Tadaima! (I’m Back; I’m Home!)

When writing a blog, it’s important to consider the tough questions, one of which is “How do you return after a long break?” You can make jokes about how little you update, to get everyone loose and ready to read something fun and funky, you can completely redesign the page to look all snappy and attractive as if you’ve actually done something with the time you’ve been away, or you can do what I’m going to do, which is follow the advice of Larry David’s real-life next door neighbor, given to Larry when he made a scene after quitting a writing job at Saturday Night Live: “Just walk in on Monday and act like it never happened.” On with the show…

So let’s see, the last post was October 10th, but I didn’t even get the chance to talk about my (non) trip to the Monkey Park from the weekend before, so let’s recap the month, shall we? Saturday the 6th I set out for the Monkey Park in Higashiyama Kouen, but upon my arrival I couldn’t find the park (turns out it’s another bus ride away), so I changed plans and went to the Higashiyama Kouen Doubutsuen (Higashiyama Park Zoo). At any rate, I got to see some monkeys, even if they weren’t free-range! First, however, we have to take care of an important bit of funny business which is animal-related. I bought my first bar of Japanese soap this month, and I enjoyed the name and package so much I took a picture:

That’s right. Cow Beauty Soap. It actually has milk in it, too, so Cow isn’t a totally random name. Only in Japan.

Just to qualify that a little bit, the Japanese do not (so far as I know) have a history of thinking cows are particularly beautiful. Only the cow’s milk is beautiful, I suppose.

Anyway, back to the zoo. It was a decent size zoo with a botannical garden attached to it. The garden was beautiful, but more on that later. Despite being a decent size, it does of course have many of the same animals found at any other zoo. There were seals:

And an anteater (which I suppose you can’t find at EVERY zoo, so that was cool):

There were also wild cats of all shapes and sizes, but A) I can’t remember their names and B) I couldn’t get great pictures of all of them because my camera wouldn’t stop focusing on the cage (a problem you’ll notice with close-ups of the anteater pics as well). So here’s a decent one:

The animals are all well and good, and I’ve taken plenty of video of the animals (which would take forever to upload on my host family’s DSL connection…I’m looking for ways around this as I type) to be added to this post at a later date (yes, monkey video is included). Hence this section will be a little light on media content until I can get my videos uploaded. The real pride and joy of the Higashiyama Kouen Doubutsuen, however, is the massive Sky Tower, which is a testament to Japan’s industrial prowess when it comes to large phallic towers with radio dishes attached to them. The Nagoya Television Tower near Sakae also appears to be a popular sightseeing destination. Lord knows what this tower actually does:

Indeed it is impressive, and you can ride up to the top if you want. I was too kechi (cheap; stingy) to plunk down the extra money for a ticket that would also allow me into the tower as well as the zoo, so I got to imagine how many strangers with binoculars were pointing at me and saying “Look! A gaijin! Someone quick throw him in a cage and make a sign!”

After wandering around the zoo and locating the monkeys, I took a stroll into the lush botanical garden attached to the zoo. The place was bursting with brilliant flowers and cool statues:

There is also a large building built on a hill in the garden that is either an exercise in minimalist art when it comes to living, or the pueblo-pod house of the future circa 1970. It’s entirely your call:

Naturally, I went inside to see how we’ll all be living in the distant future of the year 2000. Good news! There’s a hell of a view from the front door:

That monstrous metal contraption is a conservatory at the zoo, by the way.

All joking aside, the decks also offer a tremendous view of the entire zoo (thankfully it was also a beautiful day):

Yet another conservatory.

Halfway up the steps to the Pueblo-Pod Home of Tomorrow (TM) there was also a pretty neat view of things, with what appears to be the base of some 1970s or early 1980s anime superheroes in the background, but I can’t remember which group. My first instinct was Thundercats, but Google Images says I’m wrong:

So, having had my fill of animals and flowers (and because I was really, REALLY hot at this point thanks to the brilliant sun), I left the zoo and took a picture of the Sky Tower through a neat stone structure and pond nearby:

I don’t know exactly what the stone structure is all about, but it looks nice and looks like the answer to the question “What if the Arc de Triomphe had been built in a shallow pond during the Stone Age?”

After relaxing on one of the large rocks surrounding the pond, I decided I’d head on over to Osu Kannon to see what that was like. As it turns out, it’s VERY close to Kamimaezu (as are all the subway stops in that area; I’ve since started in Osu Kannon–the farthest stop west on the subway map–and walked through Kamimaezu into Sakae by the end of the night–hooray for saving money!), and like Kamimaezu it has an outdoor mall that actually connects to the section I found in Kamimaezu. Also like Kamimaezu (are we seeing a pattern yet?), it has a shrine tucked away on a side street:

This actually looked a lot more surreal because it was dark and all the hanging lanterns were lit, which cast a faint yellow-orange glow through the red and white paper. Unfortunately my flash ruined the moment because it was already dark outside. Sorry!

I did my best to capture the view from inside the shrine into the hustle and bustle of the shopping area, but once again my flash was inadequate. Daytime photos will follow if I get the chance.

I can only get Fuji out of the first two characters and Jinja (Shrine) out of the last two. The other two remain a mystery.

So I walked around Osu Kannon and surveyed the shops, and to my delight I found a section of the mall with three or four local snack shops right next to each other–and one had a huge bag of the karintou snacks I love so much. In the event I haven’t mentioned these before (signs you need to update your blog more: you forget what you’ve already said), they are deep-fried snacks that I erroneously thought were coated sesame sticks. They are in fact a deep-fried mix of yeast, flour and sugar, and are quite sweet and delicious. Further, this big bag was heaven sent, because the karintou was not individually wrapped in groups inside the larger bag! This is an important Cultural Note: The Japanese are very big on “wrapping” things. I may have mentioned this before, but the philosophy even carries over to food. I once purchased a bag of karintou from Nanzan’s Lawson Convenience Store (which is a major chain in Japan, akin to Wawa in the Northeast or Sheetz in PA or 7-Eleven in Who Knows Where) only to find that I not only had to fight my way into the bag, but also into smaller bags of two or three karintou at a time. Talk about diminishing returns! Also, with all that packaging, I should say again, so much for the windmills I saw when I arrived. By the time you get into the actual snack you’re probably too tired to eat it. The whole “wrapping” philosophy is very important to the Japanese, because in such an image-conscious society, presentation is everything. Thus, guests to a Japanese house are only shown the cleanest rooms, and in the case of the modern suburban house, they are only shown the washitsu, or Japanese-style room where you sit on pillows and have tea. I was not formally shown this room most likely because I’m a long-term guest, the host parents are tired of making a big deal out of ryuugakuseis or they didn’t feel I needed to be protected from daily life. This is all starting to sound familiar now, so I’m going to move on. If any astute readers are currently shouting “But you DIDN’T mention this! Please finish!” at the screen (and even if you’re muttering it under your breath) then shout (or mumble) that out in the form of a comment and I’d be happy to finish explaining–I love writing this blog and teaching people about Japan as much as I hope you all enjoy reading the ramblings of a crazy gaijin, so I’ll gladly answer questions and type for as long as my fingers will let me!

Getting back on target, This bag was perfect because it was big and provided unrestricted access to Japanese snacking goodness. I happily got right down to business with my purchase, and found that these karintou were a bit different from what I’d had at home. At first I was a little disappointed. “These aren’t as good as the ones host mom makes (read: buys)!” I thought. I quickly warmed to them, however, because I realized they were sprinkled with brown sugar! According to Wikipedia (That’s right, I know how to do my research!*), this is the traditional way of making karintou, and the type I had at home were the anomaly. Either way, I vowed to shop at this independent snack shop more often. Having purchased some delicious snacks to keep me fat and happy Japanese-style (read: maintaining my body weight) I headed home for the evening.

Sundays are rarely exciting thanks to the massive amounts of homework, so unless you want an entire post on the finer points of Japanese grammar that I’m learning, we’ll skip over Sunday.

Obviously I posted my hiatus notification mid-week on the 10th, and midterms sucked all the fun and light out of life for a week, but the weekend before and the next two weekends after were a flurry of activity, so let’s get to it!

I believe it was sometime just before the mid-term week when I was going to meet up with Katy to watch the (at that point) one good Eagles game of the season thus far against Detroit that my father sent out here on DVD (I understand they’re still not doing spectacularly, so let me enjoy Japan rather than watch or hear about how bad it looks this season…that sounds about as fun as A Clockwork Orange right now) when I first met Shin-san, who was talking to Katy about his time spent studying abroad in Texas. He’s extremely good at speaking English, and we got to talking about various things. A few days later I ran into him again, this time with his friend Nobu in tow, and we had a very entertaining lunchtime conversation about all the polite things to talk about, such as my interests and how long I’m staying in Japan. Nobu, as it turns out, is a big gamer and loves the Dynasty Warriors series, so we had a great time talking about games. After midterms wrapped Nobu offered to meet me somewhere and show me around sometime. That sometime ended up being the weekend before midterms, and on the 13th I met Nobu in Osu Kannon to go see the Nagoya Matsuri (festival). He was a little bit late at first so I took some pictures of the Osu Kannon Temple that I had been unable to capture the last time I was there in the dark:

The temple proper.

If you can see, there’s a large bell in there. A better view will appear later.

I should also remind you that this temple sits, once again, in the middle of urban sprawl. This building directing people to the Osu Kannon mall area, for instance, is right next to the temple and visible from the temple grounds:

The big head is saying “Here,” albeit in very casual language.

There were also several statues on the temple grounds:

Again, this thing is in the middle of a city:

Here’s a picture of the inside of one of the rooms of the temple. I’m not 100% sure this is kosher (or whatever the Buddhist equivalent is), but nevertheless inquiring minds need to know:

Yeah, it’s pretty freakin’ ornate. Despite not being a huge fan of gold, I was impressed.

A proper picture of the front of the temple.

There were a lot of pigeons around on this day:

It’s probably not a great idea, but people were allowing the pigeons to feed from their hands:

As a result, some of the pigeons were quite fat:

Much like the concept of overweight Japanese people, this baffled me. Pigeons are treated like the scourge of the earth in the States (and I’m not suggesting that belief is entirely unfounded), but here they were treated like royalty. Of course I suppose it’s not the norm.

Here’s a better view of that bell I was talking about:

Here’s another not-100%-sure shot, this time of the inside of the temple itself where you may make a donation and pray:

Did I mention this place is in the middle of a city?

After a little while, Nobu showed up and I met him in front of the Circle K convenience store. He said he had to park his bike, and I thought, well, he needed to park his bike. What I forgot is that baiku in Japanese actually means motorcycle. Jitensha means bike. If I can ever get the pictures off my phone and on to my computer, you’ll be able to see it. Notice a theme here? This blog is only about half the story. So much for my grand artistic vision of a multimedia extravaganza in the land of high technology.

That brings up an interesting point that I’ll talk about briefly. We always see the amazing technological advances that Japan makes in the States, and make the false assumption that everyone in Japan owns their own personal robotic servant or has the latest laptop that can make your breakfast. That’s most certainly not always the case. Just like any other country, the technological advances presented in the media are not necessarily the norm. The rapidly aging population is beginning to drive a number of these advances as well, as robots have become an increasing part of elder-care in Japan. Any number of articles on Google will tell you so. Therefore, you’ve got an elderly population that might be more resistant to technological advances where cell phones and computers are concerned, and yet these people are taking more of a spotlight where technological innovation in the elder care industry is concerned. In short, we think of Japan as being a mystical land of giant robots and computers that talk, when in reality it’s not that much different from anywhere else, except for the cell phone department, where they completely blow America and most other countries out of the water. The government offices in Nisshin City, for example, still use a mix of Windows XP and what appear to be DOS based forms. In short, Japan has technical highs and lows.

It’s also got a population problem, and its a special variety of overpopulation. Japan is slowly turning gray, and I have a theory on why. It involves controversial material, however, so if you feel you might be offended by general discussion of adult material including pornography, please skip down to the next sentence in bold type. I will not be discussing the material in detail because I have no interest in it and have not watched or read any of it myself, but I will be using the way it is presented in public and the Japanese attitude toward adult material, based on my own observation, for the purpose of cultural comparison and my personal conclusion on why Japan’s population is so rapidly growing old as a whole. If any of my professors are reading this, understand that this is in NO way officially nor scientifically conducted research.

In my travels around the Nagoya area, I have noticed that the Japanese are much more comfortable with the idea of adult material popping up, well, just about everywhere. In every game/manga store I go into, there seems to be a section (or in the case of a high rise, a floor) of strictly adult anime or manga. I entered one small bookshop in Sakae on the normal side, and when I rounded the corner to see what the other side of the shelves contained, I was greeted by the sight of three or four younger-to-middle-aged men perusing the erotic manga section. This appears to be common. I once walked into a video store in search of a DVD (Cat Soup from the earlier entry; I still haven’t found it), only to walk a little too far and find lacy corset-esque lingerie on the opposite side of a simple dividing wall. Upon further inspection, the entire wall to the left as you enter the store was full of adult videos. From the front to the back of the store were videos whose covers featured scantily clad (or not clad, in some cases) women in provocative poses. What’s worse is that a woman was working in the store that night! An innocent-looking PC game store had a shelf or two of actual PC games, followed by adult videos and anime beyond that point. None of these are covered in any way, as they would be at popular outlets such as Sam Goody in the States. I have seen a grand total of two stores separate their adult material in a way that gives the consumer enough time to realize where they’re headed and turn around if they wish. One was a high-rise with “The next floor is ALL adult material!” written on the steps, and the other was a video rental shop with a curtain over the doorway reading “Adult.”

All told, the Japanese seem pretty OK with the adult material being out in the open. This is partly due to the fact that socially women get little say in the grand scheme of things, and the concept of Women’s Lib hasn’t exactly taken Japan by storm. Socially, Japan in many ways reflects the America of the 1950s, which makes sense given the fact that the Occupation lasted from 1945-52. Thus, there tends to be a good deal of sexism, such as the television program I watched today in which the panelists were asked to judge which hostess (from the wildly popular hostess bars in Japan where businessmen often go after work to drink with their colleagues and make advances on the hostesses that in most cases will never be returned despite the exorbitant amount of money the businessmen may spend to make those advances count) was the best, and thus worth an amount between 1 and 3 million yen. Two of the five hostesses presented responded that their breasts were their best quality. These comments led to a lively discussion about breasts between the male host and the male panelists, in which another female panelists breasts were frequently referenced because they were small (this female panelist, it should be noted, is a fashion model in Japan). This is the kind of culture we’re talking about, and it is decidedly NOT feminist. If you need further proof, I once stepped into a phone booth to make a call to the host family (pre-cell phone) only to discover that this particular booth had ads for three or four escort services, many of which used stickers of topless women to get the point across.

“Ok, so the Japanese are horny, Jeff. We get it! What are you getting at?” you might be wondering quietly as you research ways to export the F.C.C. to clean up Japan. Ordinarily, I would have little trouble with this attitude toward adult material, because I generally find America too obsessed with how much sexual material is broadcast (and generally the overly explicit stuff is on HBO, which you have to pay for) and how much it damages our society (when all science will tell you that sexual activity is natural and healthy), but the Japanese attitude toward adult material has forced me to reconsider. When I say reconsider, I mean that I believe Japanese societal customs and attitudes about failure and fear of rejection have rendered the men impotent when it comes to dealing with women, dating and starting a family. I firmly believe, as of now with the admittedly little I know about Japanese culture as a whole, and please, please keep in mind that this is a gross generalization, that most Japanese men are so afraid of rejection from women that they get balled up inside themselves and turn to erotic manga and videos as an alternative.

“But Jeff, you’re out of the country, and you must be a pretty lonely guy; isn’t this a good thing?” I hope you’re not saying right now. The amount of adult material available, however, means that these men get all wrapped up in their manga and videos and aren’t actually getting the job done. So no, this is not a good thing, and I refuse to join the ranks of these sad people. It sounds harsh, but that’s my assessment. My host mother points out that the decrease in birth rate is also due to the increase in men not wanting to marry and women creating careers that they don’t want to interrupt with marriage or pregnancy (many career women are forced to quit or change to menial jobs when they become pregnant, and the successful career woman in general remains a rarity in Japan). Nevertheless, I find it disturbing how many men seem to get wrapped up in pornographic material as a safety net to actual human interaction. The hostess bars don’t help, either, as they encourage behavior that the businessmen should be using to spice things up with their spouse instead of some random woman whose sole job is to indulge their infantile antics. If you are at all interested in the way hostess bars work, I suggest a book entitled Nightwork by Anne Allison. She’s an anthropologist that worked as a hostess in Tokyo for a time, studying the interactions between businessmen and hostesses. It’s an interesting read, and I’m drawing some of my conclusions based on the information in that book, which I had to read for my Intro to Japanese Society and Culture class at Dickinson.

In short, I think the socially impaired men that fear rejection are crippling the birth rate by burying themselves in adult material instead of actually making babies and starting families that will pick up the slack when all the elderly Japanese finally have to retire. It’s a crisis, and it needs to be dealt with relatively soon. My conclusions are most likely as juvenile and elementary as some of the male behavior I have witnessed with regards to women, but they are mine nonetheless and I stand by them. This marks the end of the pornography discussion. Thank you for your patience.

Now, where was I? I did say that would be brief, right? Yikes. Anyway, Nobu parked his motorcycle and we headed off into Osu Kannon’s mall, where he directed me to a superb store named Goodwill. But it’s probably not the kind of Goodwill you’re thinking about:

That’s right, it’s an electronics retailer. And like most stores in Japan, it’s multiple floors. Can you say “Holy Crap, Batman!”? I thought so.

When it comes to electronics, GoodWill does indeed “[mean] kindly feeling.”

On the way to GoodWill we passed a restaurant named Gindako, which Nobu highly recommended I try before leaving Japan. He explained that they sold little fried balls coated in sauce, and “inside is taco.” It didn’t make sense to me, but it sounded good, so I decided I’d try it sometime. More on the results of that later.

So after showing me around Osu, we took a taxi closer to the route for the Nagoya Matsuri parade route. We watched the entire procession, and I took video of each part, which seemed like a good idea at the time. Now, however, I’m thinking twice, for the problems with video uploading I’ve mentioned before. Continuing a familiar theme on this blog, I will have them posted either when I find a way to compress the videos before uploading them (which will probably make them look like trash, but they’ll be there) or find a connection fast enough to upload them all and post them (the ideal solution). At any rate, we walked from the parade through the city and past several stands that were selling specialty foods for the festival. Because the parade was centered around the old warlords of Japan, people in samurai costumes were everywhere. This made for some interesting moments where festival presentation is concerned. Go Go Gadget Anachronism!

Nobu was even nice enough to corner one of the guys and ask if he would have his picture taken with me. I even got to hold the guy’s giant butter knife of a sword!

Yeah! Awkward gaijin moment! The person on the left in this picture looks nothing like a tourist; I don’t know what you’re talking about!

So the Nagoya Matsuri parade was a treat for Japanese History nerds like myself, and afterwards Nobu took me to one of his favorite cafes in Sakae, which was a pretty cool little cafe on the second floor of a nondescript building in the middle of the city. In other words, a nice oasis from the noise of city life. I was supposed to meet a cousin of Nobu’s who is supposedly quite fluent in English and works at a hotel a half-hour away, but because I wanted to return at a decent hour so as not to piss off the host family and she finished work at 7 or so and wouldn’t arrive in town until well afterward, we had to nix the idea. We walked back to Osu (where the snack lady had unfortunately closed already–I needed more karintou!) and grabbed a quick dinner, and I headed back home for the night. Sunday was once again spent doing massive amounts of mid-term prep.

The midterm went well enough, and the final result was an 89; a high B that I’m perfectly fine with.

Because I’d pretty much run into the ground with midterm exams and papers (the latter of which has not been returned to me), I only took a brief run out to Osu Kannon again on Saturday the 20th, and traveled extremely light, meaning I had no camera with me to take pictures. This was a blessing and a curse, because it was (unbeknownst to me) the fall matsuri for Osu Kannon! Not having a camera let me explore ALL the stalls that were set up instead of bothering with pictures, but I did miss out on some great photo opportunities. There were several performing artists putting on shows at the various intersections of the mall, and I got to try Omi Soba, which is essentially a bunch of soba (buckwheat) noodles wrapped up in an omelette. It was excellent. While walking around (en route to snack lady, of course–I needed karintou!), I got a little bit hungry again, and recalled Nobu’s suggestion, Gindako. I figured “What the hey, I’m up for some taco,” and headed off in the restaurant’s direction. I got in line, made my purchase, and nearly burned my tongue off biting into the first juicy ball. As I ate, I thought “This isn’t exactly life-changing, and it certainly isn’t taco, but it’s alright.” As I continued eating, however, I began to notice a certain chewiness to some of the balls. Something was askew.

I peered into the half-eaten ball in front of me (I had to let them cool off by biting them in half) and noticed something odd and pink. Slowly, I recalled the night that Satoko set out a tray of sushi and I felt myself physically blanch for the first time since I’d come to Japan. As I peered into the little pink rings before me, I recalled seeing it before, and tako, the Japanese word for octopus, came creeping into my head. Not only had I been fooled by the sound of Nobu’s explanation, I should’ve known better that gin (pronounced “geen,” meaning silver) would soften the T in tako to dako in order to make it easier to say! I’d also had octopus before at the Shimozawas’ house, and was not exactly a fan! I finished my little tray because I’d paid 500 yen for it and wasn’t about to throw it out, but I’ll have to think twice when foods are being explained to me in the future. I walked around and looked at all the stalls that were set up for the festival (carefully avoiding ones with tako written on them, usually accompanied by a cartoon octopus), and bought another bag of karintou as well as some peanut senbei cookies because snack lady was handing out samples for the festival. On my way back to the train station, I noticed a huge performance was happening on the steps of the Osu Kannon Temple. Several performers who were clad only in loincloths and gold body paint (men and women; I’m surprised the men in the audience didn’t explode) were performing a dance that may or may not have been traditional. It was quite interesting, and an experience that can only be conveyed in pictures, but alas I had no camera, so I returned home filled with the cheer only a Japanese festival can bring.

The next weekend was a flurry of activity, but I will have to post about that another time, as it is nearing 10 PM and I have to be up early tomorrow (Friday, November 2) to go to Nara with Katy. The blog is behind, but alive, and mainly it’s behind because I’ve been too busy doing things that I want to post to the blog, which is certainly a good thing! Before I go, I just want to say that the hometown baseball team, the Chunichi Dragons, won the Nippon Series–the Japanese equivalent of the MLB’s World Series–tonight, November 1, 2007 in five games. This is their first Nippon Series title in 53 years and their second in team history. Congratulations to the Chunichi Dragons!

Mata, ne!

Jeff

*Again, for any professors reading this, I do not condone the use of Wikipedia in research, and have never used nor cited Wikipedia in any paper written for any class, ever. Thank you.