In the States, I've gone from being "average" to definitely on the small side, according to clothing retailers. It's a pain in the ass.
In Japan, being "American small" was a relative advantage. I was somehow considered a size large there (somewhat of an ego boost), and most things fit me very well and looked damn good. Hot damn. This was true for pretty much everything except hats.
According to Japanese people, they have huge faces. What this really means is that they have huge heads. Now before you get riled thinking I'm saying something racially unkind, ask a Japanese person about it. Besides, I have pictures to prove it. Anyway, in Japan my head is like the head of a pin. It's miniscule.* It made for a painful time when shopping amongst the many fashionable choices of headgear.
I'd thought I would have escaped the phenomenon when returning to the States. Sadly, it's simply not true; I still have a tiny head. Normal men's hats engulf my head like pacman eating one of those little dots, and of course I can't wear women's hats, which tend to the pink and pastel side of things. I've resorted to children's hats, which are universally crappy in build quality and also hard to find in colors other than "very bright" and "related to cartoons and movie merchandising."
It's a tough life.
*Ironically enough, in Japan the statement "you have such a small face/head" is perceived as a compliment, much as "you have such a big nose" is. They're a part of the ideal beauty as represented by white people. As you can imagine, me with my child-sized head and king-sized nose, I was a frickin' god. Or at least, so the story should have been.
Last week I finally caved to the pressure and got myself a cell phone. Let me tell you, it was a difficult decision. I had been holding out for some miraculous and entirely unexpected leap in American technology that would suddenly put us on par with the rest of the world in handset technology, but sadly my dreams went unanswered.
I bought a phone that instead is no better than the one I bought four years ago in Japan.
As far as phones go, it's all right. It makes calls, it receives calls, it gives a company an excuse to totally rip me off. I have to say that after a few days of playing with it, it's nice enough, but only last night did I discover its greatest flaw: It has no strap loop.
A "strap" is a little phone accessory that is wildly popular in Japan. For the first couple of years in Japan I'd held out on buying one because I thought they were pointless and distracting. Then I realized that there was an incredible variety of cool stuff specifically made for dangling from a phone. Fast forward to January 2008 when I last spent time in Japan, and you'd see me buying up every cool one I could find in anticipation of the long dry period ahead in which I'd be forced to live in the States.
Fast forward again, and you'll find me discovering that the phone I'd just bought doesn't have a space (in the form of a little hole/loop in the shell of the phone) for a strap to fit. I was, as you can imagine, devastated. So devastated, in fact, that I have considered exchanging the phone for another model.
It sounds idiotic I know, but sometimes it's the small things that keep you afloat. I really wanted to use those things!
It's a hot week. In rural western Massachusetts, that means we get up to eighty-five degrees with a humidity of seventy percent or more. The air feels heavy when you walk outside, and it's a recipe for a good deal of sweat. Everyone complains bitterly about how "oppressive" and hot it is.
But I have a not-so-secret weapon.
I have been "lucky" enough to have lived through much, much worse. You see Gyoda, where I lived in Japan for three years, borders Kumagaya, which is widely known as the hottest city in Japan. By virtue of the fact that the two towns are right next to each other, this also makes Gyoda the hottest town in Japan. Don't believe me? Look it up, though you'll probably have to do it in Japanese.
But anyway, it is hot there. While I was there it regularly reached ninety-five during the day, usually with ninety percent humidity. The summer I left, it actually reached one hundred and seven (point six!) degrees, again with that same lovely humidity. Phoenix ain't got nuthin'.
"Oppressive" doesn't begin to describe the air in Gyoda. Walk outside, and you're hit smack in the face with a brick wall of heat and humidity. You haven't sweat until you've spent a summer there, I can tell you. Literally the moment you walk out of the sweetly air-conditioned train, your shirt is soaked. Add to that the fact that you're using a bike to get anywhere, along with the fact that your apartment's air conditioner is broken (and will be for three years), and it's a surefire way to get heatstroke. I'm pretty sure I had it every day there.
So now when I sit in the relatively balmy New England heat, I just remember that I've been through worse. This is nothing!
But somehow when I tell that to people, they don't quite appreciate it...
Today was lawn-mowing day.
Lately I have made small inroads into "greening" my parents' lifestyle. Why not also take a stab at their grass-butchering routine? On paper, it's a very good idea; conventional gas mowers are loud, smelly, inefficient beasts, and our particular mower's blades are so dull that it tends to bend grass rather than cut. Oldschool push-style mowers are quiet, emissions-free, and would give me a workout pushing them around. I could even listen to some tunes while I mowed. Just me and the outdoors, and no combustion engine to get in the way. To me, there should really be no question as to which option is better. So it couldn't hurt to dust off one of their two (two!) push mowers just to see what it would be like, right?
It was a backbreaking, sweaty, horribly misguided, and short-lived experiment. At the beginning the thing cut with aplomb, tossing clippings behind it in a satisfying arc. I smiled when it happened, but I hadn't yet realized that I was cutting very thin grass near the driveway . Then I got into the thick of things, and it got hairy very quickly. On anything but the absolute sparsest of weeds, the thing would choke up and become a very heavy plow, digging itself into the lawn where it should have been cutting. By the time I'd "mowed" about two meters worth of lawn space, I had stopped probably five times to see if there was a buildup of grass or a stick that might be obstructing the spinning blades. No such luck; this thing just sucked. Adjusting the cut-height seemed like a good idea, but did nothing noticeably useful. So I gave up, cursing and stumbling as I dragged the hunk of useless metal back to the garage to get the gas mower.
I can see why people tend to deride the old push mower. What a terrible experience! I think that there's probably a reason that these relics were left to gather dust in the garage, beyond the simple answer that gas mowers are slightly easier. Perhaps they are broken or very dull. Perhaps some magical new technological wonderfulness has been poured into the newfangled ones (which look exactly the same) that virtually all of the neighbors use. Certainly, this lawn isn't going to get a carbon-neutral mowing with our current options.
Chalk it up as a work in progress.
Found this on one of my favorite design blogs today.
Being rather terrified of heights, I can imagine very few ways to have dinner that are less appealing.
The car I'm currently sometimes able to use is a throwback to the early 90s, with only a tape player and radio for musical selection. The tape player spits out those tape adapters you can use with an iPod, leaving me with the radio.
Bad as radio is, I spend hours with my finger on the "seek" button trying to find a decent song. I tend to average about one per twenty minutes of constant seeking. It passes the time and isn't as sleep-inducing as the hum of the tires on the road.
In Boston, there is a fairly decent selection of stations from which to choose: rock, hip-hop, classical, pop, and fringe indie stuff. I noticed on my way back to Western MA from Boston yesterday that as I progressed further into the country, the more and more the main choice of music was country. By the time I was still a half an hour from my home, the overall number of stations had dwindled from over twenty to less than ten, of which five were playing solid voice-twangin' boo-hooin' crapass country music.
Really gives you an idea of the kind of place I live in.
It's been so long, so long. I know I haven't posted and there goes most of my small readership, but hopefully those who are using RSS will pick up this post. Huzzah! Really, I haven't had much to write about while back in the States. But I'll start back up with a tale of my most recent shopping trip.
When I'm back in the States, I like to get some new clothes items since my favorite stores aren't in Japan and also Japanese fashion only goes so far with me. You don't want to see me in full Japanese getup; you'd probably wet yourself laughing.
I've heard about how clothing designers/retailers have been secretly making sizes bigger in order to increase/maintain consumer confidence. You know, a size 2 or whatever is no longer what it used to be; a size 2 now is the same as what used to be a size 4. I wasn't sure if I believed it until my most recent venture into the mall. I used to be a solid medium. Shirts, pants, whatever. I certainly haven't gotten any smaller in the three years I've been in Japan, but apparently everyone else has gotten a lot bigger. I can't fit into anything labeled as a "medium" anymore. I've been moved down to a small, and even then things are huge.
What's telling though is that in every store, smalls are either very few or completely sold out. This tells me that either no one is a small or there are quite a few smalls who are buying everything out of the store. This is especially true on clearance racks. While there are racks and racks of M through XXL, there are (for example) three S-sized shirts.
An outrage! My only hope it seems is to go back to Japan to buy stuff that actually fits me. Hopefully without glitter, chains, and excessive fasteners.
Last night I went to a local (ish) bar for an event my sister's gradschool department was having. It was the first time I've been in an American bar since coming home from Japan. It's your classic New England bar with pool tables, beer, and lots of white people.
Not long after arriving I realized I wanted to use the bathroom. So I went in search of it. When I got there I noticed two doors, one for women and one handicap bathroom. I figured the men's room must be somewhere close by but couldn't see it. So I stood there looking confused and waited for the bartendress to help me. It never happened, and I looked like an idiot, no doubt.
In Japan, it's not uncommon for bathrooms in a bar (Izakaya) to be in a confusing place. All you have to do is look like you're searching for something, and inevitably one of the very helpful staff will show you to the bathroom. It's a wonderful arrangement. Here, obviously that does not work.
Cue reverse culture shock.
Bar none the hardest thing for me to adjust to since coming to Japan has been the degree to which people smoke here. Coming from Boston where smoking in public (technically, "anywhere people are working") buildings has been banned for years, it was like stepping into Europe...except worse.
Here, a "no smoking section" is often a tiny area of a restaurant in which smoking is not allowed, though there is no means or motivation to prevent the massive quantities of smoke from the smoking section from wafting over and ruining my meal...every time I eat out. And literally, just about everyone smokes. Eat at a restaurant that allows smoking at all, and you're guaranteed a smoky time. Luckily, it does seem like restaurants that are fully smoke-free are slowly becoming more common.
This is not to say that I think people shouldn't smoke. If they want to do that to themselves, that's all well and good. I also don't think that they should stop smoking in places they're allowed to smoke. It's unfortunate for me, but it's their right. However, the one piece of the puzzle that has bothered me the most is smoking parents. I can't tell you how many times a day I see mom puffing up with her infant sitting right next to her. Do these people have any concept of "second hand smoke" health risks? Though I can't be sure, it certainly seems like they don't. Just look at (aforementioned) horrible implementation of non-smoking areas, as well as the blatant disregard smokers here have of the people and loved ones around them. In a culture obsessed with not ruffling the feathers of others, I find such a thing kind of out of place.
Of course, it doesn't help that the government has a large holding in Japan Tobacco. Why let anyone know how bad the shit is for you when a huge portion of your yearly budget comes from tobacco revenue?
Last night in trying to pull a box of cling wrap from a drawer I somehow managed to gash my index finger on the metal teeth that are supposed to (but somehow don't do it very well) cut the wrap.
Apart from being an almost mind-numbingly humiliating injury, I've discovered it makes for rather challenging chopsticks usage.
As today I was biting into a tasty おにぎり (onigiri: a Japanese riceball snack), I realized as I got to the tuna filling that I couldn't stand to have the filling facing downward.
Background for those not in the know: onigiri come in a zillion varieties, with the most popular sold at convenience stores tending to have a filling of some sort (fish eggs, tuna, salmon, pickled seaweed...). Though the filling is in the center, it tends to be near the top or the bottom. Imagine the "top" or "bottom" of pizza or something.
Anyway, I figured that it made no sense to have the filling on the top, because there are more taste buds at the bottom half of my mouth. I flipped the onigiri over, and it just felt wrong. Where did this irrational feeling come from? I suppose from a lifetime of eating toast with spread on top?
Regardless, the snack was finished without further incident.
Recently I've taken to reading The Little Prince in Japanese as a way to beef up my rather pisspoor Japanese reading ability. It's a grueling but excellent way to practice.
Today I came across one particular passage that really stuck with me.
Spoken from the viewpoint of a six-year-old boy:
"Grownups love numbers. When talking about a new friend, they don't ask about the most important things. Instead of 'What kind of voice does he have?' or 'What's his favorite game?' or 'Does he collect butterflies?' they ask 'How old is he?' 'How many brothers does he have?' 'How much does he weigh?' or 'What's his father's salary?' By asking such things, finally they can understand a person. If you say something like 'There's a beautiful house with bricks the color of roses, with blooming Geraniums on the sills and so many pigeons on the roof...,' grownups can't imagine it. You can't say that. If you say 'I saw a million-dollar house!' then grownups will get interested. 'That's beautiful!' they might say."
I love this passage. It makes me think of everything that's wrong with the way people prioritize their lives these days.
I found out today that Saturday is apparently some as-yet-unheard-of holiday called "Sweetness Day" or something similarly idiotic. Apparently it's the day in which you "give sweets to your sweetie."
WTF? Isn't that what that other Hallmark-Holiday, Valentine's Day, is for?
Jesus, the things people buy into.
A lot of literature and other stuff comes to all JET participants from the main office and others. I tend to flip through stuff, including essays, articles, photographs, etc.
The one thing I can tell you that I feel every time is intense jealousy. You see while I live a very mundane and decidedly un-Japanese life in the most indescript of places in Japan, others are out participating in local festivals, living the local life, living a life with something meaningful. My featureless section of featureless Saitama often feels like it has absolutely nothing going for it. I get jealous and throw out the materials I receive.
I know it's not precisely like that, but it often feels that way. At these times, I feel sorry for myself and others who were unfortunate enough to be placed here.
Today I reviewed with my teacher the use of the very popular and very useful English modifier fucking. The new head principal at the school has proven himself to be rather strict about something which doesn't need such tight policing, and we were voicing our displeasure about it. He asked me to express it in English.
Of particular note were fucking stupid and this fucking sucks.
There's a lesson I wouldn't mind teaching every day ...
I have over the past year been reading, with increasing irritation, the regularly-released promotional material that is produced at my school. The purpose of these pamphlets/books/etc. is to promote our school to parents and students of junior high schools. Students in Japan have a choice of which high school they may go to, as opposed to simply being relegated to whatever school is in their district.
The problem is that despite the fact that I have been here for two frickin years, they keep printing pictures of my predecessor. Perhaps they haven't figured out that there is a huge difference between the two white dudes who have been at their school, but he left years ago. It's a real nice way to be reminded that to the people designing/deciding/editing these things, I am just a faceless foreigner. Every time I see his face once more plastered across something describing their great English program, I get more annoyed. I know there are pictures of me teaching class, because God knows every 2 weeks someone is sneaking around taking pictures in classes. I know I'm not exactly the most photogenic ALT ever to grace the JET program, but come on, sadly the picture they chose for him isn't flattering either. Get with the times, people! Grr.
I am given respite in knowing that my fellow English teachers also think it's stupid, and that probably they will do this to whoever my successor is. But at times like these, you really do wonder about what kind of value you have for the people you're working with.
Following Matt's excellent post on the virtues of the World Cup, Japanese stuff, and finally the true meaning of soccer, I concede I can hardly compete. But with World Cup Fever gripping Japan and pretty much everywhere else except the States, I guess I should get swept up as well. Figures.
Last night I stayed awake longer than I should have to watch Japan's first World Cup 2006 game, against the brutish (the team members, not the people themselves) Australians. Japan had it made on a single lame-ass goal until the last 10 minutes of the game. Then they got lazy and let another lame goal happen, this time at their expense.
I remember saying "well, at least tying is better than losing."
So you see, it was my fault. Somewhere in the echoing halls of the soccer gods, someone heard me. "I can fix that!" Losra, the god of sucky teams said. She swept down with fury and smote the Japanese players with a laziness that the human race had never seen the likes of. Australia leapt upon their opportunity with vigor and pounded the living shit out of Japan. All in 10 minutes.
It's kind of amusing because Japan's hesitant, near-timid playing style got the (hopeful) kick in the ass it needed. Also because I predicted Australia would win. But honestly, I'm sorry Japan. I didn't mean to shatter your hopes and dreams like that. But you have two more games to pray through, when first the Czechs Croatians and then the Brazilians crush you utterly.
Soccer isn't nearly as boring when you imagine its every moment laid out by vengeful gods.
I went to the dentist yesterday to remove previously mentioned scary stuff on my teeth.
My first impression was "damn that's cool that you can get a next-day appointment." Back home you have to wait like 6 months! My second impression, upon walking into the actual area where you get worked on was "why are all the chairs in the same room?" It seemed kind of odd that you should be able to hear other people's shouts of agony.
They sat me down and threw what amounts to a blanket with a hole in it over my head. Only my mouth and nose stick out from it. Then they went to town.
I feel like my mouth has been raped by a set of crazed tooth gnomes.
On the bright side my mouth is clean and sparkly after a half-hour of agony, and I only paid $20 for it.
Since coming to Japan, there are things about my own body that I've had to come to grips with. Body image is a different beast here, thus forcing me to sometimes completely about-face on notions I'd carried from the States.
Let's go with the positives first.
Thanks to Japan's pop-culture obsession with "America," as a white male I enjoy an advantage I couldn't have dreamed of back home. I'm no longer run-of-the-mill but exotic, even desirable (despite my dorky appearance). Don't believe me (you should)? Just walk around Tokyo and count the number of dorky-looking-white-guy-with-amazingly-hot-Japanese girl couples. You'll be astounded.
At the gym, I and Pete happen to be two of the biggest men there. It's refreshing. Back home, I'm almost always the runt, despite how much I might work out and get muscly. 75% of the male gym population back home is always bigger. Being at the top of the pile gleans not only instant grudging respect from the other "big" guys in the gym, but it also is a nice boost to the ol' ego. Never would I have dreamed of calling myself "huge." Here, I can do it with impunity.
There are negatives.
Even back home, my most noticeable feature is not my rugged good looks (ha!) or my bulging biceps or anything like that; it's my nose. It's sharp, bloody enormous, and has funny nostrils. Even when people aren't making fun of it, secretly I know they're marvelling at it. Fast forward to Japan. Japanese people claim that they have flat noses. For the most part, it's true. Many people have a hard time wearing "wraparound" sunglasses because they simply lack the nose bridge to support such eyewear. So many Japanese people have these cute little button noses it makes me sick with envy. For some mind bogglingly stupid reason, people like "tall" noses. This is where I fit in. Remember, enormous, pointy? They love it. I can't tell me how many times I've overheard (or directly been told) exclamations to the height of my nose. I suppose they think it's a compliment, but every time I hear it I cringe and want to rip my own olfactory unit right off. "If you like it so much, let's friggin trade!" Next person who says "ooh his nose is so tall!" is gonna get pecked in the eye.
Similarly, there seems to be the perception here that Japanese people have wide/big faces. Naturally, the white model is better, meaning a small face/head is better. I remember one of the first things that was said to me when I got in the car to drive to Gyoda for the first time was "My you have a small head. Mine is so huge!" While "Oh!" was my proper response, I do remember thinking "What the fuck?" My response hasn't much changed in two years. Daily students who have seen me around comment on how small my face is. WTF, am I a pygmy or something? So basically what I'm hearing is that I has a small face with an enormous nose. Doesn't really paint a pleasant picture, does it? I always knew my head was kinda small thanks to the fact that I look like an idiot in hats (sigh), but it's getting drilled in here with unprecedented ferocity. God, why didn't you give me a bigger skull!!
Finally, there's the teeth. Here I fit in nicely because I have bunk teeth. I've always prided myself on the fact that my teeth are always very well-brushed and sparkly. But just today I noticed an alarming amount of unexplainable junk on the inside of my teeth. I still brush every day. I still use Listerine every day. I floss every other day. I don't smoke at all, and neither do I drink coffee or much cola. So what is this crap? Upon seeing it, naturally I freaked out. I absolutely must go to the dentist now, but like most foreigners, I am terrified of Japanese dentists. We are told that Japanese dentistry is at the height of technology and among the best in the world. So why do so many Japanese people have horrible teeth? I fear that I'll go to the dentist for a simple cleaning and come out with three fake teeth. Yeek.
There you have the gist of it. There are other things, and I do think things are worse here for foreign women. For now, I'll try to enjoy my status...while going to the dentist.
Today I came home from a fruitful excursion to the cell phone store (where I used my "points" to get a free battery pack) to find two pigeons humping on my veranda.
Ah, the signs of spring.
Back in elementary and middle school, I played Trombone. I wasn't very good, owing to the fact that I wasn't very dedicated. I made the mistake of mentioning that I used to play, so the music-department (or what passes for that here) director got wind of it last year and asked me to play with the band at the 3年生 (3rd year/senior students) going away thingie. I couldn't say no.
This year the dreaded trombone returns, with the same "shit I've forgotten everything and have to relearn the entire instrument in two weeks" issues as last time. But I shall prevail, like last time.
The question begs to be asked "why can't it be something cooler, like me being the DJ backup for the band or something?" The other question you might be begging to ask is "did uncoolness ever actually leave your vicinity?" Laugh it up, joker, cuz I know you're thinkin it.
I'm absolutely positive I'm not alone in my opinion that there is something wrong with drivers in Japan. Daily when we lowly foreign English teachers hop on our bikes to get to school, we bet our lives on those rickety frames. Just ask Roy who got hit and injured not just his bike, phone, and computer but also his body. Tons of people ride bikes here, which when I first got here made me think there was reason to believe that drivers would be more observant about them. Oh, how I was wrong.
There seems to be a basic problem with observation here. Drivers all over the world, of course, are in their own little worlds, but here it feels a lot worse. People tend to think that once they've hopped in their car, they don't have to worry about the little guy on the side of the road. Run him off the road (I can't tell you how many times this has happened), he's just got a bike, what can he do? I was driving the other day, stopped at an intersection and waiting to turn out into the intersection. A truck wanted to turn onto my road, so I waited. Instead of turning normally onto my street, he instead turned directly into the car I was driving. There was the whole other lane of the road, which he should have been turning into, completely clear, but instead he wanted to take the corner ridiculously tight and illegally turn into oncoming traffic. He was largely unaware, it seems, that my car was even there until we were literally a foot apart, at which point he and his wife stared at me indignantly like "why are you here?" Um ... I'm here because it's my side of the road you fuckup. I can't tell you how many times I've been a passenger to a Japanese driver and thought "oh God I'm totally gonna die." I've only been with one driver who actually appears to look carefully both ways when coming out of an intersection. Naoki is a very very good person.
I could be wrong (of course) but I think it's the insurance system here. I don't know much about it, but I'm always asking questions to try to get an idea of how it works. The basic gist is that very very rarely is fault established solely on one driver. The majority of the time, fault (and thus payment of damages) is split straight down the middle. For example, if I am driving on a main thoroughfare and some dolt pulls out from a side road and I nail him, the fault is still 50% mine. Why? I couldn't have stopped, but the law says that it was somehow in my power to avoid the accident and I didn't, so thus it's half my fault. Even if someone is driving on the wrong side of the road and causes a head-on, the victim is still 10% liable. From what I've gathered from asking a bunch of different people, it's close to impossible to establish 100% fault in an accident.
So then it makes sense why people are so careless here, especially when it comes to bicyclists or smaller cars. If you smash a cyclist, she'll end up paying for the damage her head made to your windshield. On top of that she'll probably end up paying her own medical bill, some of yours, and the fees to get rid of her mangled bike. Same goes for a small car. You clobber that thing with your brand new Toyota Monster, and you get the better end of the deal and end up penalizing someone thousands of dollars for being stupid enough to think that you were a responsible driver. The end result is that nobody cares when they drive, and it's a dangerous place out there for the rest of us.
If you have a better understanding of the insurance system here, by all means comment. But I may hunt you down and hit you with a car.
It's been a while that I've done a post not related to the redesign. So it's time to set things a-right with my readership...by delivering some random crap that'll hopefully make people laugh, cry, roll their eyes, or do something. I may even settle for scratching one's butt, though I'd hope it's in reaction to this post. Then again, maybe I'm not exactly looking for that.
Let's start off with life mistakes. Everyone has them: those mistakes that you're always thinking back upon like "why????!!" Past wrongs done, past things said, people hurt, cool mp3s deleted...that kind of thing. Today's mistake is my pants. I was at Uniqlo (for you wanna-be hipsters in the UK and US, it's all over Japan and just because it's a foreign brand does not make it any hipper than the GAP, which is exactly what it is) a while back thinking I needed a new pair of dressy pants for school. Hey, it was a sale and lo, there was a sale on dressy pants. Yes! So I tried on this pair of pants and bought them. No sweat. Honestly, I don't know what I was thinking. Every time I wear these pants I cringe. I still wear them because I paid money for them and when I tried them on I must've thought there was something redeeming about them. But really. I look like one of those skinny huge-assed guys...without the ass. So in essence, I look like a 145-pound guy with the hips (and not the ass) of a pregnant woman. I think it's the pleats? Oh for the love of...why am I still wearing these things? Never.again.
Next up is the toilet in my school. I've blogged about it not long ago, but as the winter is getting even colder the daily toilet-saga is worsening. Every time I sit down now, I can't help but squeak out obscenities. It's that cold. Seriously, we're talking a seat of ice, folks. It often comes down to "can I wait until I get home to the bliss of my heated toilet seat?" Sadly, just as often the answer is "no." Damn you school lunch.
Lastly, it's the gym. I usually use the weight room at school because well...it's free. It's also unheated and thus gets rather cold in the winter. Lifting heavy objects made of metal while it's 33 degrees isn't a good idea. So I sucked it up and started paying 6300円 (about 60 bucks) a month to go to the gym after 8:30PM only on weeknights. Wow what a bargain. Anyway, my gym experience has been enlightening. (Disclaimer: before you crucify me for being a chauvanist pig, read to the end puhleeze) For one, I have, and never again will, see so many women over 40 with 25-year-old bodies. It's a very strong testament to what western women might look like if they didn't so often blimp out. It's also, unfortunately, a testament to the ridiculous starvation dieting that women do here. Men in Japan enjoy the same sexist benefits of being able to blimp out with much less negative impact, though far fewer men here seem to do so. Witness the 50 year old PTA guy with the 30 year old body. Then there's "ol' meathead." I was under the (largely confirmed until I went to a club with Roy) impression that Japanese men didn't get very hugely muscular. Then I came to the gym and saw meathead. He's just like every other huge gym dude you've seen. His neck is bigger around than my legs, and he has bigger manboobs than most women. He goes around the gym helping all of the lesser humans get their workout right, thus benefitting from everyone thinking he's the man of the gym. Really it just comes down to the fact that I'm seething with jealousy. I'm 110% sure that there will never be a time in my life when I will be called a meathead. I mean, wouldn't it be cool just to know that someone is thinking "dayum that guy is built?" Maybe not, actually, but I do prefer that to the alternative "li'l twig" that seems to be a far more accurate descriptor for yours truly. Awwww.
On a daily basis I contend with a herculean "Dangerous Minds" (I'm sure there's a better movie/book example but I'm drawing a blank now) complex that I seem to have developed. I keep thinking that somehow, someway, there's a way to "get through" to these kids (especially the technical school ones) and get them to like English.
I keep thinking that if only I can plan out that magical lesson where suddenly English is no longer boring, lame, and a time to chat with your friends but interesting and a skill that really could be useful in the future. I know I'm not a crappy teacher. Perhaps if I'm more of a friend to them and less of a teacher? No, that just gets them asking sex questions. How about games? Even more boring than rote memorization, apparently. Even the blatant bribery bit ( that JET people constantly warn should only be used in last-ditch scenarios) flopped.
I can feel my disillusionment growing every new week. Every new cool lesson planned out only to be chewed up and spit out (sometimes literally) in moments, every hour spent trying to "friendify" them into trying some English ... I feel my desire to try slipping away. Soon enough I'll be one of the teachers who just go straight from the book. After all, if the students don't like anything creative, why not make the work easier on myself and at least use materials that are already prepared?
It doesn't have to be this way ... doesn't, doesn't, doesn't ...
EDIT: In pondering this during my daily lunch walk, I realized it really doesn't have to be this way: the reality is that I'm really not here to be a teacher at all, but a "cultural ambassador" (read: foreign one-man freakshow the kids can stare at) whose foreign ways will hopefully incite someone somewhere in Japan to be more interested in Internationalization. That being said, I feel a tiny bit better about my moribund classes.
Yesterday I was looking at this stuff called "miracle clear" or something like that. It promised to erase the ever-increasing age- and stress-induced bags under my eyes. Japanese skin care products have a reputation for being excellent and also extremely varied, so I thought it really was some rejuvenating magical stuff that would make my face younger ... or something. I shelled out my money in haste.
It turned out to be makeup.
Living as a foreigner in Japan, you may be tempted to start to see yourself as something rather special. Maybe you think you're better looking, somehow, than you were before. Maybe you think you are so smart because you've only been living here for a year and people just keep telling you your Japanese is awesome. Maybe you think people ask you so many questions because they're truly interested in you.
In an effort (okay I admit it doesn't take much effort at all) to banish such thoughts and more, I simply remind myself that none of them are remotely true. To the majority of the people you meet, you are little more than a passing feature at the Ueno Zoo, something to marvel and point at for a short period of time before the next attraction draws attention. As a foreign English teacher in a public school, you certainly are little more than one more in a long line of continually-changing foreigners. How memorable are you really when people who have seen you daily for two years keep calling you by the last guy's name? Even to your Japanese friends, it is quite possible that a good part of the reason they are your friends is that you are foreign and even somewhat of a "friend trophy."
If you are one of the lucky ones to have command of the language enough to have a decent conversation, you haven't escaped. You definitely have a "specialness" advantage, but as I've heard Roy put it, you're just a talking monkey now instead of a mute one. Nevertheless I envy you horribly. Oh, to impress upon the people I talk to that I do have feelings and a personality to boot! The jury's still out on whether or not that actually works.
People are not looking at you because you're a hot dude(ss). They often have little desire to find out more about you beyond the "weird things" about your home country. They might even use you to the extent that you don't understand the way things work here. Like it or not, as truly special (or not) as you may be, you're still just a passing fancy. Consider yourself the "summer fling" if you will. Welcome to the ever-changing, always-the-same 外人 (gaijin: not-so-nice word for foreigner) roadshow.
This grounding (and bitter, I apologize for that) moment brought to you by shock-e.com
The boneheads in charge of IT at the prefecture level (all high schools in Japan are controlled by their prefectural governmental ministry) run a content filtering app that I am constantly bumping into. Daily you can hear my curses when I'm (usually) trying to find something useful and run into this thing. The things that they do to "protect" the kids from the world, in the end, only manage to make school less educational and more ridiculous. Last time I was trying to find Halloween games to play with my English club. I was blocked from every page because the word "game" was included in the page. No games allowed in school! Enjoying even a moment of your class makes you weak and stupid!
Today I was looking up more about Nanking/Nanjing in thinking about a response I wrote earlier to Roy's comment. Apparently history is also a banned category!
Okay I kinda get censoring the violence part, but history? What the fuck?
This morning I had a (quite base) thought whilst 90% asleep:
If "blow job" and "hand job" each describe a sexual activity, just imagine what a "nose job" must be ...
Yeah I know, I don't want to know either why I was thinking this at 7AM.
Again...and again! I lost arm wrestling matches three more times, to two separate students. The second one is a rather small student, definitely smaller than me. So what gives? My wrist hurts so much now I have trouble typing. But I had to redeem myself ... instead losing what little dignity remained.
On the bright side, I'm told it's not my brute strength that's lacking but instead, it's just that I have sucky technique.
Whoever thought arm wrestling involved technique?
Let me tell you a little bit about bugs. Specifically, let me tell you about the differences between American Mosquitos and Japanese Mosquitos.
Prior to coming to Japan, I had assumed that if another country had Mosquitos, they would be the same as they are back home; dumb, slow, annoying, and ubiquitous. What I have learned after spending two summers battling them is that they are quite different here, and I can only assume other countries have some other evil Mosquito strains.
The only things Japanese Mosquitos (hereby referred to as Ms because I'm getting sick of writing "Mosquito") share with American Ms are ubiquity and irritation. They are indeed everywhere. And they kind of look alike. But Japanese Ms seem to have these fuzzy antennae things that American ones don't, and there's also a separate kind that is black-and-grey striped. Neither are dumb or slow.
Back home, you can easily nab an M out of the air with one hand. Mashing one against the wall is a cakewalk. Here, it's damn hard. I think they're smaller and they're definitely faster here. It's so easy to lose sight of them, and the moment you've done so, they're probably sucking your sweet sweet red nectah (blood). Just the other night, one woke me up by buzzing in my ear (something they rarely do, actually), and I spent the next 45 minutes trying to kill it. Several times I tried to go back to sleep, only to have it bite me on some new and inconvenient bodily location.
And let me talk about that for a moment. Back home, when they bite they get full and slow and leave you alone. Here, it's like they've been invited to an endless buffet. They keep coming back for more and never seem to give up. A single M has bitten me like 5 times in as many minutes. And their bites itch like hell. I theorize it's because my body is used to American M bites and can deal more easily with the hystamines in their pokers.
It all comes down to using these electric M machines that only sometimes work, and waiting out the end of the season. Winter ain't great, but I'll be spared spending whole evenings stalking about the room singing "Where are you, you little fuckeerrrr? I'm gonna killlll you!"
Lately, I seem to be waging a war against nature (or some semblance of it). Not like I have anything against it, I mean I was a "tree-hugger Environmental Science" major. But man, sometimes ...
Last night I was awoken at midnight by what I thought was my neighbors doing major renovations on their house right next to my bedroom window. It took me a little while to figure out that it was a cicada doing it's "whirp whirp whiiiiiiiiiirp" thing ... in the middle of the night. While not unheard of, it is kind of strange and especially loud and disturbing when the nasty insect has attached itself to your window screen to do its little "hump-hump-hump-meeeeeeee" call. So I did what anyone would do: I flicked it. Poor thing bounced around against the outside light for a good 15 minutes before getting the point that it indeed was night and time to sleep.
Two nights before that, I had the most horrifying dreams. I was dismembered, burned alive in lava ... all while waiting for some sort of rescue helicopter that never showed up. The inspiration for such horror, it turns out, was a cat in heat prowling around on my balcony. You have to understand that cats never come up there, so an especially adventurous and horny one at 3AM was disconcerting. Combine this with the fact that I had been awoken by yowling and was just a tad out of it ... well I was terrified. I really had to go to the bathroom but the bathroom has a window overlooking the balcony and I was convinced the cat would try to get me. I held my pee-break until morning. I've been instilled with plenty of Hmong spiritual legendry so in that half-sleeping state I was utterly sure that the cat was bringing ill-will (which is what they do in Hmong belief apparently).
It all turned out fine in the end ... or so I thought. I giggled about it the next day, went to school, and came back. It was then that I discovered the little weenie had chowed on my carefully-tended mint plants.
Damn you nature!
Sometimes I get so bored, I want to rot my brain and watch TV rather than do something productive with my life (write stories, study Japanese, pick my nose). Really, watching TV is one of the last things I should be doing, but I sometimes just can't help but plop down on the ol' yellow fake leather sofa and turn on the tube.
Every time, I'm so disgusted with the horrible quality of the fare that I turn it right back off.
The other night was no exception. We were watching a Japanese game show in which the contestants do various things to show their smarts about animal hijinks. The bone I have to pick with Japanese TV production is 100% my own problem and obviously cultural so don't get all up on me for being insensitive or generalizing or whatever.
The problem with Japanese TV production is the lack of "normal" people. Anyone who is on any show or advertisement pretty much must be famous. Sometimes we see segments of variety shows (whose guests are solely famous people) with normal people on it, but those normal people have to be doing something relatively out-of-the-ordinary to get on the segment in the first place. So here we have, as Pete has put it, a whole variety of TV shows that all feature the same guests. It's like you're only allowed to see the same 15 people on TV during any one season.
What gets me going is already-famous and already-rich people winning more crap and privilege. Anyone who knows me knows I have a huge beef against undeserved fame/fortune/privilege (think Paris Hilton). So back to the animal show. I was watching these celebrities pitted against each other to test their critter mettle. Finally one guy won, and guess what? He won some crazy crystal stuff, and a trip to Bali, and a ton of food ... just like "normal" people can win on American game shows. As if this rich guy can't already afford a million of those crystals and trips and foodstuffs. As if he needs more crap and ego-injections.
It all comes down to, as I was told, a lack of charitable feelings amongst the Japanese which is largely attributed to Christianity (again this is something I was told so don't get all up on my shit for it). Am I to believe there's no charitable spirit in this country? Where people, who are much poorer than the very celebrities they watch, are forced to watch said celebrities get even richer because normal people are pretty much not allowed on TV? I didn't watch much TV back home, but my experience was that if a celebrity were on a game show where (s)he could win stuff, those winnings would go to charity. Here, they go straight to an already-rich person's coffers.
Not to say that there aren't truly-educational or interesting shows on Japanese TV, but they are pretty rare (much like American TV). But I tire of seeing the same 10 or 15 people making the same jokes for days on end. It's with this disgust that I click the power button.
Whatever happened to quality programming like Takeshi's Castle!!
This morning, like any other morning, Maki spent two hours on the train to get to her job in Tokyo. Unlike any other day in her adult working life, she forgot her ID badge to get into her job at NTT Communications. When she got there, she was unable to enter the building. Completely blocked. They sent her home to get her ID badge to get into a job she already dislikes. So by 10:30 this morning, she had already spent six hours on the train. Today she will have spent eight hours total on the train for a job where she is treated as an OL (short for "Office Lady" which basically means sits around, looks pretty, and serves the oh-so-important men tea and coffee when they yell). All just to get into the building.
The company is no missile-defense contractor. It's an offshoot of the old government telecom that handles some sort of data infrastructure that no one really cares about. What boggles my mind is that the bureaucracy is so heavy at this company that there's not even anything like a sign-in sheet or visitor ID badge she could borrow for the day. The people in security know who she is, they've seen her face every day for the past two years. Yet here is one more example of how adhering to (however stupid it is) the system is more important than being kind for someone. Were I in her shoes and told I have to hike two hours back home and then two hours back for a simple ID badge, you all know I'd tell them to fuck off. No mediocre job is worth that. I guess that's the difference between us!
Of all the boneheaded things I've heard about this company, it's a wonder they have any business at all.
I don't get it. Why do people idolize celebrities? What genetic reason is there for being a brainless sheep? What is the point of talking about how attractive someone is or how great they are or giving a shit at all because they are rich and famous? First, this person has, and always will have, no bearing on the average person's life. Second, fame and fortune do not at all add up to a better person. Yet why does it seem to me that such a small percentage of the general population understands this? I mean, come on. Excuse my venom, but who fucking cares if Brad Pitt goes to the hospital? I went to the hospital two weeks ago with so-called "flu-like symptoms" and the BBC didn't pick that up. Neither do they pick up that every day thousands of poeople in Africa die of AIDS. I'm pretty sure in those thousands, every day there are people dying with more talent and potential than Brad Pitt. Yet he is famous! So we must obsess! Damned be the people who are truly suffering!
I see those supermarket gossip rags and I want to puke. Why the hell do people care who Angelina "Lips of Collagen" Jokie is fucking this week? Housewives, quit trying to catch up on Catherine Zeta Jones' sex life and maybe check out why your husband is so busy every week.
Gah. Yeah, there are plenty of famous people out there who genuinely deserve praise. But that doesn't mean they need legions of blubbering idiots who would rather take their own lives than see their idol in trouble. I watched a news item here in Japan about some shitty-punk (yes, I truly believe that's a viable genre title for the style of music that virtually all teenagers are listening to) star who choked on his own vomit after an OD or some other such nonsense. The footage showed his funeral limosine surrounded by wailing teenagers, who were pretty much flagellating themselves in despair. What the hell. He was a person, not some God. These people react more to some dumbass in ripped jeans and crappy hair than they would if their own parents died.
This world is a disgusting, backwards place.
/rant
Mind you, I was in a perfectly chipper mood until someone thought it was newsworthy to write about Brad Pitt's fever. Oy ...
Like Roy, I also have a crappy teacher situation. Today, for the first time after a year of teaching with him, I decided upon a name: Douchebag-Sensei.
Yes, it's similar to Roy's Dipshit-Sensei but hey, inspired by his brilliant use of dipshit, I came up with "Dipshit-Sensei" anyway. They mean virtually the same thing in my book, but you know ... we can't be eating the same dish (so to speak).
Douchebag-Sensei has actually managed to garner a reputation amongst Saitama highschool teachers as being the least likely teacher to give a shit about teaching. Even before he taught at the current low-level technical school, he taught just as badly at a decent school .
What gets to me is that his shitty attitude affects the students (naturally). Sure, most of them don't give a damn about English anyway, and I don't expect them to. But the teacher's role as I see it is to nurture what interest there might be. If a student asks a question during an activity or shows any interest at all, I'll do my best to work with it. DB-Sensei (acronym usage definitely ripped from Roy) quashes it. Today a student was talking to both of us about the current activity. He was obviously interested in learning more about the usage of the target sentence and its alternatives. Instead of trying to work with this interest, DB pretty much said "yep that's how it works," turned away, and went back to sleeping standing up. I tried to work with the student more, but my bad Japanese rapidly became a barrier to further learning.
If only I could design my own activities for the students instead of using the world's worst English textbook. Every time I suggest an activity, without fail he'll very evasively (which is what passes for politely here) nix anything interesting. And we go back to reading from the world's worst English textbook.
To top it off, Douchebag isn't going anywhere soon, as I have the feeling that his poor performance at previous schools is the very reason he's been placed at a low-level school.
If anything, it's one more reason to study Japanese more.
Every day I try to go down to my school's dingy (but happily free, in a country of very expensive memberships) weight room to train. I've been getting pudgy, you see. Since the room is locked, I have to make my way to the smoke-filled gym-teachers' room (I hope the irony is not lost on you) and retrieve the key. It usually goes without a hitch. Today also went without a hitch, but for a nagging doubt that suddenly took hold of me. I realized that every time I go in there, I get these mysterious weird half-looks. What do I mean by that? I don't really know. All I know is I feel dreadfully appraised ... not necessarily in a good way.
It got me to thinking about my time here. I realized I'm navigating through a world that (despite my time here and my apparent cultural learning) I know nothing about. I'm steadily learning my way around cultural blunders and such, but for the most part the Japanese people remain a mystery.
Japanese people are known (though I was unaware of this before coming) for being rather inexpressive. I, on the other hand, am highly expressive. My face, I guess, is like a little TV monitor showing pretty much exactly what I'm feeling. It makes for a rather shitty poker player. Regardless, because of this fundamental difference in expression, I realized today that I really have no idea what many people think about me. The people I work with are very nice, helpful, and fun, but at the same time it's rather impossible to figure out what they think. Back home, you can pretty easily tell if someone doesn't like you; (s)he'll be a complete asshole to you. Usually workplace civility is maintained, but nothing more than that. If it's out of the workplace, obvious dislike is perfectly fair game. Here, even if people hate each others' guts, they'll be, for the most part, painfully polite. I think it may be part of the uber-pacifistic nature that Japan has adopted since World War II.
And so I wonder what people are thinking when I say or do something. Are they saying "boy he is a funny guy, this ジャスティン character" or are they saying "what a dumbass ... when's the next teacher coming?" In all, it shouldn't matter. Most people say just to ignore what other people think about you and go about doing your own thing. I can't really do that. I rely heavily on the opinions of others, as I not only want to think the best of people but also I want them to think the best of me. I also want to know if I'm doing my job well. After all, I am here to do a job. As a westerner, I have been trained to read facial and body language, which is pretty minimal here. So what to do? Obviously, keep trying to learn about other (if any) ways Japanese people express themselves. But in the meantime, I find myself rather, as I said, paranoid.
You think you're a nice person and that people like you; but to realize suddenly that you can't really feel sure is distressing. It's kind of like having the floor whipped out from under you, with empty space beneath.
People like me, right? Hmm.
Note: That was just a musing, rhetorical question, for all you sassy folk.
In follow up to a previous post,
The Most Pointless Spam, I give you part two.
The other day I got barraged with yet another nifty tagline that should just send so much traffic to whatever site is spamming me. All the comment spam contained was a link for "www.chineseapesattack.com" and "www.chineseapesattack2.com" (Note: don't bother going to those sites, they don't actually exist).
WTF?
This admittedly isn't as stupid as spamming for puppets or staples, but come on. Chinese apes attack?
Out of curiosity I went to the other link listed in the spam, just to see who was stupid enough to hire this spammer. Turns out it's some rinkydink antique store in upstate New York. A word of advice to you idiots at "Yellow Monkey" antiques: spamming does not make people want to buy your useless junk. In fact, all it makes me personally want to do is fill your inbox with obscenities ... and possibly sign you up on some heinous spam list.
Seeing as their website looks like shit (along with their "merchandise"), I can't imagine mom and pop "Yellow Monkey" could figure out how to get rid of any spam they suddenly started receiving ...
Recently (today, in fact) I finally figured out the kanji for "low fat" in regards to milk (低脂 in case you were wondering). This is an incredible boon to me. I prefer low fat milk, especially in Japan since milk is much less pasteurized and therefore stinky and rather thick.
Until now, I had only been able to buy one brand in my town, the only one that said "Low Fat Milk" on the package. But today I made a major reading breakthrough and figured out how to remember the kanji for it. Now I have multiple (read: two ... sometimes) choices!
Then I made a heinous discovery.
As you may have guessed by the title of this post, I discovered that the milk with English on it is just about twice as expensive as the all-japanese milk. I'm trying to justify it by thinking that possibly just one brand is much more expensive than the other, or imported from, say, the moon. Since virtually all milk in Japan comes from Hokkaido, transport costs shouldn't factor into the more-than-100-yen price difference. My conspiracy-theorist half tells me that it's just a simple demonstration of foreigners getting ripped off for ignorance. After all, that extra dollar for the English-equipped milk is paying for the convenience of not having to learn kanji! Even factoring in that convenience, the expense of the "English" milk borders on highway robbery.
I guess it makes sense ... but it still pisses me off. Anyone else see something like that?
In follow-up to my previous story I Think I'm Turning Japanese, I think it's time to write about how I will never ever ever be very Japanese. Current (and some permanent) indications:
- I will never, repeat, never prefer a squat toilet over a western toilet, provided that said western toilet is not covered in poop.
- I still can't sit on my knees or cross-legged for longer than 5 minutes without causing myself severe pain. If you want to see what Justin will look like as an old man, just watch him try to get up after sitting for a half hour in a Ramen shop. Ohhhh my baaack.
- I despise Japanese consumer practices. "Shouganai" (It can't be helped) is most certainly not good enough if I bought something that sucks and I want to return it. Jesus, what kind of capitalists are you people, anyway?
- I equally despise Japanese television. It doesn't even qualify as "entertainment" in my book.
- I have not learned to appreciate the fine subtleties of Japanese beer. For instance, I cannot understand why something that tastes more flavorful than Bud Light (but in a bad way) is considered good.
- I need a Japanese person to translate for me ... when I'm speaking Japanese.
- I don't, and never will, understand rape/bondage fantasy. Nor do I have the overwhelming (or any at all) urge to steal panties hung out in the laundry.
- I am well aware that not every man, woman, and child in the US owns a gun. I am also aware that a for