So I'm back in Japan, but I have to admit Korea was pretty damn cool. The highlights of the rest of Friday night include: getting my fake Armani suit tailored for $3 in the basement of a department store at 10:00 at night; going to see "Command and Conquer" at a cinema on the 10th floor of a department store that also had condominiums on the top twenty floors along with a gym and groceries and basically everything you'd need to live in one place; wandering the streets of Seoul and bargaining for stuff with no intention of buying anything; the many coats and shirts and things people bought at the department stores which are open 'till 6AM every single day (in Seoul they know how to shop); taking $2 taxi rides where the driver of the cab without Cindy always ends up charging more than the one with Cindy; sneaking into the hotel because we had 3 more people staying in the rooms than we should; sleeping on the floor; and sleeping in till 11:30 the next day.

Hightlights from Saturday include: moving to the "Hotel Blue" that had every room and hallway decorated in Jazz memorabilia; listening to the horrible English all of us seem to have developed now such as Scharf-san's "I'm freezing cold to wear this"; going out for lunch and eating Korean sushi and dumplings and a bowl of currey for $5; going shopping on the main shopping street and buying ridiculous "Happy Christmas" cards with other bad English expressions; wandering the under-street mall and surviving the fire and smoke filled corridors and caughing after we got out from all the plastic fumes we inhaled (we never saw the fire); watching people buy street food; shopping at the Techno Mart for electronics and buying a $12 Samsung mouse that's actually made in Korea (side note: it sucks, and is not much better than the touch pad on my computer. Maybe the problems is the computer, though); going out for dinner and our group being indecisive for a half hour and finally eating the most delicious Korean food and Korean Cass & Hite beers; playing "truth or drink" at said restaurant; getting coffee and sitting on the main shopping street people watching; going back to the hotel and sneaking into the non-snoring room to sleep even though the lady proprietor who was behind the desk perpetually (morning, noon, night -- everytime we saw her) forbid us to have guys sleep in the same room as the women and vice-versa; sleeping on the heated floor (awesome Korean original ancient invention, by the way); etc.

Then we flew home after getting up at 6:30 in the morning, uneventfully. The bus from downtown Seoul to the airport was very scenic as we rode along the river, but I didn't take any pictures there. Final impressions: Korea is a lively place, Koreans are not like Japanese and are much more personable; smog is really bad there; and I should have picked a cheap country to live in because it's much more fun to be a rich person than a poor one. I'm too tired to write more, so that will have to do. I'm glad to be back where I can read signs again. Anyway, laters.
'
- posted by freestyle @ 8:01 PM

 
So we just spent the afternoon wandering around Seoul downtown and shopping. I bought an exact Armani knock-off suit for about $70. Impulse buy for sure, but I will need to interview soon.... Okay, now it's off to go get some crazy food and more beers. I tried a Korean beer called "Cass". Now we all know where that must have been inspired from... (if you're from Detroit, anyway). Laters.
- posted by freestyle @ 4:16 AM

 
Okay, in Seoul now. Just had coffee. Back to the whatever. Here, my friend James wants to write some stuff:

"I would just like to say that I am proud to be a friend of the great Nilsen-san. We're here in Seoul, living it up, and i'm sure everybody wishes you were with us. But you're not. You're probably working right now. Suckers." -James
- posted by freestyle @ 1:11 AM

 
It's day two of Thanksgiving day in Korea. Right now I'm in an internet cafe in the city of Degu (about 1 hr from Seoul). Of the 7 of us, the only Korean has left to go visit her aunt, so we're on our own without language skills. I learned how to say thanks, hello, and I don't speak Korean. So far it's worked okay, although I think we got a bit ripped off riding the taxis.

But first, here's how the first day went. We left immediately after class around noon and caught the slow trains to Osaka. From there, we got on the 3 hour bullet train ride to Fukuoaka (?) and then took a slow train backtracking to the port city of Shimonesetsu. The bullet train went through Hiroshima, and it was kind of creepy looking out at this Japanese city. It looked exactly like any other Japanese city, with the same types of roads and buildings, but you just knew what happened here. It was very odd. You could feel the pain of the 200,000 people that died horrible deaths there. Strangely, all the trees on the hillsides and dense vegetation along with the complete, vibrant city, led me to think what if this never happened? Because looking around, you can't tell. But you just know something bad happened there. I wouldn't want to live in that town, especially as an American.

The ferry was a total blast. We filled out the massive amount of immigration paperwork, and then finally boarded the boat. It was a passenger only ferry, and was really big. Our room slept 13, and when we got there some Korean ladies were camping out and claiming most of the mattresses. But we must have scared them off, because they all immediately went to their Tour Guide and got a different room. So we only had 2 strangers in our mix. One of them, Takeshi, had taken the same trains as us from Osaka and he ended up hanging out with us. He was meeting friends in Korea, but didn't know anybody on the boat.

We started by drinking the 1 L Asahi beers we bought in Japan and some more from the Asahi beer vending machine on board that only took Japanese Yen where any button you push would get you beer. It was sweet. The other vending machine only took Korean Won and sold some strange drinks. One was the Pine drink. This stuff tasted like Pine trees. I am not making this up. It seriously tasted like Pine Sol, except watered down and with sweeteners. Takeshi, our new Japanese friend, had never tried it either and I explained it tased like a "cleaning thing", and he agreed after tasting it. Then we went up to the restaurant where I most of us tried traditional Korean food for the first time. It was really good. We didn't know how to eat it, though, until Cindy explained. When confronted by the small plate with some fish stuff in it, Alex had the best line: "In what culture do you eat the bones?". Dessert was an awesome cinnamon drink. I had one beer, and felt drunk. Mostly it was due to the constant rolling of the ship, but I continued to drink. Some of our group was feeling ill and stopped drinking and went to sleep, but I continued. I guess I don't get sea sick at all, and that skill also explains why I like being a passenger in cars being driven fast and enjoy roller coasters while drunk, etc. In other words, I don't get queasy easily. I was a little worried though, so I didn't drink too quickly. We ended up wandering around the ship at night, hitting punching bags, and finally passing out around 11. The boat moved up and down and side to side a lot.

The room was hot as hell and we were all sleeping on narrow mats one next to another. They gave us each a blanket and a small vinyl covered foam block as a pillow. Since I was pretty toasty, I slept fine at first. But then, at exactly 4AM, it sounded like we hit an iceberg. It turned out we were just dropping anchor, but after that I couldn't sleep. The view out the window was eerie because all you could see on the horizon were the lights of what looked like fishing vessels spaced evenly out. No land was in sight. In actuality, we had anchored just off shore of Pusan, but our side of the boat faced the pacific ocean, so we couldn't tell. We think the ferry anchored to wait in line for the dock. The other lights were other freighters that had anchored nearby. I think. Anyway, I couldn't go back to sleep because it was sweltering and I was lying right next to two people who were snoring loudly. I mean right next. So that kinda sucked. Then at 6, the other half of the room (separated by a divider) turned on the lights and that was it. The whole boat woke up. Some people went to the on board onsen (hot tub/ shared bath thing), but I just tried to sleep.

So finally we docked. After getting through customs, we went and got our Won. I exchanged my travelers checks and had 415,000 won. That seems like a lot, huh? And they don't make bills with demoninations greater than 10,000 won, so we each had huge stacks of money. 415,000 Won is about $350 US.

Then we went by taxi to Taejongdae Resort Park, a spectacular seaside cliff area. Pusan is a bustling port city with hundreds of giant freighters coming and going, but right nearby are the cliffs. The city is built on these hills that slope down dramatically to the sea. And while the city is a protected harbor, the outer landmass takes the brunt of the Pacific Ocean. I don't have time to eloquently describe the place, so you'll have to wait to see the pictures. It was breathtaking.

After that, we ended up going to the fish market. This was a depressing place. It was incredibly bright and colorful, and for about 500 feet indoors there are tank after tank of salt water tanks with live fish in them. Actually all kinds of sea life. There were squid, one of which jumped out of it's tank and landed in front of us. There were octopus crawling about. There were big ocean going fish there that were 2 feet long sitting 10 across in these tanks. There were giant king crabs. There were eels, and clams, and weird mollusks, and all of it could be slaughtered and gutted just for you. You pick the sea life you want to end, and then take it home. I didn't want to eat after that.

Cindy wanted to buy some sad looking flounder and have them killed and then wanted to take them to a nearby restaurant where they'd be prepared, but I didn't want to, along with Joe and John. Then Alex and Cindy wanted sushi, but I just didn't think I could stomach it. We ended up going to some random restaurant nearby, and John had Pizza hut because he doesn't eat seafood. I don't like to get that close to the animals I eat, and frankly I'm a half-vegetarian already. I only eat meat if I have to or if vegetarian food looks too unappetizing. So that was an adventure.

Then we went back to the train station (we had left our luggage in lockers at the subway) and caught a train to Cindy's home town. We almost missed the train, but somehow made it by running through the terminal. It was ridiculously cheap compared with Japan -- like $5 for the whole 1.5 hour ride.

Here, we took taxis to Cindy's parent's condo. It's a 15 story high rise among about 7 or 8 other identical high rises. Imagine my building in Detroit times 8 all next to each other. Then we went to a glasses store where everyone just aabout (but me) bought new glasses. Frames were about $8 and lenses were $25. But the cool ones costed about $$75, and I just got new glasses this summer so I didn't get any. I may get some in Seoul tomorrow, and will probably try and get a haircut here. We then left to go eat dinner, and afterwards we wandered the streets, till now. Dinner was to hard to explain so I'll have to show you pictures. It was basically grilled on our table on this giant wok like contraption and you roll stuff up in Sesame leaves and lettuce leaves with kimchee, garlic slices, red hot stuff, and other random vegetables and toppings. It was very tasty. Then we went to Baskin Robbins 31 flavors for ice cream, and everything was in english thank god. First place I could read anything all day.

So how's Korea? Well, for one thing I can't understand anything written again. Japan seems strangely familar now that I can read about 50-60% of the signs. I found myself looking for Japanese characters here in Korea! English is even fewer and further between. Korea reminds me of a slightly dirtier Japan. It's not as sanitized. All the cars are beat up, and they drive like in Mexico. Actually Korea sort of feels like the middle ground between Mexico and Japan. You can tell there's poverty here, and we saw some pretty bleak countryside on the train across from Pusan. A lot of the single family homes look like the adobe architecture you'd find in Mexico -- just concrete walls formed into drab boxes.

The people are more laid back than in Japan, and don't have the compulsion to be super extra nice all the time. It's refreshing. I don't have much to base my impression on yet though, so I'll have to update you in a few days. Later. All for now.
- posted by freestyle @ 5:41 AM

 
Hmmm, what to write about today? Lessee, I got my latest weekly test back, 56, so no surprise there. I always get that score whether I study or not. Today I'm feeling 100% more genki than before, so my cold is pretty much gone. To explain further, our textbook is called "Genki II", and genki means "energetic" and "healthy" in Japanese. It's kind of a joke among the Ni-nensei's (2nd year students), which is what we call ourselves, because whenever somebody asks "How are you doing? Feeling genki?", you then answer something to the effect of "oh yeah, I'm genki. You genki?" This is really amusing to us, but you wouldn't understand. But yeah, I'm feeling a lot more genki now.

Yesterday, I surprisingly did a lot of studying and I finished my speech. We have to give a speech in front of the entire school in two weeks, and I am going to tell the story of climbing Mt. Fuji. It took a long time to write, because I'm not exactly fluent in Japanese. It's 3 pages of Japanese characters, and by midnight last night I thought they were falling like those green letters on the screens in the Matrix movies. An tonight I get to memorize more vocabulary words. Next week I memorize the speech Joy!

For dinner, I went over to the ramen noodle place (name escapes me) with DeShawn. I had Yaki Soba, and man was it good. We talked about random stuff but primarily about the future. DeShawn has enough credits to graduate, but he chose to come here to learn Japanese as a 5th year senior. He was one of those people that initially planned to stay the whole year, but because the language classes suck so much he's going back to Michigan State for the next term. He went to Hiroshima on his own the other week, like I originally had planned for my last week here in December. I have since changed my mind and will stay in the Kansai area mostly to keep my train travel costs down. Hiroshima sounded interesting, but I don't think I can afford it this time. Maybe next time? Realistically, I am not sure when I'll ever get to spend time in Japan again. Maybe on a business trip in the future, but that's about it.

It all comes back to the three mutually exclusive pillars of life. This is one of my philosophies: You can only have one of the followng - money or time. And the corollary: if you have money and time, then you don't have youth. If you ever have all three, it's for but a fleeting moment. I enjoyed this past summer, the last summer in my twenties. For a while, I had money, and time, and youth (to a degree). But it's fleeting -- now I have only time, and (to a degree) youth. This philosophy augments my previous philosophy, which was "you can't have anything nice". Again, it's the whole fleetingness/ impermanence of this world again. Always in motion is the future. This one along time have I watched. All his life has he looked away, to the future, to the horizon. Never his mind on where he was, what he was doing. Adventure, heh, excitement, heh. A Jedi craves not these things.
- posted by freestyle @ 2:19 AM

 
So a small group of us that needed a study break headed over to the Lawson's convenience store to buy snacks. While there, I contemplated which potato chip to buy. Standing next to the pringles were a very similar looking can of chips called Chip Star. On closer inspection however, the green cans are not just a generic equivalent of Pringles! Pringles green cans contain sour cream and onion chips! YOU already knew that. But did you know that the nearly identical Chip Star green cans contain "noritoshio" flavor chips? No, you didn't. In fact, you don't even know what that means. But thankfully, I can read that and it says "seaweed and salt" flavor. Good thing I'm not completely illiterate, or my snack break would have been ruined by the temptation of generic brand Chip Star seaweed flavor potato chips that just happen to look exactly like sour cream & onion Pringles.
- posted by freestyle @ 4:39 AM

 
I think I plugged this site before, but I'll do it again. If you want to be amused for hours at a time, check out www.homestarrunner.com. Here's a link to a funny episode I just saw. Isn't the life of a student great that I can waste time like this?
- posted by freestyle @ 10:01 PM

 
Holy shit did I sleep in today! It’s 11:30 AM Monday morning and I went to bed at midnight (today's a holiday). I am compelled to write because I had the craziest dreams. For some reason, probably because lately I’ve been sick and I’ve allowed myself to sleep a ton, I’ve been having dreams and remembering them. I thought the one I had the other day was the craziest where I somehow was back in High School but I was sitting in my desk and having problems because I couldn’t fit in the desk! Talk about symbolism – maybe I was too big. Last night I dreamed about being back in college in Pittsburgh, and while I can’t remember the details, the weirdest thing is that I can visualize the city perfectly in my memory again now this morning.

Man, I gotta get out of this school environment. I think what put me into this frame of mind was the massive sense of déjà vu I got applying for jobs over the internet yesterday. Way back in 1994, I spent hours and hours sending 50 letters to companies looking for a summer internship, and I generally got no responses, and ended up getting a job by networking. That’s what I feel like will happen again, or it will be back to DaimlerChrysler. I’m letting this be too stressful. Any option will actually be good for me. It’s not like any job won’t be okay for a while. I can always look for another. I need to relax about it all.

The one job that looked the coolest was a “Leadership Development Program” at PACCAR near Seattle. They’re the company that makes Peterbilt and Kenworth trucks. It’s a rotational program like I had at Chrysler, except it’s designed for people with 5 or so years of experience. The only prerequisite I lacked was 1 year of direct supervisory experience. That’s one thing that’s darn near impossible to get at DaimlerChrysler until you’ve had 10 years of experience, or are a woman with 6 years. Yet another reason to hate DaimlerChrysler for their shitty discriminatory policies. Okay, that sounded really bitter. I’m not bitter…. Honest.

Next Wednesday we’re going off to Korea, and I officially have $1000 in cash to last from now until the end of December. I’ll probably blow about $400 in Korea, leaving $600 for the rest of the month. Since I have 10 days after the program ends to sightsee, I am planning on sticking close to Kyoto and Osaka to keep the transportation costs low. I have yet to see Osaka, so that will take a couple of days. And I haven’t spent much time in Kyoto because it’s an hour away and I never feel like I can spare the time away from studying. I also haven’t seen my friend Yukki I met in Cologne, Germany, back in April yet. He lives near Tokyo, so I think I will probably just go off on my own and not travel with any other JCMU students. It will help me control my budget better, and I am looking to wander with absolute freedom again. Now I just have to get through the proficiency exam and the final papers and such for classes. The end is in sight.

- posted by freestyle @ 6:55 PM

 
I'm not proud to admit it, but for the previous five years I've been addicted to techno music, specifically trance, but I think I've broken it's spell. Perhaps you know trance? It's a form of highly repetitive electronic music designed to bring your mental state into something resembling happiness. But what it really does is clear the mind of all thought and then it replaces your thoughts with a catchy upbeat loop of music, called an "anthem".

The method is entirely different, but the resulting mental state you get is a lot like when we all went to the Zen Buddhist temple and practiced meditating with the monk. Did I already write about this experience? No? Well we all sat on the tatami mats of this 300 year old temple in front of a gaudily decorated alter of Buddha statues and such. Then we contorted our legs into the lotus position, or in my case into the barely cross-legged-at-all position, and attempted to clear our minds of all thought. After twenty minutes or so of this, the monk walked around and occasionally would put his hand on people's shoulder, indicating to you to lean forward, and then he WHAPS you with this flat wooden stick on your back, to help you focus on clearing your mind further.

Trance music kind of lulls you into this mindless state. I can't begin to tell you how many times back in Detroit I used to wake up, somehow shower and dress, get to my car, stop in at the drive-thru Starbucks for a Grande Hazelnut Latte, $3.39, and then drive to work in Auburn Hills 35 miles away listening to trance music. And somehow I'd find myself sitting at my cubicle with my computer on and I was fully dressed, caffienated, and somehow had commuted to work all without thinking one single thought.

I think my cold is pretty much gone, just the occastional clearing of stuff out of my lungs now. I'm feeling a lot better. So anyway, I downloaded Dream Dance volumes 28 and 29 (the first Trance CD I fell in love with was Dream Dance vol 9 that I bought in Germany back in 1998), and I can honestly say I don't really miss this kind of music anymore. It's like a mindless crutch to keep you from thinking, but it's so high-tempo that you're lulled into focusing intensely on whatever it is you're doing. I'm listening to it right now and I'm typing faster than I usually can. This music will do this to you. But I think it promotes brain rot when you listen too much to it. If you are interested in downloading it, I highly recommend a program called BitTorrent++ available on the web. So far I'm 600MB into downloading the Matrix Revolutions off it. Why pay 2000 yen for a movie when I can get it for free just by leaving my computer on for 3 days?
- posted by freestyle @ 1:57 AM

 
So I'm sitting out in the lobby listening to the Japanese hip-hop band Steady & Co. and their album called "Chambers", and I'm actually liking it!! As James put it, "it has some fat beats". Imagine Eminem rapping in Japanese. The best part is that I can actually write one of the names of their songs in Kanji. Go to James' site and click on "steadyco - shunkashuutou.ogg". Note, it's in .ogg format and I have no idea what that is.

So my friend Karen from work e-mailed me a listing of recent DCX job openings, and that was all the motivation I needed to start re-doing my resume. I can’t go back there. As I read the postings and descriptions of what I’d be doing, I realized that it would be a total step backwards for me to return. My resume points to what I want to be doing anyway – working on international projects. There just aren’t any available for Americans at that company anymore. I reserve the right to change my mind on this tomorrow.

I found a bunch of links to other students blogs and some of them have some great pictures. I've been kinda lazy when it comes to posting pictures (mostly because it's too time consuming to caption them and so on). But if you want to see some of what I've written about, check out Alex's site . I'll have to put some links up to them on my website because they're kind of interesting.
- posted by freestyle @ 4:20 AM

 
Yep, I'm sick. I don't like being sick. I took two Nyquil capsules with lunch at CoCo's (the restaurant that's part of the building here). I brought the medicine from the US, and by the time I was done eating, I was definitely groggy and in need of sleep. I ended up skipping the business class and kendo and sleeping all afternoon. I still feel like crap and don't feel like studying for the test tomorrow that I'm guaranteed to fail anyway. So I'll probably try for a little while and then go to bed. Man, health is definitely something you take for granted until you don't have it. I've got to lick this damn cold before heading out to Korea.

Did I mention that there appears to be no central heating in the dorm building? Apparently, electricity bills are way too high in Japan so they just don't bother heating anything. My roommate brought a stand alone Kerosene heater, but it smells the whole place up like exhaust. I feared asphyxiation from carbon monoxide. This led me to leave the window open in my bedroom at night, and the nearly freezing temperatures must have made me sick. I don't know. I just know I'm cold and I would like to heat my room up to a nice, comfortable 70. Maybe I will, since we do have little portable space heaters (electric). Yeah, I'm gonna do that.

I spent an hour this evening with my conversation partner, and I learned a few things about my old DCX business card from her. The business card company translated it into Japanese on the back, and it's filled with laughable mistakes. For example, instead of a direct translation of "Small Vehicle Product Team", it got translated into "Kei Jyo Yo Shya". This actually means small cars, but only the really small, under 660cc type. In Japan, they're called "K-cars", which comes from the word "Kei". Since no SVPT car has less than 1600cc (and most are 2.0L and 2.4L), I'd say that's a mistake. Also "chassis" was translated incorrectly, along with my title, and name. That's about it for the mistakes.

Okay, goodbye, I have to go cough now.
- posted by freestyle @ 3:23 AM

 
Word of warning: This is a rant. If you don't want to hear a bunch of bitching, don't read this post.

Okay, I’m officially sick. It started out as a sore throat and now it’s a full blown cough with periodic fever. Today it was raining and I didn’t feel like riding my bike in the rain, so I skipped Kendo practice to sleep. After waking up just as the sun was setting, I realized my day was pretty much wasted. And I still feel like crap.

Tomorrow is Thursday, the long day for me every week. I have Japanese class from 8:50 till 11:50, and then we race off by bicycle to Shiga Di for the business class from 12:20 to 2:15, with barely enough time to eat some lunch at the local Lawson’s convenience store. Then Kendo is from 2:30 – 4:30 or so. Unless I feel a lot better, I’m not going to make it, plus I’d rather not get everyone else sick with my cough.

I cooked fried rice for dinner, but realized after the fact that I had run out of those little fried rice packages, which are the secret to really good tasting fried rice. Without the spices, dinner was really bland. So that’s been my day; kinda shitty.

Switching subjects, I will now give my thoughts on the Japanese Educational System. In a nutshell, everyone in Japan learns how to be a memorization genius. This is how they learn absolutely everything. As an example, consider my roommate, Kazuma-san. He’s been studying English for about 12 years now, and can honestly say that he’s memorized the entire English dictionary. I am not kidding, and he is very typical. They memorize dictionaries! So by the time any kid reaches adulthood, they are really, really adept at memorizing things by rote. It doesn’t matter if you’re naturally at a disadvantage with regards to memorization, because you’ll learn to become good at it. As a side note, my roommate is not too good at speaking yet and that’s because memorizing a dictionary doesn’t prepare you to speak. But anyway.

It’s widely believed that Japanese are better at math, and I am pretty sure that this fact is due to their emphasis on rote memorization. In math, you would be a lot better if you memorized all the formulas, too. How many people really know their times tables well today? I’ll be the first to admit that I never really memorized it past 9 X 9. Beyond that, I need paper and pencil or a calculator.

In America, however, I believe the educational system focuses on individual understanding. We lack detailed facts, because our education doesn’t require us to memorize them. Fine. I personally could care less if Washington crossed the Delaware in 1777 or whenever the heck it was. But you can ask any Japanese person what date did the Tokagawa shogunate begin, etc, and they’ll know.

Here’s my theory: In America, people that determine they’re good at memorizing facts go on to professions that utilize that natural skill. Such professions include acting, history, teaching, and yes, foreign language study. The other group of people who suck at remembering things and never got good at it (such as myself), go into professions like math, science, and business. Such professions don’t require copious amounts of memorization – it’s all about applying what’s in books, being able to find information you need, and in engineering’s case, it’s about logical problem solving. There is no room for memorization! You couldn’t possibly remember all the facts.
From ages 12 to14 or so, I really wanted to be an actor and took all kinds of acting classes at the local community theater back in Seattle. I realized that I couldn’t remember lines to save my life. By about age 15, my interests had changed to bicycles and sports, and I eventually realized I had an innate skill in fixing things. I shied away from anything that would require massive fact memorization.

So this brings me to my conclusion for why I’m failing miserably in the language class here. It’s because here at JCMU, I’m not one of the typical freak language majors from America who’s naturally gifted at memorization. I’ve been blown away by how easily some of these kids can remember obscure grammar points and vocab, when I need ten times longer and still don’t get it. Most of the students here do okay in this Japanese-style word memorization program, but I do not. It doesn’t matter that I can engineer a car or anything here – I just can’t memorize things the way they want me to. I clearly picked the wrong program for my learning style.

- posted by freestyle @ 4:19 AM

 
If your browser supports the Japanese language font in Unicode, then you'll be able to read this post. Since I gave up studying, this evening I've been trying to come up with a suitable Japanese translation for my name. The best I could come up with is:

捨　手　弁 trash hand convenient

煮　流　先 boil stream ahead

So basically, Steven sounds like "trash hand convenient" in Japanese, and my last name, Nilsen, sounds like "boiling stream ahead". So from now on, just call me "Trash Hand Convenient, from the family "Boiling Stream Ahead".

I'm also sick with a slight fever and my throat is sore, so I've been drinking a lot of Ninja tea and sleeping all day. It kinda sucks. This afternoon I went and talked with Nishikawa-sensei again and basically informed her that I am not leaving Japan but that as of two weeks ago, I quit. Meaning, I no longer care about her class at all, but I'm still going to show up every day. I am working on a very long dissertation about the differences between Japanese and American educational systems, and I will publish it here whenever I get my thoughts collected, but it won't be pretty. I intend to send it to the dean of this place when I'm done, too. Later.
- posted by freestyle @ 6:50 AM

 
I am treated far too well here in Japan. The Japanese people as a rule will not say anything that appears rude or impatient. Even if they’re annoyed or inside they’re mad, they will never show those emotions on the outside. They also strive for harmony in every way by being generous and kind to strangers. This means I’ve been invited to far more barbecues, concerts, parties, events, sightseeing trips, etc, than I could possibly want to participate in. I’ve been having a difficult time turning anything down.

This past weekend was a good example, but it turned out for the best. Me and 3 other Americans were invited by our conversation partners to a barbecue at one of their houses, and I wasn’t looking forward to it. Sunday we all took the train to Yasu and met them at the station. From there, we proceeded to go to a grocery store where they picked out $170 worth of food and drinks. We then barbecued and drank beer for about 6 hours at their house until we finally left. It was a good time, and we all had great temakki zusshi (hand rolled sushi) and various barbecued parts of mostly pigs, I believe. The weather was great and we also had a good time drinking alcohol starting at noon on a Sunday. We all thoroughly enjoyed it, and I got some good practice time in Japanese.

But, when it came time to go, they would not accept our contribution of money for the barbecue. It was very awkward. We thought we were doing the right things by bringing a souvenir gift (I brought some candles I bought in the US), too, but they were just too nice and generous to accept money for the food and drinks. In America, people are generous too, but the sheer number of people constantly doing stuff for us here in Japan like this just amazes me. There seems to be no way to pay them back, and perhaps that’s how they want it. In some ways it makes me feel special, but in others it makes me feel a bit guilty. I don’t even keep in touch with friends very well, let alone these people that were perfect strangers a few weeks ago. I feel like I will let them down, and I hate letting people down.

I feel the same way about the Japanese class. On the one hand, I hate it, but the teachers are so nice to me that I can’t help feel guilty for hating their class. I completely gave up about two weeks ago, which was when I hit the low point here. Since then, I’ve been going through the motions and barely studying the class materials, but thoroughly enjoying everything outside class. Every day I study what I’m interested in, which usually isn’t the class stuff. My test score last Friday rose to a 56, which is better than the previous two weeks where I busted my ass actually trying to learn the right stuff. Which just goes to prove that the class is useless and there’s no way for me to do well on their exams, but I still feel guilty for hating class! In America, the professor wouldn’t like me and I wouldn’t like him/her and the feelings would be mutual. Here, I don’t know what the hell my teachers think about me – whether they really do or don’t care. They hide it behind a smile and what feels like kindness, but it feels like surfacy bullshit to me. Or maybe it is genuine. And the rest of the world sees Americans as shallow and as putting on inappropriately happy faces! They don’t know the Japanese. Lying bastards.

In America, everything is seen in black and white. I think this is due to the Judeo-Christian ethic that attempts to measure everything against the Bible. Here in Japan, they don’t do that. Everything, and I mean everything, is a shade of gray. There is no one right way to see something. They believe there is no truth; everything is colored by the perception of the individual. That’s why they value harmony so much. Who cares what you think? It may or may not be the reality, but as long as you put on a happy outside face, you won’t affect anybody else’s mood. The other person’s reality might stay good if you don’t bring them down with your problems. This is why the Japanese culture represses people so much, and this is also why they have problems they don’t attempt to solve. They can’t even talk about them openly!

- posted by freestyle @ 5:35 AM

 
I have a few comments on anime and the people that watch it. First of all, I'd say about 30% of the students here at JCMU originally became interested in Japanese so they could understand their favorite anime cartoons. This means that a lot of their vocabulary includes words such as "secret" and "quest" and "legend" and stuff like that. It also means a third of them are basically geeks. Probably the best student here is this girl who's like 29 and is pursuing her masters in education or something. She's horribly introverted and I don't think she has made any close friends here. She just stays in her room, studying Japanese and reading Manga comics in Japanese. But she's damn good at Japanese. This is what watching too much anime and manga will do to you.

So anyway, I am strangely proud that I'm not totally into anime, but I have been a bit more exposed to it lately. As a child, I always watched the cartoon Star Blazers (If you know the cartoon, for some really funny Desslok humor check out this site ==> here). But besides that, I never got really into it. Since I've completely given up on getting a good grade, I spent Wednesday afternoon watching Tanuki Wars. Tanukis are these "racoon dogs" that are magical creatures that can change into different forms and stuff, kind of like foxes can, don't you know? Anwyway, there are tanuki statues pretty much everywhere here in the Kansai region of Japan. The statues are all of standing tanukis and they all have enormous balls, which in the movie could change shape and turn into convenient things like parachutes and stuff. So by watching the movie, I finally understood what the heck tanukis do. It also enlightened me on the culture a bit, because these tanukis were being driven out of their forest homes by human development. In the movie, they were debating if they should kill all the humans that were chopping down the forest, but then one of them said "but then we can't get McDonalds hamburgers" if there are no humans, and this tanuki whipped out a big mac and started chowing down. Mind you, this was the Japanese version, and wasn't an English dubbing. Anyway, there are all kinds of things like that which I now notice about the culture.

When I started watching Star Blazers at age 8, I wonder if my parents ever realized that I was absorbing all kinds of Japanese culture and propaganda. The story is about this sunken battleship that is raised up and rebuilt to make it fly through space on a mission to save planet Earth. Some of the things that weren't clear to me as a kid are now clear to me as an adult. For example, there's this doctor that is continually drinking "spring water" in the English dubbed version, but now I realize it's actually Japanese sake rice wine that this guy is really drinking. And I find it ironic that the battleship, called the Argo in the English version, is called the Yamato in Japan. Yamato was the flagship of the Japanese imperial navy in world war 2, the flying space battleship looks almost identical to this ship that is actually on the bottom of the Pacific right now. In the cartoon, the ship sits on the sea floor after all the oceans have evaporated away, so obviously this is the same Yamato ship. In Japanese anime, Japanese people are always represented with black hair, while foreigners have blonde or light colored hair. In Star Blazers, the good guys all have black hair and the enemy all have blonde hair, which reflects Japanese society's permanent xenophobia. I'd have to see the show again to pick up other things now.
- posted by freestyle @ 4:20 AM

 
So this morning we got our tests from last Friday back, and I got a 48, which unfortunately is pretty typical for me (okay, it's exactly the same score I got last week). I studied my ass off, too, but evidently that wasn’t enough to get a decent score. That class really makes me mad, and lately I have been seriously considering what I need to do about it. I want to send my thanks to those of you who e-mailed me your input over the last few days. Since leaving Japan goes against every reason why I came here in the first place, I’ve decided to stick it out and just enjoy my time here.

I looked into taking some night classes here for English speakers, but the more I looked into it, the more it seemed like it’d be a lot of trouble and expense, and I've already paid for one language program. As I was reading through the glossary in the back of our textbook, I realized I have actually memorized a lot of the required words. Or at least, a large number of words were familiar to me. So I can’t say I haven’t learned anything. Really, I think I’m just totally frustrated with failing to get decent grades in this program. They really know how to destroy enthusiasm here.

But here is my decision: I will stick it out, but I will enjoy myself here for another two months. As part of this decision, I have begun figuring out what to do over Thanksgiving break. This is my priority over the hopeless language classes. I will be going to Korea for 5 days with Cindy, Andrea, Alex, Joe, James, and maybe Stephanie. Cindy is Korean and will let us stay at her parent’s one night, and her mother has found some cheap flights back to Japan.

Today we had an adventure getting tickets and all the necessary paperwork. Shortly after class ended, around 1:00, we left to go to Otsu by train to get our departure papers. This was required so that we could get back into Japan with our Cultural or Student Visas. Today it rained all day, and we first had to bike over to the post office to by a 30,000 Yen stamp ($30) which is used as payment for the departure permit. The train ride was 45 minutes, and after a little difficulty finding the office and filling out the forms, I had yet another stamp in my passport.

Then we went to get the tickets to Korea. We first stopped at a travel agency and the 3rd & 4th year students let us 2nd year students attempt to figure out how to get there. We ended up picking a package deal where we take the bullet train from Osaka over to Shimonoseki on the coast. Then we’re taking an overnight ferry to Pusan, Korea. Pusan has some amazing coastline and cliffs nearby, and it’s also a big city. Then we’ll go to Seoul for a few days. I hope the rioting has died down by then, because apparently Americans aren’t very well liked in Korea. It should be interesting. But we’ll have a native with us as a guide, and we can all just pretend we’re Canadian. Except that we determined that none of us know the current Prime Minister of Canada, so that might be tough.

So after we figured out which ticket we wanted, we were told that we had to go to another travel agency, the main one in Kyoto, in order to buy the tickets. So back on the train we went, and finally found the correct travel agency in Kyoto after several tries and after asking for directions a couple of times. Then it took us an hour to actually purchase the tickets and get all the paperwork done. By then I had missed my 6:00 appointment with my conversation partner, so I basically stood her up. I did call the office at 6:00 and asked them to please find her and tell her I couldn’t make it. I’m such a schmuck.

I would have stayed longer but my roommate told me earlier he was going to cook curry and I told him I’d be back for dinner. The others all stayed in Kyoto and went to a restaurant there. I got back from this whole fiasco around 8:00, and it turned out my roommate and Tomoko-chan had already eaten. I really need to learn how to decline invitations here, because I don’t seem to know how to say no to anything. So after all this, which might have been fun all by itself, I now still have to do a bunch of impossible memorization in preparation for a kanji (Chinese character writing) quiz, a dialogue memorization quiz, a vocab quiz with about 20 new words, and a composition to write along with some grammar homework. I also need to write a thank-you note to my host mother from 2 weeks ago’s homestay. Because this is so overwhelming and I was already sort of tired, I appreciated the temporary escape of watching the latest Simpson’s episode that someone had downloaded off the internet. And now it’s 10:26 and I have to do homework. Bye.

- posted by freestyle @ 6:14 AM

 
I think a main component that makes college life enjoyable is community. In most of America, I don't care where you live, you will end up living in somewhat isolation. Back in Detroit, I lived in a 220 unit former apartment building, and while I did know my immediate neighbors' names, we didn't spend any time together. I passed the same people in the elevator and in the lobby, but I was not really a part of their lives. Here in Japan as a student, I'm also living in an apartment building, but we leave doors unlocked and half the time they're actually propped open. We go to the lobby, computer room, or entertainment room and have casual conversations about all types of things. Nobody participates in the exact same activities, but there's always somebody doing something and there's always someone to talk to.

One half of the building contains some of the faculty and their families. They live in apartments that are slightly nicer than ours, but they also come to the lobby and periodically make their presence felt. They don't socialize with the students much, but some of them have occasional conversations. I wouldn't expect them to talk with us too much ... they probably have their long established friends and their family is back in their apartment. But I'd say they're part of the community, too.

I think real community living is the key to the college experience, along with an openness to try new things and meet different people. This is what always seemed lacking to me when I took classes at U of M- Dearborn and Oakland U. They're just too much of commuter schools. I've met all kinds of people here that are completely different than me, and it's because the community supports that. Where I live in Detroit, I'm one of the 12% white people, yet I don't feel any closer or like I better understand the background of the 82% black African- American people who live around me. The reason is that there's no community for me to be a part of. The closest I get is saying hi every day and recognizing a face or two.

- posted by freestyle @ 5:33 PM

 
So today our Friday project was to visit the Shiga Ken Daigaku (Shiga Prefectural University) festival, which was basically similar to the types of carnival or homecoming activities you might find at US universities. All forty JCMU students rode over and browsed the various booths selling food and used goods and stuff. There were also a couple of stages set up, and you could hear bands playing the great 80's hit "Stand by Me", and there was a band playing the "Wedding March" for some reason. Some things that seem inappropriate in America are perfectly reasonable here. Like for example, when I went up to a food stand and ordered some Yakki-Tori.

Yakki Tori is basically a shish kebob of chicken. However, in Japanese "tori" literally translates to "bird", and therefore opens up many different opportunities to skewer bird parts and put them on sticks. To be specific, you should order Tori Niku, which means bird meat, or even better, "Mo Mo" which means thigh meat. At the time that I ordered said skewers of bird, I told them in Japanese, "anything is fine. One of each, please" since I couldn't understand what was written on the sign. I could actually pronounce the different types of shish kebob as listed on the sign, but none of them looked much different on the grill and I figured there were all probably really tasty. Can you see where this story is going? Anyhow, after waiting an inordinate amount of time for them to be cooked, I was presented with 5 distinct types of grilled stuff on little sticks. I immediately spotted something that looked like fried beef innards, so I decided to give that one away to Joe-san who named the thing "chicken skin". Whatever. Meanwhile, I was munching away on some chewey reddish looking pieces of meat, thinking they were just marinated in some kind of sauce, but by the end of that one (as Joe was explaining that one of the skewers was skin), I started to realize I was probably eating some kind of chicken organ. Anyway, I quickly ate the rest and tried not to think about it. So that was a bit of a mistake. But the US Cola I bought ("Imported from USA!") tasted exactly like Coke and I was pleased with that.

So our huge group of people sort of fragmented into many different small groups and I ended up meeting a bunch of cool people. A few of the students from Shiga Ken Dai told me they were planning to be exchange students at Wayne in the fall of next year, so we traded e-mail information. I seriously think any Japanese person going to Detroit to live would experience some massive culture shock. I can see Americans living in Japan easily enough (despite the language barrier), but Detroit is such a fucked up place, I don't know how easily they'll adapt. Despite my idealism, the reality is that it's not coming back for a long long time. Living here has made me once again realize how fucked up Michigan is. For example, since I read the online Detroit News, I recently found out they lifted the ban on hunting mourning doves. Who the fuck cares so much about hunting doves that they waste lawmaker's time debating this? And aren't they the symbol of peace? What kind of sicko would hunt down beautiful white birds for fun? I think most Japanese people would have massive culture shock attempting to live on the Cass Corridor. How can they possibly be prepared to experience Detroit? Oh well, they looked at the Wayne State website and decided it's for them.

Tomorrow Kendo practice is in the afternoon, which means I get to sleep in at last. This week I gave Japanese as strong an effort as I could, which meant I am a bit sleep deprived except for Wendnesday night when I slept 11 hours because I didn't wake back up from my "45 minute nap" begun at 9:00 PM. I just lacked the motivation to study because the damn class is soooo discouraging, so I just slept as kind of an escape. Oddly enough, I looked horrible the next day with massive bags under my eyes -- evidently it's not healthy to sleep so much? So anyhow, I get to sleep in and that's going to be nice. I'm looking forward to Kendo again, although I'm ridiculously sore from practice on Wednesday and Thursday afternoons.

The great thing about Kendo is that it's an ideal release from studies. For example, we actually have to stand around in a large circle and practice screaming. In Kendo, if you don't scream at the appropriate time when attacking your opponent with those bamboo swords, or shinai, you don't get a point. Anyhow, between screaming practice and the pain from lifting the thing over your head repeatedly for about an hour straight, I end up thinking nothing about problems or anything, and am one with the sword. It's the same mental state that I got rowing (which is called "canoe" in japanese, incidentally), and I really appreciate the calm and inner peace that comes with sport's clearing of the mind.

The one real side benefit I'm seeing from all the Kendo practice is that my posture is getting a lot, lot, lot better. I seem to have been slouching all the time when standing, sitting, and whatever. The kendo uniform we wear has a stiff board-like section that goes over your lower back and it acts kind of like a weight belt. Also, if you lean forward you make your head closer to the opponent, so leaning back is key to avoiding getting smacked in the head with a stick. When you lunge forward with the shinai, you have to remember to lean back. As a result of all this, I'm now always standing taller and more upright, and it's carrying over to how I sit, too. Maybe I won't need to see a chiropractor anymore when I return home, because I'm starting to think my minor back pain was caused by bad posture. Anyway, it's a pretty amazing feeling to actually be comfortable walking completely upright all the time -- it's amazing how much I used to slouch my shoulders forward. I also tended to let my shoulders go forward when rowing, so I'm thinking my technique should be better because Kendo is a great sport to condition the upper back and shoulders.
- posted by freestyle @ 1:35 AM

 
I've concluded that I'm definitely here in Japan to learn how to fail gracefully. Today, after recieving my latest failed test back, this time with a whopping score of 48/100, I seriously just wanted to give up. Actually, I still do want to give up but then I realize that I shouldn't. Aside from the Japanese class, which has basically been ruining my life, I really really enjoy living here in Japan. But the reality is that my funds are getting low and if I'm going to continue to fail all tests, perhaps it would be wiser to go back now while I'm ahead.

If I went back now, I would have time to look for a job in November & December and could still have an option of working for DCX in January if I don't find a suitable one. If I continue the program, I will be flat broke in January and will have no choice but to go back to DCX because it's the only place I can gauranteed get a job in two weeks notice. I would miss another 6 weeks of classes and my Japanese skills won't be as good.

I met with one of the teachers, Nishikawa Sensei, and laid it all out on the line. I told her I was thinking about quitting, told her I dislike the class, told her it had completely left me behind told her that I didn't see any point in continuing because the mental pain of failing coupled with the financial sacrifice might be too much for me. The 10 minute discussion I had signed up for turned into a 45 minute venting session. I hate it when I let that happen! It felt exactly like talking to my former boss at DCX before I quit. Just like then, I was given all kinds of reasons why I shouldn't quit.

The one regret I have at DCX is that I didn't quit sooner. I needed to take things into my own hands and be responsible for my own happiness. So now I'm torn -- do I leave, which I know will make me happier in the short term, or do I just go with the flow and hope things get better? Do I take control of something I have no real control over -- my own life? Or do I rely on decisions and choices I made earlier, from before I knew everything I know now? In other words, take no action and try and change my attitude so that I enjoy this process, knowing full well that my grades will be barely passing. This basically sucks.
- posted by freestyle @ 1:17 AM

 
It's been a while since I last posted because I really didn't feel like it this week. My already low grades have dropped further (yes, its possible), so I have begun to give up a bit. It seems my recent job experience at DCX and this most recent educational experience are teaching me one important lesson. It seems that I need to learn how to fail without letting it gloom my outlook on life and dull my optimism, motivation, and ambition. This is proving to be a real challenge for me, because as much as I say I don't care about how things turn out, I still do give a shit. This seems connected to the lessons I learned this summer while enjoying an extended time off.

This summer, I learned two lessons. Number one was how to master fear, and I have confronted my fears and found they were generally unfounded. Leaving DCX at all was the first test, and I conquered it. The second lesson was how to go with the flow and not try and control everything in my life. My travel plans were all made up on the fly last summer, and it took me as far as San Francisco, Seattle, Colorado Springs, and Denver. This was very much against the way I normally take trips and plan my life, and it was one of the most fun things I've ever been able to do. I think my academic failure here is due to things way beyond my control and that I need to just go with the flow. Things will all work out somehow for the better. Heck, maybe my experience at DCX was needed to teach me how to enjoy myself here in Japan. Without already tasting failure and understanding the wrong way to approach it, I would perhaps not learn something I'm supposed to learn here. I'll let you know if I ever figure out what that is.

I just realized that I'm probably typing myself into a box here and completely confusing you. I know I'm confused as I type this, so I'll just stop this train of thought now. Sometimes maybe stream of consciousness writing doesn't work too well and needs some editing. Well, I don't edit my posts unless I say something really stupid and I regret it later. So this one will probably stay.

Today was the Hikone Castle festival, and I played one of the dignitaries, a Tono, which is basically a really high up person in the shogun government. I got to wear a badass outfit that I'll have to get some pictures of. I'll get them up on my website soon. It was really cool. A few of the other students dressed up as japanese warriors, or Bushi, as they're called. One the other students was a Hime, which is a Japanese princess. I'll have to write more about this experience later and it will probably go on my website and not this blog.

After that we all went to see "Kill Bill", except it was the uncut Japanese version with more blood and gore than the US version's R-rating. And you thought that more violence wasn't possible. It was cool though because bugs bunny introduced the movie and he spoke in Japanese and was called "O-hare-sama" or some such name. Kill Bill had entirely too much violence, but it was interesting. Well, enough for now.
- posted by freestyle @ 6:16 AM