediately and is quickly cemented by high volume practice. After learning a new grammar point I frequently hear things my Japanese friends have said to me over and over again replaying in my head, with a new cloud of understanding. Suddenly there is a feeling of having reached a tiny, incrementally wider threshold of ability. And that is a nice feeling.

One more thing I want you to know about: Daikon Legs. Daikon legs are basically the Japanese equivalant of American "cankles," except that the meat aggregates not around the ankles, but the at calves, and the phenomenon seems to be naturally/genetic opposed to McDonalds-induced.

To clarify, these are daikon:

...a kind of white, arm-sized, Japanese radish

And THESE...

...are Daikon Legs. Get it? (creepy escalator photo courtesy of google images). Perhaps surprisingly, Japan is full of these legs, proudly bulging within thin layers of nylon. Not to say that these legs belong to chunky ladies. No, no, quite contrary, they are typically found at the bases otherwise petit women. What do you make of it, dear reader?

working hard vs hardly working

2009-04-03T00:10:00.001-07:00

Looks like it may be leaning more towards "working hard" this year.

I had been gearing up for a very slow-paced schedule. See, up till now I've taught only first-year students, comprised of eight classes a week. This year's first-year class is only 7 homerooms, so I was starting to imagine what I will do with even MORE free time than before. I was looking at a schedule with 0 classes on Mondays and Thursdays.

Well looks like those thoughts will have to be entertained another day. I just had a chat with my boss who told me that the English department would like to use me in all Writing classes, as well as my usual first-year Oral Comm. classes. I'll be teaching students in all three grades and it exactly doubles my class load from last year, starting next week.

The prospect of this becoming a more demanding job is both exciting and terrifying. I'm trying to stay positive. So long blog-posting from work!

Weekly schedule as of yesterday:

revised just now:

lost tales of Spring Break

2009-04-02T22:40:00.000-07:00

I am eating the crunchiest thing I have ever eaten right now. It is a thin, pourous, hexagonal wafer that my former co-teacher gave me, with slivers of peanuts mixed in throughout, and some kanji inscribed over the top in white frosting. My god, it's more like the distilled sensation of crunchiness than an actual food. Thanks for giving me the loudest cookie in the world to eat in the staffroom! In the unforgetable words of Taane, unspeakable!

The sad thing is that since it's spring break at work, this is actually the most exciting and unexpected thing that has happened to me today.

house elf sensei

2009-04-02T21:53:00.001-07:00

Though I find the Harry Potter franchise and all of its incarnations thoroughly objectionable, there's this one teacher who, for lack of a better comparison, or perhaps due to my supplantment in this vacuum from my own culture for the last 8 months, looks exactly like the house elves from the Harry Potter movies.

I will now google image search said elf to see if my brain is just making it up...

hahaha, yup. That's him. He has these adorable round frameless glasses that are too big for him too. A new character is born.

Still though- screw Harry Potter.

stop//start

2009-04-01T20:09:00.000-07:00

Are you enjoying the new blog layout?

At the office, it has been another topsy-turvy week, and it's very exciting. Today is the first full day at work with the new staff. To add to the excitement, the principal was just seen for the first time wearing not his usual suit jacket, but rocking a horrible green sweater on this chilly Spring morning.

When we left off, dear reader, teacher transfers had just been announced and everyone began to bite their fingernails in heated anticipation. This week the medicine went down the hatch. On Tuesday the transferring teachers bid us farewall in one final meeting. Each of the departing teachers was called on to give a short speech (about 10 speeches in all), after which, they were lined up in the front of the auditorium and exitted the room single file. It was such a dramatic exit. But then they were back in the office packing up their things for the end of the day anyway so we had a chance to say some more
casual goodbyes.

Then yesterday the fresh meat arrived. At 8:30, during the morning meeting, they were similarly lined up in front of the staff room and their names were read one-by-one by the vice principal. respectively, they uttered a quick "please treat me well" and a bow. Some stole the show by using keigo, the ultra respectful/humble version of the phrase. A few teachers down the line another guy did a 90 degree bow instead of the more casual 45er. I couldnt help but muse over the concept of Japanese workers competetively trying to one-up each other on politeness, and silently getting really mad when they are up-showed.

The first day of work with the new teachers has been going really well, and I get along famously with my new Supervisor, a former 3rd year teacher who I have long enjoyed talking to in passing. This year I will also be teaching with a new face, a hotshot teacher from a city school. Her English is great and she is really passionate about teaching English, including oral communication, my class. It is a really nice change of pace to be working with someone who has lots of ideas and feedback. She is not so much taking over, as she is demonstrating a great capacity to work and plan together. I couldnt be more excited.

Also, my new suupa' has just handed me a hand drawn weekly schedule of my classes. It looks like I will be free on Mondays AND Thursdays this year, which is fine by me. In fact, it may very well mean that the trip to visit James in Thailand that had been vetoed by my boss could be possible after all!

It's gonna be a good year, ya'll

Cast of Characters

2009-03-31T17:23:00.000-07:00

So you've heard of us?

Every couple months, I am visitted by door-to-door preachers: the Japanese Jehovah's Witnesses. I hear several cars pull across the gravel in the jutaku parking lot, doors slam, and low chattering permeates from outside the window. The first time this happened, my friend John, who has been here a bit longer than me, peaked through the curtain and said "Those people are up to no good. Do you know them?"

What happens next is very uniform: the doorbell rings, they say "oh! you're not Japanese!" they flip through a small paper book to the page with English, and say "read, this please!" with a nice, big smile. The page starts with something like "Hello! We are Jehova's Witnesses! Though we don't speak the same language, I wish to share my faith with you." I nod and say "Ah, I understand."
"So you've heard of us?"
"Yes, I've heard of you... I'm okay."
"You're okay?"
"Yes, I'm okay. Thank you!"
"O- Okay. ...Bye!"
"Byeeeeee"

Fast forward 8 weeks. Repeat.

スーパー新学校

2009-03-24T17:57:00.000-07:00

One thing my principal keeps saying is that he wants our already high-academic school to become a "New Super-school," or in Japanese "Suupaa shingakko" (SSG)

Going SSG is his apparently his pet five-year plan. Since January, he has brought it up in almost every speech and even refers to our school as colloquially as "Asakura New Super-school" instead of the regular name. The strange thing is, there doesn't seem to be any specific plan as to HOW we will achieve "Super New-school" levels of greatness, except that more students are supposed to go to Tokyo University and other top schools. As far as I can tell, he doesn't address that aspect of it in speeches or meetings. Is it all just a grand rebranding scheme? And when I ask my colleagues about it whilest I hear them grumbling about the lofty goal, all they tell me is that it does not pertain to my job(1)

Personally, I expect the transformation will look something like this:

______________________________
(1)As an ALT you will hear that a lot. Though not as much as you heard "each situation is different" during predeparture ;)

花見

2009-03-24T02:09:00.000-07:00

The sakura (cherry blossoms) have been blooming like its the end of the world and I have been knee-deep in hanami, the Japanese custom of cherry blossom-viewing. Just this weekend I went to a hanami barbecue, and there are several invitations to visit Akizuki, the nearby mountainous, natury, pretty place this weekend for more hanami parties.

The word itself, hanami, is formed by taking the word for "flower" (hana) and the verb "to see" (miru) and mashing them together until they stick. Flower-seeing. Although the term does not specify that the flowers are specifically of the sakura variety, it is only used to describe cherry blossom viewing. I guess if you are in Japan, Sakura are THE flowers in your life.

Every day as I bike to school (yes dad, i am biking to school again), I ride along a road lined end to end on both sides with sakura trees, erupting with pink blossoms. It's amazing and, though I am tired, it puts me in a minimally happy/sleepy state, which is a few rungs better than grumpy/sleepy.

My commute (click to enlarge):

and you shall know me by my online correspondences

2009-03-24T02:05:00.000-07:00

"ne" sensei

2009-03-23T23:50:00.000-07:00

copied from my IRL notepad journal:

This week, the weather has changed again. After a shaky start of intermittent and misleading warm days, it seems that spring has finally come to stay. Yesterday I was commuting to my weekly Japanese class downtown, and I was actually uncomfortably hot on the train, which was a nice change of pace. It means that the weather will be beautiful for about 2 weeks followed by hordes of giant mutant insects and what one of my friends likes to call "the death heat."

It's an emotional time of flux at work as well; yesterday marked the last day of classes and teacher transfers were announced, which is to say the Board of Education released the information about which teachers will transfer to a new school in the Spring and which will stay put. This process occurs entirely without input from the teachers concerned and they are informed of the decision with about 2 week's notice.

One by one throughout the afternoon, the principal called the teachers in question to his office for individual meetings. I was speaking with my supervisor at the end of the day when the vice principal excused himself for interrupting, and beckoned her to follow him into the hallway. She came back five minutes later--visibly shaken--and told me she will be transferring to a school near the city. That means in two weeks we will receive a new English teacher and I'll be assigned a different supervisor (most likely a teacher who is already here). My feelings on that topic are mixed and multifaceted, and a touch too delicate for the public domain, so if you're interested in the specifics, may I suggest that you contact me by email?

Today, after an Oo-soji (extended cleaning period) in which the floors were waxed, we have filed into the gymnasium, where the school closing ceremony is being delivered as I scribble this on sheets of B5 paper on a blue clipboard. Closing ceremonies consists of speeches, the singing of the school song, and the bestowment of award certificates. Are you noticing a pattern yet? There is one teacher who always gives speeches during these events and every other word out of his mouth is "ne" or "desune," which is sort of akin to the overuse of "like" during English speeches. I started noticing it a while back and now I just laugh every time he starts going. He doesn't say it when he speaks normally or to small groups. Only when addressing the whole school. desune?

One homeroom group of boys consipred to be really cool by wearing their summer uniforms instead of the winter ones that everyone else is still wearing. The students have their free choice as to which uniform to wear--between the short-sleeved light cotton summer uniforms or the woolen dark blue and black winter fare. One group of boys tends to deviate as a posse and show off by wearing the out-of-season uniform for formal events. It's a Japanese thing about the association between being cold and toughness.

I am so excited for next year and all of the changes! From this week, I will be reorganizing my desk and outlining a curriculum for the year. If that sounds boring to you, keep in mind that I joined this school mid-year. inheriting a job, desk and materials from various predecessors, and largely had to plan my class week by week on the fly because of being thrown into a poorly organized deep-end. The notion of having the chance to take ownership of my classes for the first time, organize my own accumulating teaching materials, and implement my own teaching policies is very, very exciting.

ラィブ！

2009-03-23T06:52:00.000-07:00

After missing them twice, I finally saw my favorite Japanese band live! POLYSICS was awesome. They are a synthpunk/new-ravey band that I have listened to for years before coming to Japan. Their main thing is that they are inspired by the philosophy of Devo. Let me repeat that. The Philosophy Devo. Not the music. The philosophy.

They played with another band called "Ogre You Asshole" and an openning act that was so loud as to be unenjoyable and thus not worth mentioning here. it's too bad because I felt like I might have liked them if my ears weren't bleeding.

The venue was Fukuoka Beat Station, which is a small grey box under the train tracks. The crowd was great and very adept at moshing, which is apparently a rarity in Japan. I am now covered in the sweaty juices of many others, and most pleased with my evening.

NB: This is exactly how elementary school students actually look. Except they mostly dont do the robot. Mostly.

Extra points in this video for using stereoscopic video. On a related note, I made a stereoscopic photo using an old panoramic of the Black Dessert I took in Egypt a couple years ago.

The singer's voice in Ogre is really that high. When he speaks to the audience he tries to make it sound lower, but you can tell he really lets it go and is natural and happy when he's singing :D

And the guitar/eukelele player is so badass with his knowing glances and long hair.

Good find.
_____________________________
3-24-09 EDIT: I am sore and my ears are still ringing 24 hours later. Signs of a good concert experience. As well as oncoming deafness.

observation

2009-03-22T07:49:00.000-07:00

In most beverage commercials, and almost ALL beer commercials on Japanese tv, there is at least one key scene in which there is a close-up of an actor drinking the beverage with an exagerated, all-too -personal gulping sound. it creeps me out every time.

example:

copypaste

2009-03-17T03:27:00.000-07:00

クラスマッチ

2009-03-13T18:13:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was Class Match (Kurassu macchi), a day in which the first and second year students (third years are graduated and gone by now) compete as homeroom teams in various sports. Boys played soccer and girls played volleyball. Although the boys only played during the morning, due to rain, the girls' volleyball tournament continued all day, from 8:30 to 3. Of no surprise to me by this point, they were SO into and extremely coordinated as homeroom teams. Matching outfits, colorcoordinated to class year (blue for first year, green for second) and small choregraphed cheers before and during the games. SCREAMING, oh the screaming.

One homeroom team consisted of my first group of cleaning students, so I have a few special friends there. They were so excited to see me watching them and asked me to lead their pre-game cheer, which consisted of huddling, saying something motivational like "do your best!" and then putting our hands together in the middle and yelling as we throw our arms up. They made it to the finals!

After the boys soccer was cancelled, they came to cheer on their female homeroom counterparts. Boys slowly started peeking in through the doors, and then flooded into the gym, watching from the sidelines and balconies. Girls on teams between games cheered on their classmates or passed out in a corner from exhaustion.

The closing ceremonies involved no fewer than SIX speeches from the Principal, various faculty and distinguished students. Awards were distributed, winning teams announced, and sage wisdom dispensed. The students sat on the gymnasium floor silently, a few awkward cheers slipping out from the winning homerooms as their victories were acknowledged. One student's head began to bob in the early stages of "sleeping during something you're supposed to be listening to" and one of the other English teachers briskly walked over to where he was seated, and yanked his head up by the collar. This is fairly common.

But altogether it was a great event and it was so nice to see a different side of my students. It was refreshing to see them cutting loose and acting like regular teenagers; very reassuring that they are HUMAN. I think that special planned sports days and events like this help ensure that the grueling and academically sterile environment is maintained and respected on an otherwise regular basis.

white rice fever

2009-03-13T08:08:00.000-07:00

white rice is such a staple here that it is served with every meal almost without exception. Even if bread is offered, rice is customarily provided as well. Observe here as you can see rice and bread compete for attention on the same plate.

I could write about last weekend or I could...

2009-03-12T18:37:00.000-07:00

Vocabulary Notes:
Hanga - Japanese woodcut print
Matcha - high end powdered green tea
Mochi - Sticky, glutenous rice dessert

I'm on Japanese TV

2009-03-05T10:20:00.000-08:00

and making a damn fool of myself!

so the other day I was pulled aside randomly by a TV crew in downtown Fukuoka while bumbling around Tenjin station. Actually it wasnt so much a crew as it was a short bald man with a navy blue jacket and a funny red bow-tie, being followed by a dude with a camera.

I didn't take it too seriously, but it turns out they were filming a regular segment for the show "Mentai WIDE" in which gaijin are summarily poked at in quick goofy interviews . After the usual barrage of Japanese-people questions such as name, age, job, girlfriend (Y/N?) you have cool glasses, etc, he asked what has been surprising about life in Japan.

I TOTALLY BLANKED. couldn't think of anything. After a long UMMMMMMM, i blurted out "everything!" and then something about gameshows, and school graduation. After that they asked to see what was in my bag, and I revealed my Judo gi--I was going to practice Jujitsu later that night. Did i mention that I practice jujitsu now? That's a story for another post--It's a used gi borrowed from my school, so it says a former student's name, "AKIYAMA," on the back. After making fun of the fact that my gi says Akiyama, I was encouraged to put on the gi and do judo on him then and there, but by that point I was way too embarrassed to attempt to ippon seoi nage him right there near the train station.

So perhaps this is a virginity-losing event for all gaijin living in Nippon, but let it be known that Ihave officially made an idiot of myself on national Japanese TV. It aired today. My friend Jeanette caught it on tape!

The first clip just shows a second of us "playing judo" during the show intro:

This one features a longer portion of my interview. They actually cut out most of the horribly emberassing bits! Yatta!

EDIT: Omg, do you see the girl drawing Chinen-san in the first clip? That's one of my good friends, Cira! She was interviewed by him on the SAME DAY. What a crazy world.

Graduation (卒業)

2009-02-28T21:11:00.000-08:00

In Japan, high school students do not typically graduate in the fall. They graduate in Spring. On March first. That happens to be today. Falling on a Sunday, and being preceded by a rehearsal yesterday, today's graduation marks the 7th consecutive day of my work week. Luckily we will receive compensatory holidays this Monday and Tuesday.

ALTs and visitting Americans often comment on the very formal seriousness of Japanese High School graduation, so I was prepared to behold a real spectacle. But truth be told, I don't feel that my graduation from high school in America was much less serious or formal than this one. The interesting point is that they are serious in different ways and the culture of formality is quite different in Japan and America.

The major players
-School principal, who is decked out in a tux with tails for today's events
-Vice Principal, my boss
Night School Vice Principal
-All the teachers, looking their finest, wearing nice suits or kimonos, organized in folding chairs along the side of the gymnasium.
-All the students (wearing their regular uniforms, no caps and gowns). Students are partitioned by year--seniors in the front, freshmen in the back--and homeroom. They are then further separated into clusters of boys and girls.
-All the parents, seated behind the students
-The Brass Band, set up in a make-shift band pit in the back corner of the gmnasium.
-The Chorus Club, situated in the upper balcony in the back of the room
-The two teachers who do photography and video, traversing the catwalks, capturing everything from above.

Before the service began, I was in charge of working with my supervisor at the welcome desk in the front of the school. We greeted VIPs entered the school with cheerful "Ohayou Gozaimasu"s and signed them in, giving them a welcome packet and a ribbon to wear, a pink and white runner up-looking ribbon for regular Alumni, and a huge red "GRAND PRIZE" looking ribbon for extremely important visitors and guests of the principal. After everyone arrived, we entered the gymnasium.

The ceremonies began as the senior (third year) students marched into the hall accompanied by the brass band playing triumphant music, though not Auld Lang Syne, which is typically reserved in Japan for the ending of important projects and/or ushering customers out of businesses around closing time. As the students filed in, led by their homeroom teachers, we had to clap continually for 10 minutes until every student was seated.

After they were assembled as described above, without missing a beat, the Chorus club immediately began singing "Hallelujah" from the balcony. None of the parents tried to turn around in their seat or look at the singing students above and behind them, they just looked forward blankly at the principal who stood motionless, waiting at a podium on the stage. Upon finishing with a harmonizing "Amen," the Chorus Club students filed out of the gym promptly and quietly without applause from the audience. This was eerie.

After some too-long opening remarks from the principal, each student's name was called by their homeroom teacher from a podium beside the stage. One by one, the students of each class stood up from their seats, saying (preferably yelling) "Hai!" (Yes!). Some students roared it out, while others barely made a peep. All the boys first, then the girls for each class. After the entire homeroom was standing, they were instructed to sit down together, and the next homeroom teacher approached the podium, while the "next at bat" teacher got up from his/her seat and stood off to the side.

Then, certain students were honored for achievements or perfect attendance. One at a time they were called up the the stage by the Discipline teacher from the side podium. One by one they ascended to the stage, first bowing to the giant framed Japanese flag, then to the principal. One of my favorite co-English teachers, clad in ornate kimono and white gloves that were reminescent of Bugs Bunny, handed the certificates from an ornate carrying tray to the principal, who then handed them to the students and congratulated them. They bowed to each other once more, and the student left the stage.

That was followed by a series of long-winded speeches that I mostly didn't understand by the principal, special guests, and important alumni. Before and after each speech, the "discipline" teacher instructed the audience in unison to rise, stand at attention, bow, and then sit down again. We sang the national anthem and school song at certain points, as well.

Next came a series of concluding speeches from student representatives. First up was one of my favorite students, a second year and the former president of student council. I believe his speech was on behalf of the underclassmen to the graduating class. Things got more emotional when the representatives of the graduating classes gave their speeches. First a boy representing the regular day school gave his speech, and about halfway through his thank-you's to mom, dad and teachers, he began to creak and sniffle. Next was a girl represented the night school. It took her a good minute or two to pull herself together and start speaking, and she cried throughout the whole speech. I didn't understand much of what she said, but then all the parents and everyone around me started weeping. It was a slow sniffle at first, that moved through the crowd uniformily. Then people, seemingly as a coordinated, cohesive whole, began taking out their little towels and wiping their eyes. It all looked almost rehearsed. Apparently this happens at all graduations, as my Vice Principal warned me. It HAS to happen.(1)

After that was a speech from one representative parent, which didn't move everyone quite as much as the night school student, and then the brass band started up again and we clapped for another solid 5 or 10 minutes as the graduating class filed out in a line.

Once back in the school, the third year students had one last homeroom class, in which they presumably said final goodbyes to these teachers who have followed them throughout the three years. Now all the students are running around the school with their friends and families, getting yearbooks signed, yelling, giving flowers to special teachers, and generally being very excited.

All in all, it was new cultural experience, but not altogether different from the way things go down in America. We also wear nice suits and get very excited and organized over high school graduation. There may be fewer speeches, and there may be no discipline teacher barking "stand! attention! bow! sit!" but i believe that these are cultural transpositions of a similar degree of formality.

I have no schedule for the rest of the day 2 more hours, and then the teachers will have an enkai (office party) to celebrate.
____________________________________________________
(1)As an interesting aside, most Japanese people always seem to have a tiny towel on hand. Taking a page from Hitch-hiker's guide, maybe. They are commonly exchanged as "thank-you-for-your-gift" gifts.

Cast of Characters

2009-02-27T16:52:00.001-08:00

It's 8:22 and I can be seen hurrying to work, by car as of late, despite the very short distance to my school; it's 15 minutes by foot, 6 by bicycle and 2 by car.

Just about every day, at the same moment I pull up to the traffic light down the road, a middle-aged man can be seen rounding the corner in his ATV. He looks so smug and self-content in his characteristic goggles, which are reminiscent of basketball legends Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Horace Grant. Without fail, as I approach the light at 8:22, he too turns that fateful corner and we exchange knowing glances as he tackles the all-terrain road and passes the local dry-cleaner's, gradually accelerating to the speed limit of about 25 mph.

I like to think that this daily excursion is part of his morning routine, perhaps taking place before he heads to work. I imagine that after a few laps around the block, he returns to his modest abode and removes his goggles, wiping adrenaline-filled beads of sweat from his brow. His wife, plain though loving, eagerly inquiring as to all the details of today's outting. He plays it off like it's no big deal, but both parties know better; he is truly a badass.

Hats off to you, ATV man; your thirst for adventure amidst the rice fields and love hotels has captured our spirits and our hearts. You will always have a place to call your own in my Amagi Cast of Characters.

Horace "The General" Grant

Japan

2009-02-24T18:39:00.001-08:00

I derrive a disproportionately large amount of job satisfaction exclusively from drawing huge, weird pictures on the board.

Last week was a bear fighting a shark.

note

2009-02-22T06:44:00.000-08:00

It's so hard to speak Japanese :(

I've got a long way to go.

New goal!

2009-02-19T17:48:00.000-08:00

Learn one enka (traditional japanese) song to perform at karaoke during the nijikai (after-party) of my next enkai (office party). For a more complete explanation of enkai and nijikai, see this article.

According to reputable sources, if i can accomplish something like this, I will instantly become a local legend.

my choice is Umi yuki by Jero, a popular new gaijin singer who hit Japan from Philly last year. His grandmother was a Japanese national, and he learned enka growing up with her. Truth be told, he is actually a huge nerd, confirmed by pictures I saw on the NEWS of his former life in America, and a degree in information science. But now he dresses up like a hip hop star and is making it big because Japanese mainstream culture LOVES it when foreigners can do something Japanese.

I mean people even freak out when they see that I can eat raw fish or use chopsticks without somehow injuring myself. Yes, I am complimented on my chopsticks-using ability several times a week. Of course not all Japanese people share this world-view, but still, there's this attitude that permeates Japanese media and society that only "real" Japanese people can truly understand or appreciate the culture. So seeing a (75%) black guy from Pennsylvania fluently crooning this old-school style of Japanese music makes them wet their levis jeans with amazement.

According to my calculations, the formula works like this:
1. Japanese culture and Western culture are necessarily COMPLETELY different and mutually exclusive to each other.
2. Foreign culture is really cool, we consume and imitate it! (e.g. We like hip hop and obsess of hip hop style.)
3. We loooove famous westerners.
4. This one dude is a real live hip hop star, but he sings ENKA. えっえええ！！

My proposed objective will play right into this effect, even though my Japanese is much less passable than Jero's.

This is my goal. To dumbfound my coworkers and shortcircuit the foundations of their world-view. Otherwise, to chip away at the notion that foreigners are disinterested in and cannot understand anything about Japan.

and... Challenging Convention/Changing our World. I guess.
Thanks, Clark.

cast of characters

2009-02-19T06:54:00.001-08:00

There's this one old man who lives in my town who sometimes visits my school to teach the art club. He's a relatively reknowned (at least locally) Hanga artist, that is, Japanese wood-cut printmaking. Even though i usually cannot attend his instructional sessions at my school (he comes on the same day as my Japanese class downtown) I go whenever possible and he seemed to take a liking to me almost immediately.

He likes to call me "Doctor Michael" because I told him was thinking about going to MD or PhD programs at some point in the future. Basically everyone in town knows him and his craft. To illustrate this point, I was once going to his house for a party, and the hand-drawn map he drew me indicated that his house was on the complete opposite side of town. So i was wandering around the entirely wrong neighborhood and asked a random shop keeper if they knew Sano Sensei's house. As far as i could tell they were like "THE Sano sensei?" and I was like yeah! and they proceeded to draw me a real map to his house. Yes, this is that kind of community.

On another occasion I was walking around with Sano sensei going into random stores and barber shops where he knows people. Basically everywhere we went had something hanging on the wall that he would point to and say "I made that." He also showed me architectural drafts he's done that have been built into actual homes in the city.

I went to a new Years Party he was hosting with some former students. They are great. They apparently get together frequently and their group name is "The Weasels" Which is a play on one of the member's names, i think, which i guess sounds like the Japanese word for weasel.

He's 84, and let me assure you, I can't understand a WORD of what he says. Actually I have gotten to the point where i can usually understand Japanese people, believe it or not, but old people simply speak a different language. It's hard to demonstrate without showing you an imitation in person. basically just try to imagine tipsy 60 year old dudes hanging out in dive bars in America. It's basically the equivalent of that. He even pronounces the most common words with complete different, old-fashioned sounds. So I talk to this guy, and I understand about 10% of what he says, but nevertheless he seems to LOVE me. And is always trying to explain something simple to me about Japan. I look confused but it's only because I have no idea what words he's using.

So yeah, Local hero. Cool grandfather character in my Japanese life.

note:

2009-02-06T19:53:00.001-08:00

ive gotta get a desk

hanabatake farm

2009-02-05T05:21:00.000-08:00

I am eating the caramel from Hokkaido now.

My god, it's incredible.

silky and soft, not tough and chewy like normal caramel. slightly oily to the touch. almost the consistency of soft cheese, or congealed cream.

simply amazing. The hype is entirely deserved. at least for the allotted 15 minutes or so.

2009-02-02T03:43:00.001-08:00

Here is the first batch of Hokkaido visual aids, uploaded from my mobile phone.
For you, my precious pawns!

First of all, Marimokkori. This little green dude is always sporting strange costumes and a trademark erection. It turns out his name is a bit of a play on words. From "marimo," a kind of green algea common in Hokkaido, and "Mokkori," meaning boner. This guy is apparently a big mascot for Hokkaido. I believe I have blogged on the topic before

Does anyone remember that "eggs!" animation? It's on TV in Japan!!

A view from heaven

Hokkaido is famous for its miso ramen broth, sweet corn, and high quality butter. This bowl encorporates all three.

Crab tabehodai - all you can eat

Delicious. Endless.

This sign just amuses me.
TO YOU WHO KNOW TRUE VALUES

BTW

2009-02-02T02:48:00.001-08:00

It's taken me a few practice runs but i believe i have constructed the perfect burger.

Top-quality ground beef, first balsamic marinated and then grilled to perfection atop a bed of simultaneously carmelized onions. Then tenderly swaddled betwixt two toasted bun halves, smeared with oven roasted garlic, chevre goat cheese and pesto, the whole thing topped with sauteed mushrooms, grilled sliced ham and a whole fried egg.

Paired with brie and sliced apple in a crusty french bread and a Blue Moon to wash it all down, imported by hand from America.

More sliced fruit for dessert.

Sometimes I love cooking for one.

ただいま！

2009-02-02T02:11:00.000-08:00

The above, "Tadaima" means I'm home.

After a great micro-vacation to the land of powder snow and delicious dairy confections, I have returned to the relatively mild, yet completely uninsulated winter of Fukuoka, and am already wasting this evening away before I return to work tomorrow.

The rest of the Hokkaido trip turned out to be great and I am already sorely aching to be back at Niseko. I'll provide a recap in slightly more detail than the posts below, and then hopefully be disciplined enough to get some photos thrown up here.

Day 1

The first day of snowboarding was blessed with great conditions and "not yet sore" legs, which permitted a great day on a beautiful mountain. It had snowed a day before, so there was plenty of silky, white gold to carve up. Cira and Patrick entered snowboarding school to learn for the first time, and Grace decided to take a lesson as well, so I went up with Carl and Kevin. I started to realize I had a bit more experience than them, despite the fact that both of them are far more fit than me as regular exercisers and furthermore, they were both a little sick from earlier in the week. I eventually lost track of them as I opted to veer off from our green runs to carve up some intermediate trails. I lost track of the intersecting points where we planned to meet and continued on my own for a bit, before we all met up for lunch. Everyone seemed exhausted. We sat around there for way too long, eating and resting, and then we went back out. Pat called to inform us that he lost hold of his board while walking to his afternoon lesson sending it sailing dangerously down the mountain. He resolved to quit snowboarding then and there, aggravated by a ski patrolman who yelled at him for being so careless. But eventually his board did turn up (I had a feeling it would) and he was back on track with lessons the following day. I'm glad because he had a really good time and seemed to learn quickly.

I went off on my own again for a little while and we met up at 4:30 to head back to the lodge. After dinner we went out to town and enjoyed some onsen relaxation. I stood nude in an outdoor hotspring on a windswept balcony overlooking the family ski runs. I enjoyed standing triumphantly naked in the sub-freezing wind; The water had heated me enough that I didn't mind the temperature, and my ego had groomed me enough that I didn't mind the possibility of being casually spotted by a skier. When we returned I happened to met Alice, a very cute Aussie girl who was working at the lodge for the season. She was sitting in the common room drinking scotch when we came in from the onsen and people split up to go to bed or check their email. I ended up hanging out with Alice for about an hour, I was exhausted, but she was presumably drunk, so I wasn't too embarrassed. We talked about meeting up on the mountain the following morning when she finished working the breakfast shift.

Day 2

My friends were all pretty beat. Some of them had gone out the evening before while I opted to sleep. Most of them slept in after coming downstairs in the pajamas just to snag the free breakfast. I didn't see Alice during breakfast, so I went out on the first shuttle with Patrick, who was also out bright'n early for his second day of lessons.

I was on my own and kinda pissed that nobody else came out, and that I hadn't met Alice in the morning. Conditions were pretty crappy- cold, icy, and windy, but after a few runs on empty trails where nobody could see my horrible falls and subsequent cursing at the hard ice, I was loosened up and ended up having an AMAZING morning; resigned to see as much of the mountain as possible, I found a great powdery patch 3/4 of the way up. I even ventured to the peak via a nearly-empty lift to the tippy top. Up there, it was pretty steep and far too windy to enjoy boarding, but the view was just unreal. I slipped down on my heel edge and did many more runs on the course I had earlier discovered, weaving through trees and powder. Then I made my way down the mountain to meet the others for lunch. When I took off my ninja mask, everyone gasped at how badly windburned i'd gotten. A trip to the bathroom confirmed that my face was red and white like the stripes of the American flag, likely due to my journey to the summit. The others had been out on the Family course while Cira practiced getting up and hooking some turns. I inhaled a lot of a pizza and then decided to go back out there with everyone else. I was tired of being out on my own. The Family course was not very steep, but way too icy and choked with people just learning to ski or board, who would frequently fall or turn unexpectedly. I felt bad for Cira, who had little experience and had to deal with those harsh conditions. Falling on the hard icy snow really hurt. I practiced my 180s and riding switch, but finally decided i had taken enough spills and convinced Carl to accompany me up near where I'd been earlier.

By that point it was mid afternoon, and when we got up to my powdery haven of the morning, conditions had become much less than ideal. It was brutally windy, like it was at the top, and in fact they shut down the lift right after we disembarked up there. Carl was sick and tired and cold and his goggles began fogging badly. I felt bad for dragging him up there, but he had a great attitude and we made it down together. I had an awesome time pushing myself to carve nose-down through the wind on trails a bit steeper than I'm used to. By the time we got down, I was so fully energized that I was jumping around in the snow and climbing around in it while we waited for the shuttle, but our group was otherwise wiped out, so we just headed back to the lodge.

After dinner and a trip out to another onsen, we came back to the lodge for some live jazz. I made my way downstairs with Patrick and had another fun conversation with cute Alice, who alternately served drinks and mingled with me and others.

Eventually though, our conversation was thrown off-track by a nearby man called Vaughn who started engaging me in political discussion. I got pretty fired up about the questions he asked and I'm pretty sure that drove away my lovely, pretty Alice. She started mingling elsewhere and I got deeper and deeper into politics of the Middle East and world order. Eventually Pat left too and Vaughn asked me if Patrick was my partner, but he asked in such a genuinely open-minded way that it was no big deal to just be like "oh... no. ...no he's just my friend." Still, that came off as a funny story later when I told everyone else.

Vaughn went on at length about America, world politics, and the magical impact of the mountains. He said that America is a world military power and we shouldn't be so ashamed of that. He also said that the world will never wise up until we are governed by a single leader. This was not the first time I had heard this sentiment, and it always freaks me out a little. On a more hilarious note, he nominated Bob Dylan for the job. He said Dylan is clearly incorruptible. "just listen to his lyrics" he said, "how many roads must a man walk down?"

He also said that the being on the mountain was spiritual and magical for anyone and everyone, and asked me if i believed in a higher power. After I explained my personal views about a lack of god and a much more interesting physical reality responsible for our nuanced psychological behavior, he categorized me as an "intuitive agnostic." I kind've dig that label. It reminded me of a painting class when a teacher first categorized me as an "abstract expressionist." --A weird mix of feeling slightly resentful of being sorted so matter-of-factly, but also somewhat enjoying the extent of the label, and all it implies.

Anyway, chatting with Vaughn was kinda interesting, but i really regret not talking with Alice any more, especially after missing an opportunity to go out on the slopes with her and another cute member of the staff. Instead boarding on my own, fun though it was, felt like I missed some great opportunity. I never got her email or even said goodbye the next morning because she wasn't mulling around the breakfast room or the kitchen. Oh well. Another day, a less-shy Mike.

Day 3

When we woke up, it was just dumping powder snow, and I was visibly peeved that we weren't able to go out on the mountain to enjoy it. We had changed out bus time to 3PM to 10AM, but if we had stuck with the original time we would have had time to go enjoy what Niseko is famous for: amazing, amazing powder snow. Yet everyone else seemed exhausted and ready to move on. It made me feel kind of awkward to be the only one really wanting to maximize our mountain time. The night before, when I suggested changing the time back to 3, people were just kinda like 'eh. too bad.' We probably couldn't have changed it back at that point anyway, but it was just surprising to feel like the one with the most energy. I guess everyone else was under the weather.

At any rate, we packed up and got on a bus to Sapporo for our last day. We arrived and ventured out to see the ice and snow sculptures being prepared for this week's snow festival. The sculptures were a little disappointing, and Sapporo somehow seemed far colder and windier than Niseko. I longed to be back on the mountain plowing through soft floury powder. The famous sculptures were huge and pictographically realistic, but truth be told, they were just snow packed over wooden-framed sculptures and then shaped by hand. Eh.

That night, however, we had an amazing feast of tabehodai (all you can eat) snow crab and king crab. The cost was about $50, but that included endless plates of crab legs, plus tabehodai sushi, crab custard, tempura, plus nomihodai (all you can drink) sake, draught beer, soft drinks, etc.

I definitely got my money's worth, and i'd like to think my crab-shelling skills improved, as well.

We spent the night watching Mixed Martial Arts fights on UFC and I crashed a bit earlier than the others, as they settled in to watch the Super Bowl, which did not interest me at all..

Today we journeyed back to good old FUK. At the train station, we waited in line for 40 minutes to get special caramel that was recently featured on the news. It's made from "special milk" on a specific farm in hokkaido, and being featured like that on tv has made it the hokkaido gift of the year. a little played up, but it was a fun experience participating in the hype.

Tonight I will find something to eat, perhaps at the local izakaya, and bring the staff some delicious gifts from up north.

at the Aussie lodge!

ready to carve up Niseko!

waiting on ramen

There it is!

Snow sculptures in Sapporo. What is that, Buzz Lightyear and his weird children?

2009-02-01T01:10:00.000-08:00

another quick update from Carl's computer. Need to keep it quick because they are wanting to watch MMA videos in a minute (Mixed Martial Arts[Man on Man Action])

Today we left Niseko amidst a beautiful powder flurry. I was a little dissapointed because it apparently dumps snow up there every 3 days and we just missed it. Anyway, we took a bus this morning to Sapporo, where we will spend one night, before flying back to Fukuoka tomorrow.

I have been desperately trying to get in touch with my family over the last couple days for 1- my mother's birthday, 2- my brother's birthday, 3- they haven't heard from me and are starting to sound concerned. I assure you guys I am still alive! I just havent been able to figure out my phone enough to make international calls. Actually tonight I asked my Japanese-speaking friend to listen to the message that plays when I try to make a call and it told me how to do it correctly. Unfortunately it's now after 4am in America, so I will try again tomorrow. Ugh i feel so bad. I wanna talk to these people.

To end on a positive note, we were in a store called Don Quixote earlier today that sells all kinds of silly stuff. I bought 'black man' condoms with racially questionable drawings on the box and English to the effect of "Keep it real. Piece! We are all a brack people." as well as a keychain with a fake slice of white bread that looks and feels exactly like the real deal.

They also sold keychains that simulate the experience of openning perforated cardboard boxes and popping out pieces of edamame. I am holding out for the bubble wrap edition that I have heard rumors of.

2009-01-29T04:21:00.002-08:00

just a quick update! i am in Hokkaido. Niseko to be specific, a huge and amazing mountain* see below

*

We are staying at a lodge run by some very hospital Australians! They took care of everything for us- free breakfast and dinner every day, called for a ride to the rental shop and back, even picked us up from the bus stop. dinner was chicken cream soup and shrimp and scallop alfredo. they sell australian wine too. And, clearly, free wifi. I definitely reccommend Niseko to anyone thinking about a ski trip to Japan in the future.

I am gearing up for 12 hours on the mountain tomorrow! I am already a little tired from going to judo class in the mornings this week (incidentally, I also highly reccommend wrestling your students-- great bonding) but i will stretch out tonight and in the morning and be good to go!

looking forward to waist-deep powder and seafood!

i wanna do this to my apartment

2009-01-08T21:35:00.001-08:00

horrifying realization

2009-01-08T00:34:00.001-08:00

the head teacher for first-year students laughs exactly like Newman from Seinfeld

へえええええ！

2009-01-05T21:57:00.000-08:00

How do you express surprise? Have you ever really thought about it? all those "surprised" sounds we make?

I definitely didn't. And I certainly never considered the sounds I make in shock to be a part of the English language canon. But travelling from America to Japan certainly brings this assumption under scrutiny. Where we English speakers might place interjections like WHOA!, WOW! and NO WAI!, Japanese tend to gravitate towards a drawn out, rising Ehhhhhhhhhhhh! or Hu-ehhhhhh!

The only thing i can compare it to is every 5th graders' instinctive reaction upon hearing a peer's name called over the PA, being summoned to the principal's office. It's exactly that kind of rising pitch, but with a different phoneme.

A quick flip through Japanese news and game show media highlights this phonetic phenomenon. It's one of those things that seemed like probably just a Japanese stereotype, but it turns out to be so entrenched and abusively used as to be almost a satire of itself. Even on news programming, audience members are a must when dolling out new or surprising information because it just doesn't seem so novel without that instant appropriate social reaction. It's like a socially ingrained call-and-response.

As we speak... as i type?... two male teachers are having a conversation across the room. Although the dramatic drawn out Heeee-EEEEH is more girly, men use the interjection too, making it a bit shorter and lower, with a more consistent (opposed to rising) inflection.

It's one of the few things i couldnt help myself from doing while i was in America last week. It's just so important to listening to people when you're trying to speak Japanese.

So yesterday afternoon, i took my lunch home to eat and i had the tv on, perusing my usual buffet of game shows. I stumbled across one where they actually built a game around the interjection:

First they brought out three contestents, each decked out in traditional Japanese garb, ornate kimonos, which elicited a fair amount of "ehhh"s from the audience in and of itself.

Then the host explained...

(haha sorry, more people are doing it right next to me now.)

So the host explained that the contestants would have to make the audience say EHH! as much as possible. He brought out this tiny theatrical stage-and-curtain apparatus, roughly puppet theater size, with a draw-string on the side to pull the curtain up and down. One by one, the contestants would stand behind the curtain, and then a tiny cartoon voice would count down 3--2--1--- and then the host pulls up the curtain and the contestant has to make a true statement about him or herself that will knock the socks off the audience. Something unexpected. Then audience then reacts to its heart's content, and then an LED scoreboard indicates a numerical value corresponding to the amount of "EHH!" that was elicited. After the studio audience finishes shrieking, the host says the Japanese equivalent of "For reals??" and conducts a micro interview with the person, still inside the tiny stage, about their outrageous and true experience.

I will never tire of Japanese television.

Ohh, i just heard a good one

integration, reintegration, disintegration

2009-01-04T23:59:00.000-08:00

This is my 100th post. How appropriate that it comes at this juncture; having been in Japan almost half a year. Though i will almost definitely be recontracting for year 2 (unless something catastrophic happens in the next 2 weeks), I am halfway through my first 1-year contract with Fukuoka Board of Education

So if you didn't gather, I spent the last 2 weeks in America, and now I'm back in Japan. Apologies for not blogging whilst still in the US of A. I had every intention to do so, but somehow the whole break managed to slip by as I ran from destination to destination.

I was really looking forward to my reverse-culture-shock in America. Indeed, when I deplaned, everything seemed strange and new. There were foreigners everywhere! and English everywhere, and holy cow, i was literate! I was meandering slowly through the concourse towards baggage claim, when I overheard some Japanese coming from across the hallway. I stopped and looked back to spot a Japanese couple who had come in on my flight, trying to retrieve a luggage cart from the Smart-Cart vending rack thing. In Japanese airports, carts are complimentary and simply provided near the baggage claim area, so the couple were perplexedly trying to pull a cart away from the corral without feeding the machine to unlock it. I turned around to offer a little assistance, and in Japanese, pointed out the payment slot. Oh how proud i was to tell them that it costs 300 yen. To return countless tiny favors Japanese people have done for me as a complete idiot in a country where I have no idea what is going on. I didnt even have to stop to think about why they couldn't figure it out because i have the clearest idea of what it's like to be in a place where the obvious to everybody else, can seem cryptic and impossible. They said thank you in English and i said "You're welcome" in my English teacher voice. What a "I'm a Japanese-speaking badass" moment that was. Oh you can only imagine. (Small victories, guys. bear with me).

So i was pleasantly enjoying my reverse culture shock. I met up with my dad outside who picked me up and we had lovely conversations on the way home about Japan and Japanliness. Then when i got home, suddenly the family dynamic snapped me out of it. The noise, the Nintendo wii, the foodstuffs. I was no longer a visitor from Japan, I was a son/older brother. And just like that, it was as if I'd never left. I was my same old criticizing, quietly observing the strange family dynamics self again.

America has changed a lot, though. Some of this is getting used to the Japanese standards of things, like how people in stores and restaurants seem so pushy by comparison for not greeting me with a smile.

See, in Japan, every time you enter the premises of a business, the clerks and employees are all trained to yell IRASHAIMASE (Welcome! Can I help you??) in the highest, most nasal voice possible. This is supposed to sound the most subservient. If they dont do this effectively, they can get fired. I actually hate it because the subservient voice is extremely annoying and ear-splitting, but i have to admit, something seemed off in America without it. Or perhaps it was just the lack of constant attention and fake friendliness, where clerks just say how much you owe without the grace of a complete sentence or intonation.

My 13 days in America were quite productive. I spent time with my family, of course. And my grandma, who lives all the way out in New Jersey (well in Florida, this time of year) came to cold, harsh Chicago for several days, just to see me while i was home. It was really a pleasure to spend time with everyone, and though we didn't do much real "catching up" per se, there was almost a sense that we didnt have to. It was as if things were untouched and the same as before. Like i had never left. We talked about day-to-day stuff and we complained and stressed each other out. Intense though the dynamic can be, it's a constant that is nice to come back to.

The day after i arrived in America, we went to my brother's and sister's piano recital, which was an excellent re-culturation experience. Everyone was decked out in their holiday sweaters and it was set in this old church. Joe occupied himself by putting his feet up on the kneelers and flipping through the bible. I occupied myself by biting my lip.

Lewis came into town a few times to visit, and i got to see a lot of good friends from high school, a lot of good friends from after high school, as well as some people i have rarely hung out with in the past, but am beginning to correspond with more, either by chance or by eclipsing interests in travel and Japan. It's interesting that I can continue to make new relationships in Oak Park, despite not having lived there in about 5 years now. Nevertheless, i hung out for the first time with many new people and seem to be developing new friendships. This is admittedly mostly due to facebook.

Needless to say I ate a ton of Chicago pizza, italian beef, as well as Diner and Mexican fare.

I played magic.

I drove around Oak Park collecting restaurant take out menus, which i brought back to Japan with me to use in my classes. I really want to encorporate elements of the real world into my lessons. It can make all the difference when you show them real pieces of life in the foreign language, rather than trying to teach from textbook illustrations.

I went to visit Margaret, who has babysat for my family since my birth. She lives around Ashland and 63rd, so i took the CTA out to her neck of the woods to meet her for the first time in my adult life. The other side of the green line is another world indeed and it was a really great experience. She picked me up at the train station and suggested we drive BACK to River Forest to get lunch. I said that was ridiculous and said we oughtta eat around there.

"Well we usually eat Soul Food"

"great!"

So I had the most delicious fried chicken and candied yams and Mac and Cheese at a popular soul food join around Ashland and 80th. sugoooi.

It's long past quittin time now, yet i remain at my desk, so i will have to continue this update with my reintegration (re-re-culture shock) to Japan when i return.

Catcha later, beautifuls!

the loving family at supper

hannukkah

New Years party: Soul Train

the midnight soul train arrives

cheap gas!

packing important American things

take-off

2009-01-04T03:15:00.000-08:00

January 2, 2009

ladies and gentlemen, cabin doors have been sealed

I have just been sealed into this A319 aircraft, where I am settling into seat 07-D, on NW229, nonstop service to Detroit.

I've spent the last thirteen days at home in River Forest.--

Cabin lights will be turned off, a reading light is above your seat.

--I spent all of last night packing and repacking with Teresa and Lewis, who seems to grow more and more attached to Oak Park and River Forest with each inevitably prolonged visit. After a dinner of America sushi with my family (including Lewis, of course), i began to load my suitcases for their journey back to Japan.

Overloaded with Reese's Peanutbutter cups, granola bars, sock-wrapped bottles of beer and wine, and jars of corn salsa and gourmet peanut butter, some packing revisions had to be made along the way. From 3 overweight bags, I repacked, cutting it down to 2 overweight bags, and then finally packing again, I finished with 2 bags, only one of which being overweight, and one unweildy carry-on (plus piles of abandoned snacks, candies and condiments which i hope will find their way to Japan with the help of some delivery men.

It's been a sleepless night of coffee, memories of travels past, suitcase-induced stress, and rich chocolate and coconut cakes. The sun is now rising over midway concourse A, and our plane is beginning to taxi from the gate. It's time to turn off this light and close my eyes...

お疲れさまです

2008-12-18T21:43:00.001-08:00

Okay class, settle down. Today we're studying everyday Japanese.

Perhaps one of the first phrases you would learn as a business traveller to Japan would be お疲れ様です, or "Otsukare sama desu"

It's often translated as "good work", "thanks for the hard work," or sometimes even "you must be tired" but it's meaning and common usage are much deeper--and more hilarious--than that.

I probably say お疲れさまです or it's past-tense counterpart 10-20 times every workday. We say it to each other after a class, after a meeting, or after almost anything work related that might have required an ounce or two of energy. (i.e. anything above and beyond sleeping at ones desk).

To get the literal meaning, let's break it down.

The last word, "desu" is just the verb "to be." It means that whatever comes before it "is."

The first word is "tsukare," meaning "to be tired" but it's distinct from other kinds of tiredness and exhaustion. Tsukare means specifically being tired from working too hard. It's a cultural gem in and of itself

Adding "O-" to the front of "tsukare" (Otsukare) makes it "honorific." In Japanese you add the Honorific "O" to many things, especially Japanese type things like green tea and bentos. But this is only done if the object in question pertains to someone else. For example, when offering someone tea, it is polite to say O-cha. (O-tea... "your tea, sire"), but if referring to your own tea, you should drop the O to be more modest. (MY stuff is normal. YOUR stuff is extra special). Mmm even more cultural goodness packed into that tiny prefix.

The next word in the phrase is "sama."
Sama is one of many japanese words that are equated roughly to "Mister" in English. However, the normal version is San, meaning Mr/Mrs/Ms. Seidman-san, Bethany-san, Kitajima-san, etc. (as an aside, it works for first names as well as last, as distinct from English).

Japanese has many more versions of these, each with a different meanings depending on your relationship to the person. Like in English, sometimes a person's title can replace Mr. For example, just like Mr. Gregory House, MD can be called Dr. House, Mr. Notohara, the teacher, can and should be called "Notohara sensei" Here are the variations that i know of:

-san: standard Mr./Ms.

-sensei: teacher (which leads to a lot awkward translations into Michael-teacher or Takakura-teacher when students try to translate into English)

-chan: for girls, young women, and cutesy/diminuative nicknames (both genders) sometimes dudes have told me their nickname is A-chan or somesuch.

-kun: for boys and young men, or a guy you're really friendly with. One of the ALTs at my school used to be called "Ben-kun" by his students, which means that they really viewed him as a peer.

finally...
-sama: reserved for superiors and seniors.

So the whole thing -- Otsukare sama desu-- means literally

"You are Mr. Honorably-tired-from-working-too-hard."

Hahahahaha

closing ceremonies

2008-12-18T18:31:00.001-08:00

Well that was interesting. My school just had our closing ceremonies for winter vacation. It's called closing ceremonies and treated like an end of the year thing, yet the students will come back for one more trimester and the school year actually ends in April. Strange then that they have all of these award ceremonies and formalities for just a 2 week break. I mean most of the kids going to keep coming to school for club sports anyway. Here's what my day has been like so far:

8:30: morning meeting. This happens every day, but the teachers were acting extra formal and excited this morning, and there seemed to be more information than usual. While often only the vice principal talks, this time many teachers stood up to make announcements

8:50: Big clean-up time. Usually the students clean up the school for 15 minutes at the end of the day. Students are broken into cleaning posse's of 10-15 and assigned a location to clean, which periodically changes. Each teacher, also is assigned to supervise a location, and help clean, depending on the individual. I supervise the staff room and i help the students sweep up dust and chat with them in english. So today cleaning time was in the morning and lasted 40 minutes. After the regular cleanup of sweeping the dust around, we waxed the floors. Yeah. Waxed. That was interesting. We didnt have enough mops to spread the wax around so a few other students and I worked it into the floor by hand. My boss was impressed to see me working hard on my hands and knees, but was concerned about my pants getting dirty, lol. After we waxed for a while, I told the students they did an awesome job this year and that i'll miss them next year! (theyll probably get rotated to a new location). I had told them earlier this week that they could give me a letter to bring to America and i would have someone write back to them. And one girl who used to be in my crew but got moved wrote a letter to me!

Dear. Mr Michael
Hello! I am Yuka Ikenono.
I enjoyed talking with you. I was looking forward to going to a staff room to clean.

I think that English is very difficult.
But, it is fun for me to talk it.
I want to develop myself English and whisk through books in English in no time.

By the way, what is a look during Christmas in America? I am sure of lively town.
Do you eat a cake on Christmas?

Thank you for reading a letter. See you again.

from Yuka

awwwwwww.

9:30 Students and teachers meet in the gymnasium
We all met up in the gym. The teachers all sat on pre-arranged folding chairs that were set up on tarps so that we could wear our regular shoes inside. Then the students all lined up according to year, homeroom and gender, as they always do. This one group of boys seated near me were all wearing their summer uniforms, which are white, short-sleeved button-down shirts instead of their winter uniforms (a black coat with a stand-up collar). I asked them later what the heck they were thinking and they were like "We wanted to do it together! We are HARDCORE" haha a lot of the guy students like showing off by wearing their shortsleeved uniforms or shortsleeved gym shorts to outdoor PE classes. They have to wear uniforms but the school doesn't enforce which type they wear when. Haha there was also one girl who was wearing her summer uniform until a few weeks ago.

Everyone was then instructed to stand up, attention, bow, then sit down. The teachers do it too.

Then the school song was played on piano and sung by everyone.

Next the principal was introduced by vice principal
Principal climbs up to the stage, stops, bows to the Japanese flag, goes to the podium, bows the audience (audience bows back) and then begins his speech. Our principal... uh... isn't the best orator. He tends to ramble on past everyone's attention span. It's funny how I can notice that rapport between him and the audience even without understanding the speech. Same thing happened at the morning meeting. He kept rambling past the bell. Anyway he began his speech by talking about the "Sub Prime Loan problem" and was talking about other high schools for some reason. Then he suddenly started talking about difficult kanji and japanese words. He had the whole audience repeat difficult words and phrases after him. i had no idea what was going on.

During the speech one kid wearing a sick mask had to leave due to exhaustion, and was ushered out by his homeroom teacher. Another teacher standing next to me had some kind of panic attack while we were singing the school song and had to sit down (we were all standing for the song and the principal's speech). He started rocking back and forth with his head in his hands and sat there for the rest of the time, eventually leaving the room before the end of the ceremony. The same guy had an emotional/stress breakdown last week too and was taken away on a gurney in an ambulance. Of course these kinds of issues don't warrant psychological help or time off from work. One teacher was "helping him" by standing behind him, as if supervising, like he would step in if the guy started flipping out and screaming or something, which only drew everyone's attention to the situation. Awkward.

Next the head-teacher gave a speech. He is pretty cool and somehow, this will sound weird, has a voice appropriate for an english speaking dog character in a cartoon. Also, like, he would, like, use the phrase "desu ne" after, like, every few words, which is the equivalant of saying like...like...like over and over again in English. But he cracked some awesome jokes and it got the audience laughing and a little loosened up. He's cool.

Then the hardass discipline teacher gave a speech. He started with a joke, which made students laugh, but then got really serious and was talking about the difficulties of something or another. It's interesting to notice different individual speaking styles even (especially?) in a language you don't understand. Has anyone else ever notice this? It makes me wonder what the overall impression of my speaking style would be for a Japanese person. Probable "not confident enough"

The procedure for each speaker was the same: they climbed the stairs to the stage, then bowed to the Japanese flag, then went to the podium, then bowed again. I love the formality of it all.

Finally there was an awards ceremony for student achievements. The students ran from various places in the audience to line up offstage, where one teacher put them in the order they would be called on. They all took off their inside shoes and stood at attention while someone gave a speech about the award ceremony that was about to happen. Then they were called up in 2 groups of 8. First the whole group bowed to the principal who was at the podium, then he acknowledged each student for his or her achievement, gave em a certificate and stated the date, then they bowed to each other and everyone clapped. after all of them had recieved their certificate, the group would turn to face the audience and bow. We bow back.

Lastly there was one more too-damn-long speech by the principal, then everyone left. I chatted with some of my student pals and thanked Yuka for her letter. Now it's lunch time!

an email

2008-12-18T01:24:00.000-08:00

今日は、---------先生

I'm Michael Seidman, the ALT currently in Japan that you've probably heard about recently through ------. ------ is one of my friends and when she mentioned that she was assisting in your classes, i thought it might be a nice opportunity for all of us.

First I'll introduce myself. I graduated from OPRF in 2004 and went on to college at Clark University in Massachusetts. At Clark, I studied Psychology and Studio Art, and graduated this past spring. I began to consider working abroad, wanting something different and challenging between college and graduate school. I have never studied Japanese language or culture before coming here five months ago (I studied italian language and spent a semester in Florence, in the interest of my art studies), but nevertheless, I have long been interested in Japan. A friend of mine is a JET alumni and he initially recommended that I apply to the JET program. After talking it over I put in an application, and 6 months later (just 8 weeks after graduation) i was on a plane to Tokyo for orientation.

Now i find myself working as an ALT in rural Fukuoka ken. I live in a small town called 甘木 with a population of about 50,000. I work at an academic High School, where the students are very bright, but quite shy and utterly terrified of making mistakes, which is obviously a part of learning and speaking any language. The students' main goal is to get good grades and pass entrance exams so they can be accepted into top universities. だから、motivating them to really use English as a communication tool, rather than study to the test, can be difficult.

I am always trying to think of interesting ways to incorporate elements of the real english speaking world (opposed to the textbook) into my Oral Communications class. I thought it would be a good opportunity for them to communicate with high school students of Japanese in America.

My main goals for this would be:
1. To motivate the students to apply what they're learning.
2. To show the students that English exists in reality and that they can use it to communicate with real people, rather than just studying it from the textbook to pass the tests.
3. Seeing and relating to students in an American High School; understanding that American students also struggle, just like they do, to learn and use Japanese. Maybe seeing that it's hard for ANYONE to learn a new language would make them feel more comfortable with the potential of making mistakes.

------ asked me to create a list of some of my students personalities, but unfortunately I have so many kids that this is not really possible in a short timeframe. I have 320 一年生　students, who's personalities range from quiet and reserved to outgoing and creative. Their interests range across the board, from sports to art to math. I spoke to my Japanese colleagues about the idea this week, and mentioned that you might want to pair individual students together. The teachers felt that this wasn't really feasible. I mentioned the idea of having the project be something that students sign up for, but they pointed out that the students would then need to work outside of class, which is both difficult to coordinate, and unlikely to work because the students already have no extra time outside of school between all their homework and club activities. The English teachers i work with are hoping that we can get the students involved as whole classes. They suggested picking just a few of our classes to use. We could select the classes that are less skilled at speaking but more skilled at writing. Each class contains 40 students. But we can talk about these details later. I do also coordinate an English Club, but we have only five members, and I was hoping to get more kids involved.

Anyway, I was wondering if and when you may have time to meet with me while i am staying in America for the holidays. I will be in Oak Park/River Forest with my family from Dec 20 until Jan 2. Would it be possible for us to coordinate a meeting during these 2 weeks? Please let me know of any openings in your schedule when you could meet with me.

Sincerely,
Michael Seidman
ALTの甘木

in case you didn't know it

2008-12-17T20:20:00.000-08:00

it has come to my attention that maybe you didn't know i am going to be visiting America (because i never mentioned it until yesterday).

So yeah I'm gonna be in Chicago for 2 weeks starting this Saturday. Who else will be around?

Also, I'll finally be buying a car in Japan when I return. i've already put down the first payment. it'll look like this:

Wednesday night christmas (in english!)

2008-12-17T05:17:00.000-08:00

So a few weeks ago I met the acquaintance of one, Endo san. My boss stopped by my desk one afternoon and asked if I had a few minutes to spare. I gladly agreed and then he was ushering me down the hall to the principal's office. I had been late to work that morning for the first time, which is like serious badness in Japan, and was 5 minutes late for one of my classes (which is bad news anywhere) so i wasn't sure if i was going to get fired or what. But we entered the principals office and inside was a high profile meeting in progress between my boss, and my boss's boss, and this elderly man on an oxygen breather who introduced himself as Mr. Endo in flawless English.

Endo san is a famous graduate of my high school. He went on to be a very successful businessman here in town with his family-owned business, which produces freshwater nori. He is also excellent at English and still seems to be studying even in his old age. He loves it. He apparently just wanted to meet me because i am the new ALT at the school, so we chatted for a few minutes, he instructed me to do a good job teaching the students, and he mentioned that he has some friends who meet occasionally to practice speaking english and celebrate western holidays. He encouraged me to come meet them sometime. We exchanged phone numbers.

Later that week he called me and invited me to a christmas party with his English group. That was tonight. He instructed me to bring a gift of less than $10 and told me he'd pick me up outside my apartment. I met him outside 10 minutes early (i'm getting used to everyone being 10 minutes early) and we drove off to an Italian restaurant i had never been to before, where his friends were waiting.

It was amazing.

There were about 5 of them, and after the usual rounds of being told i look like a movie star, and have stylish glasses, etc (this kind of flattery is somehow just not getting old), they each introduced themselves formally in english. This is a big formality in Japan. I'm always doing self introductions and explaining awkwardly in Japanese that i'm 22 years old and that my family consists of 6 people, etc. It's all a standard set of facts, mostly demographical and about family and hobbies. It was a nice change to hear Japanese people struggle in exactly the same way I do to describe their families and hobbies in English. In good faith, i tried to introduce myself in Japanese anyway. Then we began to eat and talk. Spaghtetti, salad, more spaghetti, pizza, more spaghetti, neverending beer, followed by whiskey, followed by cake, followed by coffee and tea. Wow.

Over dinner i answered everyone's questions and we talked a lot about Japanese and American culture, as well as their personal histories and jobs. It was so strange to be having the whole discussion mainly in English. Something i have gotten less and less used to. They asked me the usual gauntlet of "why did you come to Japan" "What are your plans for the future" "What did you study in college" "Do you have a girlfriend" "Do you eat _____?" "Can you drink ______?" and so on. We even talked about Blood Type personality typing (which is really popular in Japan) and why Japan is so into it

One of the guys was a physical therapist, one of the women was the wife of the owner of the restaurant. The conversation and food and hooch kept flowing and they really, really love english. Actually most of them were over 50 and have been studying english since long before i was born.

They used to do a study group with a former ALT, but she has subsequently left, so i might pick up the slack and start doing conversation classes for them. but theyre really advanced. one thing I taught them was the difference between "nerd" "dork" and "geek." The Physical Therapist guy looked up "dork" in his electronic dictionary and insisted that it meant penis. "Penis. Penis. Penis." he said. This led to a discussion of the etymology of Dork and Geek. (you can look it up)

We exchanged gifts by numbering each gift and then pulling numbers out of a hat. I recieved a tiny stuffed cat with gigantic eyes. It's just shy of adorable, weighing in somewhere between cute and creepy. I brought a baseball hat from Aamerica that says "Chicago" on it. It went to the restaurant owner's wife. After dinner they refused to let me pay, which is almost getting not surprising. Every time i am invited out to dinner where i meet new friends for the first time, I am not allowed to pay and told "next time." Then, i drove home with the physical therapist and his wife. I found out that he plays guitar and loves rock music. His favorite bands are Chicago and Journey. Awesome.

So yeah. Fun night. Sorry this is so rambling. I am writing it all in one go, and in a disorganized fashion, and i can't be bothered to check it for mistakes or stupidity (my god i'm so tired lately). I'm off to sort gifts for my trip home and catch some z's.

Hope you've enjoyed, dear reader!

2008-12-16T22:55:00.000-08:00

This i culled this snippet by rin from the forums at ithinkimlost. I think it succinctly addresses what i've been struggling to put my finger on, regarding Japanese English education.

It would be best to accept that English education here is not intended as an actual foreign language cirriculum[sic], but as a sorting method, and highlighter. As a sorting method, English is ideally suited because it is a highly complex system with a lot of idiosyncracies. By placing it on entrance exams, you can generally sort the good students from the bad by their English skill (the general thinking being that if you can master the complexities of English, then you can master anything else - the SAT and ACT is guilty of this same thing, only they test you on how many ten-dollar words you know). As a highlighter, English serves as a backdrop from which Japanese and Japaneseness are contrasted, thereby helping to instill nationalism in the students. Similar results are achieved through "Internationalization".

English education here would be radically different if they actually intended for these kids to learn the language, as opposed to mastering a complex system.

They could save a lot of money by inventing a complex cypher and having the kids learn that, instead of paying ALTs to come to Japan and suffer through watching their language gang-raped repeatedly day after day.

Wisdom.

2008-12-16T05:30:00.001-08:00

this week i've discovered an awesome new restaurant near where i live. It's called "Chattering" and they do all kinds of western foods. The owner is into music and art, too, and speaks English quite well. He's a funny bald guy who makes goofy faces and says witty little things where you're not sure if he's amused, or sarcastically playing along with you. He also has a cat and a dog, which roam the restaurant freely. They serve all kinds of food, except Japanese. Tonight i had pizza, Hamburger, pasta, salad, dessert and coffee for about $14. Amazing.

I was there with a few friends, and we got up to go pay, and at the register the owner was struggling to do the math. I asked him if he'd been drinking and he scrunched his face into a funny little look and said "a little!"

Hehehe, I like living in rural Japan.

Another great restaurant experience is in Tagawa. My friend Miho cooks at a Mexican restaurant there called OLDIES (she usually writes it in all caps like that). You know how when they have Savanna animals in a zoo they sometimes paint the walls to look like the great plains so that the animal will feel "at home?" OLDIES is kind've like that for Americans. It makes me feel like i'm in an artificially crafted America zoo. Miho has collected tons of American memorabilia over the years and it's all over the walls - portraits of JFK and Marilyn Monroe, a revolver, fliers from her trip to California, dollar bills taped to the wall, record cases, etc. It's magnificent. All this and Mexican food. She makes really great enchiladas to boot. A few weeks ago there was a party there with a live Japanese band that was American 1950's themed. They all had leather jackets and poodle skirts and greaser hair. So cool.

Oh, and OLDIES used to be a famous Japanese restaurant (izakaya) so upstairs, there are still all these half abandoned Japanese style rooms with suits of armor and stuffed birds and swords. It's kind've like Hattori Hanzo's shop from Kill Bill. Actually it's exactly like that. Miho let me sleep in one of the abandoned Izakaya rooms and it's just so incredible. It's all so beautiful yet falling apart and untouched for years. All these supplies for drinking parties and huge groups of salary men, so still and unused for years. There's even a little garden and fountain outside collecting piles of leaves with tools and boots strewn about. The contrast is really beautiful and striking. I need to go back there with my camera. In the morning light, the place took my breath away.

That's all for now. Just thought you kids deserved some updating

Otherwise i'm getting ready to visit America on Saturday. Oh dear, so much to do. It'll be very interesting to observe the reversy culture shock 5 month in.

the penis is not the issue

2008-12-09T05:47:00.001-08:00

So, as mentioned previously, last week and this week in classes, the theme has been "going to the doctor." Last week we studied from the (stupid) textbook (and i hate it) and i told them about my experiences working in my father's pediatrics office.

Then, I decided to mix it up this week by playing HUMAN BINGO and then screening Grey's Anatomy. I was really excited because we got to host class in the AV room which has a giant screen and a cool projector and booming speakers. Last night i was up late screening all the episodes and making my selection. As i mentioned, i was extremely concerned about how the JTE's and students would react to to the omnipresent SEVERED PENIS that they kept returning to in the episode.

Well, to my surprise, everyone--the teachers, students, etc--were completely unfazed by the recurring penis throughout the episode. In a typical, rowdy, American class, the students'd be on the floor laughing and joking, but my kids made hardly a peep! Just a few honest chuckles at the smattering of dick jokes.

One part of the show, however did ellicit gasps, and it was a scene that i never would've expected. It's here, in the opening. Watch:

Can you guess what was shocking?

It's the feet! The freaking feet! At 0:20 where you can see two anonymous people cuddling in a hospital bed and you see their bare feet touching, it was like everyone was shocked! There where oohs and ahhs like when someone gets in trouble and lots of whispering. When i asked the Japanese teacher what she thought after class, she asked me to skip it in the next class because "...the students are under 18." Later i had class with the cool, young JTE who explained that

"...Japanese people rarely touch, so..."
"ahh... i see."
"Yeah, probably asian people don't touch very often, so it's unusual for the students to see."

I was surprised that she explained it as an "asian people" phenomenon. A lot of people in Japan like to write off cultural differences that way.

Anyway, I have been here now for 4 months, so i should be used to expecting the unexpected, but I am still still surprised by Japanese culture every day, and i love it.

a trip to the zoo

2008-12-08T05:09:00.000-08:00

Coming to you live and direct from my desk at Asakura Agricultural High School. I am teaching here for the first time today, doing a new and improved version of the "self-introduction" act that I performed at my base school. I was warned that the students were rowdy, disobedient, and bad, and i gotta say, it's all true and i love it.

In Japan, students go through a universal public school system up until Junior high. Education in Junior high school means, much like in America, you see a cross-section of students at all levels. Future businessmen, farmers, politicians and truck drivers all share the classroom. Then they graduate from junior high and take high school entrance exams. Thus their lives of assessment and rank-ordering will begin.

There are a few different tiers of high schools in Japan. My every-day school, Asakura High School, is an upper-level academic variety. It's somewhat analogous to American prep schools; over 90% of the graduates will go on to universities, so that means that the students are very hard workers, but the curriculum is focused on testing and memorization, which ain't exactly how most ALT's wish to conduct their conversationally based classes. My students are brilliant and kind, but also frustratingly shy and unwilling to generate content or participate in english dialog even when they know how. they are conditioned to fear failure. Failure means not passing the test. Not passing the test means not getting into that prep school or college. not getting into that college means no bright future. So when the ALT comes to visit and asks them to "Practice these phrases with your partner!" the reaction isn't exactly warm and exuberant. The one part of my class that does factor into their grades are the textbook activities and the vocabulary there-of that they have to memorize. My least favorite part of the class. The kids who really participate and seem to be much smarter as a result are actually the special ed students. because they arent afraid to TRY.

THIS school on the other hand-- Asakura Agricultural School, is a little different. This is an occupational school. Not many of the kids are gonna go to college, and those who do aren't aiming for the most competetive ones. So that means that, yes they are not gonna work so hard, especially in English class, but there is an overall higher proportion of those wanting to give it a shot. They try to sound things out! My god, They ask questions! I'm in heaven. TIme to go teach class number 3

______
Update: 9PM
Okay the third class was a doozy. It was the largest and rowdiest of the bunch, and the students were chotto....

Yeah they were loud and yelling the whole time. texting on their phones and whatnot. It was exhausting. But still there were glimmers where a few students had that promising look of simultaneous interest and understanding on their faces, and that is so redeeming. And as I mentioned above. these students are not afraid to ask questions or come right and and say what they're thinking. I really enjoyed the change of pace today.

Oh yeah and this one kid who had no uniform (which is like a BIG nono)... actually he was wearing a CANIBIS jumpter... He kept running into the room SCREAMING and sliding around the floor on his knees. The teacher kept shooing him out and he came back like at least three times. It was hilarious. I couldnt stop laughing. And apparently some of the students that were supposed to be in my class, straight up went to a math class instead. Others were half undressed. Or half wearing gym clothes. It was ridiculous and i totally loved it.

I recovered by watching medical dramas all night. I should explain. This week and last week in my regular classes, we have been learning English of "Going to the Doctor." Last week i explained to them about my job working in a pediatrics clinic, and this week i figured it would be a good follow up to play a game where they have to use english phrases (i.e. what's wrong? i have a sore throat) in a format i have dubbed HUMAN BINGO. (I can explain if you're curious about how to play human bingo).

Anyway that will be for the first half of my 50 minute class, and during the second half i wanted to show them House MD or Scrubs.

But i quickly realized that showing them a whole episode of a show is pretty usepess without the Japanese subtitles, and soon found that i couldnt download a subtitled version of either show anywhere. So I had to settle for what was available in Best Denki's foreign DVD section: ER or Grey's Anatomy. (Best Denki is just like Best Buy).

So i previewed all the episodes tonight and found the *almost* perfect episode of Grey's Anatomy to show. It uses a lot of the words and phrases we used last week, and there is even a bit about a patient who can't speak english, and the miscommunication is touching and inspirational, etc. Seriously i almost cried because i live in Japan and I know how it can be SO hard to communicate when something is really important.

Anyway, so i have to show them this episode, but there's one problem: a part of the episode's story arc revolves around a SEVERED PENIS. When it came up at the beginning i figured i could just skip past it and save a few minutes, but they keep coming back to it OVER and OVER again throughout the episode. So ive decided to just be honest and direct because i really think the good outweighs the inappropriateness. I'll let my JTE's know what's up and give it my best! my students are too shy to laugh uproriously anyway. ha.

So yeah i just spent the rest of the night watching videos like this: http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=QIr2oEpyCoQ&feature=related

Oh yeah, additionally i took the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT) for the first time yesterday. I attempted yon-kyuu (level 4) which is the lowest of the 4 levels, working their way towards 1.

It was a really good experience and I am more motivated than ever to study Japanese. My conversation is pretty acceptable, and it has gotten to the point where I am often superficially complemented on my "masterful Japanese" (this is a common complaint of any foreigner in Japan who has taken a college class, and only means that they notice you have SOME ability to talk)

but i basically have learned everything i know by conversation with Japanese friends. So while I am getting pretty skilled at communicating my general ideas in broken Japanese/easy English, I rarely crack an actual resource such as a textbook, and have therefore made little progress in the way of really learning the rules, verb conjugations, and so on. Now, having taken (and probably failed) the test now, i am more inspired to get serious about learning the textbook stuff. I have one Japanese friend who is a qualified tutor who may start meeting every week me for private lessons. Also, I am thinking that if i did indeed fail the JLPT, i may drop out of my Wednesday class downtown and search for a more academic, possibly closer one.

The advantages of the Wednesday class, such as having an excuse to go downtown and meet with other ALTs) have been gradually outweighed by a now constant flow of invitations and plans with friendsas well as the expenses in time and money of going downtown and coming home at 11 in the middle of the week. Now it's getting colder and colder, So spending 18 bucks to go downtown for two hours, only to come home and not have enough time to get sufficient rest, is getting less and less fun. Speaking of winter, i may be high on kerosene fumes from my heater right now.

Anyway, one funny thing about the JLPT was that you can see Japanese society in the test questions. Unfortunately i couldnt photograph it because it is an extremely official beaurocratic test issued perhaps by a part of the government (everyone in the country starts the test at exactly the same time, etc. it's very official and you can put it on your resume). So for example, the males in the test are always doing something like studying or going someplace important, while the females in the examples and diagrams are always gardenning, washing dishes, making bread, or occasionally going somewhere important attached to a man. Very interesting.

Well there goes another night in Amagi. Time for a hot bath and a nice pre-warmed bed (thank you electric blanket)!

2008-12-01T04:48:00.000-08:00

whoa! the blogger is back, and golly, he's surfing atop a garden of filmographic delights

further evidence that japan is a product of my subconscious desires

2008-11-19T06:28:00.000-08:00

even on the public broadcasting shows about cooking and stuff, they play music that has been found on my ipod in recent history, such as ratatat, daft punk, lilly allen, digitalism etc.

of course they only play 2 seconds of a given song, but nevertheless, good job, japan.

the show on tv now is about this amazing, delicious and fancy American restaurant called DENNY'S.

pizza paparazzi part 2

2008-11-19T03:12:00.000-08:00

This week it got cold. Like winter cold. Like toodamncold.

Now as you may know, I live in southern Japan, so the winters are mild. even in December and January, i can rarely expect it to drop below freezing, and even more rarely can i expect snow. Well this week it has been below freezing and it snowed. Still, this should be no big deal, as I am used to Boston and Chicago winters, where the temperature is zero and the windchill is ten below. but the problem is that there really is NO insulation in this country. My walls are only a few inches thick, and on top of that, about 30% of the wallspace in my apartment is occupied by single-pane windows or sliding glass doors. There are a number of home-brew, ghetto solutions, namely taping plastic up over the windows and doors, but it hasn't come down to that yet (In other words, i havent ridden my bike to the mall where i can look for a kit or forraged through the dumpster for large sheets of plastic).

So what does all this mean in the here and now? it means i caught i cold. Between not sleeping enough, spending all of last weekend sleeping on the floors (friday night with the window open, thanks laura) and having friends over last night for a sukiyaki party, which led to Tuesday-night drinking and smash brothers rage... somehow i caught a sore throat and the sniffles. Well go figure. that's what i get eh?

The point is, tonight i am staying home from my Japanese class, because the last thing i need is an expensive, freezing cold commute for a class that will ensure that i dont get home till 11. Instead i have been updating flickr with Osaka pictures and set up my kotatsu.

I was planning on butchering my basil plant to make pesto tonight, since as the temperature drops, so will its life expectency, but i realized that i did not have pine nuts on hand, and riding my bike across town to the grocery store would probably defeat the purpose of me "resting up and getting better."

So that means it's pizza again! this time ordering was (relatively) a breeze. She already had my information so all i had to awkwardly stumble through was pizza selection, crust width, etc.

it comes in 10 minutes and every time they bring me a new 300円 coupon with my reciept (and wow, i just realized how bad [good] the exchange rate has gotten. i should start sending money home). This time the delivery man used ultra-polite subservient japanese and bowed deeply (90-degrees!) after giving me my change and my cheesy gold. I could get used to this.

Oh, I also judged a debate contest last week.

zany japanese stuff no. 3

2008-11-17T01:09:00.001-08:00

unheard-of doritos flavors. this one is sukiyaki.

yes, this store is actually called Fuctard.

my female assistant is gonna LOVE this.

And i thought aunt jemima was bad...

2008-11-17T01:01:00.001-08:00

cheers, dear reader! To you!

2008-11-16T05:05:00.000-08:00

here are some things that have been happening in Japan lately:

An English club Halloween party:

complete with spooky word-search:

spooky dictation:

spooky invitations:

spooky mix CD:

and jackolanterns:

Other happenings: pizza-party!, several sleepovers!, and a date at the airport (seriously, at the airport.)

oh my god there's the biggest, LOUDEST fly in the world in the next room.
I'm gonna go destroy it.

byeeee~

small victories: ordering pizza

2008-11-11T03:06:00.000-08:00

oh man, i just ordered pizza in japanese and it was like the most difficult stressful thing ever.

but by now you are surely aware, dear reader, that no pizza-related obstacle is too great a challenge for your hero. I knew what had to be done, and i sprung into action. Gather round the electric heaters, children, for a tale of Illiadic proportions is about to be unfolded.

First of all, the place is called Chicago Pizza, and it's been calling out to me for nearly 4 months. Not only is it named after my hometown, but they also have a reputation as the best pizza in the prefecture, and the place is in my own little town. It's not really Chicago-style, of course, but it's reputably less like Japanese pizza and more like real pizza than usual. Furthermore, i see their little scooters zipping around everywhere, and they have been dropping fliers and $5-off coupons in my mailbox for three months. Needless to say it's been on my to do list.

So tonight is cold and i couldnt bring myself to ride my bike to the local izakaya tonight. So i got off my butt, picked up the phone, and dialed. If course first I wrote up a gameplan with all my information written out in phoenetic japanese, in the order i expected them to ask for it-- phone number: "zero-hachi-zero... roku-yon-zero... etc." Pizza: Magnum Meat -- "Magunaamu mii-to" Crust: heavy -- "he-bii"

So i called, and made it through the gauntlet of questions awkwardly. So awkwardly. I knew i had done well when she finally said some stuff real fast and something about an amount of minutes and a price. victory is mine!!!

a guy just called me again to confirm my address and phone number. I must have freaked out the phone girl. I can imagine it now:

*click*
Hey Ryosuke...
Yeah?
Some ridiculous foreigner just called and tried to order a small Magnum Meat
haha
But i couldn't understand him like at all. I mean i THINK i got his address. MAYBE.
Crap, what should we do?
Well you speak some English, right? Call him back and check.

*ring ring*
aaaaa... Mushi mushi!
Ah! .....hel-lo!
Hello!
Chicago Pizza desu.
(proceeds to check my address and number in Japanese)

Update:
OMG it just came. I'm clearly a genius.

I am gonna go enjoy this wonderfulness under my kotatsu. oh victory, you taste so sweet. sweet and meaty.

cuddly dominion

2008-11-11T01:53:00.000-08:00

That's the name of this zoo that i live near.

just thought you should know.