Not a drunken Gaijin rampage but a run of the mill Japanese Fire Festival. Imagine if you tried this on in NZ! Somehow I think it would not quite get approval!!!
Wednesday, November 24, 2004
Not a drunken Gaijin rampage but a run of the mill Japanese Fire Festival. Imagine if you tried this on in NZ! Somehow I think it would not quite get approval!!!
Monday, November 22, 2004
Saturday, November 20, 2004
Sake-Sama
I did not go to bed until 11am this morning. 630pm to 11am with the assistance of sake-san (not actual Sake, because Sake is alcohol in general and Nihonshu is "Sake"). Why this is important is unclear but I have also just realised Sartre has my Pringles, which is quite important. Also I have an Al Paca woollen hat which when added to a drunken me, apparently makes me look like Johnny Depp's Hunter S. Thompson character from Fear and Loathing, which after the Backstreet Boys-Frodo Baggins incident, is a much more favourable comparison.
Its not even Winter and its close to pitch black at 445pm in the afternoon.
Dave would like Japan, they love punning. Yesterday at my Shougakkou in very limited Japanese I made a "joke" about my name to the secretaries (which in Kanji is 氷 and means Ice) and the fact I was drinking myself which was really quite a dumb joke but when you cant say a hell of a lot you'll take anything, and the secretaries found this extraordinarily funny. A favourite of the japanese is "Futon ga Futonda" which basically means my bed flew away. You dont even have to say it in context, like i did with a Japanese friend where i walked straight up to him and said it, and sent him into fits of hilarity. It was kind of funny the first time i heard it with my host family in Aizu-Wakamatsu when our bed had in fact fallen of the balcony and flew away. Not any more. So Dave, learn Japanese and you will be a comic god here. And with so many Homonym(s) in the language as there is, it would just be too easy.
I actually got full on mobbed yesterday for the first time. Normally at my Shougakkou visits (elementary school) I get a pretty good reception which usually involves generous clapping, en masse jumping for joy, and the obligatory "uuuuuuuuuaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!" when i walk into the room, but after class yesterday one of my students wanted a high five (or "hi-touch" as they are called here) so i responded in kind and that started off some close to deadly chain reaction where they all wanted one so much they were climbing on and over me to get a high five. Its a strange feeling to actually be mobbed by a group of 40 people, maybe some people will never experience it.
Bizarre.
What is more strange is that i get paid more than many public servants in Wellington to sing "head shoulders knees and toes" with 8 year olds in Japan.
I am staying for a second year, and so people must come see me. That includes Tim, because you said.
I can promise you all fun, beer and strange looks. Actually i think back on my first 10 or 15 minutes in Japan and how surreal it was, and my reaction was not actually one of feeling out of place but quite the opposite. Remembering I had not done much travelling involving masses of "strange" looking people, my instinctual reaction to walking through Narita was "what are all these Japanese people doing here? Dont they feel out of place?" and while i knew on a rational level how daft it was for me to be thinking that given that it is their country and I am the strange looking one, it was quite overcoming. Nihon-jin Bakari!!! Actually some drunk japanese guy walked out of a bar recently where about 7 or 8 of us foreigners were gathered outside and all was shocked into pronouncing "uuuuuuuuuaaaaaaaaaa!!! Gaijin Bakari!!" which means "wow, there is nothing but foreigners there". More his genuine god bless him look of suprise that made it funny, and the fact we understood him perfectly also.
uuuuuuuaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!! indeed
Its not even Winter and its close to pitch black at 445pm in the afternoon.
Dave would like Japan, they love punning. Yesterday at my Shougakkou in very limited Japanese I made a "joke" about my name to the secretaries (which in Kanji is 氷 and means Ice) and the fact I was drinking myself which was really quite a dumb joke but when you cant say a hell of a lot you'll take anything, and the secretaries found this extraordinarily funny. A favourite of the japanese is "Futon ga Futonda" which basically means my bed flew away. You dont even have to say it in context, like i did with a Japanese friend where i walked straight up to him and said it, and sent him into fits of hilarity. It was kind of funny the first time i heard it with my host family in Aizu-Wakamatsu when our bed had in fact fallen of the balcony and flew away. Not any more. So Dave, learn Japanese and you will be a comic god here. And with so many Homonym(s) in the language as there is, it would just be too easy.
I actually got full on mobbed yesterday for the first time. Normally at my Shougakkou visits (elementary school) I get a pretty good reception which usually involves generous clapping, en masse jumping for joy, and the obligatory "uuuuuuuuuaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!" when i walk into the room, but after class yesterday one of my students wanted a high five (or "hi-touch" as they are called here) so i responded in kind and that started off some close to deadly chain reaction where they all wanted one so much they were climbing on and over me to get a high five. Its a strange feeling to actually be mobbed by a group of 40 people, maybe some people will never experience it.
Bizarre.
What is more strange is that i get paid more than many public servants in Wellington to sing "head shoulders knees and toes" with 8 year olds in Japan.
I am staying for a second year, and so people must come see me. That includes Tim, because you said.
I can promise you all fun, beer and strange looks. Actually i think back on my first 10 or 15 minutes in Japan and how surreal it was, and my reaction was not actually one of feeling out of place but quite the opposite. Remembering I had not done much travelling involving masses of "strange" looking people, my instinctual reaction to walking through Narita was "what are all these Japanese people doing here? Dont they feel out of place?" and while i knew on a rational level how daft it was for me to be thinking that given that it is their country and I am the strange looking one, it was quite overcoming. Nihon-jin Bakari!!! Actually some drunk japanese guy walked out of a bar recently where about 7 or 8 of us foreigners were gathered outside and all was shocked into pronouncing "uuuuuuuuuaaaaaaaaaa!!! Gaijin Bakari!!" which means "wow, there is nothing but foreigners there". More his genuine god bless him look of suprise that made it funny, and the fact we understood him perfectly also.
uuuuuuuaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!! indeed
Thursday, November 04, 2004
The "Now Impressive Storm"
-Name of my School's festival
Just when you (well actually me) thought things would calm down and enter a period of normalcy, Japan has conspired to ensure that this tale of curiosity is prolonged a little longer (Although in Japan’s defense it might point out the fact that right now I am sitting in the office belting out classic new Zealand pop songs through the straw in my orange juice container, so the burden of peculiarity may well have to be shared between the both of us, but that’s a whole range of other issues….).
So I guess ill start where I left off in the last entry, which is with the football tournament we went to. It was quite a mission to organize, but with some help from some more experienced JETs we managed to get up and running. So with all the organizational exigencies dealt with, we then moved on to worry about the footballing part. Now there is a school of thought that suggests that if you put together a team which has only one practice lead by an extraordinarily hung-over captain, and then later on that night decide team position while engaging in acts of alcoholic debasement, then you are not going to do so well. Based on the weekend’s events, clearly none of us belong to that school, and add to that the use of elegant language throughout the weekend by many of the team; then one would be quite right to wonder whether or not we went to school at all. Now it must be said that for the Fukushima Akabekos this was primarily an exercise in enjoyment. However, that said, no one likes to be smacked all round the park in the same way that a dog treats its brand new steak flavoured play toy. Thus sending a team to a tournament of indeterminable quality with players, who had barely played outdoor football before, and where those of us who have played had not played for years, was a small matter of concern. However, as it turned out, the tournament was compromised of roughly half teams which took the game so seriously you would think they suffered from some sort of otherwise unspecified inadequacy, and half teams who were there to have fun, both on and off the pitch.
Now by some unimaginable stroke of awesomeness on our part, we not only managed to compete, but finished in the top 8. We were only prevented from going further in the tournament by the worst footballing decision since Maradona’s hand of god goal back in the 80’s, and (with not hint of exaggeration) perhaps more crucial. Thinking back on it now, I think it was probably the worst decision since someone decided that an 8.30am start time for work was a good idea. Unfortunately the game was decided by a terrible call by the opposition’s linesman who took his flag down on an easy four metre offside call when he realized his team was going to score. Not cool, and to add insult to injury the guy had a designer ginger beard. I mean “COME ON”, I am sure even he cant take himself seriously .And that the referee took him seriously at all is only explained by the fact that he had apparently consumed a whole bottle of whiskey the night before in the presence of some of our supporters. Poor bugger (the ref, not the linesman, no love lost there I am afraid). Either way at the end everyone had given their best and there were no real reservations, and we left the tournament safely confident that with a few more practices, something resembling a passing game, and linesman who don’t suffer from any illusions about how gormless certain types of facial hair styles make them look, then we would have really done some damage. Fun.
So after this little bit of sporting escapism it was back to work, and I moved on to my second school, imaginatively named “3rd Junior High School”. Things in Japan tend to be named either in this somewhat lackluster fashion or in the more familiar nonsensical “Bikkuri Donkey” sort of way. Actually, the “Surprised Donkey” is quite a decent place to eat at, if you are ever in the area. This school is my biggest one and with 18 classes I had to give all these introductions in a one week period. I had to introduce myself 14 times (ie 14 classes) in three days! Now some of you may well be very surprised, but I am just NOT THAT INTERESTING! Luckily I decided to bring my laptop to work and just connected up to some televisions and just played video clips with the all blacks, the haka and jet boating and a variety of other things, which managed to ward off insanity for the time being. For the most part this school visit was pretty straight laced aside from the usual god like adulation I receive (which much to my surprise you do get a little over), but I did have one unusual lunch experience. So basically I hate Mushrooms (Kinoko). It’s not so much the taste, it’s the feeling of being morally violated whenever they touch the insides of my mouth that troubles me. I am not sure quite how to explain it, but it’s probably similar to the feeling of an insect flying into your mouth while cycling, but somehow this time you KNEW that only a few moments before this particular insect had just witnessed Madonna’s latest work/attempt at being cool/relevant/not crappy. Yes, just THAT horrible.
So anyway, basically I had one lunch which had both Natto and Kinoko. Natto are these fermenting beans which apparently no foreigners can eat. Except for me it seems. Actually I do know quite a few others who can, but the Japanese refuse to believe it unless they see it with their own eyes. Now, Natto is okay, it is definitely not my favourite thing in the world, I wouldn’t buy it from the supermarket myself, but I can eat it. Kinoko on the other hand are a staple in most Japanese dishes, and I just pick them out, which doesn’t bother me too much, but the basic point is that the Japanese seem to imagine that Kinoko are inherently normal and Natto on the other hand are conceptually awful even if many Japanese like them. So when I nonchalantly disposed of my Natto and left a big pile of Kinoko on the side of my plate, this was big. So big, that somehow in the 30 second walk between the classroom where I ate lunch and when I got back the staff room, my peculiarity had somehow preceded me. I sat down and one of my teachers exclaimed “why Koori-sensei, you are a very strange man, you can eat Natto but you can not eat Kinoko. Bikkuri ne! (Suprising!)”. Meanwhile, I am thinking “What? How? Nan de!?” I am still stumped as to how this happened.
This next thing is not really that humorous but more an exposition of how stupid I have become since I have left New Zealand. You see, at my third school, after more introductions, we also had the students introduce themselves in English to me, which usually goes something like “I am “nani”, My birthday is “nani” I like “nani”” which is all very interesting. Really. But on one particularly day and at one particular school, I had quite a few students tell me that “I don’t like Greenpeace”. Now I, for a variety of reasons am not Greenpeace’s biggest fan either, but it did strike me a little odd that 12 year old kids had such strong ideological convictions about a prominent international NGO. Furthermore, why today? Why this school? Alas, however, it was not Greenpeace that they were so deathly afraid of I foolishly found out later. No, much to my disappointment, they merely didn’t like “Green Peas”. But in my defense, I did check one kids spelling of green peas and it indeed was written “green peace” but I guess since they were consulting their dictionaries, and that they have enough trouble phonetically distinguishing between “Crap” and “Clap” and even better “Sit” and “Shit”, then I guess “peas” and “peace” would really be asking too much. Koori-San wa Baka desu ne! Oh how stupid I am indeed.
Oh, and I might well be living out the impossible dream. That’s right; I might be working for the Yakuza, and only after three months here too. No, not the Japanese government (sic) rather, I have taken on some “part time work” for one of the local English language centres and according to previous JETs, while legitimate in its own right, it also does money laundering for the local Yakuza. So far all my assignments are English language based, but any day soon I think they might come to me with something with a little bit of “added responsibility”. Seriously however, it all seems above board from what I can tell.
That said I did get hooked up with one job which is just super sweet. I have fortnightly language conversation appointments with this neurosurgeon from Tokyo, who does weekend “welfare” work in Fukushima-shi. So for the most part his vocabulary and grammar are sufficient, he just wanted to refine his listening and speaking skills, and indeed after meeting him, that seemed quite reasonable as he spoke English with some strange French-Japanese accent. Now not only was he paying me US$70 for a two hour conversation, but it was over dinner at an expensive French restaurant with wine and beer thrown in for good measure. Between dinner, alcohol and “payment for services rendered” he spent well over US$200 for the privilege of my company. Now, some of you might be saying “Corey, you naïve young man, that’s called a ‘date’” I assure you it is not. I checked and he is divorced and currently dating a 24 year old girl. That’s all the proof I need, because basically I am quite enjoying being a well paid food, wine and conversation prostitute. I also now have a sweet place to crash in Tokyo and my own guide of the city. Goodness.
Other happenings of note are the Earthquakes. Now to alleviate all your suffocating CONCERN, I am okay. The earthquakes kicked the ass out of the next prefecture, Niigata, and apparently were a rockin’ good time here also. Problem is, I didn’t notice. You see we had Halloween parties on in Koriyama to the south of Fu-shi and as with normal practice we waited for the first train morning train back home, which means we arrive home at about 7am or so. Needless to say I was tired, and went to bed and didn’t wake up until after 6pm and slept through every single one. Whoops. Also strange, is going to bed in brilliant sunlight and waking up in the pitch black dark, for the record. Perhaps my favourite part of this particular weekend was the Halloween costume. Dave and I in a moment of moribundly inspired genius decided that we would go as “Traffic Directors”. Why this is important is because in Japan, with an unemployment rate higher than New Zealand, with extremely high costs of living, and no welfare system to speak of, has to give people jobs simply for the sake of it. These traffic director guys are basically where it’s at as far as occupational padding goes.
Bear in mind when I say this it is one of those situations where truth is stranger than fiction and does not require any satirical nuance to make it seem remarkable, but basically I have seen more than one occasion when they had two of these guys for something like a 10 park car lot. Even at night. Even when the cars sit there all day and don’t move. Even when they (don’t) realize that something must be so very wrong with their country for such a situation to not only occur, but to occur with some sort of regularity.
Now in a tribute to this stoic pillar of Japanese irrationality, Dave and I decided to go as one of these guys. First problem was to get the uniforms. “There is not just going to be a place which justs sells these uniforms is there” someone said. “Someone” was wrong. It even had an English name “Workman” that we could have looked up in the phonebook. Workman, was a veritable mecca of Japanese blue collar apparel. And so it was to be our destiny. The costumes went down pretty well at the parties, as people were similarly surprised at both our fantastically creative lack of imagination and the ease of procurement. Furthermore, we had a big flashing orange glow stick which was perfect for a dance party. I also appreciated later on in the night, when I was sitting near a dance board and one such dart flew off the board and hit me in the head. Good old hard hat. Could have happened at any other party sans hard hat, but alas, I was protected by the good graces of the traffic directing gods.
Perhaps the best part however, was the trip down. Knowing we wouldn’t have a place to stay, we dispensed with any thought of bringing a change of clothes, so, we basically went down in costume. Now imagine Dave (any Dave really if it helps) and I, sitting on a train full of suited Japanese business men, hip-hop styling Japanese teenagers, and as usual immaculately dressed Japanese women, in said costume, which consisted of a big white hard hat, blue matching pants and jacket, a fluorescent white vest, and a large flashing orange traffic director stick. Did I also mention that we are foreigners??? I have seen the Japanese confused many times since I came here, especially when it comes to gaijin, but no more so than that night. I mean really, what sort of traffic directing emergency would not only require the government enlisting the help of people from another city, but enlisting the help of foreigners! Was Japan, fulfilling all their latent fears, actually finally “over”?
Even better was when we jumped on the train at 6am dressed the same way, and got off wading through the masses of suited salary men going to work at 7am on Saturday morning, looking a little worse for wear. Unsurprisingly got some very dirty looks from the real traffic directing people, who probably thought that we were going to take their jobs or something, but if things got so bad that I had to work as a traffic director in Japan, then I would probably start to think that I had made some very, very, very bad choices in life. Seriously. Actually we weren’t too sure if “impersonating a traffic director” was a statutory crime or not, as while conventional logic suggests not, these guys are a heroic icon here. I mean they probably are the closest thing Japan has to modern day Samurai, in terms of their values and commitment to an otherwise thankless job. And there is always the possibility that they know something you don’t, especially since they always seem to be so damn happy. Inspirational, really.
Oh, and apparently I was wrong, the Japanese CAN tell the difference between white and black people. Sartre and I were sitting in our tiny local Gyoza place with the friendly Japanese girl, who speaks English with a thick Australian accent, and some drunk old Japanese ladies came down the stairs and walk past the Gyoza counter and one of the old ladies says in a big loud voice while pointing at us “Kokujin desu!” Sartre and I both know enough Japanese to know exactly what that meant and turned around abruptly. She had just said “It’s a black person”. And pointed. The funny thing is, after a moment of shock we just laughed. The lady even knew that we understood and still kept pointing and laughing and then the group of them started practicing their English with us, which consisted of “It a pen” over and over again. “It’s a pen”, really was the extent of their English, so after that thoroughly insightful analysis, they decided to leave. Funny, funny, funny. Problem is, as terrible as it is; such xenophobia is hard to take seriously, whether you are white or black, because first of all they are not only unashamed of it and don’t hide it, they seem to not genuinely mean harm. Its not the ideal context for race relations to develop in granted, but for the time being such attention, at least for us as a genuine minority, is a double edged sword.
So anything of interest going on in my personal life? No, not really, and for now that is quite okay by me. Basically, I get homesick one day a week, get over it, and go about normal life, as normal as it can be here. Given that back home I would probably have two crappy days a week as it is, this is actually an improvement. I do miss grass (like, on the ground), fish and chips on the beach, and not having my every mistake somehow being taken as representative of not only my country, but the whole of Western civilization, but you get over that pretty quickly. It’s funny when someone asks you what you had for dinner last night and you just happened to have fast food from one of the Western franchises of ill repute, and they take it as meaning that you not only cannot cook, but have Western style fast foods every night. I mean, I have only had Western style fast food twice here, which is definitely less than the average Japanese person, and much much less than the average person of my age group. It’s a pain when it thereafter goes around and people are then viciously surprised when you can cook noodles, which involve, dare I say it, the difficult task of boiling water. Whenever that happens I now systematically just tell them that New Zealand men would never get a wife if they couldn’t cook, that we eat tofu and rice quite regularly, we on average eat much spicier food than them, and that our prime minister is a woman as well as our top CEO. This usually gets the message across, I am not sure what the message really is, but it suits my purposes. I have even taken to smiling at people who walk past me in the supermarket and stop dead still to look into my shopping basket to see what I have bought. I even sometimes offer up my basket for them to look closer. Sometimes they take me up on the offer, which is a little odd. So as you can see, even for someone as formerly introverted as I was, you get used to the attention.
Oh the joy.
I would also like you all to keep me up to date with all the latest movies of goodness, fashion trends and music that is popular (even if its not that good) as I feel that when I come back someday, it will be strange enough when I randomly blurt out Japanese words, idioms and bodily expressions (seriously, I have even started bowing at foreigners here, which is actually quite dumb) let alone not even know what or who is kind of “in” as well as everything else relevant like.
Damn, six am start tomorrow. For those that haven’t, don’t ever leave university. Stupid ‘serious’ job.
Just when you (well actually me) thought things would calm down and enter a period of normalcy, Japan has conspired to ensure that this tale of curiosity is prolonged a little longer (Although in Japan’s defense it might point out the fact that right now I am sitting in the office belting out classic new Zealand pop songs through the straw in my orange juice container, so the burden of peculiarity may well have to be shared between the both of us, but that’s a whole range of other issues….).
So I guess ill start where I left off in the last entry, which is with the football tournament we went to. It was quite a mission to organize, but with some help from some more experienced JETs we managed to get up and running. So with all the organizational exigencies dealt with, we then moved on to worry about the footballing part. Now there is a school of thought that suggests that if you put together a team which has only one practice lead by an extraordinarily hung-over captain, and then later on that night decide team position while engaging in acts of alcoholic debasement, then you are not going to do so well. Based on the weekend’s events, clearly none of us belong to that school, and add to that the use of elegant language throughout the weekend by many of the team; then one would be quite right to wonder whether or not we went to school at all. Now it must be said that for the Fukushima Akabekos this was primarily an exercise in enjoyment. However, that said, no one likes to be smacked all round the park in the same way that a dog treats its brand new steak flavoured play toy. Thus sending a team to a tournament of indeterminable quality with players, who had barely played outdoor football before, and where those of us who have played had not played for years, was a small matter of concern. However, as it turned out, the tournament was compromised of roughly half teams which took the game so seriously you would think they suffered from some sort of otherwise unspecified inadequacy, and half teams who were there to have fun, both on and off the pitch.
Now by some unimaginable stroke of awesomeness on our part, we not only managed to compete, but finished in the top 8. We were only prevented from going further in the tournament by the worst footballing decision since Maradona’s hand of god goal back in the 80’s, and (with not hint of exaggeration) perhaps more crucial. Thinking back on it now, I think it was probably the worst decision since someone decided that an 8.30am start time for work was a good idea. Unfortunately the game was decided by a terrible call by the opposition’s linesman who took his flag down on an easy four metre offside call when he realized his team was going to score. Not cool, and to add insult to injury the guy had a designer ginger beard. I mean “COME ON”, I am sure even he cant take himself seriously .And that the referee took him seriously at all is only explained by the fact that he had apparently consumed a whole bottle of whiskey the night before in the presence of some of our supporters. Poor bugger (the ref, not the linesman, no love lost there I am afraid). Either way at the end everyone had given their best and there were no real reservations, and we left the tournament safely confident that with a few more practices, something resembling a passing game, and linesman who don’t suffer from any illusions about how gormless certain types of facial hair styles make them look, then we would have really done some damage. Fun.
So after this little bit of sporting escapism it was back to work, and I moved on to my second school, imaginatively named “3rd Junior High School”. Things in Japan tend to be named either in this somewhat lackluster fashion or in the more familiar nonsensical “Bikkuri Donkey” sort of way. Actually, the “Surprised Donkey” is quite a decent place to eat at, if you are ever in the area. This school is my biggest one and with 18 classes I had to give all these introductions in a one week period. I had to introduce myself 14 times (ie 14 classes) in three days! Now some of you may well be very surprised, but I am just NOT THAT INTERESTING! Luckily I decided to bring my laptop to work and just connected up to some televisions and just played video clips with the all blacks, the haka and jet boating and a variety of other things, which managed to ward off insanity for the time being. For the most part this school visit was pretty straight laced aside from the usual god like adulation I receive (which much to my surprise you do get a little over), but I did have one unusual lunch experience. So basically I hate Mushrooms (Kinoko). It’s not so much the taste, it’s the feeling of being morally violated whenever they touch the insides of my mouth that troubles me. I am not sure quite how to explain it, but it’s probably similar to the feeling of an insect flying into your mouth while cycling, but somehow this time you KNEW that only a few moments before this particular insect had just witnessed Madonna’s latest work/attempt at being cool/relevant/not crappy. Yes, just THAT horrible.
So anyway, basically I had one lunch which had both Natto and Kinoko. Natto are these fermenting beans which apparently no foreigners can eat. Except for me it seems. Actually I do know quite a few others who can, but the Japanese refuse to believe it unless they see it with their own eyes. Now, Natto is okay, it is definitely not my favourite thing in the world, I wouldn’t buy it from the supermarket myself, but I can eat it. Kinoko on the other hand are a staple in most Japanese dishes, and I just pick them out, which doesn’t bother me too much, but the basic point is that the Japanese seem to imagine that Kinoko are inherently normal and Natto on the other hand are conceptually awful even if many Japanese like them. So when I nonchalantly disposed of my Natto and left a big pile of Kinoko on the side of my plate, this was big. So big, that somehow in the 30 second walk between the classroom where I ate lunch and when I got back the staff room, my peculiarity had somehow preceded me. I sat down and one of my teachers exclaimed “why Koori-sensei, you are a very strange man, you can eat Natto but you can not eat Kinoko. Bikkuri ne! (Suprising!)”. Meanwhile, I am thinking “What? How? Nan de!?” I am still stumped as to how this happened.
This next thing is not really that humorous but more an exposition of how stupid I have become since I have left New Zealand. You see, at my third school, after more introductions, we also had the students introduce themselves in English to me, which usually goes something like “I am “nani”, My birthday is “nani” I like “nani”” which is all very interesting. Really. But on one particularly day and at one particular school, I had quite a few students tell me that “I don’t like Greenpeace”. Now I, for a variety of reasons am not Greenpeace’s biggest fan either, but it did strike me a little odd that 12 year old kids had such strong ideological convictions about a prominent international NGO. Furthermore, why today? Why this school? Alas, however, it was not Greenpeace that they were so deathly afraid of I foolishly found out later. No, much to my disappointment, they merely didn’t like “Green Peas”. But in my defense, I did check one kids spelling of green peas and it indeed was written “green peace” but I guess since they were consulting their dictionaries, and that they have enough trouble phonetically distinguishing between “Crap” and “Clap” and even better “Sit” and “Shit”, then I guess “peas” and “peace” would really be asking too much. Koori-San wa Baka desu ne! Oh how stupid I am indeed.
Oh, and I might well be living out the impossible dream. That’s right; I might be working for the Yakuza, and only after three months here too. No, not the Japanese government (sic) rather, I have taken on some “part time work” for one of the local English language centres and according to previous JETs, while legitimate in its own right, it also does money laundering for the local Yakuza. So far all my assignments are English language based, but any day soon I think they might come to me with something with a little bit of “added responsibility”. Seriously however, it all seems above board from what I can tell.
That said I did get hooked up with one job which is just super sweet. I have fortnightly language conversation appointments with this neurosurgeon from Tokyo, who does weekend “welfare” work in Fukushima-shi. So for the most part his vocabulary and grammar are sufficient, he just wanted to refine his listening and speaking skills, and indeed after meeting him, that seemed quite reasonable as he spoke English with some strange French-Japanese accent. Now not only was he paying me US$70 for a two hour conversation, but it was over dinner at an expensive French restaurant with wine and beer thrown in for good measure. Between dinner, alcohol and “payment for services rendered” he spent well over US$200 for the privilege of my company. Now, some of you might be saying “Corey, you naïve young man, that’s called a ‘date’” I assure you it is not. I checked and he is divorced and currently dating a 24 year old girl. That’s all the proof I need, because basically I am quite enjoying being a well paid food, wine and conversation prostitute. I also now have a sweet place to crash in Tokyo and my own guide of the city. Goodness.
Other happenings of note are the Earthquakes. Now to alleviate all your suffocating CONCERN, I am okay. The earthquakes kicked the ass out of the next prefecture, Niigata, and apparently were a rockin’ good time here also. Problem is, I didn’t notice. You see we had Halloween parties on in Koriyama to the south of Fu-shi and as with normal practice we waited for the first train morning train back home, which means we arrive home at about 7am or so. Needless to say I was tired, and went to bed and didn’t wake up until after 6pm and slept through every single one. Whoops. Also strange, is going to bed in brilliant sunlight and waking up in the pitch black dark, for the record. Perhaps my favourite part of this particular weekend was the Halloween costume. Dave and I in a moment of moribundly inspired genius decided that we would go as “Traffic Directors”. Why this is important is because in Japan, with an unemployment rate higher than New Zealand, with extremely high costs of living, and no welfare system to speak of, has to give people jobs simply for the sake of it. These traffic director guys are basically where it’s at as far as occupational padding goes.
Bear in mind when I say this it is one of those situations where truth is stranger than fiction and does not require any satirical nuance to make it seem remarkable, but basically I have seen more than one occasion when they had two of these guys for something like a 10 park car lot. Even at night. Even when the cars sit there all day and don’t move. Even when they (don’t) realize that something must be so very wrong with their country for such a situation to not only occur, but to occur with some sort of regularity.
Now in a tribute to this stoic pillar of Japanese irrationality, Dave and I decided to go as one of these guys. First problem was to get the uniforms. “There is not just going to be a place which justs sells these uniforms is there” someone said. “Someone” was wrong. It even had an English name “Workman” that we could have looked up in the phonebook. Workman, was a veritable mecca of Japanese blue collar apparel. And so it was to be our destiny. The costumes went down pretty well at the parties, as people were similarly surprised at both our fantastically creative lack of imagination and the ease of procurement. Furthermore, we had a big flashing orange glow stick which was perfect for a dance party. I also appreciated later on in the night, when I was sitting near a dance board and one such dart flew off the board and hit me in the head. Good old hard hat. Could have happened at any other party sans hard hat, but alas, I was protected by the good graces of the traffic directing gods.
Perhaps the best part however, was the trip down. Knowing we wouldn’t have a place to stay, we dispensed with any thought of bringing a change of clothes, so, we basically went down in costume. Now imagine Dave (any Dave really if it helps) and I, sitting on a train full of suited Japanese business men, hip-hop styling Japanese teenagers, and as usual immaculately dressed Japanese women, in said costume, which consisted of a big white hard hat, blue matching pants and jacket, a fluorescent white vest, and a large flashing orange traffic director stick. Did I also mention that we are foreigners??? I have seen the Japanese confused many times since I came here, especially when it comes to gaijin, but no more so than that night. I mean really, what sort of traffic directing emergency would not only require the government enlisting the help of people from another city, but enlisting the help of foreigners! Was Japan, fulfilling all their latent fears, actually finally “over”?
Even better was when we jumped on the train at 6am dressed the same way, and got off wading through the masses of suited salary men going to work at 7am on Saturday morning, looking a little worse for wear. Unsurprisingly got some very dirty looks from the real traffic directing people, who probably thought that we were going to take their jobs or something, but if things got so bad that I had to work as a traffic director in Japan, then I would probably start to think that I had made some very, very, very bad choices in life. Seriously. Actually we weren’t too sure if “impersonating a traffic director” was a statutory crime or not, as while conventional logic suggests not, these guys are a heroic icon here. I mean they probably are the closest thing Japan has to modern day Samurai, in terms of their values and commitment to an otherwise thankless job. And there is always the possibility that they know something you don’t, especially since they always seem to be so damn happy. Inspirational, really.
Oh, and apparently I was wrong, the Japanese CAN tell the difference between white and black people. Sartre and I were sitting in our tiny local Gyoza place with the friendly Japanese girl, who speaks English with a thick Australian accent, and some drunk old Japanese ladies came down the stairs and walk past the Gyoza counter and one of the old ladies says in a big loud voice while pointing at us “Kokujin desu!” Sartre and I both know enough Japanese to know exactly what that meant and turned around abruptly. She had just said “It’s a black person”. And pointed. The funny thing is, after a moment of shock we just laughed. The lady even knew that we understood and still kept pointing and laughing and then the group of them started practicing their English with us, which consisted of “It a pen” over and over again. “It’s a pen”, really was the extent of their English, so after that thoroughly insightful analysis, they decided to leave. Funny, funny, funny. Problem is, as terrible as it is; such xenophobia is hard to take seriously, whether you are white or black, because first of all they are not only unashamed of it and don’t hide it, they seem to not genuinely mean harm. Its not the ideal context for race relations to develop in granted, but for the time being such attention, at least for us as a genuine minority, is a double edged sword.
So anything of interest going on in my personal life? No, not really, and for now that is quite okay by me. Basically, I get homesick one day a week, get over it, and go about normal life, as normal as it can be here. Given that back home I would probably have two crappy days a week as it is, this is actually an improvement. I do miss grass (like, on the ground), fish and chips on the beach, and not having my every mistake somehow being taken as representative of not only my country, but the whole of Western civilization, but you get over that pretty quickly. It’s funny when someone asks you what you had for dinner last night and you just happened to have fast food from one of the Western franchises of ill repute, and they take it as meaning that you not only cannot cook, but have Western style fast foods every night. I mean, I have only had Western style fast food twice here, which is definitely less than the average Japanese person, and much much less than the average person of my age group. It’s a pain when it thereafter goes around and people are then viciously surprised when you can cook noodles, which involve, dare I say it, the difficult task of boiling water. Whenever that happens I now systematically just tell them that New Zealand men would never get a wife if they couldn’t cook, that we eat tofu and rice quite regularly, we on average eat much spicier food than them, and that our prime minister is a woman as well as our top CEO. This usually gets the message across, I am not sure what the message really is, but it suits my purposes. I have even taken to smiling at people who walk past me in the supermarket and stop dead still to look into my shopping basket to see what I have bought. I even sometimes offer up my basket for them to look closer. Sometimes they take me up on the offer, which is a little odd. So as you can see, even for someone as formerly introverted as I was, you get used to the attention.
Oh the joy.
I would also like you all to keep me up to date with all the latest movies of goodness, fashion trends and music that is popular (even if its not that good) as I feel that when I come back someday, it will be strange enough when I randomly blurt out Japanese words, idioms and bodily expressions (seriously, I have even started bowing at foreigners here, which is actually quite dumb) let alone not even know what or who is kind of “in” as well as everything else relevant like.
Damn, six am start tomorrow. For those that haven’t, don’t ever leave university. Stupid ‘serious’ job.
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