Green Car ticket

Love Hotels

2008-02-20T01:27:00.000-08:00

On the outskirts of every business district near every train station in every city in Japan, in the heart of every red-light district, clustered in alleyways, lining dirty riverwalks, you can find love hotels. They are, at their most basic, places that young Japanese people go to have sex with each other.
It works like this- young Japanese people don't traditionally leave the family home until they get married. And though this number is steadily plummeting, a solid percentage of adults between the ages 21-35 still live at home: lets say 20%-35%. On top of that, Japanese people are much more willing to commit to a grueling commute, sometimes upwards of three hours, in order to keep a steady job while living at home. (If you wonder why they don't just get apartments, I know at least two family men in my town whose work pays them to commute, but refuses to spring for room and board, though the prices are comparable.)
As if this weren't enough, several quirks of Japanese culture regularly meet to encourage, of all things, cheating, from both sexes. First of all, though the Japanese consider themselves overwhelmingly Buddhist (over 90% in surveys, when asked to choose a religion), a similarly overwhelming percentage- about 80%- consider themselves agnostic. The long and short of it is that religion is for feastdays. Its a cultural celebration, not a personal one. This means that young Japanese grow up by and large without a strong aversion to premarital sex, and without a firm sense of monogamy's benefits. Another quirk is the continued disenfranchisement of Japanese women. Young wives are under real pressure to stay home, cook, clean, and raise the children. Domestic abuse often gets a blind eye, even from the police. This means that men, often alpha males, are free to cheat on their wives, who fear repercussion. You can imagine that this type of abuse encourages a lot of loveless marriages, a remnant of the old 'arranged marriage' system.
I once read a testimony by a Japanese author that to become a widow was 'the happiest time of a woman's life'. She no longer had to take care of a family or wait on a helpess man. Having 'performed her duty', she was vindicated from social pressure, and had access to her dead husband's money to use as she would. More often than not in the last few decades, that inheritance has translated to a big deal- most men would stay on the clock at the office, working double, triple shifts rather than come home to their families. A social policy which, of course, encouraged the use of love hotels. You meet your lover at the hotel after work, far from the prying eyes of home, then write it off to a long day at the office, or a drinking party afterwards. Its rough to read, but its the truth in thousands of cases.
Having gone through this brief psychological history, you might think that love hotels are seedy places where gangsters turn dirty cash and the occasional body floats up. Some of them are. But in typical Japanese fashion, the love hotel has basked in 'fad' status for a long time. Some are palaces- Indian palaces, Chinese palaces, European castles. Some are done after cozy American-style log cabins. Still others show a myriad of themes- there are 'dungeon' hotels, 'heaven' hotels, 'video game' and 'cosplay' hotels. There's even a 'Hello Kitty'-themed love hotel somewhere deep in the heart of Tokyo. On the inside, however, your typical hotel has a similar layout- an eyehole-sized box where you rent a room from the well-protected (and well-hidden ) proprietor, an elevator, and what might be the world's most expensive vending machine, featuring Louis Vitton handbags, designer perfumes, and gift cards to top-class boutiques: as a 'gift to your companion'. She will, unswervingly, return the gift to her pimp, who gives her a small percentage, and feeds the rest up to his bosses, through the vending machine.
So by and large, your typical love hotel visitor is accompanied by there lover, or a lady of the night, and they've come for a specific purpose. But as a foreigner traveling on the fly, I've learned that a love hotel, in an emergency is a useful alternative to a regular hotel- its always clean, spacious, comfortable. I'd recommend it to anyone dangerously short of lodging while on a Japanese tour. One word of warning is the price- about twice as much as a typical business hotel. This is a yakuza (Japanese gangster) enterprise, for the most part, and they know how to value their services (more on them later).
So the love hotel ranges from the extremely cute to the extremely sleazy (don't worry, its very easy to tell which is which). There are as many different types of hotel as there are subcultures in Japan: and there are plenty. But we can be sure of two things- one, that they are completely pervasive. Every city, large town, red-light district, waterfront walk, and business fringe is coated in love hotels. And the next is that, though the may not have (as Wittgenstein thought) 'meaning in themselves', they are being visited.
Man, its tough to end an article like this! Hope you all enjoyed my return. Let me know what you thought in the comments below. Not enough information? Too much? Not vivid or interesting enough? Too much of both?

All my best,
Alex

Trees

2007-12-05T03:21:00.002-08:00

Winter got its foot in the door sometime after lunch yesterday, without my seeing. I've had my eye open for snow for a few weeks now, and its just like the season to sneak in just when you put your guard down. My students have been able to talk about little else since the big event, while the teachers haven't been able to do much but grumble about the cold. I began to get the feeling that the flurry was getting blown out of proportion, or even that perhaps a cluster of white confetti had blown by overhead, and a student or two had confused it for the real stuff.
So I set off on my own to discover the truth behind the rumors. I went up the mountain after school, along the wide forestry road that leads the way past the old castle ruins (Jinsekikogen was once the county seat, 600 years ago) and up to the observation deck at the summit. I passed through the natural forest cover- made up mostly of spruce and birch, maple, cherry, dogwood, and a thousand broad-leaf varieties that I cannot name, tangled with hydrangea. The leaves had come off every tree but the cedar, which hold tenaciously on to their thick, technicolor beards long after the color fades. No snow under these sticks.
When I did find the evidence itself, it was in the thick dark of the sugi farms- vast tracts of Japanese cedar. Now, cedar here has pretty much the same characteristics as the cedar I spent my childhood uprooting (woe is me) with my grandfather, at his ranch in the hill country. It grows like a weed, its so tough that cows can't eat it, so dense that it chokes out its shade-that's how I found the snow- and its roots are so shallow that it lives nearly everywhere.
And it does, here. But the last official tally, cedar farms (i would imagine must to my grandfather's dismay, rest his soul) had replaced 43% of Japan's natural broadleaf tree cover. The result on every hillside in, say, autumn, is a motley patchwork of lovely autumn cedar display and the dull, dark green vastness of the sugi. In spring, its cherry and sugi. In summer, its hydrangea and sugi. In some town, especially in the dance, semirural farmland around Tokyo and Osaka, the eager weekend packer is likely to be disappointed- 80% of the surrounding forest has been cut to make way for neverending regiments of cedar.
And just because the trees are subsidized doesn't mean they aren't a nuisance. Thirty years ago, the Japanese almost never visited doctors for pollen allergies. Now, 10% of the population suffers. On any given workday in any season, one or two employees in every office will clock in wearing a mask, and while some are trying to prevent contracting or spreading a cold, its just as likely that their allergies have flared up. There is a even a growing cottage industry here for the design of fashionable hospital masks, for people with colds and allergy sufferers.
Its gets worse. Since the rise of prefab, fiberglass housing, and since Southeast Asian market opened up, lumber prices have been falling steadily, every year for thirty years. Timber now accounts for less than 1% of the total Japanese GNP. The Forestry Department is 3.5 trillion yen in debt (that's about 35 billion US), and its reduced its workforce from 89,000 in the mid sixties to 7,000 at the turn of the millenium. The government expected the local mountain dwellers to trim and cut the local trees, for their own profit. Now, no one wants to do the tough work required to maintain and harvest the farms.
So instead of passing resolution to diversify the forest cover, or emphasize conservation, or redirect the cash flow, the government has spent billions of yen on propaganda campaigns to increase sugi awareness, holding seminars and planting signs in every small town in the country about the maintenance of the local trees. It hasn't worked. Stands of unkempt sugi crowd my town at every border, and new trees are growing up in the cracks.
Part of the problem is that Japan now imports 80% of all its lumber. And while Japan has deforested less than half on its own forest cover- and diligently reforests with cedar- countries like Malaysia have hacked down a whopping 90% of their natural forests for export, replacing only slowly. And for timber sales, Japan is at the top of everyone's list. The lion's share of this precious lumber goes to the creation of a single commodity- disposable chopsticks.
The list goes on and on. Massive forestry roads drink funds and lead nowhere. Shallow sugi roots dry up the soil, causing landslides and 'cedar drought'. Japanese moviemakers have such a difficult time finding virgin scenery in their home country that they are forced to export production to Asia or Canada, where foreigners reap the profit, or else they shoot in bluescreen studios, editing background in later- a cheesy backdrop, to say the least. Tourism to formerly beautiful towns disappeared overnight decades ago, and the undermined villages collapse into poverty.
So does this mean that they Japanese countryside is doomed to live out a slow, deep-green postapocalypse? Not quite yet. A series of recent studies have shown that several towns with significant natural treecover have fought off poverty with the forest's help- by hunting rabbit, deer, and boar, harvesting rare and expensive mushrooms (like matsutake, the mushroom king, which can fetch a hundred dollars for a single cap), encouraging tourism, and collecting wild fruits and herbs. A few enterprising yokels have even made unlikely fortunes off their mountains- a pair of grandmothers made a post-retirement million by harvesting, packaging, and distributing decorative maples and bamboo leaves to high-class restaurants. Several artists, including one old man down the street from me, make a steady living as artists in raw hardwood.
While the government has yet to act on this evidence, in 2004 it passed a New National Forestry Plan, which recognizes the importance of broadleaf for Japanese physical, social, and economic health. It has designated 44 farms and special 'testing areas' for broadleaf multiculture to be planted and harvested over the next 30 years. So it will take at least that long to tell know if the program heralds Japan's return to naturalism, or if it is simply meant to pacify the skeptics, buying more time for the Ministry of Finance to get its dead horse up and running again. Until then, the sugi farms will continue to darken my town mountain's soil, and I'll still be able to find snow under its boughs. But I will say this. Even after I returned from my hike, I could easily distinguish my hiking path up the mountainside- its thin line of cherry, maple, and birch was the only color standing out against the monochrome green of Gongen-yama's cedar plantation.

t

2007-12-05T03:21:00.001-08:00

Christmas

2007-11-26T01:17:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving is behind us. This year, my girlfriend and I decided to host a dinner for a few of our closest friends. This soon got out of hand. At the end, we had sixteen people over for a meatless international potluck thanksgiving extravaganza. It went over very well.

Amid the rush, however, we were not at all sure how well it would go over. We tried to find a venue, and settled for her cramped flat- which proved spacious enough. We tried to find a turkey, and got a huddle of cold shoulders. We bought pots and pans, silverware, dinnerware, and tupperware, picnic blankets, and all the fixings for those extras that could survive our kitchen's meatless revolution. I found all of these things at the local mall, Sanyo Diamond City, Fuchu-cho, which has in its folds a foreign foods store, a sweeping 100-yen plaza, a kitchen outfitter, a bakery, and an easily visible 25 meter high smokestack, where at last we gathered a gaggle of our hopelessly lost friends.

So needless to say, I made several dozen rounds that weekend. Each time I walked through the automic glass doors, I met the Diamond City Christmas diorama, a three-story monstrosity replete with giant banners, an enormous, fully decked christmas tree half as large as the smokestack outside, and hundreds of tiny, cute, inflatable Santas. They slid down the banners. They burst burst from the tree's boughs. The rollicked among the presents at its foot. The santas had even taken hold of the Information Booth, and seemed frozen in the act of devouring it, like two dozen cheerful termites.
If I went down the street to the next shopping center, I would have found the same thing. Take the train into the city, and there'll be a giant wreath on the department store across the street. And so on until you hit Sapporo- every shopping mall, every government building, every covered parade is decked out for Christmas. The Japanese have a flair for construction, too, thanks to heavy government subsidies and weighty bribes thrown at the beurocracy to make sure the concrete river flows. So every city is packed with subdivisions of subdivisions of government offices, mega-malls, and department stores all taking part in the holiday spirit. This is a mixed blessing, because even though they can be garish to the extreme, department stores tend to be the only modern Japanese buildings with any flair at all. The rest is a jumbled, zoneless mess of spilled blocks and shapeless townhouses. Here they call them 'mansions.'

So all these department stores tend to draw the evening crowds. Shopping is a bit of a national past-time, so if you've got your money on 'unbridled capitalism' as the culprit for the Christmas craze, you've made a safe bet. Even though we're 5 1/2 centuries past Japan's first Christmas (1552, Yamaguchi-ken, by those darned Jesuits) we can safely rule out religious observance as the cause- shortly after that first mass, Christianity was outlawed by the government, and Christians were met with mortal persecution to the tune of three centuries, until the broad-minded Emperor Meiji unstiffed his collar. And of course foreign religious observances, especially American ones, tightened up again during the war (that's WWII), when Shinto became the national religion.

It wasn't until the 1960's that Japan took Santa in their arms, with an encouraging shove from some American TV dramas getting broadcast at the time. The economy was booming, and appliances, trendy clothes, kids toys, and other pricey consumables were flying off the shelves nationwide. Then a big store in Tokyo- the Japanese version of Macy's- decided to take a cue from their counterpart in New York and turn Christmas into a honking, romping cash cow. 'But how,' they asked themselves, 'will we do that in a nation full of Buddhists?' Simple. They turned Christmas into a holiday for lovers. The Santa seeds- raging Americaphilia and a hearty penchant for mass mobbing- were already in the soil. They just needed a bit of watering. So the big department stores in Tokyo got together and launched a secular holiday lights display, advertised a romantic stroll, and gifts guaranteed to get your sweetheart swooning. From then on, it was Christmas magic.

The 'Christmas is for lovers' campaign isn't without it consequences. Thanks to a penchant for all this cute and plastic, Japan is responsible for some of the tackiest Christmas displays on the planet. The Santa horde I encountered is just one example. I've seen rock gardens in Kyoto mangled with holiday lights, their meticulous curves sacriligiously etched with slapdash tracery. In Northern Fukuyama, the roof of a hospital is adorned, year round, with a sickly green Santa sliding down a fake chimney. You can see it from the highway, half a mile away. Worse still is the Summer Santa Club, a clothing outfitter dedicated exclusively to Santa-themed paraphernalia (I have a suspicion against its Australian origins; regardless, on these shores its fame is unbound).

There is a tenuous hope and a secret fear in the back of every teacher's mind that someday his pupil might outstrip him, and Macy's greatest may have come into its own this year. In an act of incredible hubris and moderate sacrilegion, Hiroshima City's Pacela Department Store has revealed its latest holiday advertising campaign: St. Pacela, replete with a wispy faerie of a mascot posturing as a member of Christianity's most holy committee. This genuinely angered me, a sure sign that all those years of Catholic schooling left their mark. Take that, St. Nick.

And much to the retailers' delight, each holiday season works better than the last. Every salty marketer knows that a whining child has inside him-or-herself the greatest purchasing power in the universe. It was only a matter of time before the kids got in on the Christmas cheer. What more, for the two years I've been here, my elementary school teachers have pressured me into teaching Christmas classes for as much of December as possible. I'm only too happy to oblige, with compromise- two classes only, to make cards, exchange gifts, learn a carol or two, and eat some cookies.

So the commercial holiday in its purest form has taken a foothold in the land of the rising sun. Its toothless, religion-free, and massive in scale- a marketing firm's dream home. Considering the national haste to get the season started, and the fervor with which it practices, you might think the holiday goes on well into January. But its not even a public holiday. On the 27th, all the tinsel comes off the trees, the Santas are all packed away (with the exception of the one on the hospital roof, I think its bolted down), and not a vestige of Christmas is left.

On the same afternoon, a whole new brand of decoration goes up, to celebrate Japan's real National Holiday, New Years Day, OShogatsu. For the most popular holiday in the country, its a subdued affair. Every house in every city meets for an elaborate family meal, then places an odd decoration , called kodamatsu, on its doorstep for the coming week. The kodamatsu is a tradition of uniquely Japanese origin. It began several hundred years ago, during the strange days of Japanese isolation. 'Kodamatsu' translated literally as "The Gate Pine", and every year the family cooperates in its creation- a festive arrangement of bamboo and pine boughs, decked from top to trunk with flashing lights, colorful ornaments, and tinsel.

The Revival

2007-11-26T00:50:00.000-08:00

Dear Everyone,
Sometime last Spring I traded in the hassles and complications of blogging for simpler media- a personal journal. I found I had more time to write in a more soothing fashion that I did here. In short, I found I could keep the journal in my free time at work. The blog quickly became moot.
There was, for several months afterwards, polite protest from those few most interested in my time here. My apologies; I'll have to disappoint you again. The journal is still standing, so a personal account would feel redundant on my end, an uninspiring chore to say the least.
Instead, I have decided to keep here a series of open letters, the topics of which amount to examinations of Japanese culture as my feeble eyes see it. The plan is to release a new letter each Wednesday, every week until I depart.
I'd like to avoid the danger here of thinking that, for every day I've stayed in this country, my perspective on it has become truer. The fact is that every gem of knowledge I get from this place and its people goes in a stockpile invested in my own jade, my defensive bias. When asked by a visitor how long one must stay in Rome to know it well, Pope Paul VI said 'two days, very good. Two weeks, even better. Two years, still not enough.'
More important still will be remembering my audience's own knowledge as I talk about a world more foreign for every glance taken. So I'll end in the grand American style, by making a disclaimer- if I leave out anything you need, just ask. If you want to hear more about some charming detail, clamor for it. And if I overstep my bounds, don't hesitate to call me a fool.
I miss you all dearly, and hope all is well.

Love
Alex

What Have I Been Doing?

2007-04-22T05:31:00.000-07:00

Find out here!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6b-TVYocRU0

There was a film festival tonight. Third place out of twenty movies! I've decided to remove 'The Kancho Kid', our third place winner, for lewd content. Sorry folks!

Alex

2007-03-12T04:47:00.000-07:00

And that's what I get for trying to post for the first time in six weeks after a full day at the Board of Education with nothing to do but study, for six hours. I'll work on getting a real post up here, as soon as I have something nice to say.

Im Typing with One Hand

2007-03-12T02:05:00.000-07:00

We'll see how well that works out for me. See, I broke my arm. And its slowed me down. In the most inconvenient ways. This is where my mom would chime in with her bit about 'learning my lessons, and moving on.' Great advice, to be sure.
For now, I go to the hospital for two hours every morning, during work, for rehabilitation. When I finish, my boss has to drive me to work, or I call a cab, which costs a fortune.
'If you don't have anything nice to say...'

On the other hand, I'm healing quickly.

Long Enough to Lose Some Readers

2007-02-01T00:37:00.000-08:00

My apologies. I'd say I've been busy, but no more than usual- I've just had my head in too many places, and I forgot about the blog.
Let me give you a quick summary, lest you be left forever in the dark: China was a great adventure that lasted far too long. The temples and palaces got diluted in bulk and lost their flavor in that last week, and we were all too tired- Amy, Roo, and I- to get really creative with our time. But I had a stupendous time, I appreciated the challenge, made a few new friends and deepened bonds with the old ones. If you have any burning questions, you can always email me- alex_henri@yahoo.com, which I check more often than I do post here.
So more sporadic updates, and a penchant for procrastination. I'll keep it as steady as I can. Stay tuned!

More Business Trips!

2007-01-27T03:10:00.000-08:00

Hi all,
I just got back from the JET Mid-year conference in Hiroshima- two days of thinly veiled socializing pocked with slideshow presentations. It was great! Before I caught my bus I visited the Museum of Modern Art, where I watched a grotesque Russian parody of the fabled affair between John F. Kennedy and Marylin Monroe. It was crap.
As for the China trip, I'm dragging far behind. Another day goes up today, then starting tomorrow I'll speed up the pace and spare everyone the novella. Read on!

The Second Day

2007-01-21T04:24:00.000-08:00

And a lovely weekend it was. Langurous and exhausting, like running in slow motion on the moon. At one point, I rode a Ferris Wheel.
I've been idly wondering just how specific I should be in describing the events of my trip, and I have the feeling that I will begin with the ultra specific, as everything stood out vividly at the beginning and all the cogs of my head were turning to catch those details I thought fitting to remember. As this is a family site, some content is edited for mundanity.
The three of us woke early on the second day, showered, and shared a breakfast of hot buns bought from a plump vendor down the street- spinach and pork steamed fresh in the usual style. You would never know, sitting in the burget joints and taquieras of America, that half the world luxuriates over various kinds of steamed buns. That morning, so did we.
The plan was tenuous. We would find the Jade Buddha Temple, then find an art gallery, or visit one of several satellite towns sporting different attractions- canals (and as such, gondolas), lakes with ice skating, ancient gardens. That evening we wanted to be back in time for acrobatics, which we missed.
So the first task was to find the bus to the temple. Our Rough Guide was kind enough to name the bus without mapping its route, stating only that we need only wander through Renmin Square to find the stop. Though I could sense an underlying frustration from Amy and Roo, I revelled in the morning walk past dozens of Chinese practicing tai chi in the park. The slow, delibate movements were more than soothing- it felt like each was a conduit for the life of the park, a measure of the vibrance of the morning. We occassionally crossed younger practicioners exercising different forms, some fast and powerful Shaolin, some compusively twisting Ba Gua. Some even practiced weapon forms- an old man with a shaky broadsword barely missed his partner's ear; a muscular youth swung a halberd for a rapt crowd. I couldn't understand Roo and Amy's impatience- this was a classic, though admittedly stereotypical, Chinese scene. We were tourists, who were we to argue against stereotype in the face of such an gift?
We found the bus, and rode it to the Jade Buddha Temple. Monks chanted sutras to minimal music. Pilgrims offered incense and kowtowed to giant statues. Lamas conducted a funeral before an imposing pair of dieties. The Jade Buddha itself weighed tons, with a unexpected, lively color to the stone. Over a couple hours, we had seen the entire complex, and in retrospect it was the template for every other temple we would see- elaborate awnings, smoking incense bins, A bell and drum tower to mark the time. Half the appeal was its novelty, as we would discover after grueling temple runs later in the trip. We had lunch at the temple, though Amy's, um... dietary restrictions kept us out of the famous vegetarian restaraunt.
We took a train to Suzhou that afternoon.
Crowds swarmed the station at Suzhou. Thousands of people wandered off in all directions. I couldn't know what they were there for, we didn't see any of them at the gardens. Later we found out that such hordes were normal, and these people were just coming home from work. We couldn't miss our destination, a giant pagoda north of town. An emperor's mother had it built next door for one reason or another, and its still the second tallest pagoda in the country.
The building itself rose out of a sculptured garden. Climbing the thin wooden steps, you got the impression that they could keep twisting forever past similar floors empty of whatever relics they used to support. The 9th floor balcony was narrow enough to induce vertigo; in the distance we could see one of countless massive housing projects that fuels Shanghai and Nanking with workers.
We had rushed in late in the day, and the park closed on us after an hour. Exhausted, we made it back to the train station only to find tickets sold out until 8 o'clock. We loitered. An old woman dressed in rags thrust her hand out at me, mumbling. She was far from the first beggar we saw, but I gave her some change, enough to buy dinner. But she wouldn't leave, she leaned in front of me and shoved her hand over my book, a couple inches from my face. I turned my pockets out to her. she still wouldn't leave. After five minutes I just got up and walked away.
Again we returned to the hostel exhausted. That would be another trend. The next day we packed our things and caught the train west, to Guilin.

China, Part One

2007-01-16T02:26:00.000-08:00

If you saw a toothy smile peering down from between the clouds a few minutes ago, that was a divine reflection of my 'after hours' English classroom's emptiness. Their absence was so refreshing, so secretly prayed for that only divine intervention could have convinced them all to stay home with their loving families and warm fires. I can take my tie off an hour early tonight.
Now I'm faced with a different dilemma. I've got three weeks worth of adventures to catch everyone up on, and no clue where to start, or what's important, or what will bore you to tears.

Regardless, I think I know where to start.

China Eastern carried me, Roo, and Amy over the ocean on a two-hour flight in which we were the most upsetting passengers on the plane. In other words, all was right with the world. We were mostly twisted on sleep-deprivation, post-customs delirium, and anticipation. Airports are terminally infected with that quiet drunkeness. We all remembered our passports, which were duly stamped upon our arrival in Shanghai. Renminbi filled our pockets in good course on the way to Baggage Claim. (The People's Money invariably sports a dashing picture of Chairman Mao, balding, inspirational, chin plagued with the same mole that rocketed him to power so many decades ago. Some petty change- the stuff worth less than a penny- celebrates the struggles of a few Chinese minorities, all of whom are, I hear, mercilessly oppressed when they aren't being hocked for tourism.) We claimed our baggage and caught a bus.
That doesn't sound right. I shoudl say we caught an overcrowded, overheated, flat-tired junker that sped through the perpetual rush-hour of Shanghai's traffic. It was only later that we would discover that Shanghai Airport is the terminus for the world's fastest train- the Maglev- which reaches a speed of 432 km/h as compared to our bus' 12. You can do the math to see how hard we kicked ourselves, in proportion.
We ditched the bus at the train station and wandered around looking to buy our tickets to our next destination. In the process we were hassled by a sea of hawkers offering cab rides, rickshaw rides, discounted hotels, commissioned porter-they were good for a laugh- and endless incomprehensible suggestions from, I'm sure, the perfectly innocent to beyond lewd or stupid. We got our tickets in a confusion, our heads caught up in the web of strange architecture, senseless city planning, random construction, strange tongues, smells, crowds. We managed to find the subway- perfectly convenient, five starts- to our hotel, which was right down the street from Renmin Square (the people's park- see a theme here?).
Amy screamed and drew us up short before we could get there. She had, in a squeal devoid of irony, sited a Taco Bell, and demanded we eat there, right now. Far be it from me to complain about fajitas. Despite our location thousands of miles away from any country to which fajitas are native, I was curious- even if they cost what we came to call 'Western Prices' (which is anything that costs what it should). Taco Bell turned out to have the trappings of a three-star restaraunt, with snazzy artwork on the walls and scene-specific music playing in the background. So our first meal in China turned out to be Mexican. I strike it from the record. It was delicious, but lets pretend it never happened.
Our hostel was down a small alleyway at the end of another, slightly larger alleyway off of Renmin Square. It turned out to be a cozy courtyard with a slick bar and lounge over a modest koi pond with clean, new rooms, well-kept showers, and an English-speaking staff. Not bad for 6 bucks a night.
By this time, the scope of our friendships were setting into a place. Amy was prone to exagerraiton, so Roo and I took it on ourselves to deflate her. If she wanted sympathy, Roo would give it and I would jibe. If she wanted the bottle she got the rod, like that. Not to say that I'm heartless, just sensible. In turn, Amy met Roo's observations with a merciless edge which found the quarter that it left- none. After a few days I felt a smatter of pity for her as the only girl- not too much- there was no solidarity for her side, her particular brand of senselessness had to hold its own, which it did. Yes, Roo and Amy were dating, but Roo and I shared a vital fraternity that fueled our dynamic as much as their romance. It was, all told, a solid balance despite occassional and wild twisters that could, fable tells, move a house twenty miles and set it down unscathed.
We went to the Bund. Our emotion was pouring through the cracks. We were joking with strangers, causings scenes on subway cars, leapfrogging statues. We wandered down a technicolor tourist trap under the Huangpu to the French Settlement. The banks, towers, hotels, and trading houses of the Bund were a jumbled jungle of Art Deco and half-finished ultra-modern skyscrapers- globes and domes, illuminated cubes, freights bearing nothing but giant high-definition televisions perpetually blasting silent Chinese commercials. It was mad, it was beautiful.
We wandered the strips and parks along the river for hours, played around in the Monument to the Heroes- no run-ins with the People's Army. After sundown, we turned into the city in search of food. This was tricky, as we knew so little about what food would kill us, and what food was safe. After a halfhour of wandering past greasy, mostly empty noodle shops, we stumbled across what looked like a giant, neon temple. It was shaped like a pagoda and decked with christmas lights and dragons, and traditional music blared from within. We all did a jig as this was the place we had unknowingly been seeking, and went inside.
The temple was, as it turns out, a night market. Shopkeepers of all types cajoled customers under carved awnings with sweets and souvenirs, clothes, fake jade, back scratchers, seals carved on site...and dumplings.
In the middle of the market, there was a garden, and in the middle of the garden, there was a dumpling shop, around which a sea of people crowded. It seemed like everyone came to this massive place just for these dumplings, the rest was insubstantial, a gauntlet to be run before the dumplings. For the first and only time, I saw the Chinese form a line, as if the food held a strange power over them.
I was third in line when the kitchen ran out of dumplings. The line still grew. The cook, oblivious, folded new rolls with a professional ease, using chopsticks to press down the tips of the dough in a six pointed star. People grew restless. I was hassled again and again by hawkers, beggars, and conmen. Fifteen minutes passed, then a half hour. There were huge stacks of dumplings steaming on the flat-top. They just sat, barely cooking, never being served. I had a conversation with a old bum sporting a ratty beard. He knew no English. I knew no Chinese. We got on with crude hand signals, and the dumplings still weren't served.
Finally, the cook filled a styrofoam box with dumplling and handed it to the woman in front of me. I got mine- two to be sure- and smothered them in soy sauce. I bit into one. Juice exploded in my mouth, just enough to coat the tongue. The dough was filled with fine crab, tangy, savory, and rich. I can still taste it.
We were exhausted at the end of our first day. We trudged back to the hostel and passed out.

Two Days In

2007-01-15T04:39:00.000-08:00

And busy as ever. I'm coming up on 10 o'clock and still making cutouts of verb dominoes. I like to think that once I have all the materials, teaching won't take up so much time, but I know its not true. Four hours ago my brain was full of stories from Shanghai. Now it is full of mush.
But never fear, you'll get your update, as a matter of personal honor. Soon.

The Day After Next

2006-12-20T06:46:00.000-08:00

Don't worry. I haven't forgotten about you, blog. I think of you in my off minutes, during test-time in class, driving in my car. You're there in my brain attic when I sleep, and sometimes as I eat breakfast I wish I had you open. But when I do get that five minutes to myself every day, I usually sit and stare much too deeply at the lino to remember you exist. Be patient, blog. Someday, I'll have you in my rountine.
Merry Christmas, everyone! I hope all's well in under your glowing trees. I'll spend the holiday in China- I leave in 32 hours- and I'll do my best to get some info back to you as the action happens. A lot of hotels have internet these days, so stay tuned and maybe I can get a post or two in. If not I'll be back January 10th, so check in the 12th for a meaty post to chew on.

Happy Holidays,
Alex

That's Some Fine Miso

2006-12-07T01:37:00.000-08:00

Shichimi rice and miso shiru (egg, tofu, akamiso) for dinner again. Shichimi makes everything tasty. Five classes tomorrow and broke for the weekend.

Sorry, I don't think I can go into the Kyoto trip with the depth it deserves. You should know that not all Australians are considered equal. We met a troop of Sydneyites out for a long weekend who did not relate to our resident Aussie- a 'Westie' named Roo- as well as could be expected. Thankfully they thought he was a wierd as we did, so we ended up getting on regardless.
We visited Kyoumizu in some haste on Thursday night and I spent my Symbolic Thanksgiving (Saturday instead of Thursday) just as the last: sans booze but still fasting (this year 'til sundown) and visiting waterfalls in the countryside. A kind old local kept me from getting any more lost that I had been at the time, which was kind on his part.

I'll do my best to have a crazy exciting trip soon so I can tell you all about it in a prompt and thrilling manner!
I'll make up for this crappy post with pictures!

Lets walk around the table from the right. That's Vince, my South African neighbor. We get on. The coupld along the way are the Yamamoto's, the nicest people I know. Mr. Yamamoto speaks great English, and his wife, well, she really does her best. They're retired, s he was a Japanese teacher, he was a principal. At the end of the table are, well, I don't know who they are to be honest. Next door is Yoko-san, a local gas-station owner who's got a good grasp of the occidental tongue, I think fueled by her taste for occidental men. Its her kitchen, her wine, and her party. Moving on is Dennis an Aussie JET, who teaches in my town but lives in Tojo. Next to him you 'll see a pair of legs cradling a cell phone that belongs to Marshall, who thought taking a picture was a great idea and starting getting his cameraphone ready while I was still taking mine. And the last gaijin there in the corner is Martin. Funny guy, that Martin.
Everyone in this picture is drunk.

Here's Roo in a pair of snazzy earmuffs. This is at maybe three in the morning in an expat bar near downtown Fukuyama. Later that night, I danced the lambada.

Below is Yatsubushi no Taki. This is where I spent my Thanksgiving. Someone said that the script means 'Yatsubushi', but its not Kanji, so who knows what it says. You can see the waterfall itself in the background.

That's about all for now. Why are you still waiting around? Go do something fun.

The Japanese Don't Get Sarcasm

2006-12-04T16:56:00.000-08:00

And I'm a pretty sarcastic guy. Sometimes a friend pitches me a slowball conversation-starter like 'Oh, you can use chopsticks.' I tell them that Yes, I can, I went to chopsticks school for six months before I came so I wouldn't starve to death and they just stare. You can see the total irrationality of my words clashing with some natural urge to take me completely seriously unless I'm doing twirling a cane and walking like a duck.
I know I still haven't told you about the trip to Kyoto. I know you're all twitching in your britches with anticipation. Rest assured, I'll do it when I have time (insert unstable laughter here).
This last week has had me working or travelling until 1130 every night, so that's been...eventful. On the upside, I'm too busy to procrastinate. Its a test week this week, so I get to my free time hunting for new lessons to occupy those Junior High kids until we can foist them off on the local high school, much as a used car salesman might foist a clunky '67 Dart off on the local dunderhead.
I am in fact typing this while I eat, and just a second ago I was about to turn to my supervisor with a gelatinous grey chunk of vegetable and ask 'chotto nani desu ka' (what the heck is this?), then I realized that I know what it is, its a konyaku (devil's-tongue root) , and a local specialty in Toyomatsu. If the blog weren't open in front of me the upgrade from thick-skulled gaijin to local produce expert might have fazed me. If you're wondering, lunch is a herushii mik'usu (healthy mix) of rice, salmon, konbu-wrapped chicken, squid, konyaku, pickled daikon, beef, egg, potato salad, and rice. That's right, I said it twice and you know why.
The set even comes with a little plastic fish that kisses my real fish with soy sauce. Price in dollars? four bucks.
I know that I talk about food a lot. I'm usually eating as I write this. I can also buy drinkable canned corn chowder and vitamin c out of a vending machine near my house. I think I'll stop cooking breakfast.
I went to my first capoeira class last night. There were some wilding Japanese folks who just started practicing on their own at the local civic center one night night. A British JET named Matt did it a bit himself in London and went to check it out, turns out he was the only one with any formal training, so they took him in.
To be honest I went because it was a great idea for a date, but it was a lot of fun regardless.
Infer from that what you will.

I'm Back

2006-11-26T04:31:00.000-08:00

Its hard to have a bad time over four days in the most beautiful city in Japan. That said, I put up a good fight.
I didn't get many great pictures, but I'll give you a rundown when I have some time. For now, I have a platefull of tasks before bed. Lessons, schedules, lists, dishes, laundry.
For now, rest easy in the knowledge that I had an exciting trip, but it was anything but restful.
A few words- I've changed the 'comment' settings so that anyone can now post a comment here on the site. You should know that friends and relatives, including my grandma, will probably see it. So be good.
Also, I've linked an old friend Temsy's Japanese dictionary site there in the taskbar, where she adds fun new Japanese words about every day. She works in Taiwan and she's smart as a chocolate chip. As a warning, she translates some rude words, so be prepared...or just pass it up. Temsy will be heartbroken, but she's a tough gal and she'll get over it. And if you can stomach it then you get to learn what 'chyuu chyuu goro goro' means, and why its a fine way to spend your thursdays.

Love
A

Now They`re on Their Toes

2006-11-21T19:47:00.000-08:00

So I was teaching second grade at Toyomatsu Chu today, a class of 15 with four girls so you know how that goes; they're rowdy but good natured and they pay attention. Somehow, Matsui san and I- both wimps at heart- teach very well what I think is most of the local baseball team, mostly because everyone is so enthusiastic.
So we crack a lot of jokes. Our chemistry plays out mostly as a hypermelodramatized demonstration of the lesson, and the kids take to it with gusto. Like the rest of my coteachers, Matsuisan speaks a lot of Japanese in class, and up until this point it was understood that during those times I would nod and direct attention his way, cutting the occassional wicked gesture.
But the last line of today's practice- a fluffy environmental piece about a young girl who wants to be a tree doctor- went like 'We need to help the trees and forests.'
So I put my hand over my heart and mimicked a steady thump, saying
'oh, thats so sweet!'
Then Matsuisan turns to the class and says with a smile, something like 'alexsensei wa hon no kanojo o daiski ga arimasu,' which means 'Alex has a crush on the girl in the book.'
I look at him. 'Did you just tell the class that I have a crush on the girl in the book?'
Matsuisan looks at me. 'Did you just understand what I said?'
'Most of it, yeah.' Matsui then rattles off an excited string of exclamation to the class, the general gyst of which went 'Oh my God Alex understood me, his Japanese is so great, lets see what else he knows.'
Then we take five minutes while the kids ask me questions in Japanese, and I answer as best I can. I got them all, mostly because they were Japanese versions of the questions I ask them at the beginning of every class.
This is the dawn of a new era, the virtues of which I would happily extol if I didn't have to be at the shogakko in twenty minutes.

Kyoto, for real this time

2006-11-21T01:54:00.000-08:00

You know, most days around one in the afternoon I have some great stuff to tell you about. The trials and rewards of teaching, student quirks, silly things Japanese people do. Usually by the time I get home, it the last thing on my mind.
Tonight, the first thing on my mind is steak, formerly a cow raised maybe half a kilometer away from my house, a distance that might be more accurately set with a phrase like 'just up the hill'.
So I've got the steak as well as rice, which I am supposed to drain before setting to soak for an hour. The rice needs to soak in the droplets that cling to it, apparently. I haven't asked, but if I were Japanese I would have a word for water in just that position. That word would be 'shomeshimizu', or 'small rice water', 小米水 . Will your computer display those characters?
I went to a taiko (drum) festival last weekend in Innoshima. That is in fact the place I took the photo of the octopus below (strange I didn't mention it last week), as well as the hip drum setup you see above. A professional troupe played for a captive audience. What can I say? Hearing is really only the first layer of experience. More viscerally, you feel it in your gut. It was so primal that I wanted to shout, dance, whatever. I kept thinking how cool it would sound from the top of an elephant.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I don't know how many years its been since I've been able to celebrate thanksgiving with my family, but I know that its only been two or three for the last six years now. If you're got a bug chewing on your ear, it's cos I miss you guys. Despite the occidence of the holiday, we celebrate Labor Day over here, to thank the laborers for all their hard work, and I will actually go to Kyoto this time. I've taken Ninkyu (paid holiday) on Friday so I can go get my Visa in Osaka and see the sights there, then Saturday I'll climb those Heavenly Waterfalls and maintain the fast that I set last year through the morning, allowing only water (as compared to last year, when I drank only beer).
Then on Sunday I'll run 2.5 of a 10k marathon with the other Jinseki JET and a couple local English teachers, and we will probably get trounced. That's ok though, as afterwards we'll celebrate (drink) regardless.
Other than that, work is fine, I'm learning a heap of Japanese, I'm crazy busy all the time, and I'm going to China. Did I mention that? I'm going to China.

Understanding

2006-11-14T03:54:00.000-08:00

So now I have a pretty solid grasp of what my kids will and will not understand. I speak slowly and clearly, use gestures, avoid gerunds and indirect objects, use one verb per sentence unless one of those verbs is 'to want' and I am speaking to someone who is at least 13 years old and acts like he or she is at least 9. Thankfully I also have this blog- and a hefty expat support group- in which to dump all the extra English that I do not use.
Quark.

Philistine.

Word up, skillet.

Etcetera.

I also know four ways of admitting that I have no clue what is happening in Japanese, which ironically makes me feel pretty proficient in the language. There's 'wakarimasen- I dont understand', 'wakaranai- I can't understand', 'wakaram- I dont understand, with some local flavor' and 'eeeeeehhhhh!?- how to explain? Imagine that something, like an Martian attack during your morning coffee, is so utterly unbelievable that the only letter you remember is a soft letter 'e'. That's what it sounds like. I use combinations of these phrases every day.
Armed with this information I am not only more effective in the classroom, in that I can agree with the kids when they say they dont understand something (boku mo wakaranai), but I with a little luck I can also turn a well timed admission into comedy gold. The trick is to give the kids just enough time to think that you might have understood their risky Japanese comment, then preclude them by just a heartbeat with you 'wakaram'. 'Wakaram' gets great laughs because its in the Hiroshima dialect, and everyone can think 'hey, the foreigner thinks he's people, that is so cute.'

The head of the octopus on the left rose and fell as if it were hiding from hungry patrons. This was across the street from a temple that my friend referred to as 'a Buddhist Disneyland'. The word was that you could get a hell of a slice of pizza at the summit, but you had to pay the admission fee just to get to the pizza parlor.

What?

Tottori

2006-11-10T18:03:00.001-08:00

I meant to write this post at the start of the week, but I think I have a job now. People keep expecting me to educate their children. Hey!
Below, you can see the Tottori Sand Dunes, site of the filming of a famous movie that I have never seen, based on a book by Kobo Abe, which I have read. He's like a Japanese Norman Mailer.
So it was Amy's birthday. She spent a few weeks travelling the desert in Lybia and now she's got a minor obsession with it, as she does with many other things- The Nightmare Before Christmas, zebra stripes, and habits unspeakable. She's a doll despite, or because of, these eccentricities.
Though the whole of Tottori ken minus Mt. Daisen (see Daisen) can probably be seen in a day, we made a weekend of it and caught the bus from Fukuyama on the Friday morning of our three day weekend. Now, putting seven gaijin on a Japanese bus together, especially a group like this one, is bound to cause trouble. Our resident Australian, Roo- Andrew- just arrived three weeks ago, and he's never studied the language, so he was in the habit of yelling 'arigatoooooouu' at the top of his lungs while less than a foot away from some poor obasan's (grandmother's) face and scaring the crap out of her. What's more, the Western laugh is considerably more raucous than a Japanese one. There's a dull roar to it that might come from all the porridge and leftover mutton I hear we eat. Though the locals were too polite to stare or anything, we could all tell that we made them a bit uncomfortable. Except for Roo- he didn't notice.
We had a total of maybe seven hours of travel to get where we were headed, but again, the scenery was beautiful and passing and we were in a new place with good people, so we weren't too worried. We stayed along the san-in coast that night in an onsen town called Hawai, pronounced like Hawai'i, a similarity of which the locals are not unaware. We stayed at youth hostel that night and had a perfectly awkward time trying to check in with the kind lady behind the desk. The hostel was attached to a Buddhist temple, which interested us so much that it was all we could do not to inadvertently commit sacrilege while wandering around the grounds. I wishI had some pictures as they would tell the story much better, but I had to recharge my phone and missed the chance. We also went to the Hawai onsen that night, welcome after all the travel, and a bonding trip if ever there was. The onsen itself was more like a gym with a bath in the middle and a tarp painted to look like a seventh-grader's rendition of a Hawaiian vacation. But the water was natural mineral and aromatic, and it certainly did the trick.
Later that night gen, dave, and I found ourselves running around an abandoned country school down the road. There were no houses nearby, and only the road leading up to the gate. It was very creepy, and again I wish I had some pictures. You'll just have to rest assured that we respected the property, no one got hurt, and we were not attacked by ghosts.
So of course the Dunes turned out to be a 20 mile wide tourist trap, which was pretty much what we expected. But it was a beautiful day, we swam in a new sea and played frisbee. Genevieve got stung by a a strange jellyfish, but she was fine. I didn't ask how she took care of it, but I hear the methods are multifarious.
In this picture you can see four huge gaijin sitting on top of some stone heads next to the information center. Someone must have put them here just so we can take this photo. On the far left are Josh(I think his name is Josh) and Brit from Okayama; Brit is from Colorado so I met her before we left and we've been hanging out since. Guess which one is Roo. That's Gen in the red shirt, she's from Canada, right next to PEI no less. And who is that handsome devil sitting on the right?
A friend invited me to tea this afternoon- no, a tea ceremony, which needs no introduction. From what I understand it is tea taken far beyond its domestic boundaries and into the realm of poetry. I'll let you all know how it goes.

Love
A

Halloween

2006-10-25T23:00:00.000-07:00

Doesn't exist here. Heaven for the old fogies who turn their porchlights off. 'Course, the holiday lacks that diehard core of Pagan idolatry to supports it back home, the end result being invitations to a slew of gaijin parties that I won't attend. I've been out for the last three weekends running, andthere is in my mind a real difference between dressing up like a panda in a horde of fools and dressing up like a panda to walk through crowds of normal people.

Maybe I'll go hiking.

My students and I are getting more comfortable with each other, and as I pick favorites among the students (though I know I shouldnt), I also pick favorite classes (natch). There's a pack of third graders in Toyomatsu that follow me around the hallway like ducklings, climbing on me and practicing a birdcall that I taught them. One first grade class actually cheers when I introduce games. The rule of thumb's that the more enthusiastic they are, the more I enjoy teaching the class. On occasion I have performed silly dances without prompting, or shame.

The third graders are of course at the bottom of the barrel- the lamer learning gets for them, the more arduous my task as a teacher becomes. Some classes just talk the whole way through. If the teacher can't or won't control the kids, I usually end up fooling around just enough to bring them back into the lesson. Loud noises, games, pictures, and entreaties to 'tamadochi ni eigo de hanashite', or 'gossip with your friends in English', all help. Today I had an armwrestling tournament after lunch. So I threw a couple matches, we were bonding.

Its getting to be that time of year when the mornings are so cold that I am the only warm thing in the house. Leaving the safety of my covers is proving more and more difficult. I need a strategy. Or a heater. I'll try and snap some photos of the Fall colors as they come in. Stay tuned.

Some random observations, and an imaginary story

2006-10-15T00:22:00.000-07:00

I caught a cold over the weekend, which left me flushed and runny. Whenever I made my trademark honk, the room would go die, for just a second. Turns out its terrible rude to blow your nose.
Course, how was I to know? Never came up in those anthro books I read (thats what I get to turning to a phD for practical advice, what can I say, I was naive). Luckily being foreign around here does grant one some special privileges. A rude person might call them powers. There's the Gaijin Pass (he doesn't know any better?), The Gaijin Denial (I'm sorry but I can't understand you, officer), The Gaijin Cross (that said 'don't walk?), among others. The Pass got me through a few innocent blows before I knew something was up. For awhile after I didnt know what else to do, so I kept blowing until the end of the day, then quietly laid off. I have seen ruder (read, drunker) folks flagrantly abuse these privileges for which we pay dearly yet about which nothing can be done. Exposure is the only remedy.
Ive had my first chance to grade students on their performance, and I admit to nearly subliminal favoritism. The cheerful, energetic students won my mercy well before the assignment while the shy, twitchy students won no pity. Makes me reminisce on what my teachers thought of me. Woof.

Also, these kids have really won me over- there are few better jobs for a screwball- but I'm getting the first licks of the fact that I live in Japan and teach Japanese students with Japanese teachers, and all the responsibility that entails. There's a layer of cotton candy over every situation when you can't understand what anyone's saying (efforts to do so notwithstanding...)

Following was a bit about my weekend, but I scrapped it in lieu of a summary in which I will say there was a warmup involving penned cattle, a short walk up a mountain, three old fogies in three separate places, one with a guidebook, one in an apple orchard, and one bearing a wooden sword, instructional anecdotes involving such subjects as apple classification, Buddhas, and the beautiful nest of a spider, a birds-eye view of the three nearest towns, a lost water bottle, the threat of a boar, and the reality of a beautiful Fall Sunday. Given the kit, Im sure you can construct the day.

Autumn is Taking its Sweet Time

2006-10-10T17:33:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone. All my kids have come down with flus, probably bird flus from the fuss everyone makes about it. You can tell whose mother worries the most because that kid has to wear a face mask. Even if you stub your toe thoroughly enough you have to go to a hospital where the doctor will give you a face mask even though clumsiness is not contagious. Is it?
The sake festival was just what I'd hoped it would be- there were thousands of people getting just as drunk as they should (and some a bit drunker, I have pictures for you later) among the sweet reek of thousands of vendors, all selling beef kebabs and chocolate bananas as well as some strange and ornery shrimp. There was even Egyptian food, and to hear its' hawkers yelling in a wierd breed of Japanese, English, and their mother tongue (Arabic?) brough tears to my eyes, and shawarmah to my lips.
Perhaps sake is not as alcoholic as I once imagined. Even those most dedicated marathoners managed only a stumble (with the admirable exception of one poor girl from Shikoku who had to have her hair held back). Ricardo Saucedo ('El Samuracho') was at one point holding eight sake cups, one between all of his fingers, and he got as far as 'jolly' and halfway to 'somber' before we moved to catch the train. By raising one of his fingers just so, he could drink from a particular cup without disturbing the rest.
By the end of the night, the Japanese were lining up to hit on the girls and drink with the guys. There were some really admirable attempts to speak English. There was one man in his late twenties who spent ages on my friend Jan; he would get really excited and say 'my mother...your father...beautiful future...you are mother, you are mother.' Then he would fade out for a few seconds while we looked confused before repeating himself. Of course, Jan speaks fluent Japanese and mentioned that he was making just as much sense in his native tongue. After awhile I just started playing along, which made his rant much funnier.
Course, the next day wasn't my greatest. Luckily, all the food I ate (gluttony) nullified most of the sake I drank (alcoholism), so I was only mildly hung over...'Tropical Storm 10/08' never got upgraded to 'Hurricane Alex' and no government funds were spent to repair the damage caused by my passing. As for the sins themselves, lets say I paid the price of my decisions and leave it right where it is, in good taste.
I finally have internet! Now lets see if I cant make time to use it. Love.

Sake

2006-10-03T17:16:00.000-07:00

So Kyoto fell through just hours after the last post. All the hotels were booked, preparation got overbearing, and we all opted out in favor of some cozy time to plan...and sake.

Here's how it works. I catch the train to Saijo, leave my bag on someone's floor, and walk to the park. There I will pay 1000-en (about nine bucks) for a souvenir cup. I am then set loose to sample 900 types of sake. Nine. Hundred. From all over Japan!

The rest writes itself. I'll leave it up to your imagination. While you do that, please include:

-okonomiyaki

-falling maple leaves, gently

-a fight, or brawl, in which no one is seriously hurt

-market style hawking

-2000 drunken Japanese (read: 1 mob)

It starts at 11 am. I'll need breakfast.

A Snag, or Snaggle.

2006-09-28T00:13:00.000-07:00

One long weekend's over and another's coming. We've got about one a month until the end of the semester, and to me they are little islands of freedom alloting just enough time for me to soothe my wanderlust. This time we're thinking Kyoto. Originally we had eight people booked for the trip, but the other two men just dropped out with the sake festival coming to Saijo Higashi-Hiroshima, which makes me the silverback. This is a curse in disguise- estrogen levels will be through the roof- and who will be my foil? Not to sound shallow but as situation like this, if poorly played, could move me out of the dating pool and into the sewing circle for all six. A sweeping blow, nearly matching the fabled tailor's record.
And somehow I've caught the buck. I have to book the hotel. I neither speak nor read Japanese. Last I checked I still accidentally insult people by mispronouncing any of the five verbs that I use. I got one of my English teachers to show me the way around yahoo.jp/travel, and in some happy fantasy world his kindness has opened the doors of a hundred hotels. In reality, I am just looking at pictures and numbers and guessing whether or not these places are hotels, or just well-meaning families with a spare broomcloset. We have a fluent speaker in the group and I am working my subtle mojo in an attempt to pass said buck. I'm confident.
Yet I wonder why I'm sticking with the trip in the face of a crazy annual event like the Sake Festival. The only thought that keeps me from bailing entirely is Yatsubuchi no Taki. I found a translation, I think its 'the Eight Heavenly Waterfalls'. This is for me more exciting than all the sake in Saijo. That and Greg will be coming up on Sunday, so I hope the combination of hike and male company will make up for the loss in libido come Monday. I should develop a contingency plan, preferably one that involves sake. We'll see.

There is nothing I can say to explain or improve this picture:

Miyajima was beautiful

2006-09-26T16:48:00.000-07:00

And that might be all I say on it for the time being. The island hosts the world's scraggliest herd of deer, who spend most of their time eating crackers that tourists buy for them. When you are out of crackers, they eat your shirt.
I ate the local specialties, delicious fried oysters and anago, a type of salt-water eel. There is nothing that comes from the ocean that these people will not fry.
It might be the best trip I've taken since I arrived. I am not claiming to homesickness, but I try to get a few hours with English speakers every week. When I arrived I felt a bit patronized at the overwhelming praise I received for the use of even the tiniest Japanese phrase. More and more I find myself boiling over with excitement whenever anyone can string a full English sentence together. And the telephone at Toyomatsu Junior plays 'Home on the Range' when it rings.
We've got nearly a dozen Australian teachers coming next Wednesday and I'll spend the day helping my kids practice the universally honored school tradition of poster creation. The students' level of enthusiasm is directly proporional to the size of the posters they create.
Some friends and I are planning a trip to Kyoto for the next three-day weekend on October 7th. I'll in it for a series of waterfalls called Yatsubuchi no Taki near Lake Biwa. My understanding is that you climb up on ropes. I'll take pictures.
I also have some shots of Miyajima, which you won't see until October 5th or later- the official date for my internet connetion!

All Apologies

2006-09-20T23:29:00.000-07:00

This weekend I'll head for Miyajima and the Itsukushima Shrine- that floating torii- and when I come back hopefully I have pictures and internet access. Keep on.

Daisen

2006-09-18T19:24:00.000-07:00

A few other posts vied for this spot- 'The Rice Paddie Incident', 'Fuji Sunrise', and a fluff piece introducing my kids. I have a photo of a 6th grader playing an accordion. Instead I've opted to strike while the iron is hot. So.
By Thursday all I had planned involved yakiniku with friends in Fuchu. If you haven't had it, the waiter brings raw meat to the table, which you cook in a pit and dip in delicious sauces. (I don't know if it could catch on in the US because its only a matter of time before some hard up jerk stuffs his face with raw meat and sues for food poisoning. Of course.)
On Friday evening I met up with Jonathan the Brit (not Jon, although he's too polite to correct you), Jenjen from LA, and Amy from Everywhere but Most Recently Spain after combing Fukuyama for an eggbeater, which I did not find. We had yakiniku and a few very large beers, excepting Jen, who drove. We just missed the closing of a revolving sushi restaraunt down the street. Instead it was sake and a movie chased with a long night on short futons. I have yet to have revolving sushi. Someday, it will be mine.
The following day I considered following Amy to Kurei for what promised to be more booze, but by the time she left for the station my heart just wasn't in it. At the same time, I refused to spend my first long weekend at home. In Texas the sayin' goes- "Now that ain't right." So I decided that I'd head for Daisen on Sunday, rain or shine. It was rain. A typhoon full of rain.
I also thought I'd be going it alone. We all knew the typhoon was coming and no one I knew would be crazy enough to go along with it...except the Canadians. I got hold of the roughest Canadian I knew, a girl by the name of Genevieve who was, of course, in. Another half dozen folks turned down the offer.
I spent Saturday on errands in Fukuyama before picking Gen up from the eki. We drove back to Yuki for the night and got out the maps. Daisen was two prefectures away in Tottori-ken, which faces the northern shore. On a clear day you can see the ocean. Right next door is 'The Home of Milk,' In case you wondered where Japanese milk comes from.
Now, Daisen translated pretty readily: 'Dai' mean 'big', 'Sen' means 'mountain.' Put 'em together- "Big Mountain." And it is the biggest mountain in the Chugoku Range. Now, the Chugoku aren't volcanic so they aren't whopping. Daisen tops out at 1,700 meters (that's right, I've converted to the metric system. Don't tell the pope), to save the Americans the trouble, that's about 6,000 feet. Buddhist monks have been training on Daisen for centuries- sitting in the snow, sittting under waterfalls, climbing in all sorts of weather. I'm fairly sure I passed a couple on the trail. No matter where you go, priests have a distinct look about them...I think its the glasses.
We got out the door around nine in the morning, took all kinds of crazy routes, and made it to Tottori a bit past noon. It rained sporadically the whole way. We couldn't see Daisen until we were at its foot. Even then everything above its waist was shrouded in mist. For that matter, everything above my waist was shrouded in mist, which would come as no suprise to my students, most of whom stand about that high.
Twenty minutes and a mistranslation put us at the trailhead. There was a monastery right off the road, but we couldn't find any special ablutions. Gen pounded on the wooden gate. A deep bell was ringing somewhere in the distance. We were caught in a steady shower which could only get heavier, so we started up the stone steps.
The rain didn't stop. Neither did the steps. They changed from stone, to wood, to bound piles of rocks. The monks hadn't left a centimeter of trail untended. The path ran both ways, so we passed dozens of hikers on their way down, offering comments like 'gambatte kudasai' (step lively) and 'tsukette kudasai' (please be careful). Hikin in Japan is overwhelmingly an activity for the old, who enjoy such activities as bird-watching and flower-cataloguing. Banzai. After a few minutes Gen and I were chanting 'Konnichi wa' like a mantra.
The first treeline ended about halfway up. The rain was blowing in sideways through the clearing at 1300m, so we took shelter in a cement shack. Two young hikers were inside cooking lunch.
We offered them some Ritz crackers. Whenever you give something to a Japanese person, a marathon of gift-giving ensues. Sometimes the whole process can take months, years, lifetimes. Sometimes you just empty out everything in your bag and hand it over. We traded a box of crackers, two apples, some trail mix, and a bag of peanuts for a bowl of stew, two protein snacks, and a pear.
We decided to get moving before we traded shirts. We broke the treeline under rain competing with heavy fog for honorable mention. At the summit, the trail turned into a boardwalk, and it was another ten minutes to the cabin at the peak. A crosseyed, quiet man in his thirties lived and ran a small shop there. We bought a Daisen charm to prove we made it and hiked to the summit marker for some pictures and had the traditional beer.
After a half hour of rest, we headed back. It was a near-sprint with the steps. We were down in under an hour, changed, and got a heap of curry in us as soon as possible.
The storm hit heavy on the ride back home. I felt like I was driving through Wyoming all over again (plant a tree, Wyoming). We took all kinds of crazy routes again to get back by eight. We had a few drinks, and I taught Gen how to do a dove call. I still cannot whistle through my fingers (though a couple third graders gave me some promising leads last Tuesday). The next day, I dropped her off at the station.
Thought it was a hell of a trip, I get the feeling that I'll be going back to Daisen again. There were longer routes, and an ocean that I never got to see. I'll keep you posted.

If I Click on Enough Buttons...

2006-09-14T21:43:00.000-07:00

Then still nothing happens. I've looked for a uk site, but I think I'll just learn the kanji involved in posting from here. It woud be easier than jumpstarting every blog with a thousand kicks.

Today is Sports Day

2006-09-13T22:41:00.000-07:00

I only had one class this morning since everyone has to get ready for our school-wide Respect the Aged Day presentation. It is shaping up to be a big affair.

I had the office to myself and was nodding over a model yearly lesson plan from MEXT (The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology). It is pockmarked with suggestions like "Let students experience the joy of having their English understood, and the fun of communication." Of course the Education Board would make it sound like a hearty meal of toast and water.

I was comatose, so I took a walk around the school. The gymnasium was all dolled up with rows of folding chairs and inside shoes...but no on-ramp for those elderly. The drama team was supposed to be practicing on stage, but they were nowhere to be found. Creatures of the night I guess, just as in America. I did however see a custodian for the first time, that was a treat. I think he had a contract; he was setting up the sound system.

Down the hall, the principal was cleaning the bathroom in yellow waders (how cool is that?). I offered to help but got a capable 'arigato', which when you add tone translates like 'thanks, but no thanks'. Very effective. We always have screwy conversations since he knows just enough English to start one. I think he had a class in college that was next door to an English class.

I found the brass band. They sound just like every other junior high school brass band in the world: three shades out of tune in both directions. The tuba player is always a chubby kid with puffy cheeks who runs out of breath on the fifth measure. We have however one girl who wails on the flute; everyone else plays a little softer for her, like Ringo for John's piano.

The computer nerds were nerding it up in the computer room, as is their wont. The science class had fireflies in jars. I do not know how this will play into Sports Day. Maybe they will give a presentation. Maybe they will turn down the houselights and the fireflies will spell out an encouraging message for the elderly. We'll see.

It all goes down this Sunday, but since it is a three day weekend I could be anywhere in the country. I might end up rafting, but we've tentatively cancelled due to torrential rain. I get my first full paycheck tomorrow and I've got a laundry list as long as my forearm, so I'll drive to Fukuyama Friday and dent it. Tomorrow I have four or five elementary classes and I dread the exhaustion I will feel. Three cheers for the elementary school teachers of the world, you all deserve cups of coffee so large that you could swim inside and backrubs for free, complements of the Board of Education.

Fuji, Part One

2006-09-13T00:09:00.000-07:00

I tried to write this story several times, but I've been very busy. New schools and all that. Students to meet, armadillos to throw, presentations and the like. You understand. Also, I've been exhausted. I climbed the biggest mountain in Japan.

The trip to Fuji started with a table in Hiroshima City. It was a plain table, with a faux wooden top and folding legs. It bore a sign: CLIMB MT FUJI. I found a pen, signed my name, and went about my day without a second thought.A few days later, I got an email, 'GET EXCITED!', which was filled with useful news. We would leave on the second of September, climb in the middle of the night, watch the sunrise, and return on the third.

That meant we would not sleep Saturday night. At least, I wouldn't. This was nothing new since there have been entire weekends during which time I might blink, and that is all the rest I got. None of those previous weekends involved a volcano.A whole slew of emails walked us to the gates of departure, and before I really knew what was happening I was on my way to Fukuyama for the pickup.

Our JET Coordinator had wrangled up the worst instructions ever given by one human being to another without malice. Suffice to say we found the place in good time, and I may or may not have been written a ticket for running a toll booth, which I did not do, or for making an illegal u-turn, which I might have done. For all I know, the ticket taker just wanted my autograph.So after getting confused and lost and swinging an illegal u-turn at the tollbooth, one of my passengers, eyes peeled like dry rinds, spots a growin' conflagration of familiar foreigners. She hollers, much after the fact, "There they are!", and I perform what might have been a perfectly legal if somewhat rushed u-turn in order to return to the locale of her observation. We had found the group. Our Coordinator hadn't.

After half an hour she showed up with the bus and the 'Hiroshima City' half of the Fuji-goers. We had a nine hour trip ahead to the fifth station, stopping every two for all the things travellers need when bored and full of energy. At our first stop we bore witness to dancing tigers (madmen in tiger suits), who represented a local baseball team. Very few people slept. Most of us watched Snatch and later Clerks, which is a terrible movie when preparing to climb a mountain.About four hours in, Fujisan came into view.

I couldn't rightly call it a mountain at that time, more like a floating castle. The base was shrouded in mist; it was so large that it sillhouetted itself against the afternoon sun. It was massive from hundreds of miles away. At first I thought it was an illusion. At eight hours, we were driving through Aokigahara Jukai, or The Sea of Trees. Oddly enough, this is the most popular suicide spot in Japan, and the forest is said to be haunted by the tortured souls of the dead. (This prompted the Japanese Forest Service to post signs prohibiting suicide. If you ever visit, please try not to get clinically depressed in Aokigahara)

The moon had a three-quarter head start on us from the fifth station. We loitered for about an hour, then decided to get dinner. We had already surpassed the blanket of clouds. The air was cool and crisp. I could see stars.We outfitted ourselves with anything we needed but didn't have: sticks, hats, gloves, raincoats, snacks, and beer. I bought a walking stick and, being well-prepared, two beers: one for the bottom, and one for the top. As a side note, Asahi brews a special Fujisan Draft that I have yet to see anywhere but the mountain. It was rich and malty.The kitchen had only curry and yakiniku left for the evening. Fujisan is littered with huts where weary travellers can get soba, ramen, stamps for their walking sticks, even stay the night.

I opted for an early start. A group of us set out below the treeline at 830, and by 915 maybe four of us kept pace. I've got immensely long legs, so I didn't notice just how swifly I ascended.About fortyfive minutes in, one of our number gave up the ghost. I know better than to leave an exhausted man alone on the trail, so we waited around for another group of foreigners to show up, and set him behind. Among this group were more JETs from Ibaraki, north of Tokyo, and I teamed up with them. One of the girls was from New Hampshire, a born mountain goat, so she and I set the pace to the seventh station, where we got udon. Around this point my legs had begun to warm up and I was glad to feel the ache move into my hips, the wind was chilling and I could use it to keep warm.

After a twenty minute rest we moved on.Shortly after one of the girls suggested with continue to climb in our skivvies. (Have I not always been prone to foolishenss? I've got pictures, but I promised not to post them here.) Our clothes were soaked with sweat, which was still pouring off us. Considering my position, I thought it was a great idea. We peeled off some layers, and I will admit it felt great. We quickened our pace and dried our clothes in the cold wind. We passed through one of the smaller stations to shouts of 'Gambatte, kudasai!' and 'Samui desu ne', but shortly after the wind began to bite, the temperature dropped, and the slope turned to ash. We thought it best not to anger the mountain with its teeth showing, so we redressed. With two stations left to go, we continued our slow climb.The wind turned cold, fast. This was the type of weather that caught weekend mountaineers off guard, froze them or drove them delirious. If there weren't three hundred other people on the mountain, I would have worried.

We had to stop more than once to wait for stragglers. The moon had set and the wind blew ash into my eye, dimming the stars. Soft light from the ninth station drew us like moths through the dark. Despite the weather, we kept our cheer, joking, talking, goading each other on. I was the odd man out but I think endeared myself for taking the lead and keeping the press. I would rather have stopped at the last station to rest in a warm hut for a couple hours, but this group was dead set on reaching the summit that night. We passed through the station after resting in the bathroom, only a few hundred meters between us and the top.We moved foot over foot, like wind-up toys.

The wind was howling. We passed a lone Japanese returning from the top who said that every shop at the summit was closed until morning. It was only 12:45.The straggers were really taking their time. They refused to return to the last station, so we heckled them onwards, taking each slope one at a time, then waiting for the rest to follow. Suddenly a huge torii loomed out of the darkness. We had reached the first gate of Fuji's summit.A snail's pace. I had reached the limit of my ability, but pride kept us moving. Only the girl from New Hampshire, Natali, kept her pluck. She was still wearing a t-shirt while the rest of us had three layers. We stopped at the torii while she went back to check on our last hiker. There was little protection from the wind, so we huddled together for warmth. Other climbers had thrown coins at the foot of the torii, maybe for strength on the last leg of the mountain. We did the same.

Ten minutes that felt like an hour passed. Natali returned with the other climber. He climbed into the pile and warmed up for a minute while we took pictures. We were all exhausted, red-eyed, coated in volcanic ash, and having a hell of a good time. There's something hilarious about the edge of delirium, a big joke to being so utterly beyond your limits that you just succumb to it. If you look in the background of the picture, you can see signs that include, DANGER, FALLING ROCKS and DONT CLIMB STRAIGHT. Don't worry, we didn't. There are also five people in this picture. Can you find the fifth?

The only things I was conscious of now were the shuffling of my feet and the feet around me, the cold, and the wind. We passed the second and third torii. We had made it to the summit. I would have taken a moment to enjoy the accomplishment, but the wind was roaring now, and we needed to find shelter. I gave a shout of triumph and set about the town.There was a row of shops to my right, all of them locked. There were benches to the left, open to travelers and the wind. At the far end of the village I saw a light spilling out from under the door of a longhouse. I knocked politely, then pounded my fist.

After a few seconds, a japanese man in climbing gear answered. It was a bathroom. It was fairly stinky, but large and sheltered from the wind. I called the others up, and we took refuge for the night. In the bathroom.This would have been terrible if we weren't so exhausted. We worked out a plan to lay huddled on the floor, on top of our raingear. The other hiker shared his lemon candy with us, and we emptied the rest of our food. None of us slept. We later found out that another group of JET's had arrived fifteen minutes after us, never found the bathroom, and huddled in a doorway with a steel table for protection.Around four in the morning, other hikers started coming in to use the restroom. It took a minute for that to settle, then I thought: 'Good god, they're drinking coffee!' The stores had opened. The crowd was arriving for sunrise.

So I Accidentally Deleted the Blog

2006-09-13T00:07:00.000-07:00

Because everything is in Japanese. Sorry. I'll try to get a few posts back up. Bear with me.