Japan: It's a Love/Hate Thing...

One thing I love about Japan: Nobody ever says anything unkind to my face.

One thing I hate about Japan: Nobody ever says anything unkind to my face.

Elevator

A few weeks back I got in our condo's elevator with my daughter. A young business-type guy who lives on one of the upper floors (we live on the fourth) got on with us. This guy seems like he's probably OK, but he's one of those people who looks at me like I'm some sort of exotic zoo specimen; he's also always trying to impress me with his English ability.

On this particular day he decided to speak to my daughter: "Your daddy is an English teacher...." After a brief pause, my daughter replied, "Yes."

The elevator arrived at our floor and we got out. As the doors closed and the elevator departed, my daughter looked at me and said, "That was a bit awkward, eh?"

I burst out laughing. The kid cracks me up...

Turning Japanese?

This evening I was talking on the phone (in Japanese), and I noticed that my daughter was pointing at me and laughing. When I was finished I asked her what she thought was so funny.

"You looked like ji-chan (grandpa) while you were talking. Every time you said "thank you" you bowed. Why do you bow when you're talking on the phone!? It looks really funny!"

"I was NOT bowing on the telephone!"

"Yes you were. I saw it. You did it 4 times!"

Hmmm...

Unintentional Car-Jacking

A couple of weeks ago I was at the mall with my daughter. When it was time to leave the rain was coming down really hard, and we'd left our umbrellas in the car. We looked at each other and shouted "run!" and ran to the car with the rain pelting us.

At the car I tried to open the door with my key, but something was wrong. "What the...?" I began to say, when suddenly the car opened from *the inside,* revealing an old woman with a shocked expression on her face--the kind of expression you'd expect from someone who thinks some mad gaijin is trying to car-jack her...

I sputtered a "sumimasen" (excuse me) as my daughter burst out laughing. Soon I was laughing too; and like a couple of crazy pirates we ran laughing through the parking lot in the pouring rain looking for my car...

More Volcano

A couple of cell phone pics I took from work last Thursday that maybe give a better sense of the scale of the ash cloud from Shinmoe Dake:

Here's what our car looked like this past Sunday morning:

And then around 8 this morning, after a bit of rumbling, the volcano gave out a little burp:

About 30 minutes later:

On a Clear Day You Can See the Volcano

A volcano, Shinmoe Dake, which I think is about 60 kilometers from Miyazaki City, erupted yesterday. There doesn't seem to be much news about this in English, but there's some good info and cool footage here.

Things have been rumbling a bit around here the past couple days. There is no danger at all here in Miyazaki. I'd sure like to take a drive up that way this weekend though...

I took these from the top of my condo.

Santa Never Goes Hungry at My Place...

I guess this will probably be the last year that we go through this little ritual. If my kid still believes in Santa when next Christmas rolls around, well, I'm afraid we'll have to have a little talk about that. I'm not much into crushing the dreams of little kids, but... there's a bigger picture to consider.

Actually, I'm not especially concerned on that score, because I get the sense this year that she's already either a) employing a pretty strong suspension of disbelief, mostly out of a child's notion of self-interest (i.e. open disbelief, to her, might mean a sharp reduction in Christmas loot), or b) doing her damnedest to humor her old man. Or possibly some combination of both. Picking up my cell phone and threatening to call Santa when she won't do her homework or stop watching TV just doesn't have the same effect it once did. I tried this the other day and she rather flippantly asked if she could talk to Santa while he was on the line. I saw my future in that moment. It wasn't pretty...

Enough of that! Anyway, part of me is a little relieved that I won't have to worry about Santa next year. I'm basically the "Christmas guy" in my house, and Christmas Eve is a bit busy and stressful for me. I'm the guy who helps my kid put out a snack for Santa, who makes sure the presents are under the tree, who goes out and buys stocking-stuffers, who leaves a "thank-you" note from Santa (for the milk and cookies), and all that crap. I'm not complaining, really, but this is Japan, and it's not like there's a whole lot of outside support here! My wife helps by basically staying out of my way. What can I say? I just want my kid to have some idea of something that made me happy when I was a little kid; some small part of the place where her father comes from. Before coming to Japan I spent 39 Christmases at home with my family. Old habits die hard.

Speaking of "old habits," I hope you all have a Merry Christmas!

Yeah Whatever

OK, so like, a year or two years ago, I'm not sure, Japan began fingerprinting and photographing all foreigners entering the country, pretty much just like the United States, if I understand the situation correctly. [Being a Canadian, I've always enjoyed a special relationship with Customs and Immigration in the U.S. No photographs and fingerprints for us. No way! It's the anal probe, or nothing. And that's just the way we like it!] Where was I...? Oh yeah, foreigners entering Japan and getting anally-probed, or something...

So anyway, it's a somewhat annoying process, and I have to admit that it's made even more annoying by the fact that foreign residents of Japan have to do this each and every time we re-enter the country. I'd have to admit further that the rationale behind this procedure--catching "terrorists," is such utter bullshit that it's no wonder some people feel a bit put out about the whole business. In fact, I think the Japanese government could have done itself a big favor by simply stating the real reason it wants to fingerprint and photograph all incoming foreigners (including visa holders and permanent residents): they want to catch illegal immigrants, visa over-stayers, illegal re-entry-ers, whatever. Personally, I don't mind having my credentials checked. And frankly, even with this new procedure, going through Customs and Immigration in Japan is a lot more pleasant an experience than even merely setting foot in any American airport. Now there's the fucking Gestapo.

Of course there's a certain ex-pat element in Japan (and probably other countries as well) that apparently has very little experience spending more than a few hours outside of their own family, friends, and neighborhood. You know, people who get all indignant when things in a foreign country are not exactly like whatever little shithole they were born in, and the people who live in a particular foreign country are not like the noble savages who served the white man so faithfully in all those old movies. The worst of these are assholes. The best of them, stupid. They both see anything, and I mean any fucking thing, that inconveniences them in the slightest as either a) a sign of the general "backwardness" of their surroundings, or b) a sure sign of the anti-foreign racism that runs rampant, rampant, I say, in this God-forsaken [oops, forgot about that one...] country...

They want to make "statements". Usually on other peoples' blogs. Not mine, thankfully. Just as an aside, however, I think if someone really wanted to make a political statement (as opposed to a stupid, irrational, mis-informed whine) about the fingerprinting and photographing of foreigners entering or re-entering Japan, he'd cut off his fucking fingers or something. I mean, come on, are you an activist or a whiner?

Anyway, perusing the web today I came across a couple of priceless comments regarding what I was talking about above. Names, etc. have been removed to protect the stupid.


--I Hate Japan So Much I Will Never Leave

A surprisingly common trope in these parts...

Heh. OK, fingerprinting foreigners is a) wrong, and b) dirty. I get the feeling this guy doesn't like leaving his house much. How the fuck he made it as far as Japan is a mystery. There's also a distinct possibility that he's here illegally (which is not something I really want to make light of, but if you're shooting off in the comment sections of blogs...).

--Fuck Japan, I'm going to Saudi Arabia

Sometimes you read shit that makes you open your mouth widely and look stupid:

"I have more freedoms [in Saudi Arabia] than I did in Japan." To each his own, I say, but sometimes you read something so breathtakingly stupid... This guy spent 11 years in Japan, and in 3 weeks decides he's "more free" in Saudi Arabia? So... I guess he can go to the church of his choice (or not), get a beer at the convenience store, talk to pretty girls on the street, complain about the political situation in Saudi Arabia, etc.? Probably not much.

-----

I'm getting tired (tonight) of writing about this. You know, there's nothing wrong with saying you don't know about something. Seriously, ask Socrates. I fucking hate it when people write or comment stupidly about the sort of shit that I know about. I don't claim to be an "expert" on Japan (I'm definitely not), but I can usually tell shit from shinola. There's a lot of shit goin' round right now...

My New Japanese Teacher

Aside from the general frustration surrounding the fact that I'm pretty incompetent when it comes to speaking the Japanese language, there is a more specific humiliation that arises on those occasions when I'm expected to write something in Japanese--like, my name, for example. Now don't get me wrong, I can read my name in katakana. In fact I can read anything in katakana and/or hiragana, as well as quite a bit in kanji. Writing it out is another story...

-----

Back in my school days teachers used to praise my penmanship ("Dumb as a doorknob, but his writing's quite legible, even pretty!"). I lost most of that skill in the 10 years or so between finishing high school and deciding to go to university. In particular, for the several years in which I pursued rock stardom, a certain practiced "illiteracy" was seen as career-enhancing among drummers (or, at the very least, it kept singers and guitar players from bothering you with their petty problems--"Why am I talking to you? A drummer couldn't possibly understand." More like a drummer couldn't possibly give a shit, really...).

In university I was a furious note-taker, able to transcribe entire lectures at will. It all came back! Not only that, but I added the Greek alphabet to my handwriting repertoire! Alas, my pen pyrotechnics were short-lived, and you can probably guess why. Writing my Master's thesis on a computer was the beginning of the end of my penmanship.

-----

Anyway, I'm quite familiar with two of the three Japanese scripts. My name is considered a "foreign word," so it should be written in katakana in Japan. I can do it. Slowly. Painstakingly. Embarrassingly. People turn away. People snicker. My "writing" in Japanese looks like something a two-year-old scrawled on the wall the first time he had a crayon in his hand. I know what people think when they see me writing: "This guy is a university teacher?" I slink away in shame...

A couple of weeks ago I happened to pick up a homework notebook of my daughter's. She's in the second grade of elementary school. As I leafed idly through her notebook (a kind of diary that she passes in everyday), I noticed that her Japanese handwriting was very nice...

She's a strict teacher, but generous with compliments when I do well! And she seems to enjoy our lessons as much as I do...

From the Dept. of Good Deeds

Anyone who goes back far enough through this blog's archives can probably get a sense of how my general attitude about living in Japan has evolved. These days I don't find Japan to be a particularly strange or weird place. Nor do I find the Japanese to be particularly strange or weird people. In fact, what I find to be strange/weird these days is what I read about Japan/the Japanese from foreign sources. Don't get me wrong, it's not like there isn't anything at all strange or weird about Japan and its people; it's just that there's strangeness and weirdness to be found on any street in any town or city in the world. Like the song says, "People are strange." Not very deep maybe, but...

Anyway, several years ago, when I was a swashbuckling "free-lance" English teacher (heh), I met a family that wanted me to give English lessons to their two young boys. The boys' mother spoke (speaks) pretty good English. Their father didn't (doesn't). They run a car repair shop. I think I gave their boys lessons for about a year and a half. They paid good money, and I did my honest best, but I seriously doubt that those kids learned much English from me. I probably learned more Japanese from them than they did English from me. A good gig, for sure, but I was secretly relieved when they ended the lessons. I say "secretly" because at that time my own family was somewhat on the edge financially.

A couple of years after that I needed to get the safety check done on my car. In Japan this is a rather expensive process (and complaints about this kind of thing should not be seen as anti-Japan; if the locals complain about it too, then you're just a regular Joe). I decided to take my car to the family who's kids I'd taught. They were very happy to see me, and very happy to serve me. From my wife's appraisal of the bill, they neither cheated me nor did me any favors. Fair enough, I thought. I'm not a "guest" anymore.

A few months later I pulled a pretty bone-headed move and left my 4-way flashers on overnight. (My parking space faces the street and pretty much requires me to back in if I'm to have any hope of getting out in the morning. There's usually traffic, so the 4-ways alert anyone behind me that I'm going to stop in a weird place. I've done it thousands of times, but...) The next day, of course, my battery was dead. Shit.

You really have to live in a foreign country to understand how the simplest things can suddenly become gigantic, especially if you're not comfortable with the language. I got lucky. I walked down the street to the home/shop of the people whose kids I'd taught and to whom I'd taken my business before. It took about ten minutes. About ten minutes after that I was driving to work, having received a boost. They refused my money.

They've had my business since, and today at the supermarket my battery died again (although not from any stupidity of mine). Again, I walked to the shop and explained the problem. Again, they drove me to my car and fixed the problem. This time they brought a used battery from the shop (because it sounded like my battery was history). They put it in, and I started my car. I say "they." It was the father of the kids I'd taught. As he was leaving he said that I should drive on this battery until there was some problem. Again, there was no talk of money.

These are good people. That's all I want to say.

Graffiti in the "Green Room" at Big Box

Anyway... Last Saturday we did a 15-minute set at a kyabakura (hostess club) called "Big Box." Being a foreign, married, English-teacher type of guy, I haven't had much occasion to frequent these types of places--they tend to be expensive, and I find the whole scene a bit contrived and dull. (Yeah, before I was married and was still working eikaiwa I went to a couple of rather posh hostess clubs with a student of mine. He was a doctor and it was on the dime of some pharmaceutical giant or another. It was an experience, part of my ongoing education, if you will. But I wouldn't spend my own money at one of these places.)

I've known about Big Box since arriving here about 12 years ago. They used to bring in women from foreign (mostly former Eastern Bloc countries) as exotic dancers. I honestly have no idea what kind of show these women would put on, who the customers were, anything like that. I'd never set foot in the place until last week. I remember sometimes seeing some of these women walking around town during the day. Tall, (usually) blond, showing a bit more flesh than was/is normal in Miyazaki; they were impossible to miss. I used to wonder about them...

I'm not sure of the details, but I think some changes to Japan's immigration/work visa laws resulted in the end of the exotic white women at Big Box. I honestly know nothing about their experience in Japan/Miyazaki.

They left some clues...

Hmm...

The Horror

For some strange reason I was just now idly recalling a couple of horror-inducing situations that I found myself in during the first couple of weeks after I arrived in Japan...

On the second day after moving into my first apartment here in Miyazaki, it was a Saturday morning, my doorbell rang. "Who the hell could that be?" I remember thinking to myself. I went to the door and opened it. There was a small middle-aged Japanese man standing there. He seemed at first a bit surprised to see a foreigner standing in the doorway. But then, with a big, toothy smile, he spoke to me. In perfect English he said, "Hello, I'm a Japanese Jehovah's Witness." My head started to spin, and I swear I heard the shower scene music from Psycho...

About a week later I was in a bar with a couple of other Canadians. One was a fellow Nova Scotian, and the other was a Francophone Quebecker. We were having a good time drinking and talking about living in Japan and other stuff when the other two guys started talking about the issue of Quebec separation. Soon they were arguing. I started hearing the Psycho music again...

I haven't heard that music in my head for a long time now. Have I escaped?

Yeah...

If anyone were bored enough to go back to the early days of this blog, they'd find a bunch of invective-filled posts ranting about what a strange and barbaric place I thought Japan was. If they took the time to read forward, they'd probably find that I've mellowed a bit about living in Japan. In fact, I barely talk about Japan at all on this blog these days. I've been here over 11 years now. Only a fucking moron would stay that long in a place that he hated. I don't hate Japan...

This year, after several attempts, I actually enjoyed myself during New Year's in Japan. I enjoyed a couple of days in the countryside at my in-laws. I enjoyed (and, to be honest, have always enjoyed) the obvious love my wife's family has for our daughter. I enjoyed a couple of days away from the pc (although I managed to get hockey scores from my cell phone--nhl.com is very cell phone friendly!).

I enjoyed going out on New Year's Eve with my father-in-law to put out the various offerings to the gods at the various places (work and home). Yeah, I'm an atheist, but I'm not above helping someone with a job to do (read into that whatever you like!). My own father died before I came to Japan, so I especially enjoyed that my father-in-law seemed very pleased that I accompanied him on his appointed rounds. Guys are funny like that...

I enjoyed the food, as always. And the drink. If the worst thing you can say about someone is that they don't dig Led Zeppelin or drink till dawn, well, what kind of criticism is that, really? The fact that I do like Led Zeppelin and drinking till dawn is why I'm here at home posting this now. I came home on the train this evening. My wife and daughter will come home tomorrow evening. This is an "out" given to me. In fact, I could have stayed at my in-laws and drank my face off if I'd have liked. Nobody would have blinked.

I enjoy that I've earned the respect of my wife's family. They have my deepest respect.

Here There Be Wild Boars

Seen on the main campus of the university I work at:

Beware.

UPDATE: An anonymous commenter has directed me to this clip of wild boars wandering the streets of Kobe.

Conference

In Shizuoka for a work-related conference. Wandering around, clusters of gaijin, each doing their dutiful best to ignore the other.

When you register for one of these things they always give you a bag. Kind of like soccer players getting a cap for their international matches. I've been "bagged" several times, but I don't know if this one counts because it's in Japan. The bag usually contains a bunch of promo crap from text book companies and such. I give the pens, notepads, and other useful stuff to my daughter. She seems to like collecting my name tags, as well. (Recently I found one of my conference tags in which she'd crossed out my name and wrote her own above it. This little girl is worth more to me than the entire world.)

I guess I should be careful what I say. Not everyone is as carefree and irreverent about the theoretical underpinnings of their profession as I am. I'm a skeptic, and I'd be a piss-poor one if I didn't put what I do under the same scrutiny as I'd apply to right-wingnuttery, religion, UFO's, ghosts, and my own beliefs about anything, your beliefs about anything, and generally anything at all (well, except the primacy of the Stones).

Some ideas are better than others, but there are a shitload of bad ideas out there.

You might think that someone whose job lets him support his family and drink beer in so many cool places should probably whine about it a lot less. You'd probably be right.

I'm struggling to reconcile the notion of a restaurant/bar with hundreds of beers from around the world with Pinnochio playing on the wide screen. And Tokyo Ska Paradise playing through the speakers.

I once met a guy in a bar who happened also to be an "English teacher." He'd recently got his PhD in EFL or something. It was amusing to hear him tell me how I was "enculturing" my daughter by speaking to her in English (i.e. the idea being that language=culture; I can't honestly imagine a more ridiculous piece of shit masquerading as "theory"). I'd been telling him how I was teaching my daughter to use chopsticks...

Thank You for Smoking

In Shinjuku, tomorrow Shizuoka. This shitty laptop is on its dying legs. Went to Dubliners for a couple of pints. Didn't know anybody and nobody knew me. I wasn't surprised by this. It's always a bit disappointing, though-- going to a bar and not seeing anybody you know. Of course my buddy and co-worker Mike came later, after raiding the music shops for their prog and Norwegian jazz albums.

After Singapore/Malaysia, etc. Shinjuku just seems like a crowded Miyazaki, with a lot more shops, bars, restaurants, and bigger buildings and generally a lot more going on. Er, whatever... It might be fun if I were 20 or 30 years younger. I've got a nice 35th-floor view from my hotel, but no camera good enough to capture it.

A sure sign that I've passed some sort of landmark in my life (although I'll be damned if I know exactly what that landmark is): this is what I'm thinking about:


Had a very nice dinner at a Turkish restaurant this evening. It was a first for me. There was an amusing moment when I asked if it was OK to smoke...

Kimono

My daughter turns seven later this week, and shichi-go-san (lit. 7-5-3) is coming up next month, so it's time to go for the customary expensive-as-hell photos of her in a kimono. (Don't worry, this isn't one of them!) As usual, we were only permitted a couple of minutes away from the set to take some personal photos. I've been playing around with layers lately, so I thought I'd try this as a way to show the kimono with a less intrusive background. I still need a lot more practice.

The shots we'll have printed are really very nice. A lot better looking than this:

Trip to Costco

With the kid away visiting relatives, my wife thought it would be a good opportunity to drive up to the big city (Fukuoka) and do some shopping. She wanted to go to this place that she'd heard about--from friends, TV, the web, I don't know; she wanted to go to Costco. Since I'd never been to a Costco myself, I was interested and agreed to go.

It might seem strange to hear someone from North America say that he's never been to a Costco. Fact is, until my last trip back to Canada a couple of years ago, I'd never even been to a Walmart before. There is, I think, a pretty simple explanation for this. By the time these entities had started becoming common all over North America, I was a) well past the age where I'd be living at home with my folks, b) a poor, struggling student, and (most significantly) c) without a car; anything's possible, I suppose, but taking the bus to Costco seems a bit odd somehow...

And speaking of cars, it was only after living in Japan for a few years that I finally got a driver's license and bought a car. I did these things in Japan the same way any Japanese person would. I even went, like most Japanese, to a driving school here before obtaining my license. Having little or no previous experience to refer to, there was (for me) nothing particularly odd about experiencing these things in a Japanese context.

Anyway, I was talking about Costco...

Home of the 5lb. bag of potato chips.
You can't really tell from the picture above, but there was not nearly enough parking here to accommodate all the shoppers. This is a problem all over Japan. In fact, I'd guess that it's a problem for drivers anywhere outside the US/Canada/Australia, for reasons too obvious to waste space here discussing it or complaining about it.

Of course, before we could go in and start buying things as God Himself designed us to do, we had to become Costco "members." This meant shelling out 4,200 yen before we even set foot in the door. As my wife is filling out the papers, I'm thinking about the gas we used in the 300 kilometer ride from Miyazaki to Fukuoka, and doubling it for the trip back... Thinking about all the stuff that was waiting for me inside, however, kept pushing such practical trivialities from my mind.

I thought it was a nice touch when, having been granted membership and making our way into the place, we were presented with our own jumbo-sized shopping cart. (I looked, but I couldn't find our names emblazoned anywhere on the cart--probably done with micro chips or something these days...)

I've read that the great churches were designed to elicit a big religious WTF! when unsuspecting believers entered them. So too, the Costco's and Walmarts of today fill modern worshipers with a sense of awe and power--economic power, for surely you wouldn't be there if you didn't have any money!

This place didn't disappoint...

As far as the eye can see... Stuff!
Like the guy in Jaws, when he first sees the massive shark and tells his shipmates that they need a bigger boat, I turned to my wife and asked if she thought our shopping cart was big enough. My wife gave me one of those looks that wives have been giving husbands while shopping since time immemorial. I went outside and had a cigarette.

When I went back in my wife was nowhere to be seen, no doubt consumed by a frenzy of consuming. The place had swallowed her up. She was somewhere deep in the bowels of Costco. Well, you get the picture. I couldn't see her anywhere. I decided to wander around and have a look at what was there--all of it, mine for the buying! Hey, that's a good deal on mini DVD's for the video cam. I scoop up a 5 Pack. 3,500 yen for a pair of Levi's!? In my size? I sling them over my shoulder. Whaaat? A two-pack of French's mustard? You can't get that stuff in Miyazaki. I pick it up. OMFG!! A 12 pack of Campbell's chicken noodle soup? For 900 yen!? After about 30 minutes or so I'm beginning to look like some kind of hermit crab, festooned with all manner of consumer goods, stumbling around looking for my wife, who's got the goddamned shopping cart.

When I finally find my wife she gives me an odd kind of look. I'm not sure if it was a look of pity, or a look of contempt. (Nietzsche, you know, thought they were the same thing...) And what does she have in the shopping cart? Some clothes for our daughter, some cleaning supplies, and a small coffee machine (the old one is broken). I slowly begin to walk backwards...

And so ends my tale of our trip to Costco. I got to keep the soup.

Yeah, but is it art?

Tremors

Just sitting here at work eating my lunch and felt a minor earthquake. I wonder how bad it has to be for work to be cancelled...?

At the Zoo

It's the Golden Week holidays in Japan, so pretty much anyone outside of the retail sector has had the last few days off. Today was Kodomo no hi (Children's Day) so we took our daughter to the zoo. Apparently every other family in Miyazaki had the same idea, so the place was very... busy. Only one more day off before I can go back to work and relax...

A couple of pics: