Conversations with people in Japan (and the walls)

Many occur, few are documented.

-At the gym one of the older gym rats informs me about a salt-related penalty in NYC (he knows I'm from NY, hence I am obviously responsible in part for this horrendous act). Something along the lines of "without salt, what the hell can you even cook?" I agreed it was crazy and told him I would research it myself. When I did, and discovered that Assemblyman Felix Ortiz had actually proposed the idea of fining restaurants for using salt in the state of NY, I agreed that next time I saw gym rat that it was indeed absurd and a travesty that Mr. Ortiz suggested such a silly notion, but hey, he was the guy who advised banning cell phone usage while driving too, so what can you expect (in my much less verbose or articulate Japanese of course). The conversation ended with:

"This Ortiz guy, is he your Dad or something?"

"No."

-When people stare at me on the train, in the street, etc. (as happens daily), I often respond with a smile. Or a funny face. Or a wtf-eyebrow raise. Or just a return stare. But sometimes I want to grab them, shake them and scream "I'm the same as you underneath, my skin is just a different color and my build is slightly larger and I much more vaguely resemble Bruce Willis, that's all!!!!"

-This isn't so much a conversation as a list of questions and comments I've received countless times. My reaction varies between cute and annoying, in that special love/hate manner that only Japan can bring out in me:

"Those are HUUUUUUUUGE" (in response to my shoe size, 13 or 14 in America, 30 centimeters in Japan). I often respond by telling them I have trouble finding shoes back in the States too.

"How about Japanese food?" Often entangled with or followed up by: "Do you like Natto?" (Natto is a disgusting slop of fermented soybeans that smells like dirty socks and tastes like cat food gone bad, so of course I should be into it but just can't bring myself to like it)

"Why are you skinhead?" (In Japan, people think shaved head is skinhead in English due to their bastardized Japanese English. I've explained the difference countless times but I'm starting to give up on this one....it's because I'm prematurely bald, by the way)

-This one is slightly more serious. I met an older fellow at the gym, past 60, who is always quite nice to me. He smiles and bows and doesn't look afraid of me like I'm going to pillage his family and leave them for dead, so that's always a brownie-point earner in my book. I almost always keep to myself there (same as back in the States) but have a few people I say "hi" to, the aforementioned Ejiro-san being one of them. (Another retired fellow I call Mr. Baseball is among the lot, we've never had a conversation over 2 sentences or that didn't involve baseball or his drinking too much the night before) He would for whatever reason give me candy at random times in the locker room... wow does that sentence sounds terrible, but really it was a gesture of good will. So I allowed him to treat me to lunch one day (the who-pays wasn't my choice; in Japan there is no getting out of a treated meal, and that's a fact). The old guy doesn't speak a lick of English and I like that - Old men are hard to understand and it's something I need more practice with in general. Plus, he seemed like a nice guy who probably had a lot of time on his hands since retiring, so I figured he'd be tickled pink at the opportunity. Turns out he was a gym teacher who also taught the mentally disabled. He coached marathon running for some time, and even worked at camps in Mexico and L.A. training potential Olympics contestants. Apparently the locations were chosen for their air quality, dry air somehow being better for training. At any rate, sadly none of them made the final cut, but I still considered that to be an excellent achievement, having trained athletes in a foreign country. He couldn't understand my passion for music, and I likewise couldn't appreciate his passion for running, but we understood each other well enough.... I'll be honest, at times I couldn't catch a whit of what he was talking about. But for the most part it was good, and I didn't once whip out my phone dictionary for fear of losing face (and looking extremely rude). The dumplings and fried rice were also excellent.

There are more. There must be more. But I'm exhausted, so you'll get no more. This is what happens when real life is really busy. Vacation plans, overtime work, figuring out the new fiscal year, I could list enough excuses to color every stone in the sea with virtual ink, but I'll spare you all and myself of the unnecessary. The blog must suffer a bit. Good night readers.

"I want to take you far from the tethers of this scene, we'll cut our bodies free, start a brand new colony, where everything will change, we'll give ourselves new names" - Postal Service

"It's a battle on my own/machinery you can't control/people always complain about their worst/troubles you wish were your own/as the seasons roll on by you realize you're getting older/it's a battle on my own what have I learned?" - Ignite

March Madness

Before the fiscal year begins in April, chaos reigns over Japan. Deadlines loom something odious, entrance exams are finished, graded and returned to the delight or dismay of parents, and everything is a crush, a rush, a push to get through and make it out alive to see the cherry blossoms bloom. It's not so bad for me as, say, the typical salaryman or office worker, but I still feel the intensity building like a tsunami wave ready to crash the stubborn shores (the whole recession thing doesn't help). I'm doing heaps of extra job training this week for some Kindergarten gigs that should start up in April, so that'll keep me not only busy but also a little less in the poor house. Because the cost of living, having some fun and taking Japanese lessons 3 times a week on my standard salary leaves me without a satisfactory amount of coins to drop in my piggy bank. (You'd think you could just bash your head against some brick-blocks with question marks on them an voila! coins! But it is not so) So I myself am going through the metamorphosis, from teaching kids maybe 6 hours a week to an unknown increase, but I look upon this change with anticipation. The only thing is now it's Monday night and I'm dreading the long couple of days ahead of me. 我慢しかないね (nothing to do but grin and bear it) I just started reading a book called "Hokkaido Hitchhiking Blues," about a Canadian man who does just that from the southern tip of Kyushu to Hokkaido. Looks to be a light and fun read for a change of pace. (I'm getting near the end of Moby Dick on audiobook, and it's great, but it is one heavy mother)

Early night here folks. Between properly responding to backed up e-mails, inputting new Japanese flashcards in my study program and hauling a giant box of oatmeal home from Costco among several other heaps of "rare" goods after my Japanese class this morning, I'm pooped. My days off don't feel enough like days off right now, I need to take one next weekend that involves nothing but being a human sloth. I can't lie though, things have been great the past few weeks, I'm merely feeling the down that had to come eventually. Can't ride a cloud forever... unless by ride a cloud you mean be high as shit on Opium, in which case you can ride a cloud for quite a long time, but will end up a sickly waste of flesh as a result. I think I'll just keep my ups and my downs, thanks.

"We're on a road to nowhere
come on inside
We're takin that road to nowhere
we'll take that ride" - The Talking Heads

"Jokingly said you’d burn all that was mine in your place
With serious written all over your face
So I sleep in my clothes just in case
I feel the flames touch my face I can make my escape with grace" - Blacklisted

Important things that children know

which we may often forget:

-How to laugh
-How to have fun with absolutey no inhibitions
-How to express oneself
-How to be amazed by the beauty of the world around us
-How to be terrified by the immensity of the world around us
-How to play games
-How to cry
-How to make someone else happy
-How to make someone else upset (maybe we don't forget this one so much)
-How to rely unwaveringly upon someone else
-How to run with the wind
-How to wish and believe and dream

Pick one of these and try and do it today.

Perhaps it goes without saying, but this is a list of things I've noticed in the last two years of teaching here. For what it's worth, my limited experience with children has exploded exponentially since I took this job. No, I never especially wanted to be a kids teacher, but from the experience I've gained I can now deal with/entertain kids of various ages. I can even identify some of the more subtle things (you know, like when they have to pee or are about to cry). They can smell bad, be annoying, be loud and completely suck the life out of me, but they have their good points too.

And no, I've still never had a Japanese kid kancho me thank GOD - although one tried and was shut down immediately. And if you don't know what that means, google it, I'm not explaining it here.

Life is good at the moment. Taking pleasure in the ordinary stuff and the world around me. I had my first good Valentines Day in, uh, oh yea, ever. Meaning I wasn't in grade school getting fake mandatory ones from girls who never talked to me, or dealing with a bad relationship or being single. Nope, I actually had a date, and it went about as good as they can be. I even got chocolate from said datee and my band members. But in Japan as you may or may not know, girls give boys chocolate on Valentines Day, and boys return the favor on White Day in March. Good thing I still have a sack of recees peanut butter cups I brought from home.

No quotes today. Listen to Cat Power, she's so good, and you need to hear her voice to understand why.

Bilingual Baka Band

note: baka is Japanese for idiot

Today I'll be writing about something that separates my Japanese experience from others: the band. I've done perhaps 5 or 6 bands in the last 10 years, each one carrying different dynamics of personality, interaction and chemistry between the members, ultimately leading to what kind of sound we were able to create. Nothing however could have prepared me for F.I.D., as it has been the greatest collaboration I've had the pleasure to take part in, but at the same time requires the most care, hard work and even multicultural awareness!

(This is starting to sound like a bad PBS special or VH1 documentary, but it gets better I promise.)

I can only repeat myself so many times, but for any random or new readers I joined F.I.D. late 2008, shortly after coming to Japan. The band was originally an all female grindcore act, but they were willing to sacrifice their novelty (which was never their aim in the first place) to get some fresh blood into the equation. Their had a falling out of sorts with the last guitarist, and I filled the gap. Since then it has been a steady uphill climb from 9 months of practicing to old MDs (digital recordings) with no drummer, due to Tomoko's pregnancy, all the way to our recent shows and finally now our writing new songs. It has been a wild ride and I feel like it's still in the early stages. We have all become good friends and there are no egos raging out of control and ruining the creative flow, as has been known to happen amongst bands in the past (firsthand experiences here). I personally have always gotten on well with girls as they tend to be less competitive and self-absorbed than most guys I've met in my life. And they are after all Japanese no less, but attitudes take it beyond all that gender and ethnicity stuff: These girls are in it for the right reasons, namely to write music, play it and have fun. That is first and foremost I love this band.

But it's not all ice cream cupcakes and puppy dogs in the park; Nothing worth doing is easy after all. Anyone who has been in a band knows that to practice every weekend is a lot harder than it sounds, not to mention other sacrifices of free time, energy and finances that come into play. Me and the drummer both travel about an hour to practice every Sunday - carrying our instruments on the subway, which for me took some getting used to but I do like it better than lugging stacks of speakers in my jeep..... though I miss my 5150 and mesa-boogie pre-amp combos!!! Sigh.

And then there is language. Oh what fun it is to interact with people from other cultures, but what a challenge it can be as well. The majority of our dialogues are all in Japanese, and the singer Makiko is the only one who speaks English at a nearly fluent level, hence some things going over my head, some misunderstandings, etc. (not to mention countless times I have to ask Maki to explain what the hell everyone is talking about) If I had a yen coin for every time I wanted to say something simple like: "Ok stop here, then put it some kind of fill, whatever you feel fits and then we will all come back in together for 3 measures until the wawowaw part," but was stopped dead in my tracks by a language barrier, I would have lots and lots of little yens. Granted my Japanese is decent, so I try my best to convey these in my second language, but it's tough and can also (if not often) be difficult to communicate sometimes even the simplest of things. I do greatly enjoy it on the whole, and we definitely make it through, things just take longer.

This segues nicely into another cultural point: Japanese people tend to speak in a vague and roundabout manner and as such are often typified (and not without reason) as indecisive by Western people. I've had my share of Japanese cultural experiences just living here - memories of prolonged conversations to achieve the simplest ends at the bank or the post office come to mind - but nothing compares to the band dynamics. The main difference between this band and my experiences in America is that everything is considered thoroughly before it's acted upon. For example, if I say: "We should speed up that part, what do you think?" It may result in a 5-10 minute debate before we actually just play the part and see how it sounds. While this isn't inherently bad - putting thought into things instead of charging pell-mell into them has merits - it doesn't exactly make for the timeliest song writing. I often find myself (and to be fair sometimes my bandmates are the ones to say it too) saying yattemiyo (let's try it and see). I feel the need to throw around my hasty and arrogant American bluntness at times, while others I flow with the girls in a more Japanese state of mind pertaining to caution, detail and delivery. A mix of both has a lot of virtue I think.

I have to say, it is entirely too cute when Tomoko - who on the surface appears to be the sweetest, most innocent and harmless looking lady you could ever meet - and us are discussing a song, and something comes up like: "you can put a quick fill in there before the next part!" She will sit there and ponder, drum stick or hand lightly touching the chin in a thoughtful manner before blasting out something completely amazing. Kana as well, sometimes a bit fuzzy from doing other band practices, a brutal 6 day work week full of overtime or a late-night drinking party will always put in 110%. She is a bit more tom-boyish, often using the pronoun boku to refer to herself, which is something only tomboys and musicians do and I think is individualistic and also very cute (Japanese are good at the cute thing). She is so much the opposite of Tomoko's seemingly traditional sense of self that it makes for interesting times and great writing. Case in point: Tomoko wasn't 100% after not playing drums for like a year (and who would be after a pregnancy, that's some hardcore stuff!) and I said one day something along the lines of: "Hey, your drumming skills are really coming back eh!" Which doesn't sound so bad in English but was much MUCH too direct and rude in Japanese, to which Kanako said dare omae? (Who the hell do you think you are?) And we all burst out laughing. In fact we have fun interactions like this quite often, and it helps to keep things fresh and interesting when playing a song for the 20th time in one day wears us down.

In closing, let it be known I am in a band with some very talented people and am far luckier than I deserve in that respect. I know I am not a great guitar player, however I am confident in my ability to construct good songs and churn out somewhat original or unexpected ideas. This goes a long way and will ultimately make F.I.D. a stronger band with broader horizons than before, while still maintaining the intensity that it has come to be associated with in the underground music arena.

Whatsoever it comes to in the future - playing shows in Tokyo, recording, possibly even traveling abroad to play a festival or 2 - I am having too much fun to stop any time soon. And I believe the girls feel the same. That is we work our hardest to achieve BBB - Bilingual Baka Band!!


"She she she she's a bombshell" - Operation Ivy

"So you're saying that girls only listen to ballads and love songs? The girls that I know wouldn't think so. But according to you a song should separate all the girls from the boys" - Polar Bear Club

Tornado of Books + Bowling Ball = .....

After much procrastination, I finally sorted out my books. Mostly Japanese comic books, the bulk of which I have yet to read. I can't believe I was quite so enthusiastic about buying them so fast a year ago - "OH MY GOD! IT'S ONLY 100 YEN, THAT'S LIKE A DOLLAR!!!!" - thank god I've calmed down.

This does not include novels and stuff, of which ther are like 50 more on my shelf.

I haven't posted a picture on here in a long time. This one is a pretty accurate symbol of my life, a swarm of information I want to absorb faster than is humanly possible. I've picked out some choice titles to focus on, like One Piece, Eyeshield 21 and JoJo, but for the moment I should really be studying for the big test in a little under two months. I'm acquiring vocabulary by reading these things, and I enjoy them, and they help my Japanese, but I'm 99% sure there will be no questions on the test with phrases like "Mind your own business," "Let's kick the crap out of 'em," or "do you mind if I throw a rock at them?"

It's amazing what a full time job working, studying 2-4 hours everyday, and trying to have enough downtime can be. Well, not amazing or anything, but throw in the band, mandatory weekly social engagement of one sort or another, and it's a full ticket. I'm having dinner with Maki and some friends tomorrow after practice, and attending a bowling party with some school people on Monday. Bowling, now that's something I haven't done in years.

I went to a school party the other night where this rather out-going gent (who, strangely enough had been half-asleep during my class) was busting out some serious 関西弁 (Kansai, or "Western Japan," dialect). I noticed it right away, as it's a distinctly different speech style from standard 東京弁 (Tokyo Dialect), although to be fair it has dozens of different forms depending on regions in the west. Anyhow, I asked this guy to teach me a useful phrase since I was interested in learning Kansai Dialect, and he said: なんでやね. His way of explaining this phrase was: "If I see a guy, and he has two pickles in his eyes, I say NANNDEYANE??" This, at the time, didn't quite click with me as a clear definition, but I looked it up later, and it can be roughly described as: "What the hell?" or "You gotta be kidding me!!"

Sometimes I go throw B.S., I work my butt off, or deal with difficult people and situations, but I realized the other day that I've become acclimated enough to this place. I passed some unseen threshold when I wasn't paying attention. I'm not afraid of leaving, but have trouble imagining what it will be like. Also, I can't help wondering what getting comfortable like this could mean if I'm going to actually follow through on Graduate school or living in another foreign country. I can't deny, if I do attain a high level of fluency in Japanese, it might be tempting to just work for a company here doing translation or international relations, assuming they don't want me doing the 11-hour salaryman shtick. Especially if I end up marrying a Japanese broad like, er, every white dude in this country. But the future is something I'm as clueless about as any of you.

Getting back to Japanese for just a second, after much work my reading has improved quite a bit, but my listening is still lacking. I started listening to news podcasts (which make me feel dumb with my 5-10% comprehension of them) and, less depressing than that is watching some Miyazaki films without subtitles. He's the Disney of Japan, and I honestly haven't seen much besides Prince Mononoke and now Spirited Away again, but I want to run through more of his movies in the next few months.

I'm looking forward to this big test-hurdle being behind me, so I can focus more on learning fun japanese and less on words I'll never use, like "registered mail" 書留 or "servicing & maintenance" 整備.

Naturally, studying my butt off and then working can both be pretty brain-draining exercises, especially when work is especially busy. So my pill to "take as needed for pain," my weed in a wrap, my cure in a bottle has been nothing less than the NFL. In the last few years I've grown to appreciate watching football as an activity that fills a primal urge of seeing people smash into each other, while being entertaining from a strategic vantage point as well. I still have a deep-seeded dislike for jocky, block-headed bullies, which of course make up a good chunk of professional sports, but I do like watching them pummel each other, I must say. 4 weeks in, and I haven't exactly enjoyed seeing the Bills offensively fall apart, but otherwise, I like the Bears and the Steelers this year.

I won't lie, by slacking on the blog I have missed out on the opportunity to write what could be some hilarious stories for you guys. My bad. At the moment all I can think of is:

-a few 10 year olds started clapping the rhythm to Queen's We Will Rock You (or should I say lock you) in the middle of class and kept it going for around 15 or 20 minutes

- teaching "nod your head" has also turned into an air-guitar-shred/head-banging session in the aforementioned class

-I met a woman the other day whose brother had moved to Mexico. When asked why, she said it was to be an amateur masked wrestler. 0_0

-There was a sort of typhoon the other night, wasn't so strong, just some winds and rain coming from many directions, but I missed the bulk of it. However, working that night some idiot slammed the the wrong pedal at a railway crossing and smashed into an oncoming train. No one was killed or seriously injured, but 5500 people were estimated to have been effected by the stopped trains. I caught a local half-way home and walked another 2 miles or so, not too bad, but the funny part is as I crossed the tracks on the home stretch, I saw my train going by. So if I would have waited, I wouldn't have had to walk. Curses!

(The accident)

Integrity is playing here in a few weeks. I'm considering going to a sports festival the same day, since I know I'd be a great asset to the tug-of-war section...

That's all for now. Writing is fun, I don't plan to stop any time soon. Thanks for reading.


"These walls are paper-thin and everyone hears every little sound" - Modest Mouse

"If I never make it home tonight the streets will swallow me whole" - Trapped Under Ice

" What are your qualifications? #2- Ah well… I attended Juilliard. I am a graduate of the Harvard Business School. I travel quite extensively. I lived through the Black Plague and I had a pretty good time during that. I’VE SEEN THE EXORCIST ABOUT 167 TIMES…AND IT KEEPS GETTING FUNNIER EVERY SINGLE TIME I SEE IT! Not to mention the fact that you are talking to a dead guy. Now what do you think? Am I qualified?" - Beetlejuice

P.S. Ian, I know you always find some spare time to get on here, remind me to return your books soon dude.

P.S.S. Reading Kafka's "The Trial" for the first time now, it's awesome, so very very awesome.

Positive!

Today was a good day. I submitted my JLPT application (6000 yen the poorer for it), had amazing students and enjoyed the beginnings of fall weather. I saw people wearing what looked like winter coats (it was like 70 and cloudy) which cracks me up. I can't wait to see my hometown again, and breath in air so cold it my body rejects it. I hope it's covered in 3 feet of snow come December.

I felt like I made a positive different in the kids I taught today. None of them were trouble, some were tired or stubborn, but as for all of them, I wonder how my actions might shape their impression of the English language or Americans in the future. Granted they have a good chance of just forgetting my existence too, but hey, I can't help feeling like I did something right. Today was a positive day.

"Silver Week" showed up much quicker than anticipated. It's a slang term that appeared just this year, to match the long-standing Golden Week series of holidays in April/May. I only get two our of the four days off, but hey, better than nothin! Terror and Winds of Plague are playing next week too... gonna be complete chaos! (or should I say kaosu?)

I'm feeling pretty braindead, My Friday night/Saturday morning combo work schedule puts me at 12 hours of teaching in a 24 period, always leaving me a bit zonked. Half-way through it now, writing ye from the trenches. The days and weeks are flying by.

I'm reading:

"The Rape of Nanking - the untold Holocaust of World War II" A really poignant account of a tragic time in the history swept under the rug, not taught in schools and downright ignored and denied to this day by the majority in Japan. Some really gruesome, terrible stuff went down between Japanese soldiers and over 260,000 thousand men, women and children, the minority of which were actually soldiers (or at least soldiers over the age of 12). It's grizzly and disturbing. A human atrocity. It's one of those things I remember reading a small paragraph about in High School History class, like the "Trail of Tears." I feel like even then I wondered: if it's so tragic an event, doesn't it deserve more than an eighth of a page?"

And on top of that, as Nick informed me this morning, the author, Iris Chang, killed herself several years after writing the book, feeling that she would be hounded for the rest of her life by ultranationalists, critics of her work, etc. And haunted by a looming depression. From what I've read on wikipedia (just now) the book is somewhat flawed, especially in the author's bias and uninformed portrayal of the modern Japanese, but nonetheless, it doesn't matter of it's 100,000 or 200,000 or 400,000 deaths, it should be remember so as not to be repeated.

Shalman Rushdie - "Shalimar the Clown" My 3rd Rushdie novel, this guy is intelligent and somewhat of a snob in his writing, but he's also surreal and convoluted in his plot constructions, which I enjoy very much. This is good so far, although it occasionally hurts my brain.

I dunno why I felt the need to write all that, but I did it anyway! It's my blog, I can do whatever I want! BOW BEFORE ME MERE INTERNET MORTALS.





...oh. You're still here? Why are you still here? You want to know about my secret plans for the future? What the hell is Ben gonna do after he is finished with his English-teaching Time in Japan?! I know you're dying to find out. Or at least I am? Hmm. Well. Recently I've been thinking about something along the lines of getting a masters in East Asian language translation.... if such a thing even exists, and studying abroad at a University in Shanghai or Hong Kong or something. I want to be fluent in speaking and writing both Japanese and Mandarin Chinese someday. I don't know why exactly, but maybe, just maybe all of this time in Japan is giving me such an uneven balance of what Asia actually is. This taste of living in a different country, it makes me want more. I want to experience living in another completely different country, and be shocked and humbled by my lack of knowledge about how things go down all over again.

It's OK mom and Dad, I'll pack my toothbrush.

"Everywhere's story is now a part of everywhere else" - Salman Rushdie.

nabebugyou - he who controls the hot pot...

Nabe is a kind of traditional Japanese "stew" or "soup," popular during the winter and at izakayas (pubs/eateries), where the customers put in the raw ingredients themselves. I was having dinner at a namahage-themed izakaya (that's a Japanese demon from Akita who scares children into behaving correctly) with my students the other night, a sort of sayanora-party for one who is leaving the class, and nabe was among some of the delicious foods we ate. I've always enjoyed soup-based dishes, a good broth, and one with lots of delicious vegetables and meat is a great finish to a nice meal. There was even a nice post-nabe meal, the name of which escapes me, where extra broth is added with rice and an egg. I had an excellent time, but the main reason I mention any of this: there were two pots on the table, and each one seemed to have a kind of nabe-master, a self-proclaimed individual at the table who presumed to know the correct heat of the portable stove, when to put the ingredients in, and when to serve. I was informed by one gentleman about nabebugyou, or "he who controls the nabe," which used to be a term for an administrator to the shogunate back in the Edo period. Nowadays, it has turned into a kind of idiom for someone who takes charge of a situation. I thought that was interesting.

You can read a little more about Namahage here.

I was listening to an interview with George Carlin called "On Comedy," where he talks about his inspiration, techniques and such. I really enjoyed his talking about how "the subconscious does most of the work for us, like a potato coming up to the top of a boiling pot. 'Hey, look at that, a nice potato, let's have that for dinner.'" While I know this isn't originally his idea, it got me thinking about how I work on a creative level. I know from experience you can't force good output, it has to be there waiting to come out. All my potential in writing music or writing these words is merely the culmination of my having put them together in this broken format from the pure recesses of my subconscious. One reason I do this is for fear they'll be lost forever otherwise - which many surely are. Some people describe the creative process as a joyful one, others a pain. For me it really varies, sometimes it's a matter of "I must do this" and other times I genuinely want to express myself somehow. Blessing or curse? More like necessity.

I don't understand how people can live an enjoyable life without some experience of "the arts." Whether it's books, or music, or movies, or poetry, or painting, or even fashion, I can't comprehend an individual who lacks this need for something outside of the mundane, mathematical and wholly predictable. I like Carlin's comedy because it's shocking and insightful; I like Murakami, Rushdie and Lovecraft because they are surrealist authors who's works maintain a delicate balance between poetry and absurdity. I love my music because so many of the lyrics speak to me, or the ways I've felt or feel now, or maybe the sound of the instruments is just really well crafted. Or both. To keep myself happy, I need a slew of these things to be ever-present in my life. I'm not here to judge others, but I will say that people who are content without any of the aforementioned items or some extension of it completely blow my mind. And I meet them on regular basis. Is the world there for you to experience it, to ponder and love and wonder at it, or for you to sit listlessly as it all goes by? Maybe it sounds like I'm talking about two different things - taking action/living life and experiencing the arts, but I see them as going hand-in-hand. Living life by being a "suit and tie guy," and just doing everything you're told is hardly a life at all.

This is all a bit serious. I think about things like this a lot though. Also a lot about "next steps." A bit too much, sometimes to the point of paralysis, as I've already mentioned.

To break the intensity a bit: NFL season has started. I find watching 1 game a week to be a great exercise in turning off my brain and enjoying a strategic, brutal and unrelenting sport that is emblematic of the American spirit: Smash, take, gloat. It's a guilty pleasure, and probably the only sport I can enjoy watching, save college Basketball on occasion.

I finished my first complete "practice test" for the big Japanese exam in December, and got a 65%. Only 60% is required to pass, so this pleased me greatly. If I can hit the 75-80% margin on practice tests by November, passing will be a safe bet. And that'll be one more notch in the walking stick, so to speak. After that there's the level 1 test, which is a greater challenge in so many ways... After that is Chinese... After that is...


"Can't nobody hold me down, I gotta keep on movin"

It's like you never knew

Recently, I've had the pleasure of hanging out with and talking a few really nice and interesting women.

One of them is involved in some kind of psycho-analysis doctorate, the other is looking to enter a law school in America. These are people I feel some kind of connection with, and can talk to with ease. One of them recently finished school in America and has been here a year - she has inherited a kind of American-attitude that has made relating to her coworkers and peers difficult. The problem is that, in the Japanese business setting, you aren't supposed to say you don't understand. You aren't supposed to disagree with your superiors. There are so many stifling social boundaries that you would never notice as strange growing up here, but which seem bewildering when juxtaposed to the Western World. Both of the people I chatted with actually experienced this kind of problem recently, and it pushes me to wonder what kind of effects living here will have on me, and how I will come to see my own country and it's culture.

"I've finally met someone normal," one said. It was nice to hear that.

So before you go getting any ideas dear lurker/friend/family member, I'm not planning to immediately date/marry/procreate with any of the aforementioned people. Although it does beg the question about what my "love life" is like? Well, non-existent at the moment, and to be honest it's a relief. It's a bit personal and I usually avoid talking about it in a public blog like this, but I feel that being single here is liberating. The freedom is awesome, almost in the traditional sense of the word. I don't have anyone else, any other huge X factor or unpredictable aspect controlling my life. I like having this control, and someone even said to me: "being single and living in a foreign country is the best." And from where I stand now, I have to agree. Not being tied down makes everything so much easier, and it is making this an excellent first experience of living away from home for me. So, for now, no girlfriend, but I'll most likely post if such an extraordinary event does come to pass. (or if the moon crashes into the sun, whichever comes first)

Speaking of women, I got to hang out with my band-mates last Sunday. It's actually the first time I've been to a Japanese person's apartment, and it was really cool seeing Kana (my bass player) in her element: huge stacks of CDs everywhere (probably over 500), tons of VHS tapes and a really eclectic mix of music. Everything from Misery Index to Saves the Day to old New York Hardcore compilations. So freakin' cool. We hung out and listened to music and just chilled and drank and ate most of the day, along with Makiko and some other friends who stopped by, and it felt like being at home again, in a strange way.

In Japan, people don't "hang out" at home as much. I feel like even small get togethers are less common, because apartments can be so small, and walls so thin...and complaints so annoying. But this was so reminiscent of some apartment in Albany, just hanging out and enjoying a Sunday. Totally chill, and we didn't have to go to some smokey bar or loud annyoing club (lord I despise clubs) just to chill.

And, speaking of F.I.D., T H I S S U N D A Y is my first practice with Tomoko (the drummer who has been M.I.A. since I first joined the band due to her recent newborn), and I am pumped. I haven't practiced guitar as much as I should have lately, but I feel confident that we will click. My creative energy with music is kind of comparable to not peeing for several days: When you let it go, man does it come out strong and feel good (sorry for the crudeness of that one or if you are eating). I really only know how to write rhythmic tunes with a drummer, so I'm looking forward to a good jam session. It's really one of the best highs there is, playing music with friends.

So, what else. I took an excursion - a sojourn, an expedition if you will - to Shinagawa to go to the annoying Immigration Office. Visa renewals and all that. But, it looks as if everything will go through smoothly, and I managed to get it down in about 3 hours on my day off (the office is almost an hour away by train), though sadly missing a good Japanese class. Instead of taking a bus to the obscure location from the train station I saved a few bones and strolled through the warehouse district. The location is just... weird, for lack of a better word. Everything is put together strangely in this country. It's like somebody gave a toddler a multi-trillion dollar lego set and let him go at it, putting skyscrapers next to temples next to apartment buildings next to shipping docks. Unreal. And it smelled pretty bad over there, by the factories and the river. Kind of like those desolate areas between Rensselaer and East Greenbush back home, that no one would ever go to except for work. Sulfury.

I think that's about everything.... working 4 straight 6 day weeks next month, so expect sparse posting. My momentum with this blog has slowed but my desire to write hasn't wained a bit. I'll fill it in as I feel is necessary. Until next time peoples.

"If you can dream it you can be it"

"When someone sees the same people every day, as had happened with him at the seminary, they wind up becoming a part of that person's life. And then they want the person to change. If someone isn't what others want them to be, the others become angry. Everyone seems to have a clear idea of how other people should lead their lives, but none about his or her own." - Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist.

p.s. Instead of trying to cleverly weave it in, here's something I forgot to add: I was strung out on caffeine last night after my first Starbucks in literally months (I rarely drink coffee, and thought the hot cocoa was safe - pure folly!) and as a result couldn't sleep until roughly 3am. But I dutifully got up at 8:30 to get to my first Chinese lesson on time. My teacher is really cool, and we're doing a language exchange. Perhaps the neatest thing is that she is from China, but has lived here 15 years, so she speaks very fluent Japanese (with an interesting Chinese accent). Compare that to her broken English, and just what she's comfortable with, and my lesson is as a result given mostly in Japanese. So it's like two birds with one stone. She's started coaching me through pronunciations today and honestly it was fun and interesting, even though I feel like an ass making the ü sound. (it's like blowing into a flute that's not there and half-grimacing with your face at the same time) In case you didn't know, Japanese has, I think, 70-something phonetic sounds, pretty low compared to English. Mainland Chinese has over 400.

Why am I learning Chinese you may ask? Well, why is the sky blue? I just felt like it was overdue, I don't know why. I love Asian languages and Chinese characters.

As a result of my lack of sleep and need to work, I did the Japanese "plop-at-a-table-and-powernap" strategy and it worked quite well, helping me to survive a day with 3 hours of kids classes. I have one really cute little girl in the class whose only motivation in playing the games today was that I'd give her a piece of my orange after class. "Orenji Orenji!" She kept exclaiming randomly. Sometimes the little things make me happy for no good reason at all.

Dirty doctors, fond farewells

About 2 weeks ago I ordered a back-support pillow since I have terrible posture. It doesn't help that I'm still recovering from pulling a muscle in my back a month or so ago. I ordered it through the local clinic, and the nice doctor who usually does the work was cool enough to suggest it. I've been busy however, and wasn't able to stop in and pick it up. So yesterday, on my way home, what do I see but a man in white scrubs (and those silly plastic clogs, I think) chasing me down the street. I told him I was busy and would pick it up later. That was yesterday, and tonight on my way home from work, I noticed that his shop door was open. So I checked in to see if it was OK (even though business hours were long over), and all I could see was an arm from someone laying horizontally on the floor, swinging in what must of been a bizarre "hello." The dude laying on the floor (the doctor's assistant) proceeded to say my black tie was cool, and the odd couple seemed really stoked to have a foreigner walk into their office at night.... and they'd obviously been drinking, although they were doing paperwork at the same time. Oh Japan!

It's such a right phenomenon, I don't think I will ever get used to it. My very existence, being a foreigner in Japan, makes some people ecstatic (without any effort on my part) or fearful (double-checking their locked doors at night). I either appear 10x cooler than I really am, or a big scary monster. I get the former vibe more often, honestly. I mean I can't read people's minds, and even though the difference between a cold, mean stare and a kind, curious stare should be simple enough to differentiate, the infamous Japanese "passive stare" as my friend Nicholas called it, is quite ambiguous. For instance, the other day I was doing sit ups at the gym and the tatttoo on my leg (located above my knee) was showing a bit. An older guy next to me just sat there and stared at me for a good solid minute or two. At the same gym, I was doing a back-bridge on the mat and this younger fellow walking by just gawks at me like a deer in headlights. Sometimes when I sit next to people on the train, they are just enamored/revolted by my being there. It's really hard to tell what they're thinkinh, so I just kind of respond in the same passive manner they utilize so much. Fire with fire, and all that. Best not to think too much about any of it and just let it ride anyway.

So I saw a good friend of mine off yesterday, and it was a bittersweet departure. Bitter since I no longer have a cool neighbor who'll play Black Flag and Rage Against the Machine at 8:30am, sweet since, uh... I got a desk in my room now? But of course I'd rather keep my neighbor than some hunk of wood. I'll miss ya Nicholas, get back here soon!

Oh, and the best part: my room is such a mess from me being tremendously busy all month (I've been working 6 day weeks and usually spending almost my entire day off taking lessons/studying), that I have a desk plopped in the middle of my room. I gotta "play tetris" with the place so to speak to get it to fit snugly somewhere. But not until next weekend!

Also, it's officially "Rainy Season" here in Japan, so the incredible humidity can make things go moldy, as my friend and classmate the British Mum of 20 yrs. expatriate-status recently informed me, so washing up, airing out and putting away my possessions will be crucial to not incurring the wrath of said mold. As Shane, my other classmate put it: "last year I got mold on things I didn't know could get moldy, like my leather bag." We'll see how it turns out!

And in other (non-dramatic) news, I'm really into "Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney" for the DS at the moment, and am reading Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol." I don't really have a good reason for either, so I'll just leave it at that. I'm exhausted, good night!

"I don't want you to be alone down there to be alone down there to be alone" - Modest Mouse

"Remain steadfast. Awwwwww Perseverance! Crushing all opposition, discipline and determination" - Hatebreed.


P.S. In my post-work drowsiness I almost forgot the best part: TOMOKO (F.I.D.'s original drummer, who had a baby about 4 months back) is coming back to the band! We can start practicing! I can start jamming with a Japanese drummer who loves Suffocation! We'll play some shows this year! I'M SO EXCITED!!!!!!!!

We are entering dimensions beyond space

So I've been back from Korea for well on 5 days now. I'm just now feeling refreshed and ready to get back to the routine - which will in fact last me for the next 3 months until I see another holiday! This is the first time in my life I haven't been counting the days until finals were over and eyeing the upcoming summer vacation, but I am rather staring at a seemingly endless daily grind of sorts. Growing up is weird, dude.

I made the terrible choice of stretching my vacation to the max and got back home around 7pm the night before I had to work my first shift of the week. It might not sound so bad, but 12ish hours of trains and planes can leave a man quite bedraggled. Quite. I am definitely going to do a bit more research into where exactly my airport is located in correspondence with my locations of interest in the future. Live, learn, repeat ad nauseam (just been looking for an excuse to bust out that last one)

What's new - what isn't new? I'm already tired of talking about my vacation and yet I have only orally reported it (ad nauseam), so the best may not be yours for the reading, sorry internet people. Let me throw out some highlights:

-I ate so many delicious dishes. Panjyong (kimchi baked into bread), Jya jya meong (Black bean noodles), Jim Dah (an incredibly savory, spicy dish of noodles and chicken), kimchi chige (kimchi stew) and a lot more things I don't remember well enough to mispell. (pics on the bottom folks)

-I had the pleasure of a friend as a guide, so my inability to do anything at all in Korean was less debilitating and more of a nuisance. It did bother me a bit, and if I'm ever going to any foreign country that doesn't speak much English again, especially on my own, I'm going to devote at least some portion of time to learning basic phrases, at the bare minimum.

-Witnessing a police drill in Seoul with what must have been over a thousand cops all swarming in and around the station. At one point they started pouring in in lines from both sides of a subway exit, and it strangely felt like being in a movie.

-South Korea, being 1/3-1/2 (I've heard both statistics) Christian, had giant crosses outlined in red neon everywhere, so that it was all you could see floating in the night sky. ??!!!?

-More bootleg stuff than you would find in the heart of Shanghai. Seriously. Their biggest brand is called Banc, and it's a complete lego-ripoff!

-Everything there is really cheap compared to Japan. I got lots of ties, some shirts, Korean spices, bottles of sake as omiyage (presents for my bosses), and other stuff.

I'm really too tired to say much more. I should weave in pics to make this look good, but hey, nobody's paying me! So go here for pictures and whatnot. I will try to update my blog with more, smaller updates in the future instead of sparse and generally longer ones. :)

"First we get some surgery, lose the kids and our identities. One thing I know for a fact, mustache stays, right where it's at." - Clutch

"Life is pain princess. Anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something" - The Princess Bride.

Feeba!

Chapter 5: Cedar in the Air.

The other night I wound up, by some various hair-brained circumstances, hanging out with two Japanese friends of mine from Kobe and wandering aimlessly around Kabukicho, Shinjuku's famous red-light district. The two girls' reactions were quite hilarious: "It's so embarrassing walking through here!" They say as we pass love hotels, host clubs, strip joints, and what are probably soap houses (legitimate brothels). This area of town used to be run in a more heavy-handed manner by the Yakuza, and quite dangerous; Now it serves as more of an area teeming with varying forms of night-life. This was the night before Spring Equinox (national holiday) and there were foreigners abound. Other than the usual black dudes and other foreigners (not to sound prejudice or something, but it's like 80% black dudes), out to hustle you to going into an overpriced adult club of some kind, there were foreigners, salarymen and everyone from everywhere you could think of, all out to have a good time in this ubiquitously well-known, over-crowded area. Tokyo is an exciting place to live like this, and I guess I take it for granted at times.

I escorted the two ladies to the cheap bar I knew there, but it was full up since we showed up late, having celebrated early holiday with overpriced (but non-Japanese) beer for a belated St. Patty's Day. Again, the girls said they felt weird but we turned a corner and poof, like magic, we went from perv-ville to a huge display of hundreds of colored balloons, various cheap dresses on sale and stuffed animals. One block away was the hotel district, and two more was a 20+ story hospital. The sheer abundance in such small spaces is dizzying. Japan is condensation. The town I live in is more dense and probably bigger than Albany, the capital city of New York that I am "from" (really five minute across the river). But this 100,000 person or more area is considered somewhat rural.

When there are neon signs, 24-hour eateries and 3 convenience stores in 1/8 of a mile, I don't quite call that rural.

*note to self: place clever transition here*

--

Feeba (Fever)

After the veritable breeze that last fall was, as far as no noticeable allergy afflictions, I thought I had left my horrendous pollen allergies behind with my old life in New York. You see back there, every Fall and Spring were murder on my sinuses, so I had tried everything to counter-act it, from pills to nasal sprays to allergy injections. (!!) I even brought some of the nasal spray with me to Japan, but stopped taking it and noticed no difference - good for me, since acquiring and refilling prescriptions are supposed to be a royal pain here.

As you may have already guessed, I jinxed myself hard on this one. Spring is in the air, with temperatures reaching up to 70 this week, and Japan's over-saturation of cedar-based pollens has rocked me pretty hard today. Headaches and a sore throat when I woke up this morning, nothing unmanageable, but today I earned my chips, substituting 3 kids classes in a row, 2 of which were levels I've never really taught before. 2 of them went smoothly, despite being craft-based: making playdough was a right mess but fun, and coloring Easter eggs with a bunch of 5 year olds is really no big deal. I did have a class of 10-12 year olds though who were really, really hard to get through to, like they wouldn't pay attention to a word I said and I was continually being talked over by more than one person, and I have to work on some methods to counteract this. I think they call it discipline? I call it my least favorite part about my job, since I just want to be the cool, down-to-earth kind of teacher I always enjoyed back when I was a kid, but sometimes it's necessary. More on that as things develop.

I got my new job contract! (In case you don't know, everything starts in April here, school, new fiscal years, etc.) It's only tentative at this point, but it's looking good. I have five kids classes which I think is a good number, and some closer schools thanks to management acknowledging my requests. I'm leaving some students and classes and schools behind which is a strange feeling, as it's the first time I've really done something like this. It feels like a weird situation, between me and my students... We only have a student-teacher relationship, but I really want to know what will happen to the young guy who specializes in agriculture moving to the country who I've taught since I moved here, or how the 5-year-old who I just started giving private lessons to will get on in the future. I'm so stubborn about leaving things behind, and change and all that, which you wouldn't think considering where I live, but I am.

Took a trip with some friends to Kamakura on Monday. It was a great time, getting out of the city and seeing the ocean. Pics coming whenever I get off my lazy butt to upload em. (...or I guess that would be on my lazy butt, with a camera and USB cable in arms reach).

I was experiencing some chronic wrist pain when lifting so I bit the bullet and saw a doctor the other day. I was gonna go to a hospital but my friends in Japanese class convinced me that a Clinic was better. This bears some explaining: In Japan, almost any city/town will have several Kurinikku, where you can see a licensed General Practitioner who will take care of your needs on a more personal level than a hospital. The best part is that with my health insurance, I've been getting some crazy, acupuncture-point-style massages on my aching arm for real cheap, significantly better than the co-pay back home. I've even taken to chatting my doc in Japanese, since he mostly just knows medical terms and can speak only broken English. The best part was when I mentioned moving to Japan, the first thing he says something about toilets, using an onomatopoeia to the effect of zaaaa, with an exaggerated hand motion, exhibiting some kind of function that the high-tech toilets here have, which I have yet to uncover - lazer beams perhaps?
As far as Japanese toilets, they come in two styles here: medieval holes in the floor (see: the one right outside my room) and high tech models with buttons for everything from varied degrees of flushing to personal, shall I say, genitalia-washing sprays. Haven't tried that one yet myself. Or rather, I haven't been forced into a situation where I have to.........yet.

Speaking of sound-based words like my doc's "zaaaa," they love, utterly love using onomatopoeia in speech here, I'll do a full article on it some time. It's mind-blowing.

In band news, there's no real news. Sadly our new prospective drummer Ian had to back down due to an already over-slammed schedule. So we're drummerless once again, and I'm kind of bummed, but waiting patiently. We've got some ads up but no catches yet - if anyone knows a good, grind-style drummer in the Tokyo area, contact me, ok?

I know there are cool stories or things that have happened that I'm not recalling right now, and that's a shame. I should write more regularly, but I spend more of my free time now study-study-studying. I've got kind of a "maximum-output fever" going on, and want to keep it up for as long as possible. I spend my time drilling flashcards, practicing grammar and reading Japanese comics I understand 40-60% of, with varying success. Right now reading a lot of Gantz, Dragon Ball, Bobobo, One Piece.... I also have been reading yet more Lovecraft, he's got an addicting style with his vivid, spooky imagery. And watching the hilarious music-student based drama Nodame Cantalibre, hilarious!!! (Ashleigh, you would like this one)

No point in forcing it I suppose - more of my quasi-exciting life coming soon!


"Given to the rising." - Neurosis

"I'm walkin' and I'm talkin' and I'm tryin' and I'm lyin' but I just can't get through to you! Maybe I'd be better off talkin' to a wall, cuz you aren't makin' any sense at all!" - Cro-mags

"And it's strange, but they're all basically the same, so I don't ask names anymore." - Death Cab

Another day in paradise - Culture shock, cockroaches, sweaty crowds and beds of roses

Everything shifts, all the time. Language is amorphous and ever-changing, so are the economics and so is the culture. It should come as no surprise that the residual effect is a dynamic yet unstably predictable slew of moods I find myself in each day. I don't know if I believe in bad days anymore, there are too many things can happen in a mere 24 hours. I do believe in the value of time, and a certain friend of mine said the other day he had an "out-date," a.k.a. a set time in mind when he was going to leave Japan. I was a little saddened to hear this as he's one of the few really cool people I've met here, but was of course supportive of his plans to move on, get a real career, etc.. More importantly, this bit of news he followed up with: "Having a set date in mind makes the time more enjoyable, if that makes any sense."

To me, it makes a world of sense. A galaxy, nay, a cosmos of freakin' sense. Goals are important, although mine aren't necessarily temporal (it's old news but as a refresher: learn Japanese as best as I can, help F.I.D. take over the world with grindcore, have fun, etc). In any regard I have never been content staying in one place or doing one set thing for too long, with possibly only 2 exceptions: reading and playing music. And even with these, I burnt out at times, went into slumps, got fed up with them - too much of anything is never a good thing, as the old proverb goes. Have I yet taken in too much Japan?

The answer is a bit counter-intuitive. I would describe my experience in Japan so far in the following chronological way: Seeing everything as surreal, followed by a splash of cold water in the face, followed by adjustment, followed by acceptance. My 4-step program, if you will.

Now there's this thing they call culture shock, but I don't think it's defined correctly. Note:

"culture shock: the feeling of disorientation experienced by someone who is suddenly subjected to an unfamiliar culture, way of life, or set of attitudes."

What's wrong here is the word "suddenly." True, culture shock hits you when you first come to a new place, but it's residual effects are comparable to those who try and quit smoking. At first one has undeterred confidence in their ability to overcome, followed by waves of desire for going back to old habits. That's a lot like my experience of culture shock. Some days are lollipops and neon lights (perhaps better described as yogurt-flavored candy and squid strips), while others i feel the city grinding me down as a whole, just scraping slowly away at my humanity, to risk sounding a trifle over-dramatic. My buddy over at the The Ghost Letters has blogged about this latter phenomenon quite a bit, and it's something anyone in any big city must go through: feeling isolated, getting fed up with the crowds and whatnot. The main difference is that everything here feels like it hits an extremity...

Life in Japan is everything to the max. The colors are brighter, the gadgets shinier, the lights blink faster and the silly humans all squeeze in to make their way, everything going 100 miles a minute. I'm not used to it, I'm getting used to it; some days it feels normal and some day it feels like the veritable equivalent of walking around mars with my helmet off, Total Recall style. For instance, I saw a dude bitching out the station attendant for a late train the other day. He was a young salary man, obviously in a hurry and upset by the late trains. He kept saying things along the lines of (and I'm translating faithfully here): "I'm not fucking around! Do you think I'm kidding here? This train cannot be late, do something, seriously!" While the station attendant apologized repeatedly and profusely, bowing all the while. Thie is a prime example of what one would never see in the New York area: a slave to public transportation venting his anger out on a station attendant who can't do anything, the guy obviously catching flak for a problem he didn't cause, and still maintaining a "the customer is always right" mentality (also known as okyakusama ga kamisama, translation "the customer is god"). I think if you pulled that at Amtrak in Rensselaer, NY, the staff would just laugh at you.

But enough with all that stuff. Moving on. I had a somewhat rocky week, with construction beginning at 8am on Thursday morning keeping me a awake and forcing me to run on low batteries all day. Then I made the terrible mistake of going out Thursday night, getting woken up by the clings and clangs and hollers of construction workers after staying up until 2am, and subsequently feeling a little burnt out for my kids class that day. The real kicker of all this is there was a sign put up just this week, bi-lingual, saying in English: "we will be painting from March 6, sorry for the inconvenience." This was rather deceiving, as it not only began on March 5, but when I later looked at Japanese closer, the characters for "construction" were explicitly stated.

I was better prepared today but still missed sleeping in until 9 or 10 like normal. I tried asking one of the constructoin workers if they would be working on Sunday as well, and he gave me a run-around answer along the lines of "we're working until it's finished," if I understood him correctly. Maybe I didn't. Irregardless, the dude had half inch forests of nose-hairs coming out of his shnoz, and I can live without ever seeing that again, ever.

Work was a breeze, only a couple classes at my favorite school, all the students were animated and a pleasure to teach. Note: this was the exact opposite of an incredibly awkward and painful day I had earlier this week in Shinjuku. I taught a dude today who was on a plane to Vegas when the Twin Towers fell; he said they re-routed him to Vancouver and that when he finally made it to Vegas, everything was just shut down. No lights, no casinos, just desert and dead bulbs. Wild. Another student said he tried to watch Star Wars without Japanese subtitles, and he did fine except that he couldn't understand Yoda! I had to of course explain that Yoda says everything completely backwards, and hence has terrible grammar!

I was thanked several time for being generally helpful today, which always makes me feel good. I've never felt so appreciated in any line of work in the past as I often am at this job. I feel that of all the teachers that come through, a small amount really want to give it their all every time, and not to brag, but when I do something I do it right. I don't like half-assing anything. So, that made me feel good. The staff at that school are also becoming good friends of mine, and I'm crossing my fingers and toes that I'll have a set day there as of April on my next contract, as I'm only there once or twice a month as of now.

Today I came home and what's the first thing I see? A cockroach scurrying up my wall. I try and calm myself down but the overwhelming revulsion I feel for the thing is almost nauseating; I never had to deal with these guys back home, although house centipedes were another matter altogether. Fact of the matter is they both creep me out as much as anything possibly can.

I mustered up the stomach and slammed an old hard-cover copy of One Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (sorry Vernes) into the little bastard. It fell in the corner of my room, next to my bed in a corner of shoes and belts. I decided I had to move my bed and do some hardcore cleaning to get whatever putrid rice crumbs I had let find there way there for little dudes like this to much on (not to mention go buy some bug spray the next day). I proceeded to move my bed, poked at the shoey-belty-corner with an umbrella, and sure enough the little fucker comes sidling out on the wall apparently undamaged. I throw the book at him, my heart leaping out of my chest, and still see him scurry away after being apparently flattened, and into my shoe to boot!

That was it.

I flipped my shoe with the umbrella and he scurried behind the book. I kicked that book so furiously that the neighbors must have thought I was having a domestic dispute with myself, and finally it was over. I spent the next 3 hours cleaning up and working around all the crap I'd been putting off for so long. I watched Blazing Saddles for the umpteenth time while I cleaned, ate some pizza toast and felt inspired to pour out all of this you're reading. So in the end, it really was a good day, on the whole.

As I said at the beginning, things change constantly. Nothing is ever set, it just appears that way.

Margarita Pizza has got to be one of the greatest things ever invented

I mean, mozzarella cheese, big pieces of tomatoes and basil? How much more right can you get?! Or gluttonous, for that matter. And to anyone who talks smack about pizza in Japan, sure the portions leave a little to be desired and the sizes are smaller, but everything is smaller here! You really don't get eggs, mayo and squid pizza unless you ask for it, so don't believe the hype.

So what's new with me? A whole lot of nothing, that's what! 日本語ばかり勉強している = I feel like I'm doing almost nothing but studying Japanese. Not that that's a bad thing, but I've honestly kicked it into high gear, sacrificing most of my leisure time toward studying. I may be generally lazy or mild-mannered, but when I stubbornly set my mind on something, I see it through 110%, just so long as I don't lose interest. Which hasn't happened yet, as languages are a lot like endless puzzles, where exploring one nook leads you to a whole 'nother vista of inquiry you knew nothing about beforehand.

Case in point: rude Japanese. I love speaking rude Japanese, it's fun and people are even more shocked than when you speak in an overly polite manner (us foreigners always seem to achieve one or the other, it's an endless struggle). Naturally I only talk in such rude language among good friends... Although I've already once made the regrettable mistake of trying to be jovial with one of my bosses, only to be reminded by the look of sheer, audacious shock on his face that the respect hierarchy is not to be to be tampered with, in language or in action. In or outside the office, a subordinate speaks to his boss in keigo ("humble form"), bows him off of trains, etc. etc.. Of course I am not as subject to these standards as most Japanese, since I'm not expected by any of my fellow staff to speak Japanese, and am conversely expected to carry the aura of "native speaker" around with me, like a floating cultural orb. (It's one of the selling points of the company) If I do however decide to try and speak it, it's a "tread lightly" kind of situation. And just like in any country or culture, some people are way more lax than others, it really depends.

As should be obvious by my lack of formatting, I'm completely winging it this week. The theme was finding unexpected surprises in languages... ah yes. naname means diagonal. Whenever I record a word in my notebook, and subsequently place it into my flashcard program, I always double-check a second source to make sure I have not only recorded the meaning correctly, but also that I am not ignoring other potential meanings. I thought that diagonal surely couldn't mean anything but just that, but checked it on principal anyway. Glad I did, because I now know that gokigennaname means "in a bad temper." I'll be sure to use that one as soon as possible!

I had band practice today and it was rather by the numbers, except that now I've learned the majority of the songs and I'm beginning to get a chance to write my own stuff. It's always the most fun part of the being in a band for me: everything is still fresh and new, anything one wants to alter is still subject to change, and one can get useful feedback from fellow band members. The writing phase can be truly magical, as you are only limited by your own imagination, and you never know what shape things may take. It's as if the music sometimes becomes it's own living, breathing entity! And I don't feel that any of that was over-dramatic in the slightest. At practice, myself and the ladies of F.I.D. were surprisingly enough both in the same boat, as neither of us have had a "real band practice" (one with a drummer) since last summer! Josh, I know you won't read this but I miss jamming with you.

As well as practicing the songs, I also greatly enjoyed the chance to hang out with my band mates - they are not only a few of the best friends I have over here, but they're also Japanese, meaning I can practice my language skills, we can bounce our cultural nuances off of each other, and most always have a good time. Maybe their being Japanese wouldn't seem like such a big deal, but being an expatriate with mostly fellow expat-friends, it is. That point about language practice goes two-fold, since our bass player doesn't speak English much but definitely wants to improve. I even agreed to help her study for the TOEIC (Test of English for International Communication), a bar of measurement almost all Japanese use to weigh their language skills, the single most important exam for careers and all that too. Hopefully if I can coach my friend a bit and get her thinking about it the right way, she can study hard, do well on the test and get an awesome promotion or something.

Oh, and by the way, on the subject of bands, instead of saying "check, 1, 2" or "testing, testing," Japanese people go: "ah ah ah ah" into a microphone. I still find it very amusing every time, without fail.

I have had the weirdest dreams lately. From nightmares of terrifying kids' classes (as I'm nervous about the new ones I will receive in the new contract year coming in April) to surreal dreams of Gabe shooting some arch rival and chopping up the body and hiding it in a closet....no, I can't make this stuff up. I'll level that back home, I used to indulge in a certain, er, plant which has the effect on me of not remembering my dreams. Here, I remember something vivid and strange almost everyday, for better or for worse.

So this was a random post, was it not? I have toyed on and off with doing VLOG's (Video-blogs), and they are just so popular nowadays, but I think I express myself much better through the writing process. Besides, what do I really have to say that's so important you need to watch a streamed video of my face for ten minutes? The real thing is hard enough to take for ten minutes, and the virtual equivalent would most likely transmute me into some kind of demented Lawnmower man, choppin' up yer brains with my virtual-lawnmower.

Later!

"What an extraordinary situation is that of us mortals! Each of us is here for a brief sojourn; for what purpose he knows not, though he sometimes thinks he feels it. But from the point of view of daily life, without going deeper, we exist for our fellow-men — in the first place for those on whose smiles and welfare all our happiness depends, and next for all those unknown to us personally with whose destinies we are bound up by the tie of sympathy." - Albert Einstein, "The World as I See it."

St. Valentine was clubbed, stoned and beheaded in 1493 for marrying Christian couples

Thanks, Wikipedia! And unexpected as it was I've had a better V-Day than any in recent memory. So many holidays have metamorphosed into their own separate entities here in Japan, and Valentines Day is no exception. How, you may ask can it get any more commercialized? The answer is White Day, a holiday invented only 30 years ago as a chance for "men to pay the women back." For whatever odd reason, here on V-Day only women are supposed to give chocolate to men. Ergo, one month later on White Day the men are supposed to return the favor. It all seems rather superfluous and unnecessary to me, and not just because I'm single! I thought to myself: "this year, I won't get any chocolates, so none to give back!" Then the Staff Director at a certain school gives me and the other teachers these bad boys:


Apparently they are really expensive too! Rightfully so, it was really, really good. The first chocolate I've eaten that wasn't a kit-kat dipped in peanut butter in veritable months... more like a piece of fancy soft cake.

Also, most likely just because the schools like to have school parties so that the teachers and students can mingle and drink outside of class, there was a Valentines party at one of my schools. I probably would not have went. except that my friend and staff member Kana was quitting the job to become a Primary school teacher! So I pretty much had to go. But I wasn't really complaining, my weekend was fairly quiet otherwise so it was something to do.

On the way there, I got reminded that the Yamenote (main circular loop-line in Tokyo) is NOT my least favorite train to ride... it's the Chuo. This might sound overly negative and it is intended as such. I love the train system here, but the crowds, closeness and just plain cuckoos you encounter are a rife pain. Case in point:

I'm riding the line when I hear some woman speaking indecently loudly (Japanese people are usually really quiet on the trains, except for the occasional semi-loud bunch of kids), so much so that by her words and tone of voice I thought she was being molested or something. "Thank God I'm on this side of the traincar," I thought, having recently watched "Soredemo boku wa yattenai," ("Even so, I didn't do it!") a Japanese film about a man who gets accused of molesting a girl on a subway, all the while protesting he didn't do it. The serious problems with the Japanese legal system - no mistrials, lack of a jury, bias toward law enforcement agencies - are all outlined by a dude who basically gets his entire life wrecked because some girl thought she groped him on a packed train. Guilty until proven innocent, if that's even possible, kind of stuff. Scary.

Tangent! The point is ever since watching it I've been keeping my hands up in plain sight or somewhere where no poor young girl could accuse me of a crime that would have me deported. So this lady is apparently crying about something for all to hear, everyone just ignoring it of course. Time passes - it's a 25 minute train ride. About 10 minutes afterward, a girl walks in on the opposite side of the car, texting on her cell-phone, a normal enough scene. I need explain that in every train-car here they have a special handicapped section, where there are signs not to use your cell phone (apparently due to the fact that maybe 10 years ago cells could have possibly interfered with pacemakers). Suffice it to say the girl wasn't adhering to this rule, and that's also totally normal. There's no danger unless you're talking on the phone in a loud, rude fashion, and that's just the danger of getting mean stares from old people.

Out of nowhere, there's a loud "EEEEEEEEEEEKKKK!" like a bat caught in a cocktail blender. I jumped out of my skin, crawled back in and looked around. Then, the same voice as before, but much closer to me saying something along these lines, really loudly: "Stop using your goddamn phone! Can't you read? EEEEEEEEEEEK!! STOP IT, STOP IT!" The girl looks like she's completely bewildered but hiding it really well. She says "I'm sorry," and the woman says "SHUT THE HELL UP!" And goes in ranting really loudly in the poor accused girl's face, using a lot of words I didn't catch but that anyone from anywhere would get the gist of. Finally she quiets back down and at the next stop I see this protesting woman waddling off: short and middle-aged, with a spiteful face like she had been terribly wronged.

Now there's a decent chance (maybe better than decent) that this woman was mentally handicapped somehow. That's all well and good - it reminds me of how certain mentally disabled people in my life back home would take things as black and white as they were written, so in other words "no cell phones" means NO CELL PHONES, end of story. But still, I wonder what her story was, and in any case am thankful that I rarely have to ride that particularly busy, packed train, the kind which always carries along with it an extra batch of nutters.

So the school party was actually pretty fun. I got a good buzz on at school which was a little weird. At first it was quite funny: there were the 3 female staff members, 3 male teacher and about 10-15 middle-aged men in attendance. And more and more of what seemed to be nothing but men 35+ kept coming in. Quite the romantic occasion! -___- Eventually - and I recall saying "there is a god if the next person who walks in is a woman," and being pleasantly surprised - the gender ratio evened out a bit. It was fun to get to hang out with Kana before she left for good, and here's a picture after she gave a speech to everyone about her leaving:


As the night progressed I looked up the fact I started this entry out with on Wikipedia. For obvious reasons I didn't really try to explain it to anyone who couldn't speak English fluently (somehow "beheaded" just doesn't come up in the textbook vocab lists more often than not). Later one of the other staff members was pop-quizzing me on character readings, pointing at the various stuff on the computer and saying: "what's this?" and me wowing the students that I could read 4 characters. They are way too easily impressed!

We went out to a short-lived after-party at a local "Irish pub" - short-lived since we are all slaves to the last train - and it was nice to drink a dark beer like Bass again. A shame it costs 900 yen...

That was that night in a nutshell. Nothing major happened this weekend except a whole lot of Japanese studying, the usual. I want to be able to pass the level 2 JLPT test at the end of the year, which is a very lofty goal I will admit. However, if I continue at this rate, I might just pull it off. I'm currently reading Silence of the Lambs as well, just finished Henry Rollins' "Get in the Van" (short and very sweet), and am listening to Chuck P.'s "The Haunted" and Richard Dawkins "God Delusion" on my Ipod (sorry Mom and Dad).

And in closing, yoinked directly from Japan Probe:"Finance Minister Shoichi Nakagawa gives drunken press conference at G7 meeting"



Even if you don't understand any Japanese, watch this. It's hilarious and incredibly disgraceful on the part of the Japanese government. This dude is drunk, but later claims were that he was on "cold medicine." He asks the questioners to repeat themselves, and at the very end he's asking which way to face the camera.

"If Jesus had been killed twenty years ago, Catholic school children would be wearing little electric chairs around their necks instead of crosses." - Lenny Bruce

"Money is funny - how a piece of paper can make or break your very existence
Quick as it come, quick as it go - you better know about the ebb and the flow
You get money in droves, trick it on cars and blow
Throw dollars at black queens 'cause, for the dough they'll strip their clothes
And for the right amount of money
A king will pimp his queen into being a ho on a stroll
Life will always be hard when you choose to make money your god" - KRSone featuring MC Lyte

Japan's 4th of July

It happens in the middle of Winter. There are no fireworks or picnics, just a lot of people with a day off. 建国記念の日, kenkoku kinen-no-hi, or National Foundation's Day if you like, is summed up by Wikipedia as follows:

"In contrast with the events associated with earlier Kigensetsu, celebrations for National Foundation Day are relatively muted. Customs include the raising of Japanese flags and reflection on the meaning of Japanese citizenship. The holiday is still relatively controversial however, and very overt expressions of nationalism or even patriotism are rare." (Kingensetsu was Empire Day, and a big holiday up until WWII)

I thought maybe I was missing the celebratory actions, the traditions, the national gusto, but nay! This holiday is really just a day on the map. It's been nice for me though: I studied quite a bit today, and met up for the first time outside of class with my new language exchange partner, Ami! It was a lot of fun and I learned some fun facts I never knew before, such as: "When referring to McDonalds, Tokyo people say "Makku" but the Osaka dialect is "Makudo," and other fun random facts. How I love fun random facts!

Did I mention that I'm going to learn 2000 kanji by the end of the Summer? You can too, using the free spaced-flashcard software called anki, and the Remembering the Kanji series by the ingenious Mr. Heisig. This is not a plug but a recommendation from someone who has explored various study options over the last few years. That's all I'll say about that.

I took a look at learning hangul (the Korean writing system), which is believe it or not is claimed to be the most logical and easy to learn writing system in the world! (Here's a fun rap video about it!) This is because it was designed by a group of scholars in the 1440s because, prior to the invention of it they used Chinese characters (just like the Japanese). For this reason however, "the majority of Koreans were effectively illiterate before the invention of Hangul." If you are interested then google it. Anyways, since I'm going to Korea and have always wanted to learn at least some Korean, I figure I should squeeze it in before my trip. At least I'll be able to say some basic phrases, and read the signs to an extent.

Note to self: My new Life Goal is to be able to speak and read Japanese, Korean and Chinese before I die. :)

I spent some of my travel time today listening to Henry Rollins' "Get in the Van," for the first time. For those who don't know, it's an autobiography of his life in Black Flag from 1981-86. Suffice it to say it's powerful, almost unbelievably brutal and if nothing else captivating. It does remind me of my vague hunger to achieve a once relentless dream of playing music I want to play and traveling the world, but I've long ago shelved that one as a "would be nice if it actually happened but I'm not getting my hopes up too much" dream. Though hey, you never know.

Still some kind of rough events going on back home (in New York that is) that I would like to be around for, to support certain people during their hard times. But I am here, and they are there, so I have to make do with what I can do from a distance. I did get a chance to communicate with said persons last night though, and even through the limitations of computers it almost felt like being home again. I love you, don't forget it!!!!

I took a look at poetry again today for the first time in a while. Just like writing music, I go through random creative spurts. I've left you with something to chew on at the bottom, and if you like, check out my other writings here.

Doing a quick post since here I have the time; Maybe some of you out there are disappointed with my recent lack of pictures, or my less frequent updates. Well for one thing that's just how it'll have to be, but for my sake and the sake of keeping this blog alive and well I'll try to update it once a week at minimum. Thanks for reading internet zombies!!

"If I focus myself on it
with intensity, with clarity
I can run nowhere and
see the world.

Floating free through
the amorphous stew
of a life in lieu
of something to do.

which is a goal
?any shape size or color
paint it so black
you can't see the others" - Benjamin L. Belcher

Only in Japan...

I left my apartment today to go to the gym when I saw a guy in a work uniform eyeing the building. I thought maybe he was trying to deliver a package or something, but shrugged it off and left. Two hours later I came back and...

There was a brand new vending machine installed outside the front door of my apartment building!

It's funny, because I had been thinking lately how I have to walk a whole 30 feet to get to a vending machine from my house and all.... o_0



On an unrelated note here's a few pictures I never posted from a trip to Akihabara a while back:

"Retro-Gaming" - There was a copy of Street Fighter 2 out front for all to play.

The current Prime Minister, Taro Aso a.k.a. "Cool Old Dude" is very popular amongst the nerdy crowd.


That's all for today. I'll keep you posted on whether or not a canned coffee vending machine appears on my roof or in my room any time in the near future.

From spooky stuff to Santa-san / Grinding a Culture Fest

Just like in the States, the end of Halloween marks the beginning of the "Christmas season," where gleeful images of red and green that say "money = love" abound in the subways and on the streets. It really kicked in yesterday while I was sitting at Matsuya, a popular "fast food" joint that sells an awesome beef and onion rice bowl with miso soup for 380 yen. I heard Jingle Bells, and it hit me.

While I could go into the whole sphere of how I have gotten the occasional bouts of homesickness, and how it is a bit odd having my first Christmas away from my family, I have much more enthralling matters to discuss today. Like when I was at the Hub (an English-themed bar) last night and some guy kept chanting "Yankees suck!" after I told him I was from New York. I was at the bar with my future band-mate Kanako, but let me back up- no wait, before I even back up, let me go off on an extreme tangent that you've no doubt come to expect from my erratic writing style:

Japanese people and their reactions to foreigners speaking Japanese.

As my flatmate Dayn so notably pointed out to me the other day, Japanese people tend to react one of two ways when you exhibit any kind of speaking ability:

1) They say "Wow, that's amazing!" even if you only utter one word improperly. This kind of over-reaction is incredibly common, and while I do love being complimented on my speaking skills, let's not kid ourselves here: I've scarcely studied more than 2 years, and I have a long way to go. I would rather be corrected than given blind praise.

2) They stare at you blankly, perhaps feigning comprehension or in total disbelief, even if you use perfect grammar. I haven't gotten this reaction so much, but it does happen. Why you may ask? I really can't wrap my head around, but despite their immense fascination with English, some Japanese are not comfortable with the idea of foreigners speaking their language, especially older folks. Talk about a paradox.

So we have a dichotomy of innacurate reactions. Perhaps a good reflection on the indirect nature of the Japanese, and their tendency to avoid stating things directly? (For example: "your grammar is sucks?" or "Don't you dare speak my language you non-Japanese heathen?")

So on Sunday I worked overtime in Kawagoe, since it's close to me and I could use the cash. I've heard that it's a nice area, and there are some parts that look like Edo-era Japan, although I didn't have time to explore at all:

Just outside the station.

During my second to last lesson I started hearing some annoying voice on a loudspeaker outside, and sure enough on my way out of work I see one of those political trucks hanging out outside the station:

I'd vote for him.

All day I was looking forward to meeting the band I was going to try out for, the previously all-female grindcore act F.I.D. - or Flagitious Idiosyncracy in the Dilapidation. For obvious reasons, they refer to themselves as FID. Thanks again to Grizloch for telling me about them! They've played Maryland Death Fest in the States and even in the Czech Republic before, not to mention they're pretty damn good, so I was really excited about the possibility of joining a band with such prospects. I've also always wanted to play in a grind band, but the scene back home was lacking in this genre to say the least.

Unfortunately the singer who speaks great English was sick, so I met up with the bass player and the drummer, who speak good english and to little, respectively. For the most part though we were able to communicate between Japanese and English, and talked about stuff. Nothing is set in stone yet but things are looking good, we should be getting together to practice in the next few weeks, and I'll be working on writing stuff and learning their songs and all that.

Monday, I woke up hung over from the previous nights' drinking bout with the aforementioned bass player, and felt like doing something on my day off. It was also National Culture Day in Japan, where all colleges host Culture Fests on their campuses. I ended up meeting my Aussie friend Chris in Waseda, a university-town to check out the goings on. Things were inhumanly crowded by the end of the day, but here's an idea of what we went down:

Mother Africa in a can.

Between the signs and the throngs of people, it wasn't too hard to find.


First stop was the Art-section of the culture fest.

While it was pretty cool to see the exhibit, we were really just looking for the food stands the whole time.

Oh yes.







Chris and I decided to prove in the drawing room that gaijin can be good artists too - note the picture in the top was probably done by a 9-year-old.

Engrish or clever advertising against Anorexia?

The still life section. They handed us surveys, which we politely handed back and said "Muzukashi Yomemasen" ("too hard to read")


This lady was serving tea with jam!

This area of the festival was deceptively not crowded, and we soon discovered why - there were different areas of the 10k+ student campus housing the food stands, dancing and musical events. When we got there, things started to get tight, between the throngs of people on holiday and the various student club-run food stands all screaming to buy their stuff. In fact, two incredibly hyper dudes got in mine and Chris's face about their amazing yakisoba (fried buckwheat noodles) so we caved in and had that.

It was my first time, and it was really good!

Other foods I ate that day were gyoza (dumplings) and kind of potato cakes. There were also chocolate-covered bananas, pork wraps, okonomiyaki (a kind of pancake) - just about anything you could think of.

Not the most convincing Chopper costume I've ever seen.

Cultural.

It's hard to see, but his jacket says PHILADELPIA!!!!!!

What was everyone waiting for? (there were also hundreds of other people in queued-off sections just across the street)

"The Waseda Collection," a beauty pagent which lost our interest fairly quickly.

I don't have any more pictures, but around this time things started to get insanely packed, my upset stomach was catching up with me, and I thought it a good time to bail. This got me thinking about one of the things I do really miss from home - space. Unless one is in his or her own apartment, getting any kind of privacy seems damn near impossible. In public, the definition of ones' "bubble" or personal space is completely null and void here. People often bump, collide, push, etc. In fact, while boarding the train to leave Waseda, I was pushed onto the train by the throng behind me and almost rammed into 2 small children. Then a girl's oversized purse hit me in the balls.

So yea, I miss space.

The rest of the day was a quiet one, and I think I'll start drinking green tea instead of coffee, since I'm feeling a soreness in my throat on and off, and my job does require a fair bit of talking. And to finish, let me say I got my first celebrity comparison from Kanako of FID: "you look like Bruce Willis." HAH!

P.S. I used the word throng 3 times in this entry.

"I've got music and I've got friends, both always by my side. Convictions instilled in me, this is what keeps me alive" - Terror