Four months in Japan
Monday, October 27, 2003
The weekend is over and I've been ridiculously busy. Because I didn't memorize the dialogue today, I ended up skipping class and going to CoCo's for breakfast and I managed to drag James along. In reality, he didn't want to go to class, anyway, but I feel a little guilty about instigating the incident. This weekend was the homestay with a Japanese family, and it was a very interesting experience. Saturday we were treated to a bus ride to a hotel and a nice dinner & coctail hour. They had a Japanese tycho drum performance, and I met my "host Mom" Gato-san. From there, we went to a sushi bar and met up with two of her friends and ate Matsutake mushroom soup. Matsutake mushrooms are wildly expensive shrooms that grow only under pine trees (matsu = pine, take = mushroom). Greg Warner was staying with one of Goto-san's friends, and he basically showed me that I have zero language skills. From there we went back to Goto-san's house, where her family had all come back for the weekend. She has 4 kids, and they're all about my age. We talked about random things for a few hours, and then finally I went to bed. The room in their house that they put me up in was typical japanese -- rice screens, tatami mat on the ground, no heat, futon put out to sleep on. The best part about the bed was that they don't use sheets -- you sleep on this furry blanket and use another furry blanket as a top sheet. Maybe I will take this tradition back home with me, because despite the cold room I wasn't cold. The pillow was one of those buckwheat pillows, and the futon was hard as a rock.
The next day we all went to Biwako Valley where we rode up the gondola and chair lifts to the top. The view was spectacular. I'm tired of typing now, so to summarize the rest of the night I then was taken to Kazu-san's girlfriend's house for dinner because they wanted to meet the foreigner, and after that it was a slightly late birthday party at Kazu-san's house. That really simplifies it, but that's about it.
Friday, October 24, 2003
Now for some profound thoughts on Japan. First a preface, I've been drinking Tanquery Vodka, some passionfruit cognac called Alize, and Mitsuya Cider, which is basically an overcarbonated Sprite. Also, the vodka with Melon Soda was really good, too. I was shocked to find out that Melon Soda is almost clear when I poured it out of the cool japanese can that has a screw on top like a plastic bottle, because it tastes like bubblegum and you'd think bubblegum flavored soda would have some garish bright color like blue. Anyway, so that's the rundown of the alcoholic drinks Jordan and I have been kicking back and drinking. Now a lot of people are going outside to have a bonfire out on the beach. I would go but it's really cold out there, and I didn't enjoy it last week, so instead I'll stay inside and type on the computer.
I'm out in the lobby again and we're listening to "Put your Hands up in the Air" by MC Mario, of Detroit, whom apprently Jordan knows, and I really want to hear Paul Johnson "Get Get Down" and "The Price is Right Song", if anybody actually knows Detroit Techno or Chicago House. It just occured to me that there are no clubs at all here in Hikone, so all we can do is settle for the occasional bar night. Okay, now we're going to go take a taxi to a bar. Bye.
The first leaves have turned red here in Japan, and the cooler weather definitely has its grip on us now. It’s beautiful sunny and cool Friday afternoon, and since this is going to be a busy weekend, I have the rest of the day to get all my homework and studying done for Monday. A lot of people are going to Kyoto this evening for some sort of discussion and social hour with the Kyoto Women’s College. They were mostly lured by the promise of a free taxi ride and free dinner, I think, and I’m glad I didn’t sign up because I have had too many commitments lately. So I’m sitting at my desk in my room sipping Ninja tea and contemplating doing some work. I hear periodic laughter from the lobby down the hall, so I can tell some of the students are having a good time. I, however, am just weary from trying in vain to study for this morning’s test. Looks like I’ve failed another. Oh well, I guess I’ll get over it.
I feel like it should be possible to just learn this darn language without it being a massive effort, but that obviously is not the case. There is just no easy way to acquire the skill. But unlike, say, kendo, the process of progressing and learning the skill is not really fun or enjoyable. So that makes it extremely frustrating. I can’t imagine what it would feel like to move anywhere on a permanent basis and have no choice but to learn the language. The beauty of English is that it really is the World’s language. I once asked my father why he never taught me Norwegian, and his answer was that everyone speaks English. That’s his first generation immigrant perspective. Personally, I always felt like learning more than English was important, but he didn’t think so.
Thursday, October 23, 2003
I swear I have the attention span of a gnat. At least in engineering I could work on a million different things at once and that kept it from getting boring, but with language study there’s nothing to do but study. So once again it is Thursday night and I somehow need to memorize Japanese for the Friday test. What the hell was I thinking doing this to myself??? I thought last week was bad with all those darn transitivity pairs, but this week’s honorifics were much worse. Imagine that you signed up to learn a language, but then found out after two years that many of the words you learned were actually impolite words to say. Then you have to start learning the polite words. I’ll give you a parallel English analogy.
For example, let’s say your English vocabulary consisted of the following words:
Nouns - dog
Adjectives -- real
Prepositions – in, up
Pronouns – what, it
Verbs – keep
And you learned grammar that allowed you to construct a sentence such as, “What up dog, you keepin it real?” Then to your horror, after mastering this most excellent form of English speech, someone tells you that what you’ve learned to say is a little rude. Then all your words and grammar have to change to a new form.
dog = you, friend
real = feeling today
what = how are
real = selling out to the man
The correct English sentence would be: “How are you feeling today, friend? Are you selling out to the man?” This would be the polite form to be used in a business setting.
Aren’t I a good teacher of English? I should switch careers again. The reality is that there are at least three or possibly more whole sets of Japanese vocabulary that go together to form different degrees of politeness. In English there are only two: normal and rude slang. So far, I learned the casual Japanese and the polite Japanese, the honorifics I was complaining about are actually a 3rd, super-polite Japanese like you use when you meet the Emperor, and you never know when that might happen.
So the halloween party at JCMU is next week and the plans are already about done. There will be about 90 or so kids coming and they'll do trick-or-treating and walk through a haunted house and a bunch of songs! I will probably help out with the halloween party. I looked at the program, and apparently in Japan they sing Halloween songs like we sing Christmas Carols. The lyrics to one of these Halloween Carols is below. Have I been missing someting, or are there no Halloween Carols in America?
Halloween Song
Goblins and witches
Ride on a broom
Ghostly shadows
Steal around the room toight
Tonight is Halloween.
Light up the pumpkins,
Dress in a sheet,
Scare everybody
You happen to meet tonight.
Tonight is Halloween.
Tuesday, October 21, 2003
Hey. I haven't felt much like blogging recently, so this will be short. Got midterm grades back; I got a C+. Tonight I have 30 new words to memorize (I just counted the flash cards I made). Since this is basically an impossible task, I've been surfing the internet. I know some of them at least, so I shouldn't repeat my Monday quiz performance where I got a 3%. That's right, single digits is what happens if I don't study this stuff. You just can't fake language study -- either you know it or you don't. My business class group met today to prepare powerpoint slides on Nissan, which went fine. I found it interesting that the research by the Japanese students in our group turned up mostly sources that pointed out how factories were being closed in Japan and being opened in the US. It was very one-sided compared with the statistics I found about Nissan's turnaround.
Sunday, October 19, 2003
I am the laziest bastard ever. Today, I decided not to go on the Ibukiyama climb because I wanted to finish the Nissan book and do homework. Well, I finished the book but didn't do any homework. Instead, I napped until the sun almost went down (it gets dark here about 5:30 PM now), and then watched the movie Signs again. What a great movie. But now it's 11:23 and I haven't done any studying to speak of, as usual. Instead I surf the web for jobs and found lots of really interesting ones. Like for example, I could live in Austrailia for a year or two and work in the auto industry there. I think I should really focus on finding an international job when I return to the US, since I don't think living here in Japan will be enough to satisfy that bug. I keep looking into grad schools for business as a way to live abroad again, but maybe I should just focus on using my professional skills to find the job that will be a worthy challenge for me.
Reading the book on Ghosn at Nissan has really gotten me thinking about the automotive industry again. In particular, this book has allowed me to see how messed up the Daimler-Benz and Chrysler/ Mitsubishi mergers have been. There's no melding of cultures at all -- it's all one way. Basically, the Germans took over and if you're an American you're screwed. That's not how it was at Nissan. They had a French leader come in from Renault, but they're still a Japanese company. Everyone in that company struggles to communicate because of the language barriers, but they manage to work together without losing their identity. At Chrysler the message seems to be that Americans will be allowed to run the American division, but you have no chance at working in a global environment becuase you're not German.
The interesting thing about Carlos Ghosn (the leader of Nissan right now) is that he was a Brazilian born Palestinian Frenchman who has lived and work in many different countries, and has come to understand how to manage global companies. He basically is of the opinion that people working in intercultural environments thrive when they can adapt and learn from ther non-native country, but still manage to keep their own identity intact. You don't want to be assimillated into the culture and lose your own identity, you want to learn from it and take the best of all worlds. This is what he means by being bi-cultural.
I see some students here at JCMU who have lost their cultural identity because they basically want to be Japanese, down to the clothes they wear and the J-Pop music they listen to. This seems ridiculous to me, because I learned that lesson long ago. When I was 13 years of age I went to Norway with my family and I was such a stupid American brat that I thought Norway was backwards solely because they had 4 TV channels and I had 20 (this was the late 80's of course, now Now norway has 8 channels and America has 200. But I digress). I learned over time that this was an arrogant way of thinking and that of course both countries had different strengths, and I regretted how I'd behaved as a 13 year old. Then, much later, I was prepared when one of my uncles in Norway told me how "Norway is the best country", and I could just nod politely and not start arguing. I sincerely think he believes that, and I think there are some perfect things about Norway, but mostly his opinion shows his lack of bi-cultural understanding. I would never say that American culture is the best, because I have the added perspectives of America that I've learned from my friends all over the world. This is because I somewhat understand the way America is viewed as a Norwegian, Japanese, German, Mexican, Canadian, or Dutch person.
So when I get back to America, I will be the same person, but I hope to have grown and learned a lot of new things. When I travel, I will always be an American and I know that. I wouldn't have it any other way. As far as being bi-culturally Japanese and American, I think that would take a lot longer than the 4 months I'm here. But I will certainly try and take the best of what I've learned and liked in Japan and will try and keep it up where ever I live, since it's become a part of me now.
Okay, enough rambling.
Saturday, October 18, 2003
Okay, it's technically Sunday morning here, but this will apper as a post Saturday night thanks to the magic of a 13 hour time zone difference (16 to my west coast friends). Yesterday had to be up early for the Kendo match, which was held at the Teacher's College of Shiga University in Ichiyama. Shiga University has two different colleges -- the College of Economics (keizeigaku) and the Teacher's college. The Kendo club is split into two halves which only meet together about once a month, usually. But because there's a big match in Kobe next weekend, they've been meeting together a lot more to practice. We met at the train station, and the other American that was supposed to go with us didn't make it, so I was on my own to deal with the language. I actually did fine, and learned a lot of new words that I'll have to try and remember somehow. I took a ton of pictures and movie clips, so I'll have to get them up on the web at some point.
After Kendo, I went to into Kyoto because it was so close to Ichiyama. There I wandered around the city alone exploring the shopping and bars. I ended up buying a book on Japanese martial arts so I could learn the specialized terms. Other than that, I ate in an underground restaurant inhabited entirely by middle aged Japanese women, and sat in a square with a water fountain surrounded by mobs of people and read the book on Nissan I have to read for class next week. I went to a bar and had two beers for about $16 and talked with the bartender about various nightlife in Kyoto and such, and basically concluded that I need to go to Osaka for a Saturday night if I really want to have fun. That would be an all night proposition, since the last train leaves around 11:30. Or there's one club that sounds good on the last Saturdays of every month, but then I'd have the same problem with the trains stopping and would have no way to get back home to Hikone.
Friday, October 17, 2003
I am really starting to enjoy this place more and more. The test this morning went reasonably well, and I actually finished it. Afterwards, there was a Judo demonstration where we watched a few members from the Shiga Daigaku Judo club throw each other around on a mat. I don’t think I have any interest in doing Judo. Call me a sissy, but I think it would hurt. At least in Kendo you have armor where they beat you with sticks. These men and women were being slammed into the ground so hard you could hear it.
Tomorrow I’m going to meet the Kendo club at 8:05 at the Hikone train station and we’re going to Kyoto for a match against a Kyoto club. I won’t be doing anything other than watching, but it should be cool to see and I will learn a lot. I also want to do a bit more sightseeing around town while I’m there, and I plan to take a lot of movie clips.
I just got back from a bonfire on the beach, but it was kind of annoying because the fire wouldn’t stay lit and they were playing shitty music on a laptop computer set at volume 11. The computer was special because while most volume controls stop at 10, this one went up to 11. But it sounded like distorted crap, so the atmosphere was kinda lame. I hung around for 20 minutes or so and talked with some of the others in my class and then headed back.
Diane told me the frightening story of her home stay. I’m glad I chose to stay in the apartments, because why would I want to be a part of another messed up family? One is enough. Basically, her home stay “dad” was separated from the “mom”, but they were still living together. Her “dad” had a 19 year old girlfriend who actually works at JCMU as a janitor. Isn’t this great? You couldn’t make this stuff up. And so apparently this is sort of a normal for older men to have younger girlfriends if they give them cash (although I guess that happens in the US, too, but it seems more creepy here in Japan). The girl apparently has a sick mother and needs the money. But Diane was caught in the middle with this creepy guy and his messed up wife and concubine. Whatever. Diane is now living in the dorm apartments again.
Before the bonfire, I watched a bizarre postmodern Japanese flick called “All About Lily Chou-Chou” about the darker side of some Japanese school kids lives. Anyway, it’s way too complicated and depressing to describe. I wonder what it would be like for my American friends and family to see it without the benefit I’ve had of observing and studying here in Japan. It would probably make a lot less sense, and it barely made sense to me. It’s all part of the experience here.
Earlier in the day, I went to get my hair cut at the local barber. The barber shop is called a Byouin, which is not to be confused with at Byoin which is a hospital. The difference is in how long you hold the long “O” vowel. Anyway, the hair salons in Japan are pretty cool. For $20 you get a hair cut, shampoo, scalp and shoulder massage, and you aren’t supposed to tip. It’s much better than in the US. The only bizarre thing was that instead of leaning back into the sink for them to wash your hair, the sink is in front of you and pulls down like a drawer, and then you lean forward and stick your head in, face down. This was a bit awkward because I got water all over my face, but it wasn’t all that bad because they carefully dry you and then give you a massage afterwards. I recommend it. The language barrier was no problem because you pick your style out of a book. If only in America it were as easy and with such good service.
So that was about it for today, other than a trip to the post office to cash my next $300 worth of travelers checks to make it through October. I will definitely be running out of cash by the end of November at this rate, so I’m going to have to start using my credit card more. Dinner was a delicious curry prepared by Kazu-san and we ended up having a dinner party of 6 eat in our apartment. It was very tasty. Goodnight.
Thursday, October 16, 2003
Today is my 30th birthday. I guess I'm still in denial about the significance of not being in my 20s anymore, but actually, this was one of the best Birthdays I've had since my 21st (which is the year, as common knowledge has it, that birthdays all start going downhill). Today, I got up early as usual to complete my homework that I didn't do the night before. I ended up going to sleep early because I drank a lot of that Ninja tea and the stuff seems to make me sleepy. After 3 hours of language class, it was off by bike to Shiga University for the business class after a brief stop at Lawsons convenience store for some Kim Chee & Currey-mans and American Dog-oos. An American Dog-oo is a corn dog, in case you wondered.
So after the 2 hour class business class, I immediately went down to Kendo practice. There I practiced sword movements until I thought my arms and shoulders were going to fall off or at least end up with a repetitive motion injury. It was pretty low-key, so that made it very enjoyable. Our techer Koyukki - sensei has started to relax around us foreign students and so the atmosphere is more friendly now. I really dig kendo, but that could be because we haven't actually been smacked over the head yet with sticks. On Saturday, there's a meet in Kyoto, so we're leaving from the Hikone station at 8:15 to take the train into town. I'll probably go and not be able to practice at all, but it should be interesting to watch. I'll try and get some videos of it.
After returning, I began cooking some Yaki-soba, and soon there was a small group that formed and wanted to eat. So Tomoko-san, Murial-chan, and Kazu-san all enjoyed the yaki-soba, and Kazu-san also prepared some Kim Chee (Korean spicy cabbage dish). I then had to dash off to meet my new conversation partner, who surprised me with a birthday gift. It was most unexpected. We agreed to meet every Monday and Thursday at 6:00 to talk before her 7:00 English classes. She likes to play tennis, so maybe we'll get a chance to do that in the future. I returned to my room, and Kazu-san and Tomoko-san had bought a cake. It had three tall candles on it (can't tell you the wish though), and tasted exactly like a Norwegian cake my dad used to make called "bleatau caka" in Norwegian that has a lot of fruit and whipped cream in it. So that was a nice surprise.
So that pretty much sums up my day until now, 10PM, and I'm contemplating starting studying for my weekly Friday morning test. I've been really a lot happier ever since I truely gave up caring about my grades in class. When I was still getting scores in the '60s, I actually was mad and wanted to do better, even though I said I didn't really care. But now that my last two tests have dropped into the 50's sealing the fate of my grade, I really don't care at all and have been entirely focusing on having a great time here and meeting lots of Japanese people and practicing as much as possible. The real reason I came here was to get better at Japanese, and it's not to sit in my room studying for hours and hours and still doing bad on tests. So fuck the tests. I paid my good money for these classes, so I can fail them if I want to. This new attitude is liberating, and I am trying to figure out how to apply this lesson to the rest of my life. So that's why today was a good day. And I didn't have to use my A - K.
Tuesday, October 14, 2003
So what can I say about today? As usual, I got up early to do the homework I didn't do over the weekend and couldn't motivate myself without the time pressure of a class starting in an hour and a half. My beverage of choice today was not the charcoal coffee, nor the Ninja tea, nor the (somewhat) normal coffee. It was just regular Japanese green tea, which is not to be confused with Chinese green tea. It tastes less bitter and burned than Chinese green tea, and supposedly has a lot of vitamin C. I'm saving the Ninja tea for when I really need special Ninja powers.
This afternoon, it rained, and as much as I love rain and despite being a native Seattleite, this time it was annoying because my mode of transport has pedals and no windshield, so I got a bit wet returning from the Shiga University campus. I then met with the Japanese language teacher, where I practiced the ridiculous dialogue we have to act out in class tomorrow because I keep failing everything. My test last Friday improved from a 52% last week to an amazing 58%. However, now that I've failed so much I've gotten used to it and it doesn't bother me anymore. But really, this wasn't a remarkable day at all. Okay, time to go study.l
Monday, October 13, 2003
Sorry, there's no entry from yesterday because nothing special happened other than James & I pedaled into town in the afternoon and ate at the Mos Burger again. I am starting to appreciate the Japanese tiny portion size, and where else can you get a truly fresh salad with sesame dressing instead of greasy fries? I didn't even feel ill after eating it, although I did still feel hungry. After heading back home, I watched Office Space (what a great movie!), studied a bit, then went to bed early because of today's plans.
Today was pretty damn cool. My roommate, Kazu-san, found out that it was my birthday this week, so he decided to take me out for some sightseeing today. First of all, today was a Japanese holiday. I have no idea why or what for, and I probably should, shame on me. But the important thing is that we had no class. After getting up pretty early, we drove about an hour to Kyoto to pick up his girlfriend, Sai-chan. Then we drove to a little town called Koga which was about 45 minutes away. I don't know why, but today I was sort of sleepy the whole day. I really need to catch up on sleep and drink less coffee somehow. Anyway.
The main attraction of Koga is that it was formerly a hub of Ninja activity about 300 years ago. We first stopped at the former residence of Mochizuki Izumonokami, leader of the Koga ninja clan's 53 families. It's one of the few authentic ninja houses left in Japan, and had a bunch of special features, including traps, mazes, and secret levels. It was way cool.
Within a closet, there was a ladder leading up to the upper level, but the floor of the closet was a trap door leading to a pit 5 meters deep! You really had to be careful where you stepped. Once you climbed up the ladder, you were in a level in between the 1st and 2nd stories. This half floor had a ceiling about 4 feet high and was designed to make fighting with long swords difficult. Ninjas were trained to fight inside close quarters, so this would give them an advantage. From this level, there was a trap door in the ceiling leading to the 2nd floor attic, and there was also a removable set of bars that led back to the first floor.
In typical Japanese architecture, large open spaces within the houses are partitioned off by shoji (rice paper) screens that run on tracks in the floor. These sliding doors were configured to conceal false trap doors leading to underground escape passageways. Another ladder led down from the 2nd floor attic to a partitioned area that had the escape passageway under the floor. If there was no way to get in the escape tunnel, there were revolving one-way doors that could be used to escape from the partition and led to other rooms on the first floor. The revolving door would only turn 180 degrees, so that when a Ninja escaped, the pursuer would typically push the same place the Ninja did. But the door doesn't turn when pushed on the same point, which bought the Ninja time to escape or counterattack. The windows of the first floor used specially designed latches that would only work if you knew exactly where to press. The Ninja could escape and then close the window behind him, and the follower couldn't easily go after him, also buying more time.
After the tour, we sat down in the main room of this 300 year old ninja house and had the same tea that the Ninjas drank, while sitting on the tatami mats in a place that had tremendous history. Ninjas were actually peaceful people, and were employed primarily as spies. They didn't like to kill. They were also accomplished healers, and they lived in remote villages like Koga and had to fend for themselves. This Ninja tea is known for it's medicineal powers. It was really cool for me, especially since I went through a Ninja crazy phase as a 12 year old and seeing this in the flesh was something I had always been interested in ever since reading about Ninjas in G.I. Joe comic books. I bought the whole marketing scam and paid 2,000 yen ($20) for an extremely large box of this tea from the Ninja house. Harrison Ford and his son had recently stopped by that house, and the proprietors were very proud of their pictures of him sitting and drinking tea in the exact same place.
Next we went to the Koga Ninjutsu Village . The main attraction here was a reconstructed Ninja mansion. The architecture of this house was very similar, but it had some interesting details. It also had the half floor between 1st and 2nd floors and a similar set of passages up and through them. It also had a main room on the first floor that had a false ceiling suspended by one rope. It was possible to cut the single rope from the half floor and cause the heavy ceiling to fall on their enemies.
There was also a wall which required some careful manipulation of details and opened like a revolving trap door. After crawling through this trap door, you could walk behind the main room and then into a passage that had an opening back into the main room but concealed by a hanging painting in the main room. There was also another secret passage back into the main room that exited into a closet. Or, you could escape outside altogether or go around to the front of the house (while still on the porch) and lower a ladder which would take you back into the 2nd floor attic. If you've been reading all this, you're probably completely confused by now. Let me just say, it was way cool. I want to build a Ninja house when I get back to America. No, just kidding. Then we went off to the Shuriken Dojo where I practiced my throwing star skills, and I was surprisingly good.
After that, we headed back to Kyoto and I had dinner with Kazu-san's family. We had a delicious yaki soba dinner with miso soup and some dried fish. For the first time ever, I turned down the local specialty, which was some kind of extremely smelly fermented fish. I guess I have finally reached my saturation point for weird foods. I just didn't feel adventurous with food after eating Natto the other day and retching in front of my hosts. The food I had was really good, though, and Kazu-san's father was pretty cool. He works as an official for the local government. He explained to me that he'd had many opportunities to go to Canada and America, but had turned them down due to lack of time. Typical Japanese worker. He was 55 and retirement isn't in sight, although I could tell that he was surprised at what my parents do in their retirement (travel in an RV). Apparently in Japan, most retired people join non-profit organizations and devote their free time to helping society. Very Japanese. Kazu-san's mother had died of stomach cancer about 7 years ago, so their family consisted of him, his father, and younger brother. His brother is 5 years younger than him and is a teacher of English at a local high school. His English was terrible, but it was still better than my Japanese. We had a relaxing dinner at their house, sitting on tatami mats and watching their wide screen TV while at the dinner table. It was just like any other dinner you might have with a family, except more Japanese. Unfortunately, they are now going to throw me a birthday party next week, whatever that can possibly mean. I protested, but I just don't think there's anything I can do about it. It will be a "joint" birthday party with Kazu-san, whose birthday was October 2nd.
That was my Monday. I'll get pictures up eventually of all the Ninja stuff. Now it's 11:30 on Monday night and I really need to start doing the homework I've had 3 days to finish. Man am I a slacker. Bye.
Saturday, October 11, 2003
I created a movie of last Saturday's trip to the local ski area. The link is here . I'll try and create a smaller version for those with slower connections when I find the tme.
Today I had kendo practice, and then went to city hall to be fitted for a wig. I'm going to be walking in a parade in a few weeks commemorating the town of Hikone's anniversary (or something like that). I will be a feudal lord, and my wig will give me a crazy hairstyle like they wore centuries ago. It should be interesting.
Well, now it's off to karaoke again!
Friday, October 10, 2003
Aside from the exam this morning, today was a pretty good day. We headed over to CoCos for lunch and then a group of us went to Shiga University to see if we could use the gym for some Kendo practice. It seems a few more people want to join (including two girls), so they wanted to practice with us before going to the official session tomorrow. Well, the gym was being used, and we took the padded area off to the side, but after being yelled at in Japanese we all left while apologizing profusely. So we went to the gym and worked out instead. The gym is pathetic for a school the caliber of say, Michigan State. It's always empty. And the more I thought about it, the more I realized that no one lifts weights in Japan.
First of all, the machines don't have maximum weights nearly as high as in the states. I am not huge by any means, but here in Japan I have to set my weights using about 2/3 of the available maximum. In the states, I usually work out with about 1/4 - 1/3 of the maximum weight. It kinda gives a nice ego boost. Second of all, for some reason the nutrition or portion size of the Japanese diet seems to prevent you from getting fat. Or in my case, prevent me from keeping my weight. I am deliberately eating more protein now because I think my brain synapses aren't getting enough to rebuild themselves every night. That's why I'm failing my classes. Yeah, that's the ticket.
So after working out, I went to the join DeShawn with the Shiga U "Tennis Circle", which was a lot of fun. There are 6 public tennis courts, and the Tennis Circle rents out 3 of them. Unfortunately, the tennis courts are right next to a sand soccer field, and all the sand blows onto the court. The court is covered with a layer of thin astroturf, which I guess was their preventive measure for the sand. The sand kind of sinks into the astroturf and so you don't slip and slide everywhere. But you do slip around pretty badly. Another oddity was that you're expected to have special court shoes, and the other Japanese students kind of look at you funny if you don't pull some tennis shoes out of your bag and change shoes before going on the court. This makes absolutely no sense because the court iteslf is ridiculously filthy -- it's covered in sand, after all.
This country requires you to have entirely too many pairs of shoes and slippers. I have 5 pair here and it's not enough. I have one pair of flip flops which I wear around the dorm and classroom building. I have another by the entrance to my own apartment, although there I usually just go barefoot or wear socks. Then I have another pair of flip flops at the main entrance in case I enter there and need to be able to walk back to my room. Usually we all exit out the side door, so my street shoes are there, along with the hiking boots they said we needed because of the rain and snow here in the winter. So that's five, but I should technically have another for tennis circle, and probably I should technically have a separate pair of flip flops to leave in the bathroom at all times, so that you can change flip flops when using the restroom. It's obsessive. Was Imelda Marcos Japanese? I thought she was Phillipean, but if she was Japanese I might be able to understand why she needed 200,000 shoes. After all, if your the wife of the president of a country, then you'd probably need like 7 pair for each room in your palatial mansion.
Enough about shoes. So after dinner, we watched the 7 Samaurai in the TV room. That's about a 3.5 hour movie, if anyone is ever inspired to see it. I have to admit that it was well done, though. I recommend it when you feel like watching a '50s or '60s black & white flick that's really long. Oyasumi. (goodnight)
Thursday, October 09, 2003
Well, it's Thursday night and, rather than studying for the weekly exam, I ended up spending the whole early evening talking about random stuff with my roommate. Primarily we were talking about the Japanese educational system. I don't envy what kids over here have to go through. Basically the system is designed to funnel people through an examination and assign you a rank. The higher your test scores, the better the college you can go to, and subseqently the better job you get when you're done. Your degree and specialization don't matter -- the college does. It's very strange. It explains why we have so many tests and quizzes and memorization exercises, though. This is the Japanese educational system, and I am failing because I don't study for many hours a day. It's much more interesting to learn by talking to people. Kaz-san also cooked Japanese style Italian food for dinner. I say Japanese style because it had no tomato sauce, and what kind of Italian has no tomato sauce? But I am appreciative.
Kendo practice went well today, and I am starting to see what's in store for us in the future. In the mean time, all I have to show for it is a blister on my feet and some sorness. I still think it's awesome.
Wednesday, October 08, 2003
Kendo is the coolest sport ever! We had our first practice today, and learned some of the basic footwork and sword movements. The people involved are really cool, and extremely good. Everyone is a college student, including the coaches. Two of the advanced people were sparring and it was incredible to watch. It's almost like they're ghosts floating above the ground. I wish I could find a suitable movie clip to reference, but maybe in time or at one of the tournaments coming up I'll get some videos. This isn't some pansy foil or sabre fencing, either, this is hardcore with fricken wooden sticks. Anyway, I'm way psyched about this. If only I could remember the names and commands they taught us ... it's like I have an additional dozen vocabulary words, but this time I am actually trilled to learn them. If you don't know what Kendo looks like, download the Engima video "Push the Limits" (except without the sex. And supposedly it's very bad form kendo). Very cool anyway. Here's a small picture link you can look at of a tournament.
Tuesday, October 07, 2003
Tomorrow Kendo club starts. I will practice three times a week because I can't go on Tuesday or Friday due to class scheduling conflicts. Practice is in the afternoon, thank goodness, so I won't have to go to practice 5 AM as previously feared. I've actually been getting up at 6:45 anyway, which is two hours earlier than my 8:50 class start time would require. This is so that I can do homework, because I can't seem to get out of the trap by studying the night before. I am drinking a lot of coffee again.
Today I had 3 hours of language classes followed by 2 hours of the Japanese Business class. I really love the business class. The lectures are interesting and there has been virtually no homework. It's my kind of class. I then went and ate a terriyaki burger at McDonalds (promise, it's the last one -- it was really horrible. Too much sauce and the lettuce was wilted, just like the last one I ate on Saturday). Did I mention I've lost a lot of weight? It's mostly from my gut. I don't know how this has happened, but my pants don't fit my waist anymore and there are not enough belt notches to use. I think it's the low calorie diet and no riding in cars. It could also be that I buy $20 worth of food and it costs me like 4000 yen ($40), so I don't eat as much. Or it could be the stress? Or all the coffee? I don't know, but with Kendo starting tomorrow it's pretty much guaranteed that I'm going to go back to the US leaner and meaner. I like it.
I want more e-mail. What's going on in your life? I miss everyone back home. No, I don't really, but I miss some of you. Lately, I have been thinking of how nice it would be to have a job in Detroit and be earning money again, but then I ride around Hikone on my Japanese commuter bicycle and experience things that are new to me and I change my mind. I think I enjoyed my Chrysler job so much for the first few years because it was all new and a challenge that expanded my mind. I was growing and learning a lot -- so that after four or five years, I couldn't believe how much I'd learned. But then for years 6-8 at Chrysler I kinda stagnated. I think now I'm back on track (as far as learning & growing is concerned). I think I will look back on this time as one of the high points of my life, despite the stress of failing the language class miserably!
Monday, October 06, 2003
So I got a hopeless 52% on the last test, but I actually studied today and know some of tomorrow's material. This afternoon Kaz-san, Tomoko-san, and ____ (insert difficult to pronounce Japanese name) had a delicious Yaki Soba meal prepared by Kaz-san. We had some interesting discussions (including one about the war in Iraq which I tried to sidestep), and I ended up getting taught some Kansai dialect Japanese. I'm sure it's not going to be on any test, but it's far more memorable and enjoyable to learn than our real homework. Strangely enought, sitting around the kitchen table after eating, I was distinctly reminded of situations in Norway where my relatives would tell me Norwegian phrases and words after we had eaten together. I kind of miss that sort of scenario, and it got me thinking about future opportunities I might have to live for a while in Norway. Maybe I should go there for business school or work or something... but I am such a bad student maybe I should just quit trying the educational systems of various countries. Anwyay. Time to study.
Sunday, October 05, 2003
So it's Sunday afternoon and of course, I need to do a shitload of homework which I procrastinated over all weekend. I went to CoCo's restaurant next door for lunch/ dinner and ordered a $10 pizza and the $3 "drinku bar". At the drinku bar, I discovered the automatic cappuchino machine and ended up drinking about 4 shots of espresso and, don't cha know, coke goes really well with pizza? Needless to say, my heart was palpitating out of my chest after all that. You'd think all that stimulant drinking would motivate me to do homework, but of course it didn't. I did manage to sit in front of my computer listening to the recorded exercises for about 15 minutes before my brain started to swim. It's 7:30 PM now, and I'll probably crash pretty hard about 10:00. We have a particularly long list of vocab words to learn for the quiz tomorrow and a very long dialogue to memorize, and I just don't think my brain can absorb any more words. I am not sure if work was ever more mentally difficult than this. I think work was more of an emotional struggle -- how to deal with people and circumstances beyond your control. Homework is just a personal mental challenge -- can I make myself do it? And I am not sure if I have the fortitude any more to learn at this pace.
Saturday, October 04, 2003
Friday night we all went to a bar and then Karaoke until we closed the place down at 3AM, so I ended up sleeping in till noon. Streeta-san, DeShawn, and I had planned earlier in the week to hike up this mountain in Nagahama we saw from the road when we went on the field trip to the Canon factory. Well, we decided to go anyway, even though it was going to be a 2 hour bike ride just to the base. I took a ton of footage, so I'll probably end up making a movie clip out of it all, but we did make it to the mountain. There was a ski resort there and the gondola was operating, we we took that rather than hike up. It cost us 1000 yen, but saved us hours of hiking. We didn't go to the top, but we went as high as the gondola (actually it was a "gondora" according to the sign) would take us. The view was spectacular, and we all agreed we have to come back some time and go to the real top. A lot of people seemed to be backpacking there as well, and also taking the gondola half way up like us. On our way back, I succumbed to my friends wishes and went with them to the Ma Ku Do Na Ru Do. Mickey D's in Japan is frighteningly similar to that back home in the States. The only exception I could see was that they had some weird sweet roll-up thing and the teriyaki burger, which I had. It was similar to the Mos Burger I had previously -- tasty but dripping in sauce and stuff.
Which reminds me of this stuff I actually ate yesterday evening. My new roommate, Kaz-san, had me try a very traditional food from this area. It's called Natto. It was one of the most repulsive things I've eaten in a long time. Everyone had warned me about the stench, but nobody prepared me for the texture. It's basically fermented soybeans. They don't smell good, and they taste the same as they smell. The worst part about them is that they are really slimy. I literally retched two or three times when I tried my first fork full, under the watchful eyes of Tomoko-san and Kaz-san. They told me that "if you like Natto, then you are Japanese". So I failed the test, and am not Japanese, which is fine by me. I struggled to eat the remaining Natto off my plate, just to show that I can not be defeated by some nasty Japanese food. I was glad that they weren't looking as I ate the second forkfull of the fermented beans, because I retched continually until I could chew them enough to swallow. Yuk. I hope I don't have to try that stuff again. I'd rather eat raw shrimp or some barely dead fish twitching on my plate than have Natto again.
Thursday, October 02, 2003
To follow up from a few days back, here are the words that have resulted in some completely misunderstood conversations:
Jugyo = Class
Juyo = Important
Jishyo = Dictionary
ShoJi = Stock Exchange
Yesterday what seemed so funny seems very un-funny today. I bought a box of Drip On Charcoal Roasted Coffee, because I have been looking for a stronger roast coffee since coming here. The marketing trick that I fell for was this irresistable tag line: "Specially selected coffee beans are carefully roasted with good quality charcoal." You should never buy the coffee roasted with "good" quality charcoal. You want your coffee to be roasted with "high" quality charcoal, or none at all. You would do well to heed my advice. You know what coffee roasted with good quality charcoal tastes like? Charcoal. Yep. And it occurred to me this morning as I was sipping (very slowly) at my charcoal, "isn't charcoal a carcinogen?" and, "What kind of country is this that they drink coffee that looks like coffee but tastes exactly like charcoal?"
If I hadn't mentioned it before, I really have begun to dislike my language classes intensely. Today I basically gave up and concluded it would be better and easier just to read those damn dialogues in class rather than even attempt to feebly memorize them and stumble through with massive prompting from the instructor. I decided it wasn't worth the humiliation, since basically I learn absolutely nothing about Japanese by screwing up a dialogue that I'm unable to memorize properly. By being the only one to stand up in front of class and read from the book, it also sends the message to everyone that I basically don't give a shit.
I have concluded that the Japanese language instruction style of "memorize this phrase" just won't work for me. It's hopeless. You'd think by giving up, I'd feel less pressure and might enjoy it more here. But in reality, I just feel like crap for being a quitter. Man that sucks. So whatever, I'll just take the test tomorrow and fail it like I usually do. I only have 2.5 more months of class, so I guess that's not too much time, but I can already tell the classes will continue to be painful for the whole time I'm here.
I should have done more research on the program before coming here, like when I checked out the German school in Cologne this spring. Who knew it was going to be like this? On the other hand, I really enjoyed the Business class that was held this afternoon. It really helped put my existing knowledge of Japan's business world into a bigger framework for understanding. It was fascinating. Too bad my whole day was ruined by the charcoal coffee, painful language class all morning, and the fact that I have to study all night for a test that recent history indicates I will fail. And I chose to be here of my own free will. Somehow I knew a day like this was coming, and I told myself months ago that when it did, I'd remind myself that I chose to be here.
Wednesday, October 01, 2003
So my new roommate, Kazuma-san, moved into the apartment today. He's pretty cool -- was formerly a Shinkansen driver (drove bullet trains), and left three years ago to go back and eventually get his PhD to be a professor in Economics. I made chinese fried rice (one of my staples here) and shared it with him for dinner. It's not much for a birthday dinner, but it was the best I could do. I'm really tired out from all the studying I've had to do the past few days. And I'm still failing tests -- I got a 100% on the one Monday that I studied all weekend for, but then got a 65% on Tuesday's exam, which I only studied for Monday afternoon / night.
I went to the post office today to mail a postcard and a letter, and exchanged another $300 which I'm budgeting to last until the middle of October. Now that the month of September is over, I calcuated my expenditures and it came to almost exactly $1000 (minus room and tuition). About $300 of that was on my trip up Fuji-san and to Tokyo, and another $100 was on the first trip to Kyoto. So basically if I don't travel as much and go out to eat less, I think I should be able to go 2 weeks for about $300. We'll see.
Today for lunch a small group of us rode bikes over to a restraunt famous for its Okonemiyaki. It was ooishkata (tasty). I also made a ridiculous error in a conversation later on in the afternoon when one of the Japanese people living here asked me what I was doing on the computer, and I replied "checking stocks", but in actuality I said "checking the dictionary". Dictionary is "Jisshyo", while Stock Exchange is something similar but not quite the same. I don't know how to say it now, but I did 4 hours ago. I hate learning languages! Soooo much to remember. Oh well. No actually, I love it. Just love it.
