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.

Blog activity has been light lately, as you no doubt notice thanks to the lack of posts on here, particularly those with pretty pictures.  That probably won’t change in the immediate future, because midterms are next week already.  My exam for Japanese is over three (!) days, with two speaking components and a writing component.  After that, the midterm paper for my Japanese Culture and Art class is due next Friday, October 19.  If I haven’t exploded by then, the floodgates will open wide and there will probably be a massive post the size of the first ever on the blog, so get ready.  There will be plenty of pretty pictures, I promise.  I’m still planning on going to the Nagoya Matsuri (Festival) this Saturday, which should be MASSIVE.  I’ve got to work something in to keep my head clear, and that sounds like a good way to break from studying.  I just won’t be able to guarantee that I have time to update the blog in the middle of all the midterm craziness.  I hope you all have the site bookmarked and don’t forget about me in the meantime!  If you’d like an e-mail reminder as to when the new entry is up, just drop me a line here or via e-mail and I’ll be more than happy to let you know when I’m back up and running.

Mata, ne!

Jeff

Just a quick little update between classes here. Today we had a different kind of exam: a two-minute long memorized introductory speech using very set language as well as descriptions of our hobbies, hometowns, and the things we want to do in Japan. I had the honor of timing everyone with a stopwatch to make sure they made the +/- 20 second cutoff and also knew when they had 30 seconds left, etc. I did EXTREMELY well with mine (I feel) considering that I didn’t take my sheet up because I didn’t want to read from it (that would be dame), and I finished between the two and two-and-a-half minute mark. All in all, I feel it went pretty well, and everyone else seemed to agree (though there were smoother, more grammatically complex speeches than mine). At lunch, however, Schmidt-san from Stuttgart, Germany informed me that I had forgotten Kore kara jikoushoukai wo shitai to omoimasu (I now want to introduce myself) at the beginning. D’oh! Ah well, the rest of it went well, and I’m still pleased with how smoothly it all seemed to flow from my head out into the room. I was sure to make plenty of eye contact, and got a good laugh when I told everyone that I wanted to ride the Shinkansen Bullet Train while I’m here (What? There aren’t any trains that travel that fast in America! Besides, I said I wanted to go to Kyoto; can you think of a better way to travel?).

I’ve decided that this weekend’s trip is definitely going to be to Higashiyama Kouen’s Monkey Park. From what I understand, Little World is also close by, which is another park that appears to be something like Epcot’s countries of the world section if it were expanded to fill Epcot. Satoko went there last week, and brought back several delicious foods as well as some great pictures, so perhaps I’ll go there as well. They have an Ainu section, which is a collection of houses that the indigenous population of Japan would have lived in (before the Japanese settlers came and nearly wiped them out, of course–gee, Japan really IS like America!). So expect lots of pictures from that. Also, I’m hoping to have that video post I’ve been promising for ages up either tonight (Friday morning for everyone in the States) or tomorrow night (Saturday morning), but no later than tomorrow night because it’s been long enough already! Ijou de watashi no repooto wa owarimasu. Nani ga goshitsumon wa arimasenka? Goshitsumon ga areba, komento wo kaite kudasai (Now my report (post) is finished. Are there any questions? If you have a question, please write a comment). Yep, that’s one of the lines I had to memorize. Trust me, it looks a lot scarier when it’s written in the roman alphabet.

Mata, ne!

Jeff

Follow the logic: a one month anniversary is paper in the States (as determined by my family and I), so the Japanese version is a cute little paper crane, right? Makes sense to me.

Let’s see; Dickinson’s money has arrived, which means that I won’t go broke in the immediate future! Hooray! I also used a little bit of it to take care of some nagging issues that have prevented me from keeping in touch with people…but more on that later.

This last week went pretty well. I’m settling into IJ 400 and my quiz scores have finally evened out, although the grammar quizzes still stump me at times. Japanese Foreign Policy remains fascinating and Japanese Culture and Art I is giving me new insight into the Japanese way of life and why certain things are the way they are. For instance, the long roofs of old-style Japanese houses and temples allowed the inhabitants to leave doors open even when it rained, which allowed them to feel closer to nature. Given that most Tanka poems from long ago are written about nature and beautiful moments in nature, this was quite important. It’s also a pretty darn good idea. Score one for 24/7 fresh air! Also, I have now completed all the forms that the Center for Japanese Studies needs to make sure I won’t be deported, etc. Things are finally calming down, which is good. Having time to breathe is nice.

This is especially true considering that Friday between Japanese and Japanese Culture and Art I raced to the bank and back to ensure that I would be able to access my Dickinson funds for the weekend. That said, I spent a quiet night at home, as I had sweat enough for one day, and was quite tired having run across town and back in time for a 3:15 class. It was no small feat considering I had to rely on the subway and my own pedaling power on an undersized bike, but I managed to do it.

Saturday was much more eventful. I woke up, had breakfast, and headed for Sakae. “Jeez, don’t you ever go anywhere new?” you’re thinking. “We’ve been there and done that!” Ah, but this was no ordinary visit to Sakae, you see. Finally, I have purchased a Japanese cell phone so I can actually coordinate activities with people! Here it is:

“Yeah, that’s a phone,” you’re thinking, “And it’s really square, and kind of chunky looking.” You might be right:

Yes, it’s as thick as one of my textbooks from Japanese at Dickinson.

“Holy crap!” you’re thinking. “That’s huge! It’s a brick!” Again, you’d be wrong. It really doesn’t weigh as much as you’d expect, and it’s chunky for a reason. What reason is that, you ask? A fine question. For one:

“Wow, Japan’s really messing with Jeff’s head. He thinks not being able to read the cell phone is a GOOD thing??” Wait for it…

Bam! That screen closes down to become the viewfinder for the camera function. And what a beauty of a screen it is:

It’s sharper than any phone in the States, and frankly, this is where the Japanese are kicking our butts up and down the street all day long. The thing does e-mail, document editing, scanning (via pictures so clear you can print from them), games and more. Of course, I went as cheap as I could and forewent the e-mail. A mistake? I don’t think so, but we’ll see. There are even models on which you can watch full-fledged TV. Seriously. The screen flips sideways to emulate a widescreen TV. It’s insane, and in some ways puts the iPhone to shame (gasp! Here comes the Apple army, ready to slay me). How big a camera could possibly be in a cell phone, you wonder? I’ve got your answer:

Wow. AND 3x optical zoom!

So there you have it. A brief tour of the Japanese cell phone world.

After making my purchase, I walked around Sakae to see what was happening. As it was definitely raining this time with no signs of letting up, I had my umbrella out and there was no way that any bands would be playing today. That’s when I came across this:

These brave souls were organizing a 42-hour hunger strike to protest the current conditions in Burma. I’m not sure exactly what’s going on, but suffice it to say that a Japanese journalist was killed in the recent demonstrations taking place there, and the nation as a whole is pretty ticked. These people decided to show it. It was pretty powerful. I couldn’t really understand all of what the guy with the handset was saying, but they were all chanting, and were pretty secure in their convictions. It was also a media frenzy, as you can probably see in some of the pictures. It ended up on the news for the next couple of nights.

After I realized the same speech was being made several times over, I decided to wander down toward where I had come out the last time, trying to find Katy, and I came upon the bus terminal. Not too exciting, right? Well in the classic Japanese style, this is a shopping center as well, and today was its anniversary, so they had a full-fledged fashion show and stalls out the wazoo.

They had the music cranked up to 11 on this one, and people were sitting right in front of the stage, slowly going deaf while they admired the fashions trotted out before them. An older man stopped me mid-stride and began talking to me in English. He made tatami mats (the traditional straw mats that make up the floors of old Japanese houses and some beds in the traditional style), and was selling them at the fair. I suspected he was practicing his English that he had picked up during the War, or perhaps the Occupation. At any rate, he was still plugging away, and it made me smile to see a little guy like that putting himself out there instead of giving me that classic “Ew, who let the gaijin in?” look I might expect from someone his age. I wandered around checking out the stalls, which were mainly selling traditional goods made by local artisans, and walked into the Shonen Jump store (Shonen Jump, for those that are unfamiliar with it, is a magazine that is 99.9% anime-related). Dragon Ball Z products abound, and children of all ages (including what appeared to be an adolescent transvestite–bravo to him for proudly wearing what he likes!) were running in and out of the tiny store, looking for that perfect pack of trading cards or what have you. There was also a store selling all manner of Studio Ghibli products. This was AMAZING. They had several set pieces from all the famous Hayao Miyazaki films, including My Neighbor Totoro, Spirited Away, Nausicaa: Valley of the Wind, Princess Mononoke and more. I was thrilled just looking at all of them (considering they were all REALLY expensive and I wasn’t willing to part with too much more money than I already had this day), and they were insanely detailed. After getting my anime-related consumer fix, I went off in search of lunch, and chose a nice looking Panera-esque cafe (I was craving some pasta, ok? I have plenty of time for Japanese food). Other than the fact that it smelled like cancer thanks to the smoking business men a few tables away, it was a very pleasant experience. The whole terminal, I should add, had a very interesting structure over it that acted like a roof, which was very handy considering the rain, but it didn’t cover everything.

Oooooo, futuristic! Rain also gathered on top, and was visible as it ran over the glass. Pretty cool.

I was then distracted by the fact that the Aichi Prefecture Art Museum was located off one wing of the bus terminal. I headed in for a look, and found that it was 8 floors, plus two basement floors! The top four floors or so were all galleries, but they were 600-800 yen a shot, so I decided I’d wait until they had a really interesting exhibit going, because I’d already studied Lautrec (the current painter on display) in High School French. For a while I sat on a bench and explored all the options on my phone, and decided to head off to greener pastures. As I was walking downstairs, I noticed a march coming down the street outside. Racing down the stairs (and once again feeling like Jason Bourne trying to catch up to someone) I came out on the ground floor just in time to realize that they were a group of hardcore nationalists, marching against China (evident from their banner, which had the Chinese flag with a large X over it) and also something about Kim Jong-Il. I videotaped part of the march and the rally they held in a nearby park, and the video is coming soon, I swear! Nanzan’s weird proxy settings are once again rearing their ugly head by blocking Google’s Video Uploader when it tries to connect to the server, but that’s not an issue anymore. More on why later.

The nationalists disbanded after their rally, and I set off in search of a DVD shop. I have been searching for a DVD of Cat Soup, which is a gorgeous, surrealist anime I saw on YouTube back in the States. I thought it was a series, but as it turns out it’s one half-hour animated short. Nevertheless, I wanted to see it in DVD quality, because it’s weird, confusing, and utterly mesmerizing. I walked into several shops I found along the way (almost all of which had rather large adult sections that are not really separated from the rest of the store; the rumors I had heard about the Japanese not having a problem with this seem to hold true, and while I didn’t expect to have a problem ignoring it, it is a little strange. I decided to make my way to Parco, the three-tower department store with a Tower Records in it, and hope that the large selection would lead me to the prize. I was wrong, but I did find a CD by Certainly, Sir that you can’t get in the States without resorting to a hefty order from Amazon, so I bought it. Continuing my quest, I walked down the main drag, walking into DVD store after DVD store until finally I looked around and thought “Hm, that Bay Meiho Amusement Center looks familiar…” Looking down, I saw the Mega Kebab–I walked two subway stops back to Kamimaezu! After getting over the shock of this, I saw a fairly well-lit alleyway with several shops lining both sides, so I headed into the DVD store. Western movies and anime abound! “Jackpot!” I thought. I looked up and down the aisles, and it turns out the anime section was fairly short. I rounded the next corner only to be greeted by skimpy lingerie and little corset-like outfits. Uh, whoops? The whole wall opposite this section (which wrapped around to the front of the store) consisted entirely of adult DVDs. Making a quick exit (and wondering how the woman working there could rest comfortably with the fact that half of the store she works in objectifies and demeans her sex), I noticed that this alley was actually the back end of the long outdoor mall in Kamimaezu. I went back the way I came, giving up my search for Cat Soup for the weekend. On my quest for something to eat for dinner, I came across another temple nestled in the heart of urban life.

I also took a picture of the full sign and a (VERY) fuzzy picture of the outside door, because my flash is inferior and I don’t have a tripod to take truly steady shots.

More pics will follow if I actually get the chance to go inside sometime. Which reminds me, the Robot Museum has officially closed its doors! I should’ve paid more attention because I totally could have visited and paid whatever price to see it, but my father sent me a notice about the closure that I didn’t get until Monday, and the last day was Sunday, September 30. Zannen, desu ne! (That’s a shame!) My apologies to anyone else who was looking forward to pictures of all the animatronic gizmos inside the Museum. Perhaps someone will reopen it while I’m still here. In the meantime, we can only dream…

I decided to eat at Yoshinoya again (the Japanese fast food-esque place), where I got the large size bowl of rice and meat because I’d walked a fair bit. I wandered around the department stores one more time, this time picking up some 70% dark chocolate with peppermint shavings and some drinkable yogurt (which sounded more interesting than milk, but was a middling drinking experience) for a little dessert, and headed back a little bit early, where I indulged in a few rounds of Virtua Fighter 5 at the local arcade, and was consequently almost late getting home. Satoko was very interested in my cell phone, and several times we failed to get my number in her phone book. After failing for a fourth time (I can’t read all the Japanese in her phone and try as she might, she can’t keep up with all technology), I headed for bed. Fin.

My mosquito killing skill continues to grow apace. There are a lot of them here.

Sunday was another quiet day spent doing homework and studying for the various quizzes this week, and nothing particularly of note happened, perhaps excepting the continuing hilarious interplay between my host parents. Shogo tends to talk incessantly, and when I understand what he’s saying, he’s usually said it once already that day or the day before. This gets on Satoko’s nerves, and she doesn’t hesitate to let him know it. The stereotypical Japanese housewife image does NOT hold here. She frequently smacks him on the arm and tells him to be quiet. Today, it was a one-two punch combination. As we sat watching golf on TV during the usual break time around 4:00, Shogo began telling all sorts of stories, culminating in Satoko telling him to be quiet because he was annoying, and when he continued, she finally told him to shut up (damare). It was quite entertaining.

Monday got off to a rough start. It was raining, and instead of being smart and going back for my rain jacket, I opted for my umbrella. Long story short, I lost control of the bike and although I remained upright for the duration, the bike and thus my backpack and laptop were not so lucky. “Crap, I broke my laptop” was the first thought I had, albeit using slightly stronger language. Nevermind that in my struggle to remain in control I had attempted to grab onto a garden’s brick wall, thus receiving several small cuts and a rather nasty one under my left pinky on the side of my hand, which was beginning to bleed slightly. I packed everything up again (the bike was fine, by the way) and continued on. At the train station I checked in on the laptop to find a nice crack on the left corner of the screen casing. “Awesome, the screen won’t work,” I thought. I also had a vocab quiz. It was going to be one of those days.

Upon arriving at Nanzan, I was relieved to find that my laptop still functions perfectly well, with no problems whatsoever with the screen. Yokatta (good). The day improved when I totally aced my Vocabulary Quiz, getting a 10/10. The rest of the day passed with no further accidents, spills or explosions, and when I got home, the day finally became as awesome as I’d hoped it would be in the first place.

The Shimozawas now have DSL.

Hear that? That’s the chorus of angels singing from on high as the clouds part to reveal unrestricted internet access without weird proxy settings and other strangeness. I’m not going to monopolize their internet, obviously, but I have been given permission to use it when I need it. Hallelujah! The first step to this was their new laptop, which arrived a couple weeks ago, and Monday was the day they got connected. Huzzah! I’ve used it once for my listening homework, and it’s fairly speedy. This is why the Google Video server problem is a non-issue. The videos should be up this weekend if I play my cards right.

Other than that, the week has been pretty quiet so far. I had my kanji quiz today, which went well despite some wickedly complicated characters, and I have to give my two-minute self-introduction speech on Friday. I’m thinking about where to go this weekend, and I’m thinking I might visit the monkey park in Higashiyama Kouen (Higashiyama Park). A park full of monkeys? How can you say no? We’ll see.

So now that I’ve been here a month, has my Japanese improved? Yes, and in weird and often intangible ways that I will attempt to make tangible with the power of words. I am getting better at picking out words and phrases that I’ve learned, but I’m still not good enough to be the fly on the wall that I’d like to be when people suspect that the baka gaijin next to them doesn’t know what they’re saying. Simply by living in Japan, I am surrounded by spoken Japanese, and thus absorb a good deal of the speech patterns during my daily life. I now understand Shogo and Satoko most of the time when they speak to me, and sometimes when they speak to each other too. School is helping my writing skills along, and the grammar I’m learning I can often use when I get home, which helps immensely. I’m nowhere near fluent yet, but I hope to be more than competent by the end of my year here, which seems entirely possible given the improvement I’ve noticed over just one month. I really want to floor some unsuspecting Japanese with my listening skills in the future.

“Just one month.” Yet, “Already one month.” My homestay is over in December, and by Halloween, it will be half over. This is an odd feeling, because I feel like I’ve only just arrived. Midterms are also looming large this month, which seems way too fast. I’m also going to miss certain things about the homestay, like the little episodes with Satoko and Shogo. I’m going to miss the quiet moments in which Satoko explains to me that Shogo wasn’t always so loud and strong; he became so around age 50, she said, and as she put it, “after 20 years…it’s a little annoying.” There is so much more time left after the homestay, but it is already going too fast in places. I also find myself in the difficult position of wanting to keep tabs on what’s happening in America (other than the MLB playoffs, which thanks to the number of Japanese players gets a fair amount of coverage in baseball-crazy Japan. Go Phillies, woo!) while also keeping tabs on Japanese current events in Japanese that I can understand (or English, in the case of the crazy political system). Then I run into the trouble of “Oh, I’d like to see that movie!” or “Wow, Britney lost custody of her kids!” (Honestly I don’t really care about the latter–I’m just showing off because I’m fairly on top of things), and I want to be in both places simultaneously. I don’t worry immensely about missing out on all of the happenings in America, but I’ve never been away for so long before. My previous trips outside the country have been two weeks at most. I know it’s going to be a very different place when I come back.

And I’m sort of fine with that.

Yes, that’s right, the Japanese word for “two” is “ni.”  Now you know what those annoying knights were saying in Monty Python and the Holy Grail.  Sadly, their next phrase, “Icky, Icky, Icky Icky Kapang Zoop-Boing!” is not Japanese.  Sorry if I crushed a few dreams there.  And if I got that second one wrong and you want to correct me, by all means leave a comment.  Not to mention two entries in two days!  Woah!  All at the expense of my laundry (don’t worry, it’ll be fine).  Moving on…

As you all know (or maybe not, depending on how new you are to this blog), Prime Minister Shinzo Abe resigned two weeks ago, and promptly entered the hospital to avoid media scrutiny.  My Japanese Foreign Policy professor (who is American, interestingly enough–then again, I don’t want to think about Foreign Policy in Japanese) says this is a regular move for politicians who are about to get roasted by the media.  In fact, the first day of class our room was locked because CJS students are on a slightly different schedule than the rest of Nanzan (it’s now PACKED here every day).  He said “Alright, well we’re in a country without a leader, so for the first few weeks we’ll meet informally under bridges and trees, and hopefully by then we’ll have a new leader and we can have a room.  Or, I can go get the key.”  Yeah, I think Foreign Policy will actually be interesting and fun.

Anyway, Shinzo Abe resigned after a term that, quite frankly, was kicking his butt.  Ministers resigned, ministers committed suicide, and Abe just didn’t have the experience or support to get what he wanted done.  So pending a special session of the Diet (Parliament) in which he would be grilled for A) Calling a special session and B) Wanting to extend Japan’s naval support to U.S. operations in Afghanistan, which is a tricky thing to do considering that whole Article 9 business renouncing military action and nuclear weapons, etc. he resigned.  Japan wasn’t without a leader (Abe was still the figurehead), but as Professor Potter said “You wouldn’t know the difference, and that’s the beauty of a Parliamentary system.”

SO: dou suru? (What do you do?)

Well, you have to elect a new party leader, because Abe, leader of the Liberal Democratic Party (Which by American standards is neither liberal–it’s conservative–nor particularly Democratic, because it’s been in power since the majority of the post-WWII period) is no longer around.  This person will then become the de facto Prime Minister until the next general election must be held.  So let’s meet the candidates!

First up is Yasuo Fukuda, who as Professor Potter put it, “looks like your uncle.”  He’s 71 (!), and favors strong ties with Asia, particularly China, with whom Japan regularly fights.  Remember what I said about history not going away, and that being a problem?  Yeah, well a lot of Japan’s foreign policy time is spent fighting with its neighbors like Korea and China over small island territories, as well as that whole invading Nanjing, China and basically blowing it to hell thing (Google “Rape of Nanjing” if you need a refresher or introductory course on that).  And then there’s the whole enslaving Korean women to work in sex parlors called “Comfort Stations” with “Comfort Women” working there.  Japan doesn’t usually like to admit that.  In fact, Junichiro Koizumi as well as Shinzo Abe often did things in a direct attempt to piss off China or Korea.  Koizumi visited the Yasukuni Shrine, which is where the souls of Japan’s wartime criminals are enshrined.  It also enshrines the war dead, meaning that people involved in the “Nanjing Incident,” as hardcore nationalists in Japan kindly refer to it, are enshrined there as well.  It doesn’t make China warm and fuzzy inside when Japanese Prime Ministers visit it.  Fukuda’s not like that.  He wants to build a strong relationship with Japan’s neighbors, or at least not provoke any new conflicts.  He “looks like your uncle, and that should tell you something about his governing style; when’s the last time your uncle tried to radically change Japanese foreign policy?” as Professor Potter (quite nicely) summed it up.  He’s a moderate, and Koizumi and Abe were pretty hardcore nationalists who liked to piss off China and deny historical events.  He’s pretty popular among the party members as a reaction to the incessant flag-waving that people are tired of with Abe and his ilk.

Next up is Taro Aso, whose upper lip looks a little bit like the creepy surgeon’s from that Twilight Zone episode “The Eye of the Beholder.”  Tell me I’m wrong:

Aso sits squarely in the Koizumi/Abe nationalist camp, the really hardcore right-wingers, who love to piss off the rest of Asia and stick out their tongue to top it all off.  Aso is popular with younger people for two reasons: 1) He reads manga, which are the Japanese equivalent of comic books in the States, and 2) The younger generation is beginning to wonder what they have to apologize for; to them WWII is ancient history, and they don’t understand what their grandparents may or may not have done (remember, the government will tell them nothing happened) let alone why it warrants an apology.  It’s an interesting wrinkle in the political setup in Japan.  In the States, I imagine most young people are looking for something other than the flag-waving right-wing set we’ve had for the past seven years, whereas in Japan most of the youth finds itself in that camp based on sheer reaction.

Well, the party elections were held last week, and Fukuda won by a fairly large margin.  He’ll become the next PM, and people seem to think this will bring greater stability to Japan because Abe was so troublesome.  It’s also making headlines in China, where they’re looking forward to a quieter time with friendlier ties to Japan.  According to Professor Potter, it may be a quieter semester than it looked to be with Abe in charge, and maybe with Fukuda in office “We won’t have to hold class meetings under our chairs” like we would if Aso had won.  With any luck, Fukuda won’t be as big a failure as Abe, who came out of hiding two days ago to hold a press conference.  All the news shows were showing side-by-side shots of Abe at his last conference and then at his conference today…he looked like death.  Pale, sometimes stumbling over sentences, etc.  The media’s all over it.  “He licked his lips 42 times!  It’s a brain disorder!” one of the news shows said (Professor Potter translated that; my Japanese is NOT that good yet).  At any rate, Japan has a leader once again, and it should be a nice, easy semester politically.  Haha I can’t believe I just wrote that.  This is Japan!  Like anywhere else, I’m sure something will come up, and I’ll let you know about it when it happens (and not a week after the fact like I did this time–oops!)

Jaa, Mata!

Jeff

Woah, almost two weeks without an update–you all must be starving for something new to read! Well, I might be able to help, because I’ve got almost two week’s worth of stuff to talk about! Ikimasyou! (Let’s go!)

Last Friday I had class from 3:15 until 5:30, but at least it’s Japanese Culture and Art I, which is going to be quite interesting, especially considering the professor started off by showing bits of Godzilla. He does things in a roundabout way, but makes interesting points (Japanese special effects were renowned for a time, but the majority of the technology came from America–the professor attributes this to the way the Japanese are able to arrange things and engineer things). Afterward, I headed to the Welcome Party that the International Friendship Club was throwing. Since it started at four, I was a little late, but was just in time to witness a lively game of Fruits Basket. What is that, you ask? Good question! It’s a game very much like musical chairs, but groups of people are assigned a particular fruit (see where this is going?) One person stands in the middle (the chairs were arranged in a circle), and calls out a group of fruit, or says minna! (everyone!). Much scrambling ensues, and when the dust settles one slowpoke is left standing in the middle. This person calls the next group of fruit, etc. In this case, the last gaijin standing when the game finally ended (I’m guessing you could also use elimination to end the game, but this session was massive) won a prize.

Thankfully, a ton of delicious snacks were present, and there were still some left by the time I arrived. I became addicted to these little glazed cookie-like snacks whose package had Obaachan (the familiar term for Grandmother, the closest translation would probably be “Grandma”) written on it. I think they were puffed rice patties, but thanks to the glaze they didn’t taste like cardboard or packaged air like some rice crackers in the States. These were also solid, and not individual grains of puffed rice stuck together. I think. At any rate, Obaachan’s snacks are delicious. I am also fond of C.C. Lemon, which is a soft drink that at first makes you think “Hmm, a little heavy on the carbonation, not so much on the lemon,” but it’s actually much better that way, because it isn’t quite so sour, simply tasty. This makes it quite easy to drink a lot of it, and I had to limit myself so I wouldn’t steal a whole bottle. Not easy to do after a full day of classes, but I managed. Next up was bingo, and I won a round! With two or three rows one number away from completion, I would’ve been crushed if I didn’t get something. I got to pick a prize from a box full of plastic bags, and I came up with this:

Awesome! I didn’t know the Japanese were into shrunken heads!

Actually, it’s a charm that you can hang from your keitai denwa (cell phone). Cell phone charms are huge over here, and you can even buy one of Nanzan’s President from a shop in the Copain Student Union Building. That charm is a miniature of his whole body, though. Some Japanese students’ cell phones clack and clang with any number of these little charms strapped to them. I suppose that’s something of a Cultural Note, seeing as how people in the States generally just want to talk to one another. Ah well, I’ll be proud to hang this little bugger from my phone when I get it, so I can finally talk to people on campus when I’m not on campus. That’ll be nice–hooray for communication! Not to mention I’ll look dead sexy talking on a phone with a head hanging from it–don’t mess! Or something like that.

After bingo, I was mingling with Paris from Dickinson and other people I’ve met so far when I was approached by three Japanese students (whose names I regretfully can’t remember at the moment) who are members of the International Friendship Club. We talked about what the IFC does (arranges field trips with international students, have parties with international students, go bowling with international students–generally a lot of cool things I want to be a part of), and then the conversation turned to the usual introductory small talk. As it turns out, these guys are into grunge rock, with Nirvana topping the list. I took out my iPod and ran down the list of things I’ve got on there, and another in the group lit up when I passed Audioslave, and another is into Radiohead-style electronica rock, and Green Day and Maroon 5 are really popular in Japan. Quite simply, we talked about music almost the entire time. They asked what kind of Japanese foods I like (one of the students also hates umeboshi), and I asked them what kinds of movies they like (action and adventure, with the Die Hard and Indiana Jones franchises scoring points among this particular group). They asked where I had been (Sakae) and where I was planning to go (Kamimaezu on this fine evening). Ah, Kamimaezu wa ii tokoro da (Ah, Kamimaezu’s a good place) came the response. Yuumei na fashon ga arimasu (It’s famous for its fashion) came the explanation. “YES!” I thought, “More stores selling clothes that will never fit!” Nevertheless, I wouldn’t have a whole lot of time there anyway, as the party was to wrap at 7, and I planned on returning home around nine or nine-thirty. So after the party wrapped and I agreed to receive IFC e-mail, I headed for the subway station.

Upon arriving in Kamimaezu (which is two subway stops before Sakae, where I’ve been spending weekends lately), I decided to take subway exit 10 of 12 and see what was around. Kamimaezu eki (station) appears to have a few shops (which were closed at the time), but it’s not the sprawling underground salute to capitalism that is Sakae eki’s Flower Mall. Since Satoko had suggested Kamimaezu in my quest to find an internet cafe, I was a little confused when I emerged from Exit 10. No bright lights. No huge department stores looming overhead. Not a whole lot going on in general. “Crap,” I thought, “I picked the exit that dumps unsuspecting gaijin into the back alleys to be robbed.” Pressing on, I headed toward the more busy street to my right. There were now more people, as well as cars, so at least there would be witnesses to the mugging. As it turns out, Kamimaezu is a pretty happening place, but I didn’t have time to explore much this evening, so I headed home after walking around a bit. I had a nice chat with Satoko about the day, and then headed to bed.

Saturday, it was back to Sakae, with another (longer) stop in Kamimaezu on the way home. I planned to meet Katie there, as she was looking into the whole keitai denwa business, and I offered to show her around a bit. We planned to meet at Sakae eki (mistake one), and then head into town. She said she would e-mail if she couldn’t make it (mistake two, I realized–I don’t have internet, and neither does her host family). As I’ve mentioned before, Sakae eki is HUGE. So big, it gets italics and caps. Katie came in on the yellow subway line (I forget what it’s called), and I come in on the blue Tsurumai Line. Needless to say, we didn’t see each other right away. Or at all, for that matter, because in attempting to canvas the station I took a different route than in previous weeks, and ended up in a totally different underground shopping complex (!!). In passing a window that was actually at ground level, I saw that it probably wasn’t the best day to be in Sakae, because it was raining. So much for outdoor concerts! I finally made my way out of the mall and onto the street–except I was way way down the line from where I’d exited before. Frankly, I had no idea where I was. After consulting a map or two and generally getting my bearings (thank god for tall buildings with ads that don’t change), I managed to work my way back to the same plaza where Abnormal Voltage played a week earlier. Okay. I walked to SoftBank, where they sell a boatload of phones, and tried to find Katie. No dice (though as it turns out, I may not have looked hard enough and just missed her). So I canvassed the streets a bit, but this proved (predictably) fruitless, despite the perceived ease of picking out someone who doesn’t look like 99.9% of the rest of the people in the city.

So I put plan B into action, and went to one of the internet cafes to check my e-mail.

Where the magic happens–the Manboo Internet Cafe.

The place was divided into cubicles, each with its own computer, TV, plush leather chair and matching ottoman crammed inside. It’s also a pretty dark place, meaning I nearly went headfirst into the computer monitor upon entering and stumbling over the ottoman. Overall, this cafe earns an 8/10 on the Seediness Meter I’ve just created. It was comfortable, but it wasn’t a place that gave off that “Ooo, this is a really nice, clean place!” feeling. Not that you need that for internet, but it beats the “Wonder why it’s so dark…what do people do in here?” feeling. Oh, and it smelled like cancer. Again, loose smoking restrictions rear their ugly heads. I turned on the desk lamp and checked my mail–no word from Katie. I’d also purchased a half hour, the minimum amount of time, and didn’t really know what to do with it. Someone had what sounded like an oxygen machine in another booth. Only after listening carefully did I realize it was the sound of someone snoring. I guess Satoko was right: weird people really do come and sleep in internet cafes!

After the cafe, I pretty much gave up on finding Katie in this massive city and instead wandered around taking pictures. Here’s a shot of the ferris wheel attached to Sunshine Sakae, a collection of clothing shops and restaurants. It’s where Sakae Guy was putting on a little show for people last week.

That looks like fun!

By this time, though it doesn’t necessarily look it in the last picture, the clouds were breaking, and as it turns out, Spyair was setting up for a show! Spyair was the band that played last week that my merry band of gaijin missed. They were just starting the setup, however, so I looked for something to do to kill some time. I considered wandering back down the way I had come from the new subway exit, but that would take a lot of time if I got sucked into something. That’s when I saw what was right in front of me:

I think we’re going in…

I didn’t take the full tour (it was really expensive), but I plan on doing so soon. I walked around the museum gift shop, which was full of interesting pieces (lamps made from old scooter headlights and handlebars, sculptures that appear to be made from scrap pieces of metal) and consumer items (tiny radio controlled helicopters, Gundam and Neon Genesis Evangelion action figures). All the interesting little trinkets made me happy inside, because I’m a sucker for gadgets and little electronic things that fly.

After that brief distraction, I wandered around town some more, snapping photos and waiting for Spyair to get cranking. The sun was now out in force, and the rain was quickly drying. I came across an odd structre that flashes temperature info and what appear to be environmental tips:

See that van between the two passing cars? Some guy was ranting through loudspeakers attached to the van. Something about “America’s War.” And the structure is NOT part of the Coke truck, though that would be amusing.

Spyair was STILL setting up, so I worked my way back to Sunshine Sakae to see if anything was underway there. Lo and behold, there was!

REAL musicians wear pink. And sing really lightweight pop songs.

This guy was singing in a really sugary tone, and everyone was right there with him:

These gigs sure do draw the crowds.

Sadly, this was his last number. “Dang,” I thought, “Missed another one!” Nay! Another solo act came out; living proof that “cloying” and “overly saccharine” translate into any language:

Here he is, whether in mid “La la” or “Sunshine!” I can’t remember.

Again, this time in mid “La la”–I think. That was about all he said.

So I wandered back over to the plaza, where Spyair was finally getting underway. They played a short 12-minute set (video forthcoming, as I’ve found a way to upload larger-than-100MB files–expect a video dump post soon), said something about how the weather was going to be bad (it was sunny the rest of the day), and hit the road. It was good enough to make my buy their CD though, which has all the songs they played in their little set. The songs all have random English words thrown in as well, meaning I have to translate the rest of the album to see if they’re up to speed on their English. Anal retentive? Maybe. English majorly? Definitely.

After the show I set to walking around town, taking in the sights and sounds and looking for more fun things to do. Along the way, I bumped into an old friend–Pierre. I met Pierre the last time I was in Sakae, with Guy, Susanne, and Miako. Pierre comes from France. I know this because his greeting for all people, especially gaijin, is “Hello, my name is Pierre, I come from France. Where do you come from?” If you’re not too freaked out by his white suit, white pants, old-school-carny-barker-straight brim straw hat (complete with red band above the brim!) and bow-tie combo, you might respond, “I come from America.” At this point, Pierre pulled out a new question for me (he cornered Guy last time), “Are you Catholic?” Thrown by this departure from the script I knew so well (the one introductory line, anyhow), I was taken aback. “No, but I have a friend who is.” “Ah, well here, take this.” With that, I received this:

Pierre comes from France. Pierre is a Jehovah’s Witness. Pierre scares me. I mean come on, he looks like he walked out of a Porky Pig cartoon. He’d be the huckster selling magical rain-making capsules you shoot into the sky. Except in this case, he’s pitching pristine log cabins somewhere in rural New England where moose, donkeys, horses and humans can all peacefully coexist while sharing a bounteous harvest of pumpkins, apples and flowers on their gorgeous yellow lawn. It is also perpetually fall, apparently. Anyway, Pierre began his little spiel, and I graciously listened while looking for an exit route. I felt like Jason Bourne, minus the immediate danger of possibly being killed if I made the wrong move. Eventually he finished mid-way across the crosswalk, I promised to look at his pamphlet, and he said “I hope we will meet again.” About 10 minutes later, I thought of the witty retort “We already have.” I continued to walk around Sakae and ate a nice plate of curry udon for dinner. I’d never really had curry before coming to Japan, but I’ve been told that it tastes just like curry from India, and I like it. It’s spicy, sure, but tasty. Especially when coupled with that all-time favorite of mine, Japanese udon noodles. Yum. I decided it was getting to be time to head over to Kamimaezu to see what was going on there, but before I got to the eki I noticed that band with the female lead singer (who go by the name Eve’s Captive) were setting up for a show. So I waited for them to start and snapped another pic of the massive fountain. There were two schoolgirls eating food from a conbini (convenience store), and they were feeding the pigeons. One was terrified of the little creatures.

Ohmigod! They have, like, claws and stuff!

I recorded some of the performance (again, coming soon), and a little more when I was inside the eki and heard music coming from an unknown exit–turns out they were still going even after breaking down from the first show! They had lights up and everything. But it was finally time to get back to Kamimaezu or go home. Jaa, ikou! (VERY casual way of saying “Let’s go!”)

I arrived in Kamimaezu and headed back to the area where I had been the night before. There was a huuuuuuge line of shops extending between the space of two buildings, and I wanted to check it out. Since words failed me on that description, here’s a picture:

No, I can’t read that yet.

See, the Japanese know what they’re doing. A car or two could fit down here. But why do that when you can just make it one giant strip-mall? That’s what I call efficient use of space, people.

This mall is home to many, many interesting things. First up is the leather dealer, which is trying SO hard to capture that American frontier spirit we’ve all lost. It achieves moderate success, as you will see:

This is what they think of us, people. Giant mounted heads and signs reading “Cowboys, leave your guns at the door.” Not heard: The Jay-Z and Linkin Park MTV Mash-Up DVD they had on a constant loop on the TV you can see if you squint and look just under the mounted bull head. Seriously. Nothing goes together like Nu-Metal, Rap and Leather-Loving Cowboys!

Moving on down the line, I saw nothing but stores selling crazy clothes that won’t fit me in a million years. There was, however, a pimped-out Homer Simpson. And yes, I have seen The Simpsons on DVD for sale in Japan. It’s surreal to see it written in Katakana. But let’s make with the pictures, shall we?

Aw, yeah. The fact that he looks high makes it worth double points for “Oddly implemented cultural import.”

Continuing down the line, I took a slight detour to the right, where there was a wing I hadn’t seen before when I wandered through here the night before. There were several game stores and pachinko parlors, but then I stumbled upon this:

“Whaaaaaaa?” I said in my best Jon Stewart impression. In the middle of this shopping complex?? Believe it. There was even a guy inside practicing his Tai Chi (video coming soon–I appear to have forgotten the whole “put it on the laptop first” step). I was taken aback. Japan truly is a place that can’t decide what it wants to be, even in a place as thoroughly modern and urban as Kamimaezu. The history will never die in this place, and sometimes that’s part of the problem–more on that later. The temple was obviously now a part of this massive sprawl, but it was still pretty serene inside, despite having no doors. Sure the sounds of the giant Jumbo-Tron advertisement for pachinko were still blaring away and blasting a wall of light into your retina, but you could definitely take a bit of a breather there without feeling too overwhelmed. It was a pleasant surprise.

I walked to the far end of the mall, where I discovered that the creepy sign I filmed in Sakae is actually a brand mascot for a chain of restaurants called Sugakiya. It appears to be a fast-food-esque chain, more akin to a Friendly’s, however, as they also serve ice cream. Here’s a pic of the full logo:

Look kids, she has food! But don’t be fooled, she’s still creepy looking. “Come play with me!” I can hear her say, right before “Heeeeeeeere’s JOHNNY!”

So, with a strip mall full of clothes that don’t fit and money I didn’t want to spend too much of anyway, I began working my way back to the front of the mall. Along the way, I saw this banner:

“Oh great,” you’re thinking. “Here he goes with more wacked-out pictures about how crazy the Japanese think America is, and then he’ll imply that it’s our fault because of the image we project.” NAY! I saw the banner, moved my eyes down and to the left, and saw THIS:

Why is a store called ZAP U.S. Market selling shrink-wrapped “Lovely Babies”? Why are there flying fish? Who the hell is Grampus? These are all valid questions, but I decided that the first would be best left unanswered, because the best answer is probably “You don’t want to know.” Seriously though, I think it was a store something like Spencer’s. Or not. I’ll go back and check soon.

I made my way back out of the mall and took a stroll down the main drag. I found a pachinko parlor, and walked in for approximately .5 seconds. Good lord, the NOISE. It will haunt me for some time. The sound of thousands of metal balls clanging toward their destinations as eager Japanese gamblers suck nervously at their cigarettes was deafening. This is compounded by the fact that the idea of a pachinko parlor, like a casino, is to get the maximum number of people into the parlor as possible. In America this takes efficiency with slot machines, putting them all next to each other. In Japan, the same holds true, but in a smaller space. Thus, the pachinko parlor is designed to create maximum profit, but also a wall of sound that bludgeons you as you walk in the door. Prolonged exposure might render you unable to eat a hamburger, like David Hasselhoff on a bender. Anything over that will simply make your ears bleed as you pray for the end. I don’t know if I’ll ever get the chance to play pachinko, because I can’t take the noise. Maybe there’s a quiet parlor somewhere (crosses fingers). I’d like to try once, because I am unclear as to the official goal of the game, and would like to share it with you all. Here’s hoping I don’t go broke figuring that out.

So after leaving the parlor, I continued down the street, where I found a little something for all the Flight of the Conchords fans reading this blog. Those of you that just went “What?” need to start watching this show. I’ll give you a break if you don’t have HBO, but look it up when it hits DVD. That’s my plug for this entry. On to the hilarity!

Let’s get in a cab. Unfortunately, I was unable to share one with “the most beautiful girl that I have ever seen with a kebab.”

As I wandered around, I thought, “I’m getting quite hungry.” I thought about hitting up Yoshinoya (where I had my meat-and-onion-on-rice bowl), but then I thought jokingly “I’ll go to Mega Kebab,” which turned into “Why not Mega Kebab? It’s here, it’s reasonably priced, and it’s a restaurant called the freaking Mega Kebab!” So in I went, and had a Chicken Kebab, served in half a pita roll’s pouch (only shish kebabs are on sticks). It was quite good, and it appeared that Indian TV was being piped into the store via satellite. Sweet. I walked the streets a bit more, but because I rolled into town rather late, I decided to head back home before the Shimozawas concluded the Yakuza had killed me.

Sunday was the Nisshin City Matsuri (Festival). Shogo said he would take me, and also stop to see one of Satoko’s pieces in an art expo. The rain, however, put the festival in jeopardy. Nevertheless, we headed over to Nisshin City Hall, where the art expo was taking place. One (very wet) bike ride later, we were at the expo, which also had works by local students on display. Shogo showed me the placard for Nagoya’s sister city (Owensboro, Kentucky for those keeping score at home–how’s that for random?), and asked about the matsuri. It was still being held! So we planned to ride over to Nisshin eki, and I looked forward to my first authentic Japanese matsuri. In the meantime, Shogo took my picture in front of city hall. Why? Because he could.

Thank god for waterproof shoes. It rained HARD.

The Nisshin City Hall also has a crazy stone structure artistically placed out front:

They even have a nicely manicured tree and garden. This country has a knack for isolated pockets of beauty in urban spaces.

With that, it was off to the matsuri! Man, can the Japanese throw a party!

There’s food…

A LOT of food…

Performers in pretty coordinated dre–FOOD!

And MORE food. Pick out something tasty, Shogo!

Oh yeah, and they have games for the kids.

This one involved getting the ball into a certain slot on that rotating circular board.

There were also a lot of performances on the giant stage.

A full Big Band suite–made up of kids!

They also had my all-time favorite Japanese instrument–TAIKO DRUMS.

The drums are bigger than the kids. Gotta love it.

Video of both will hit the blog soon. A LOT of people come to this shindig:

Today’s word is “crowded,” boys and girls. Can you say “Don’t move, you’ll bump into someone”?

Of course, this is a party for adults as well:

It’s not a festival until Kirin Beer shows up!

Afterward, we returned home, and I got ready for a full week of classes.

The first week of classes was rough, and IJ 400 is no joke. We have a quiz just about every other day, and the grammar is a mix of stuff I know and stuff I really need to pay attention to in order to figure out. Quizzes are frequent, as is homework. So far, so good, however, and the first full week passed without too much event. My first quiz grades were not as good as I would’ve liked, but I’m working to improve that. I’ve become strangely addicted to sumo wrestling, which is usually on about 4 PM for roughly two hours, so I watch it while I’m working on homework. It’s perfect, because it’s usually a couple seconds of action followed by about five minutes of ritualistic squatting, belt-slapping and salt throwing. This means I can work, catch the two seconds of fat men slapping and pushing each other, and then go back to work without missing anything. I don’t know what the appeal of watching two fat men in (let’s be honest) diaper-thongs is, and honestly I still don’t know why I watch, but on some weird level, I get it. That, and the referee person sounds like he’s saying “Humina-humina-humina-ha!” which makes it sound like the sight of two obese men crashing into each other is more exciting than it actually is in some cases. Maybe it’s enough like watching a small, controlled football play involving only two linemen and no pads that I can deal. Then again, it’s entirely different. At any rate, it’s on just about every day now because the season is in full swing. File this interest under “Things that make you go ‘Hmmmm…’”

The week went by without much hoopla because I was working on stuff, but Thursday was Shogo’s birthday! He’s 77. Kanpai!

The picture’s a little dark, but I did all I could to lighten it up without washing it out. This also marks the first appearance of Satoko! This is the woman who makes all of the dishes we use to serve food and eat it. She is also NOT the stereotypical Japanese housewife. She is NOT quiet, NOT always submissive, and will frequently challenge Shogo, if not smack him several times on the arm, for telling the same story twice or excessively using English. It makes for an interesting show at mealtime. We had a special cake for Shogo’s birthday, and a whole plate of various sushi rolls and sashimi. Mmmmmmm, tasty!

This past weekend was a little bit low-key because of homework and the fact that I decided to use the internet at Nanzan without worrying about when my next class started. After closing Nanzan out at 5 PM on Saturday, I took a little jaunt up to Motoyama to see what it’s like. There are several really neat little shops and boutiques, and one section of the city reminds me of good old Haddonfield, New Jersey in a way. It’s nothing like King’s Highway, mind you, but it’s got a lot of nice specialty stores lining the street. One particularly interesting shop is called Supaa Kyatto (Super Cat), and sells a number of different cat-related products, both domestic and imported. More importantly, however, is Geo, the local game store/video and music rental shop (Yes, you can rent CDs in Japan. No, they do not appear to crap themselves over the thought that someone might possibly copy said CDs. Are you listening, RIAA?). They have more movies per square inch in this place than any Blockbuster I have ever seen. It’s insanely efficient, and they pack not only Japanese movies, but anime and foreign movies from around the world as well. I’ll definitely be stopping by here to check out the latest in Japanese film on a rainy day. I might even tell you all what the movies are like, if that’s what you’re into. I stopped at Mister Donut (The Japanese equivalent to Dunkin’ Donuts, with the main difference being it’s actually got nice cafe style seating, so you might actually want to buy and consume your purchase in the same place) and got a donut and some tea for a nice little evening snack. I walked around some more, seeing several groups of kids wandering about and even 4 (!) gaijin! They looked American as well, but I was exploring, and they didn’t stop to chat. I also had my first successful encounter with the Japanese public toilet, which I will from here on out dub “The Squatter.” I survived, obviously, and thankfully there was toilet paper (I have heard tell that on some models of Squatter, this feature does not come standard. You just get six airbags in case you crash). That was pretty much it for Saturday, and Sunday was spent doing all the homework I should’ve done Friday and Saturday night.

Now, FINALLY, we’re up to speed on this week. Quizzes are going MUCH better, I’m getting a feel for how IJ 400 works (head down, power through, have a quiz every day but Tuesday, and homework is due up until Wednesday, when you get all of next week’s homework–hooray!), and Dickinson’s money should soon be arriving in my account–in fact, it should have arrived yesterday (Tuesday), so I should check and see if it’s there already. Hooray, I can get a phone now and actually coordinate weekend things with people! Score! On the amusing story front, I was waiting in the chikatetsu (subway) station (I won’t use eki here since I’ve just introduced a new word) on Monday, listening to my iPod. I was leaning against the wall in a little alcove, and a Japanese girl lined up with some other people along the wall proper. We were on the same corner, but I was listening to music and she was working on a message on her phone. Three of her friends soon arrived, noticed our close proximity, and looked at me, then at her, then at me again, until finally one asked “Tomodachi?” (A friend?). I took off my headphones to further clear up the situation, and was asked if I was an international student. When I replied in Japanese, they were all stunned at how jouzu (skillful) I was. This is a typical response to anyone with the stones to speak Japanese, and I’d heard it many times before. I have quiz scores that say otherwise. At any rate I got to talking, and we went through all the usual introductory stuff: Name, Where I’m From, Their Names (there were four of them, and I have trouble remembering Japanese names as it is–give me a break), Do I Like Japan, Do I Like Japanese Foods, Oh Yeah? Which ones, etc. In the midst of this, we boarded the Meijo Line train, and continued chatting. Then came a question that will live on in infamy: “Where do you get off?” “Akaike,” I said, “I transfer at Yagoto and get off at Akaike.” Surprised and confused looks all around. “Really? Because this is Yago–” With that, the subway doors shut, and I watched Yagoto slowly pass by. D’oh! I was distracted by actually holding a conversation in Japanese (quite fluently if I do say so myself, even if it was small talk), and yes, it was with four ladies, but that has little to do with it (anyone who’s actually managed to master enough of a foreign language to have an entire conversation would agree, I should hope). So I got off at the next stop and caught a train headed back in the other direction, with calls of “Gomen, ne! Ganbatte! Bai bai!” (Sorry! Give it your all! Bye bye!) at my back.

That, in a nutshell, is the beauty of the Japanese subway system (didn’t see THAT one coming, did you?). You can hop off a train, hop on the next one, and still get home without having to stop, turn around, buy another ticket, transfer back onto the line you were on, etc. It’s only calculating cost at the destination station when you put your ticket or commuter pass through the wicket, so you can do whatever you please as far as seeing the various stations (if you’re a hardcore trainspotter, this is excellent news). So I managed to get home alright, just a little bit later than I would have originally.

That night at dinner, Satoko had a little something on her face, and Shogo kindly pointed it out by literally pointing at her face and asking what was on it. She got up, looked in the mirror, and responded “gosu, gosu” (Later explained to me as “Paint, paint”). Shogo made a funny face, and then cracked up laughing. Satoko said “dosu ja nai!” (Not dosu!), and asked if I understood. Um, no. She explained that a dosu is a knife used by the Japanese mafia, and so Shogo thought she’d been cut by a Yakuza or something. You probably had to be there, but it was funny at the time.

And that’s about it for now. It’s Wednesday, class is over, and I’m about ready to go home and do some laundry, because I need pants. Hooray pants!

Jaa, Mata!

Jeff

For those of you just tuning in, my name is Jeff Wilson, and I am in Japan.

I am also terrified of a woman whose name means “sugar.”

Today we had our first real class session, which was yet another orientation. On Thursdays (because the schedule varies each day), Japanese class starts at 10:05 AM. First up is Enomoto Sensei, who is the most loveable, goofy Japanese professor in the history of loveable, goofy Japanese professors (of course, Meguro Sensei, my Dickinson College professor, still retains top honors in the overall Japanese Professor category). He’s energetic, excited, and the perfect replacement for a cup of coffee (or in my case, heavily caffeinated tea) in the morning. He bumped into a desk–twice. He’s in charge of our Reading Practice section, which is from 10:05 to 10:50 each morning. He’s also the only male professor in the Japanese language faculty, which might explain some of his behavior.

Then we have a short break until 11:05, when Tsuda Sensei arrives for our Writing Practice, which runs until 11:50 and includes Kanji writing practice (those 2,000-some-odd characters the Japanese borrowed from the Chinese). Already, we have a couple of homework worksheets coming down the line, and all on the convenient, newspaper-sized sheets I believe I mentioned in the first post. Awesome. At least they fold in half to form a normal-size four page booklet. Already I can tell I’m going to need more folders. We have to keep a journal for Writing practice as well. Do Japanese blog entries count? I wonder… We had a practice kanji quiz, and there were a couple I forgot–I’m such a bad ryuugakusei (international student). Tsuda Sensei is definitely quieter than Enomoto Sensei, and allows a kind of settling in after the sugar rush of the first session.

Finally, after another short break, Satou Sensei arrives at 11:50 (no rest for the weary) and we have speaking practice. And by speaking practice, I mean that tomorrow I have to have a 4-minute, one-on-one interview with Satou Sensei (Satou is the Japanese word for “sugar,” and I’m sure it means one or two other things as well, which are probably the actual meaning of her name). Yikes! Right off the bat, I’m going to have to talk for four minutes with a woman I only met today in a manner that will likely be graded. Serious buckling down will ensue. On the plus side, she is sunny and gentle, although not as crazy as Enomoto Sensei, though she seems to be a bit more lively than Tsuda Sensei. Also working in Satou Sensei’s favor are the vocabulary quizzes, which won’t be any trouble so long as I’ve memorized the lesson’s vocabulary. It was probably the only thing today that didn’t make me think “Wow…that’s a lot.”

So there you have it. Overall, however, I can’t complain. None of the teachers seem overbearing or overly strict, but they expect a lot. After all, this is Intensive Japanese 400, and I placed myself here on both tests. Did I mention the second test? Yeah, it was after the “Placement Test,” and it was designed to “make sure we’re in the right level.” Great for those that want another shot because they think they whiffed on the Placement Test, bad for anyone who placed up a level and then celebrated too hard, because if you fail the second test you drop a level. Ah well, everyone that got into 400 the first time appears to have made it the second time as well. Yokatta (good).

I think that about does it for now. Two posts in one day–huzzah. Now it’s time to head back home and study study study–already I’ve got homework and a quiz tomorrow! Leave a comment or a question and I’ll reply as soon as I can! Tomorrow, I get to hook my computer into the network at Nanzan–with any luck, that means I’ll have an easier time updating this regularly, and updating with pictures will definitely be easier.

Mata, ne!

Jeff

So yesterday (Wednesday) was a big day, and in more ways than one. First off, I finally opened my bank account! I can have money now! Hooray! A picture of the bank book would follow, but A.) It’s not all that exciting to look at and B.) I’d probably have to kill you after you see it (which is VERY hard to do from Japan…). At any rate, Shogo and I were at the bank when the TV suddenly showed Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. To give you an idea of what this man’s tenure as PM has been like, consider that the former PM Junichiro Koizumi was 1.) Really popular and 2.) Had some of the best hair ever seen on a Prime Minister:

Bush WISHES he looked that good.

Now consider Abe, who had high hopes for a strong, nationalist Japan with a stronger military. To fill in a bit, the Japanese Constitution has a very controversial article called, quite simply, Article 9. It was written after World War II, and deems Japan a peaceful nation, stating that nuclear weapons will never be used, and there will not be an official army, merely a “Self-Defense Force” to be used in emergency situations. Abe was a bit more hard-line. He wanted to change some of these policies, and may have succeeded had his ministers not been nailed on shady bookkeeping, leading one to commit suicide (the Agriculture Minister, I believe). Needless to say, it’s been a tough term for Abe.

So yesterday, Shinzo Abe, the “first Prime Minister born after World War II” according to the New York Times, resigned.

Despite the fact that he’d said time and time again that he wouldn’t resign under pressure. Some vague health reasons were cited, my host family explained, but his resignation has thrown the whole country for a loop. Many, tired of the countless scandals think it a good thing, but my host family isn’t so sure. He resigned quite suddenly, just before a Parliamentary session that was the first chance for the opposition parties to question Abe (Parliament began a new session Monday) on his policies. Needless to say, he’s taking a lot of heat for that. It would be like Bush resigining before a particularly ominous-looking press conference (since America doesn’t actually have a government body that questions its leader). It’s hasty, it’s a little shady and it’s definitely not going to make any new friends.

Shinzo Abe. If only he had the hair…

Just one Culture Note before I head off to class today. When people sneeze in Japan, it is not customary to say anything. For some reason, I can’t for the life of me get used to that. Who knew that a simple phrase like “Bless You” could be so culturally ingrained?

OK, class time. Day 2! Wish me luck!

Mata, ne!

Jeff

I got into Intensive Japanese 400! “But Jeff, what does that mean?” “What happened to writing about life in Japan?” “Did I leave the oven on?” you’re quietly saying to yourself. Let’s rewind, because I’ve actually been here for ten days despite this being the first post (the host family has no internet and access here is surprisingly lacking; more on that later).

I touched down in Nagoya on September 2 after a 13-hour flight from Detroit (for total flight time, tack on another 2 hours to get from Philadelphia to Detroit) during which I intermittently slept and caught pieces of Spider Man 3, Shrek 3 and The Ex (the latter being the only film I cared to see in the first place). The entire time I was thinking about the placement test I had to take at Nanzan. Truth be told, I hadn’t studied as much as I wanted over the summer. Needless to say I was a bit worried; Japanese isn’t necessarily natural like, say, breathing.

Nevertheless I soldiered on, studying between naps, and soon enough we were beginning our descent into the Nagoya area. I was seated next to a woman en route to Manila (I believe) with her young daughter, who slept most of the way. As the mother pulled up the shade a bit, I noticed something very intriguing: windmills. “Green power,” I thought. “It DOES exist!” Given the recent resistance to windmills off the coast of New England in America, I was surprised to see them in Japan, and thought perhaps the whole country was moving in the direction of renewable energy.

Well, I’m almost half right. Those may be the only windmills in Japan for all I know, and a lot of people have cars, though the vast majority are small. What’s missing in windmills, however, is compensated by a TON of bikes. Everywhere I go, there is at least one person on a bike. On the rare occasion I don’t see someone riding a bike, there is evidence of bike use when I pass any one of a number of parking areas specifically for bikes. Depending on the area, it’s not unusual to have great difficulty finding a space for your bike if you haven’t arrived early in the day. When I travel to the subway station each morning, I pass an army of high and middle school students biking to class. As the roads in my neck of the woods are narrow, this creates a problem for drivers, who sometimes have to wait for opposing traffic to pass so they can use the other side of the road to get by. Even with all the driving, however, I haven’t seen a huge number of overweight Japanese (though I have seen a few—thanks, McDonald’s).

For those with doubts, yes the Japanese drive on the left side of the road. And yes, it’s a major adjustment to ride on the left side of the street. Several times I have had to correct myself, and thankfully no cars were flying around the bend at the time—and they sure do fly. My host mother graciously lends me her bike to get to and from the subway station each morning. I have repeatedly double-checked to make sure this is O.K. (all the host-family-tip materials warned me not to be a “cultural child” that thinks “Wow, they treat you like royalty!” when they’re actually making major lifestyle changes to accommodate you), as she doesn’t use the car very much. She insists it’s all right; she usually takes the public buses or walks—she doesn’t like using the car because it’s bad for the air. How’s that thought process coming along in America?

As I said before, riding on the left side of the road comes with a learning curve. Especially when it’s not your bike, and the bike you’re riding was built for someone roughly a foot smaller than you. Fortunately the seat adjusts to a reasonable height, but a tiny bike is a tiny bike. I’m getting used to it though, and it has handy baskets on the front and back with room enough for my camera bag and backpack respectively. So, on to an actual description of the host family and life in Japan.

For the fall semester, I’m living with Shogo and Satoko Shimozawa. They’re 76 and 70, respectively. (For anyone unfamiliar with Japanese names, Shogo’s the husband.) Shogo’s hobbies include golf, travel, and painting. Satoko’s hobbies include travel, flower arranging (ikebana, pronounced e-kay-bana), and ceramic arts. Sounds pretty “meh,” right? Well take into consideration that pretty much every plate or dish we use for eating or serving at any given meal was made by Satoko. Many of the paintings in the house are Shogo’s work. An entire hutch of ceramic figurines and teapots (save for a fishing Santa-esque figure from a trip to Minnesota) were also made by Satoko. It’s staggering. This hutch, for instance, is nearly bursting with ceramics:

That hutch is only a portion of Satoko’s work.

While I’m at it, I’ve got some more pictures of the house:

This is a picture of the genkan, of which the closest American equivalent is the foyer. Except in the foyer, it’s rare that you must take off your shoes. It’s the first thing you see when you enter the house (assuming you’re not a solicitor or other stranger whom would be kept outside at the gate).

This is a 180-degree turn from where I took the dining room picture. The Shimozawas frequently turn on the news during dinner (though they rarely watch it on that beauty of a TV), and the hutch on the right contains all the ceramic figurines Satoko made.

This is just outside the door to my room. Hanging on the wall is a piece of Shogo’s handiwork, with a few golf trophies on the shelf. Every Sunday Shogo watches golf on TV.

Kore wa watashi no heya desu. This is my room, as seen from just inside the door. I actually have a bed! Though the pillow is definitely made for back sleepers and the mattress is a bit stiff, I haven’t had any trouble sleeping thanks to long days around town and at Nanzan.

Another view of my heya (room). Yeah, the TV has cable, although I haven’t watched much in order to keep electricity bills down. I just know I’d get sucked into some random Japanese show and stay up until the wee hours.

I don’t know where this came from or what it is, but it’s on top of the right hand closet in the last pic and it’s funky, so I thought you all should see it. Please comment if you can identify it; I’m striving for accuracy here.

The house even comes complete with its own stray cat!

Shiro-chan says hi! Shiroi means white in Japanese, and -chan is a name suffix used in addressing small children, particularly young girls.

Shortly after this picture, Shiro-chan said hello to me in her own special way (read: hissing).

So that’s a brief tour of the house. There are some rooms I haven’t been allowed into yet, and others (like the kitchen and bathroom) that would net me very concerned looks from the family if I were to wander into them with a camera. Now that you’re all (sort of) oriented, allow me to break down some of the more interesting events by day.

9/2 Sunday:

I landed in Nagoya at about 6:30 PM Japan time. Satoko met me at the airport, and we took a bus back into Nisshin-shi (Nisshin City), where the Shimozawas actually live. It took about an hour by bus, and I got a feel for the Japanese highway system: high speeds and high barriers. “Barriers?” you might be asking. Vast tracts of the highway have what appear to be plexiglass barriers similar to the concrete barriers found on some highways in the U.S. to reduce noise. These barriers, however, are part of the guardrail, and are even present on overpasses. It makes sense, and I wonder why it’s not more prevalent. I saw a massive Pachinko center, which is essentially the Japanese method of choice gambling money away, comparable to slots in the U.S. (though there are also Pachislot centers), and a huge ferris wheel lit up in various colors and patterns—that’s right, it was only a little after 7 PM and it was dark. Japan’s higher latitude means it’s only light until about 6:30 or so, and this will only shorten in the coming months. Satoko explained that the ferris wheel was part of an amusement park of sorts. When the bus dropped us off closer to home, Shogo met us with the Shimozawas’ car, which is a Suzuki SUV though the definition of SUV in Japan is quite different—my two suitcases and backpack fit just right in the cargo area behind the back seat. We stopped for dinner on the way home at a restaurant whose name had Kanji—complex characters borrowed from the Chinese; I know about 300 of 2,000—I couldn’t read, and I ordered one of my favorite dishes, Tempura Udon, to commemorate the start of my adventures in Japan. I nearly seared the taste buds off my tongue. The Japanese like their food HOT. And I mean HOT hot HOT! After I got over the fact that I would probably never taste again and even the green tea we were served was also burning my hand through the thick ceramic cup, the food was delicious.

Cultural Note: Many people wonder how the Japanese eat soup with chopsticks alone. In some Japanese restaurants in the States, curved spoons are served with soup. It’s true that these exist in Japan, but the generally acceptable method is to simply pick up the entire bowl and drink the soup. Further, slurping is not only acceptable, but practically encouraged when eating noodles or soup. Granted, I have limited cultural perspective living with 70-plus year old host parents, but frequently noodles and soup are slurped, and difficult-to-pick-up rice grains are also shoveled out of a lifted bowl. I’ve also noticed that to a certain extent it’s ok to be a little bit messy; both in the home and in some restaurants drinks are poured with speed in mind, and often some is dribbled or spilled. Of course, these are more casual situations.

After dinner we returned home, where I presented the Shimozawas with the gifts I brought and chat in awkward, limited Japanese. A tip for anyone even remotely thinking of studying abroad in Japan—and this is something they don’t tell you in the manuals—interactions with the host family can, and will frequently, be PAINFULLY AWKWARD in the first few days. This is because your host family has spoken Japanese for as many as 76 years, and you have been working on it perhaps two or three. So, after some painfully awkward Japanese speaking about my gifts and my room, I was shown how to use the shower. I find showering in Japan to be quite an adventure, and I mean that in the best sense of the word. You get a whole ROOM. “But Jeff,” you’re saying, “duh, of course you get a room—it’s called a bathroom, and it’s got a tub where you bathe or shower, so that counts.” Nay. Sure there’s a tub, but you don’t use it to bathe. The shower head sits outside the tub, and the whole room is fair game for showering. Could you imagine the havoc that would be wreaked if American children were given a whole room to shower in? I wish showers in America were this cool when I was little. Afterwards, it was off to bed because I was tired. It was about 10 PM.

9/3 Monday:

Breakfast during the week begins promptly at 7:30 AM, but because I’d come so far the Shimozawas graciously delay until 8 AM. And what does this baka gaijin (stupid foreigner; literally translated gaijin [pronounced guy-jean] means “outside person”) do? He’s 10 minutes late. Dame! (pronounced da-may; Bad!) The typical breakfast at the Shimozawa household is toast with butter or a slice of ham on top, with a mixture of home-made yogurt with bananas, honey, and sometimes even jam and some sort of soy powder that tastes like graham cracker crust (but isn’t) on the side. That doesn’t even cover the grapes, which while I’m not entirely sure yet, may the Japanese plums that umeboshi (Japanese pickled plums) are made from. All I know is that they were nearly the size of golf balls and tasted like a grape and a plum at the same time—in some circles, this may also be known as “heaven.” Frankly, everything is delicious, and when I ask if this is the typical breakfast, the answer is a surprising yes. I was afraid this was all for the tall American student that must be impressed by Japan’s copious amounts of food, but it’s just the typical breakfast, because as Satoko explains, “Shogo eats a lot.” Shogo gave me a bicycle tour of Nisshin-shi. Our first stop is a small plot of land a short ride away that is home to many flourishing vegetables. It is my understanding that several people maintain and pick from this garden, as it is neither visible from the Shimozawa house nor fenced off or otherwise protected. Here are some snapshots of the garden and its surrounding area. Note the close proximity of farily high-rise apartments and suburban houses, and yet the high-rises don’t give it that typical “city” feel. That is, they’re not a total blight to the surrounding land.

Ok, so maybe this one is a little crowded.

Note the popped collar. Pops knows what’s hot. (Don’t be a fool; it keeps the sun off his neck)

The tool shed (which I might add was about one million degrees).

Shogo hard at work planting fresh seeds.

Afterward, we stopped back at the house for a little while to relax and have lunch, and then it was time for Shogo to give me a tour while also completing a practical errand: Dropping off the recycling. You know what that means—it’s time for another Cultural Note. The Japanese sort their garbage into five categories: Burnable, Non-Burnable, Plastic Containers and Wrappings, Empty Glass Bottles and Cans, and Oversize Garbage. These are all sorted into various bags and containers depending on their combustibility or recycling potential, and are usually collected. They may also be dropped off at various centers, and Shogo gave me a tour while also crossing an errand off the list. This makes me feel like less of an imposition, and a little more comfortable as a foreign guest.

Our first stop is a nearby park, which is an absolutely gorgeous shade of green considering the heat (upper 80s-low 90s every day, with humidity to match). Here’s a pic:

If you close your eyes and scroll down, I magically appear!

Note: The Packers cap is on loan from Shogo for sunny day bike rides.

The park pond is home to fish (not pictured) and turtles, and I’ve been assured the water is usually cleaner:

Obligatory awkward-gaijin pics of me on the pond walkway follow

So I look pained and/or constipated in both. It was my second day in Japan—give me a break.

From the park we traveled to the recycling center, where I found a nice, if a bit old, English-Japanese dictionary for free. You can’t beat free. After finishing that errand, we trekked to Nisshin Castle.

Doesn’t look like too much now, does it? Wait for it…

My first old-school Japanese castle. Excellent.

Once again, if you’ll be so kind as to close your eyes and scroll, I magically appear!

Ta-da! I look slightly less drugged!

Well, there it is, just begging to be visited…shall we see what the view is like from the top?

So it’s fenced in….but look at that view!

What’s that? You want to see the other sides, and not just another angle of the same view?

Also, while inside the castle proper, I had to wear really tiny slippers.

Hehe. Giant gaijin feet.

The castle was also home to a rock garden. Not as exciting as a flower garden, granted, but it’s certainly artfully arranged, and it’s part of the Japanese aesthetic.

Sadly (or maybe not, depending on your perspective), there’s no magically-appearing me this time. Just a picture of me in front of the rock garden.

Now looking less…! Well, no, I still look dazed.

There’s also some video of the castle:

By the time we left the castle and returned home, it was almost time for Satoko to return home (did I mention she’d been out all day as well, doing her own thing?) and prepare the first home-cooked Japanese meal, which if I’m remembering correctly was soba noodles served cold with a bowl of soy sauce in which to dip the noodles. It was perfect, considering how hot it was outside.

9/4 Tuesday:

I wake up to discover that after all the careful planning, after all the meticulous attention to detail and consultation of packing lists, after all the purchased backup items…my watch is dead. And not I-accidentally-pulled-the-stem-out dead. Dead dead. I meekly approach Shogo about adding it to the days errands, and he carefully examines the watch. The movement was made in Japan, which made the battery a snap to replace. Score one for Nautica! As Shogo was examining the watch, however, I noticed that the stainless steel was made in China. Oops. China and Japan have a history of not getting along well together, but fortunately for me that didn’t stop the watch guy from replacing my battery. I could’ve hugged him, and Shogo for taking me, but refrained from both because that would also garner a lot of concerned looks.

In an interesting move given the heat, Shogo stopped at the grocery store before heading to the watch repair. I was concerned that everything would spoil, but with the shade provided in most bike parking lots, this wasn’t an issue. I also became accustomed to simply leaving the bike with the kickstand locked and a small ring lock fastened between the spokes of the back wheel, preventing it from moving. As this won’t stop someone willing to carry a bike and look like a total fool, I was surprised that there aren’t more bike thefts. I have since left the bike parked at the subway station for an entire day with no worries. Since nearly everyone has a bike, I suppose bike theft is less of an issue.

Afterward, I was shown the post office, bank, Nisshin library, and the Nisshin government office, where I recently applied for my alien registration card. Next up was Nisshin station, which is for the above-ground train (not to be confused with the excellent, efficient, and clean subway—more on that later), and some of its surrounding shops. We stopped off at another large store, this one selling all sorts of media and video game material, before heading home. Along the way, Shogo pointed out that we were passing the bus stop where I got off coming back from the airport. It was unbelievable. Shogo was now sweating through his shirt, riding all over Nisshin city with a total stranger, up and down hills (though we did walk the steeper hills, and there are a lot of them—give me a break, I’m from Jersey), and did I mention he’s 76 years old? Say it with me: Wow.

During the course of this adventure, Shogo is testing my knowledge of his directions to get to and from the local subway station so I can get to school each day. I only screw up once on the way there. I’m pretty impressed with myself. Dinner and a shower precede bed, and tonight I got my first taste of homemade gyoza (dumplings). I LOVE gyoza, and Satoko’s are simply kick-ass. There’s just nothing like a tray full of freshly made dumplings to satisfy the weary traveler. Before dinner, Satoko appears surprised that I like gyoza. I take this as a good sign that I’m making progress. Yet every time we eat, there is a nagging sensation that they’re often talking about me, but I can’t catch all of what they’re saying. Gaijin this and gaikokujin (a longer version, essentially meaning “People from other countries”) that, and yet everything in the middle is too fluent-native-speaker fast for me to understand. It feels as though every time I get up from the table after dinner, it’s like the Southern Socialite dinner scene from Borat. “Well, I think the cultural differences are VAST, but I think in no time, he’ll become Japanized,” they seem to be saying. Then, I do something equivalent to bringing a bag of my own poop to the table. Please note that I have not actually brought a bag of my own poop to the table, but I have made some cultural gaffes. “But I haven’t seen Borat!” you may be crying. That’s both a blessing and a curse.

Today I made the mistake of asking for water when Satoko offered me tea. A rookie mistake given all the cultural videos I saw at Dickinson before leaving, and clearly I wasn’t thinking. Culturally, if you’re offered a drink in Japan, you may politely refuse it a few times before accepting, but you DEFINITELY don’t ask for something else. Baka! I’m sure it gave them something to talk about over dinner when I couldn’t listen fast enough.

9/5 Wednesday:

Breakfast is promptly at 7:30 AM, and shortly after 8 AM I leave a little bit ahead of schedule in order for Satoko to help me navigate the subway system. With one hesitation, I make it to Akaike (a-kai-kay) station, and find Satoko. Except I didn’t realize that she was helping me with the subway—I thought she needed the bike. After backtracking to drop the bike off at the lot, we’re ready to go. The subway station is amazingly clean, and the train is surprisingly not elbow-to-elbow, though we do have to stand. Just about everyone seated is a sleeping Japanese salary man or working woman, and while I don’t have pictures yet, I will sneak one eventually. The Japanese really are overworked. Yet this is totally acceptable, and most appear to be able to sleep sitting upright. The mantra here would be “That’s life.”

Of course, this works both ways. I have since sat next to a girl who appeared to have fallen asleep in the middle of sending a text message on her cell phone. Poor thing. So many friends, so little thumb energy. On the other hand, if she had fallen asleep like that in America, the phone, and probably a few other things, would be missing when she awoke.

Anyway, I rode the subway with Satoko, and was struck by the amount of English present. Every subway sign has English captions explaining which platform goes which direction, and which line you’re taking. Check out the map:

You may or may not be able to read it, but every station name has the English translation underneath it. Even the automated voice on board the train announces the next stop in Japanese and English! Crazy. With Satoko’s help, I successfully arrive at Yagoto (the first stop on the purple circle line; I’ve been riding the blue line from right to left) and negotiate the transfer to the Meijo Line (the purple cirlcle). I ride that for one stop to Yagoto Nisseki, and from there it’s about a five minute walk to campus. All told, it’s 10 minutes or so by bike to the station (I remember the route now), five minutes to Yagoto on the subway, another couple minutes for the transfer, a minute to Yagoto Nisseki, and another five minutes or so to campus. General travel time is about half an hour or so depending on how well the trains match up, etc. Here’s a picture of Yagoto station, where I make my transfer:

A limited view, I know, but it’s definitely clear that this subway system is cleaner than New York’s.

Here’s a picture of the typical vending machine in Japan. Why? Because I can:

Look at all the choices!

Sometimes the displays move, or have waving arrows pointing out a particular suggestion.

Anyway, I got off the train and followed Satoko to Nanzan University (oh yeah, I did come here to study!). More and more gaijin appear. Yep, this is the place. After negotiating a hill of San Francisco proportions, we arrive at the main gate.

Looking down the hill…

…And looking out at eye-level from the top of the hill. Yikes.

At last!

Unfortunately, the buildings don’t have a whole lot of character. Note, however, that these pics were taken on a cloudy day.

This is the library.

And that is something else entirely. Ah, well. There’s plenty of green around!

After some waiting we gaijin were ushered into the recently opened B building (don’t worry, it’s concrete like the others, just without the orange) and given our placement tests. It got progressively more difficult, and if you can remember all the way back when, I somehow managed to place into IJ 400, which is good news (I needed to get into 300 for Dickinson credit, but that’s also more or less a review of the first two years at Dickinson from what I understand). I met up with Paris, Katie, and Chloe, and finally began to feel more comfortable. Don’t get me wrong, Japan is fantastic, but at this point I was dying to have some English conversation. My limited Japanese was leading to the primal frustration of not being understood—and not being able to effectively communicate—at home, and it was good to start building up a support group at Nanzan.

Katie, Myself, Chloe and Paris.

Of course, meeting up with the rest of the Dickinson crew didn’t stop me from meeting other people. I met a guy from Poland named Gregory (in Polish it sounds like Dragush, if anyone knows the language please help me convert that to proper Polish), a girl of Korean descent who is actually from Australia (!) named Sim Sim Van, and even a guy from Russia named Moses. Seriously. I don’t have pictures yet, but I will.

After lunch orientation proper began, and form…after form…after form…after form…after…wait for it…form! rolled our way. Whoever said America or France or China was bureaucratic lied: Japan has a form for everything, and sometimes a form for that form. I only slightly exaggerate.

After just three days of orientation and an Alien Registration (the green envelope is a city guide packet).

Sadly, most of this will probably end up in the “burnable trash” bags. So much for those windmills.

Orientation sessions tend to run all day, so there really isn’t much else to report here. Today’s session ended at 2:30, but I spent the rest of the time reading the forms I received.

9/6 Thursday:

More orientation, more forms, and the aforementioned placement test results. I had lunch with Gregory and Moses, and alphabetical seating during the Student Life Orientation afforded a nice chat with Sim Sim between presentations. We ordered our Inkans, or name stamps, and got some belated tips for living with a host family. Cultural Note: The Inkan takes the place of a signature in the U.S. In order to open a bank account, I MUST have the Inkan, because signatures are not accepted. After handing in a couple forms and receiving even more, we were treated to guided tours of the Nanzan campus. My tour guide was Ayumi. She absolutely loves The O.C., and is currently working her way through Season 2. She is majoring in French, and wants to study abroad, possibly in America if not France. She also happens to speak English pretty well. There was a welcome party at the end, but due to the fact that a typhoon was due to hit at 6:30, I decided to heed my host family’s wishes that I not stay at Nanzan too long. Unfortunately, all Nisshin and Nagoya got was a spot of rain and howling winds comparable to a wild thunderstorm back in New Jersey. Bummer. On the upside, dinner was once again fantastic. And by the way, I’m totally having a love affair with Calpis. But don’t worry, it’s not a person, just the best drink ever created.

The label reads “Carupisu Uootaa” (the approximation for “Calpis Water” using the Japanese Katakana syllabary), and if you say it fast, it kind of sounds like “Cow Piss,” but don’t be fooled by the funny name or deterred by the idea of drinking “water” that’s white. I really don’t consider it water, but if it in fact is, then the Japanese really know how to do the whole “flavored water” thing. It looks milky, but isn’t milk either. It’s just a sweet, refreshing bottle (or glass) of Calpis. It’s smooth like milk, but not really creamy, and it’s sweet like nothing you’ve ever tasted. Apparently it is a remedy for upset stomachs (which I can believe, it’s soothing), and also a great treat. They even have fruit flavors! The grape tastes like every great grape-flavored cough syrup you remember having as a child, but without the risk of overdose! Maybe I’m alone on that, but it tastes bloody good…after dinner, it was a short rest, shower, and bed in preparation for a few errands before tomorrow’s orientation.

9/7 Friday:

The typhoon passed without event. No visible damage, no downed tree limbs; nothing. Orientation started late today, so I went and took care of the Alien Registration at the government office. Internet orientation (I know, it seems pointless, but we had to log into Nanzan’s system and create an account) started at 1:30 for my group, so I stopped by the Lawson Convenience Store at the base of the San Francisco hill (not its actual name) and bought some Grape Calpis. The orientations are beginning to get a bit mind-numbing, but we do need to be aware of everything, particularly the confusing, save-your-school-e mail-to-a-floppy-or-USB-key system. It’s the same feeling as going through Dickinson’s—or any other institution’s—Orientation, particularly including the Dickinson Pre-Orientation: by the end of it all you’re so sick of being oriented that you long to be dropped off deep in the Sahara with only a cantine and a bit of string. After orientation I wandered up and down the main drag in front of Nanzan to see what was around. There was an interesting looking Italian place that I almost tried, wondering what the Japanese take on Italian would be like. There were also several take-out places, but none of them gave off a “That looks tasty,” or more importantly, “Wow, that’s cheap!” vibe. I took the subway back to Akaike station and walked around a little more of Nisshin, coming to the realization that there isn’t a ton of stuff to do in the immediate area. I looked around the Hyaku En Shoppu (100 Yen Store), which is a Japanese Dollar Store, and browsed the Yuu Stoaa (U-Store, I imagine), where a Casio Keyboard, lyric-less synth rendition of “Everybody’s Got a Hungry Heart” was playing. Yes, really. I have also heard a similar rendition of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” It’s a little creepy, especially when you realize that you’re filling in the vocals in your head. I had some Chicken Katsu (cutlet) at a small restaurant nearby, and then stumbled upon the Comtech Plaza. I’d taken notice of this when Shogo was showing me around (it’s right next to Akaike Station), but hadn’t bothered to ask what it was. As it turns out, it’s a sizable arcade. I indulged myself with a round of Virtua Fighter 5 for 100 yen, even though the place reeked of cigarette smoke. Afterwards, Satoko was rather shocked that I went to the government office by myself (though I swear I had told her that’s where I was going…what we have here is a failure to communicate), and wondered why I would go on a Friday, when it’s busy (I’m new in town?). After a bit of back-and-forth, I think I’ve managed to convince her that I must go back to the government office to purchase an Alien Registration Card placeholder of sorts (the real deal won’t arrive until the 25^th) and enroll in the Japan National Health Insurance (which with the student discount means I’ve only got to pay about 19% of any medical costs I happen to incur while I’m here), but I will definitely double check. I once again felt the primal frustration of not being fully understood, as the words for Alien Registration and its placeholder are similar, and she kept saying “That won’t arrive until the 25^th, you can’t open an account yet” and I kept saying “But Nanzan specifically said that I can use the placeholder to do so; it will be accepted.” It all sounds easy in English, but you try saying gaikokujin toroku shomeisho every other minute. After that was all sorted, I was ready to sleep.

9/8 Saturday:

Breakfast on weekends is at 8:30, a welcome break from the every day early-rising routine (though I am tired earlier because it’s dark out, and it’s bright early on in the morning, so I wake up naturally). I spent most of the morning looking over course descriptions (I’ve settled on the required IJ 400, Japanese Foreign Policy, and Japanese Culture and Art I), and got my Commuter Pass taken care of at Yagoto station. I was off in search of internet (the host family has none, hence the late, megaton post of the first entry here), and planned to go to Kamimaezu (ka-me-my-zu), where Satoko informed me there are a lot of Internet Cafes, but “a lot of weird people” go to said Internet Cafes. Also, some homeless people or poorer people staying in hotels apparently frequent these cafes. Excellent. As I was leaving the Yagoto ticket office, however, I bumped into Guy and Susanne, who were headed to Sakae (sa-kai) to look at cell phone options. No one was ready to buy yet (we don’t have that much money, or bank accounts to put said money in), and they graciously let me tag along. We were soon joined by Iyana, but Brian, the fifth and final member of this merry band of gaijin, didn’t show. So off we went to Sakae, where I had my first real elbow-to-elbow train ride. Once we pulled into the station, I realized why. Sakae station is a massive underground shopping mall. At the center is Crystal Square, with an ornate centerpiece and fountain:

After choosing a random number out of the 16 (!) exits—of which stations like Akaike have three—the four of us hit the town. And my, what a town it is—rather, what a city it is. Sakae is huge, and it’s a total blast. Right out of the gate, we hear music playing. There’s a Japanese band setting up for a concert! REALLY shaky video follows (I was walking and filming)

Note the guy in the green shirt. He’s both amazing and weird. I know I can’t get that low.

We decide to seek out some food and come back for the show. Along the way, we find another performer, singing along to what are presumably selections from his favorite songs. YouTube’s upload limits are giving me trouble though, so I don’t have the video of this guy’s set just yet. I’ll let you know if I manage to post it elsewhere or cut it down to size.

En route to food, I noticed some (unfortunately) familiar names, and took a gander at a Times Square-esque video advertisement.

We were soon distracted yet again by…you guessed it, a giant, multi-story arcade. So if you’re keeping score at home, the Japanese really know how to do: 1) That weird flavored-water thing and 2) Arcades. Not to say that they don’t excel in other areas, but my god…this was brilliant. We decided to see how the concert was coming along, and on our way back performer #2 had quite the following going. And this time, YouTube was O.K. with the file size.

Finally, we made our way back to the plaza. Not yet…they’re still performing a sound check, though the bits they’re playing sound pretty good. Unfortunately…yeah, YouTube’s limits are a pain. A little help? There’s got to be another service out there with no limits on file size or minute length.

So, waiting once again, we finally sought out (and found) food. We ate at a great curry rice place, and I had shrimp curry rice. Mmmmm, tasty. Once again, it was time to check in on the band—only we’d missed the band that was setting up last time! No matter, it was a double-header. We’d missed Spyair, but were just in time to catch heavy-metal act Abnormal Voltage, who answer the question “How angry can you be on a nice, sunny day in Sakae?” Answer: Pretty angry, and for 26 minutes. If you’re so inclined, or just curious as to what 26 minutes of Japanese heavy metal sounds like, you’re in luck: the whole thing’s right here. Unfortunately, by “here” I mean here in Japan, as this one is way beyond the YouTube 100 MB or 10-minute ceiling, and at the moment I don’t have a way of cutting it into chunks (though I hope to soon). Again, if anyone has pointers as to another hosting service with less stringent limits, let me know, because I’d really love to share this one with you all. I’m not much for heavy metal, but it was quite a treat.

Afterward we went to SoftBank to look at phones. The Japanese are thoroughly leaving the U.S. in the dust. Cell phones in Japan not only e-mail as well as text message, but they also receive TV signals. And I don’t mean that V-Cast stuff pre-configured for your phone. I mean actual TV stations. It’s flippin’ insane. We also found an Internet Cafe, but it was really expensive and only had stalls with desktops inside, so I decided against it for the time being. I like my laptop, and I didn’t want to know why there had to be stalls for each computer.

As we headed back toward the subway station, we heard more music coming from the plaza across the way. More bands! And a massive fountain. Pics of one band and the fountain follow:

So, internet-less but riding high, I decided to stick around for a bit when the rest of the crew hit the subway to be back with their host families by 6:00. I’d already called to cancel dinner at the house, so I walked around town for quite a while, taking the time to stroll into several of the above-ground shopping centers (not to be confused with the big one underground, which had a Nissan showcase with actual cars in it). These department stores are unbelievable. As many as 8 floors of various clothing shops of all types, including names like Coach, Dolce & Gabanna, and Louis Vuitton. Parco, a particularly stunning store spanning three towers (yes, three) consisted of two towers with mainly clothes to sell, and a third with a bookstore, Tower Records, and a movie house and live music club inside (not all on the same floor, mind you, but still impressive). I was constantly floored every time I arrived at one floor only to see another escalator stretching up to another floor (no pun intended). Parco is also home to a crazy rendition of the Mona Lisa on its Art and Music floor, which sells musical instruments, rather than CDs—that’s Tower’s job.

On a side note, Sakae is home to what might just be the creepiest neon sign I’ve ever seen.

Wait for it…

For dinner, I decided to take the plunge. I chose a 24-hour Japanese fast-food hole-in-the-wall that basically serves bowls of rice with your choice of meat piled on top. I walked in, ordered from a (mercifully; the Kanji was difficult) picture-based menu, selected a size, and in about half a minute out came a bowl of rice, onions, and shaved chicken. Maybe it was pork. I wasn’t entirely sure, and I didn’t really care. There were businessmen sitting in the corner talking and laughing, a beleaguered employee trying to fill orders while simultaneously getting tea for everyone, and a steady parade of people, though it wasn’t terribly crowded. It was quick and dirty, open 24 hours every day, and it was delicious. After all, it was fast food, but it was Japanese fast food. Heck, it was mostly rice.

Having had my fill of big-city Sakae life for the day, I headed home, and almost immediately to bed. It was the best day since I touched down, and it’s not one I’ll soon forget. I mean come on, Japanese Heavy Metal! Rawk!!

Also, I did my first load of laundry today. Hooray for line drying without shrinkage!

9/9 Sunday:

Not nearly as exciting as Saturday, because I did another load of laundry and spent all day writing about a week’s worth of Japanese experiences for you all. I hope you managed to read it all without dying, and I’m doing my best to include lots of pictures and video to keep those short attention spans open.

9/10 Monday:

We got to register for courses today! Well, sort of. Today was the preliminary registration, after which we have two weeks to go to various classes and see what we think of them, and then on the 26^th we get to choose for real. Nevertheless, I think I’m going to stick with my original choice of Intensive Japanese 400, Japanese Foreign Policy, and Japanese Culture and Art I. “But Jeff, that’s not a full load! Slacker!!” you’re shouting at the monitor. Not only am I in the level of Japanese above what Dickinson requires for credit, any Intensive Japanese course counts as 8 credits. I need at least 14, and with the two other courses being 3 credit courses, I meet that requirement. Thank you for your concern, but I’ll be ok.

After registration madness, today’s orientation sessions were all about safety, and it started with the Earthquake Simulator. Having never experienced an earthquake, I took a ride, and then took pictures of Paris, Katie and Chloe’s response to a 7 on the Richter Scale:

Good job, Paris! You’re under something sturdy.

It’s just too bad you’re tall like me! (At one point he lifted the table)

A round of applause, please!

I’m positive it was nothing like a REAL earthquake, but at least we have some idea of how sudden it can happen. Afterward, we had self-defense training, through which we learned some valuable techniques for escaping creepy people whom might accost us one night in a dark alley. The techniques were demonstrated by two Japanese police officers, one of which was the persistent Crash Test Dummy who had all of the techniques performed on him, and because they are Aikido martial arts techniques, they looked painful at times, even though they’re only intended to allow you time to escape rather than harm the attacker. During the orientation, a popular mantra, “Japan is Not Safe,” popped up once again. Apparently everyone at Nanzan is out to dispel this myth that Japan is a totally safe country. They seem to think we all assumed this when we booked our tickets. Did we think everything in Japan was made of baby-proof Legos? You’ve got to keep your head on straight no matter where you are. It seems obvious, but I’m sure there are legal reasons for that speech.

Anyway, there were several television news crews covering the safety exercises, and a helicopter circling overhead. Sadly, I didn’t see any of the footage on television, but given that two separate stations may have run the footage, and would have done so over the same stretch of time, it’s possible I may have missed both in looking for one. C’est la vie. (Gasp! He remembers high school French!) After school I went to the ward office and got the papers necessary to open a bank account. Hooray, that happens in two days! And that’s about all for today.

9/11 Tuesday:

First things first—a moment of silence for those affected by 9/11 (and NOT the 9/11 Rudy Giuliani and other politicians use to further their own flag-waving image). Today was a short day school-wise, because we only went to purchase textbooks. Well, sort of. Not only are my funds beginning to run a bit low (thank goodness I can open a bank account tomorrow…I can exchange the rest of my American cash and have money in the bank!) thanks to all the commuter passes and name seal purchases, but there’s a major discrepancy on which textbook my Japanese Foreign Policy class will use. The handy pocket-size (read: giant, nearly newspaper-sized) schedule sheet has the name of one textbook, while the yellow student handbook lists a completely different book as “Required Reading,” and not a textbook. The bookstore didn’t seem to have either. In fact, other than the Japanese courses and a few select others, the bookstore didn’t appear to have a lot of the necessary books. Many were confused. Japanese Culture and Art I has no textbook on either listing, so fortunately that’s taken care of, and that’s the class that meets this week. It’s time to get to know Professor Potter a bit better however, with an e-mail asking about the textbook situation.

So, with these classes, what’s my schedule going to look like? I’ll have Intensive Japanese 400 every day, but at varying times (I think. The schedule sheet is terribly confusing, and at times lists two sections of 400 but four rooms…in the words of Jon Stewart, “Whaaaaaaaaa?”). Monday it appears to run from 9:20 AM-12:35 PM. Pray for breaks in between. Tuesday is from 10:05 AM-12:35 PM, and Japanese Foreign Policy meets on this day as well, from 3:15 PM-5:30 PM. Wednesday is really short, because Japanese wraps at 10:50 due to other morning classes (none of which are mine), and there are never classes after 12:35 on Wednesday afternoon. Thursday Japanese is again a bit short, from 10:05 AM-12:35 PM (ha ha, I just said that was “short”). Friday, there’s a full suite of Japanese from 9:20 AM-12:35 PM, and then Japanese Culture and Art I meets from 3:15 PM-5:30 PM. Yikes. Notice anything unusual about this schedule (other than the unbelievable amount of time I’ll have to sit in one spot for class)? The other two classes only meet once a week. In fact, all the classes only meet once a week, unless they’re Intensive Japanese classes. It will be interesting to see how that plays out. Do international students look at Dickinson’s schedule and think “Cripes, how many times can you meet in a week?!” Will I be able to keep all the material in my head without frequent meetings to reinforce what I’ve learned? Will my head explode from the long classes? Will Rocky and Bullwinkle unwittingly wander into Boris and Natasha’s trap? Find out next time in “Like a Moose Caught in the Headlights” or “Bullwinkle the Brilliant.”

For now, it’s off to bed with me. I’ve got a big day of Japanese ahead of me tomorrow (the first day of class! I have a feeling I’ll be thankful it’s the short day), and then I get to open my bank account! Woohoo!

Mata, ne!Jeff

P.S. So, everything seems to be going great so far, but I can feel the first comment coming already…“Do you have any complaints?” So far, my only complaint is that the host family has no internet. It’s trivial perhaps, but it keeps me from updating everyone on how I’m doing, both blog-wise and “Are you still alive?”-wise. That’s the only really frustrating part of the trip so far: because of no internet at home and bureaucracy at Nanzan (the forms…the forms! Though I do finally have access to stable internet on which I can check all my e-mail accounts and access my blog), I’m having a lot of trouble sharing the trip with everyone at home, and that’s troublesome. But I will find the time to keep this up-to-date now that classes are starting and there’s a definite routine coming together. And the beat goes on…