Back to Japan

I'm back. And this time I'm in Tokyo. We're in Tokyo, to be exact. I finished up my Master's degree in Math at McMaster, and now we're managing Aim English School in Kodaira, west of Tokyo. You can see our homepage here aim英会話. I hope to post here more often now, with more views of Japan.

Statues

I wasn't planning on posting anything today. However, I was playing around with a little tool (created by J Wynia) which suggests photos from Flickr relevant to the subject of your blog post, and I just had to show you this pic. I searched for "Japan" and the following image was one of the results.

Photo: Joi Ito

I'm not sure if this is real or not, but Ito lives in Kyoto so it might be a bunch of statues from there.

English

A few months ago, I realized that my English input was stagnating. I started searching out anything to read in my native tongue. When I received an MP3 player as a gift a few weeks ago, I started listening to podcasts and other speeches. I stumbled across the following website of interviews with famous authors very recently: http://wiredforbooks.org/swaim.

Japanese Computers

Japanese homes are typically quite beautiful, with wood trim and sliding doors everywhere. Japanese computer cases are the same.





Kidding. This is actually a "mod" (geek abbreviation for modification) of a PC case. More info here.

Insulation come hither

As some people know, most homes have little (if any) insulation to keep them warm (or better, "not freezing") in the winter. Thus, homes are freezing in the winter. So, why don't all Japanese people die each winter? Because, they've come up with ingenious heating devices to keep them warm. Some of these devices are portable (as there is no central heating) and some are wall-mounted.

I spoke of this in a previous post (Winter's here! Winter's here!) but failed to mention the kotatsu. This is a low, square or rectangular table which has a radiating downward-pointing fan on its underside, and which people stretch their legs under, and read or play cars or drink tea. A kotatsu blanket is draped over the table and hangs to the floor so very little heat can escape. We have one of these and I'm anxious to set it up.

(this is a cat (not ours) enjoying the warmth of a kotatsu)

These words were inspired by a video on how insulation is made, which you can watch here.

Memoirs of a Geisha

I just watched a short preview of this movie at Yahoo's video search site. Already, I'm quite disappointed with the portrayal of Japanese people. Of course, the actors are speaking in English - that's understandable. But where is the formality, the politeness, the body language. I watched a stranger speaking to a young girl. There was not a hint of bowing, no polite Excuse mes or Thank yous. It was like I was watching a young Canadian girl (wearing a kimono) speaking to a Canadian man.

This short scene was out of context, so perhaps these two characters were raised in the West and then brought to Japan. Perhaps this is why they lack any trace of Japanese-ness? Unlikely. Or, maybe Hollywood, in typical fashion, decided to sanitize, and westernize, and remold, and cut a story about a wonderfully different culture to the lowest common denominator, so that it wouldn't be obscured (but more appropriately, embellished) by "strange" cultural references.

I suppose I should hold further judgement until I see the whole film.

Winter's here! Winter's here!

I forgot how cold it was in Japan in winter. Not outside, inside. Most homes have no central heating, and very little insulation. So each room is a different wintery environment. There's the winter bathroom and winter shower. There's the winter bedroom. And the winter kitchen. Each room needs its own heating setup. In my home, it's portable heat fans or kerosene heaters, but many homes have wall-mounted all-season air conditioners (cool in summer, warm in winter) in well-frequented rooms.

The winter shower is the coldest room. Standing naked on cold tiles in a freezing shower room is not fun. If you turn on the water to heat the shower room a few minutes before you enter, you're greeted with fog and can't find the soap, or walls for that matter. In the winter bathroom, you may be lucky enough to find an electrically warmed toilet seat. Mmm...

The winter bedroom is kinda fun if you're a couple. Snuggling and so forth.

Anyhow, I can't wait to go back to the central-heating of Canada and the warmth of my parents' home. Two weeks!

Expensive Candy

Japan is full of places where people can throw away their money very, very quickly. I hate these places, but many Japanese people love them.

I think there are basically two types of these places: gambling and games. The gambling places are called Pachinko halls or parlours. I've only been to a few of these, as your money disappears at nearly the speed of light. When I first arrived here, I was intrigued by the game centres, where there are many ways to lose your money at a slower rate.

For example, you can play a game where you control a mechanical scoop, which picks up (usually zero) small objects, puts them on a moving tray, which slowly pushes more small objects towards the edge of the tray and down a chute into your possession. More often than not, the scoop doesn't pick anything up, or if it does, the items fall of the moving tray back into the original pile of objects, or if they do stay on the tray, it takes you an hour to push a few small objects into the chute.

To make a long story short, you end up spending $20 on a couple of mini Kit Kats.

Demolition

I haven't witnessed the full process of a demolition before. During the past few weeks, that's changed. Across the street from my apartment, there is (was) a building called Exciting Town, kind of like a very small Walmart. Now, it's a pile of rubble. More specifically, it's many piles of neatly organized rubble. All the scrap is being organized into individual piles of thick steel, thin metal, concrete, plastic, etc. and then being taken away in large trucks. Japan is very focused on recycling, and I wonder if this demolition method is also true of Canada and the U.S.

In any case, "Goodbye, Exciting Town!" You weren't that exciting, other than on days whose last digit was a 1, when you would offer a 10% discount on all of your wares. I hope your replacement raises the bar a little bit, and provides a much better view from my bedroom window.

Bicyclists and Pedestrians

Japanese people are typically quite trusting of vehicles and their drivers. The roads are narrow enough as it stands, but Japanese pedestrians and bikers often take a very prominent position on the side of the road. Sidewalks are quite uncommon here, but it is very common to see 2 or 3 students biking SIDE-BY-SIDE on a very narrow street. Car drivers don't beep their horns though; they simply slow down and wait for the bikers to realign themselves. As a western driver, I am always amazed at the audacity of these bikers to take away any amount of my road when I'm driving! But this is the main difference between the West and Japan (when it comes to roads): most people don't think that cars own the roads here. This can be very dangerous.

There are many even tinier sidestreets that intersect the already narrow streets that I drive on here. And from these tiny sidestreets pop out many young a biker. And they just "pop" right into the street. They don't seem to stop at stop signs, nor do they seem to value their precious human lives. Because young bikers are constantly flinging themselves in front of my car!

I have told a number of my young students to be more careful when driving their bicycles, but I'm not sure my warnings will do anything. Plus as more foreigners come to Japan to teach, who feel that they "own the road" (like I do), things will get more and more dangerous for the Japanese junior high school student.

I'd like to establish a "Save the Students" fund to prevent the extinction of young bikers in Japan. The money collected can go towards educating Japanese students and foreigners alike on this important issue.

Sorry Mr. Ed!

I had my first taste of horse last night. Horse sashimi. Sashimi is typically raw fish, which is delicious. But last night, chatting over drinks and other delicious food, I, my girlfriend, her brother and his fiancee, all partook of small slices of raw horse.

I had sworn that I would never eat horse. People ride horses, and whisper to them. How could I eat one!? But having already had a few drinks, my ethical inner voice was rambling incoherently, so I ate.

This morning, thinking clearly, I can try to rationalize my actions. In India, cows are revered, but in much of the rest of the world, cows are slaughtered and eaten constantly. In the West, dogs are man's best friend, but in China, some are raised for consumption. So, who cares? It's all relative. Different cultures have different histories and tastes. I don't think anyone can correctly argue that we shouldn't eat this or that meat.

Unless of course, you're talking about a McDonald's hamburger. I said "meat", not "meat filler substitute".

Japan Bugs

Perhaps the Western immune system is not ready for Japanese cold bugs. I've had 3 bad colds in the last year. Prior to coming to Japan, I hadn't had a cold in at least a year.

Last night I had a thought. Do people who check weather forecasts get fewer colds? Do their immune systems prepare themselves for an oncoming shift in the weather due to some psychological trigger? I wonder if any research has been done on this.

In any case, Japanese people generally seem to be less concerned about germs than I am. I've seen a number of people coughing or sneezing around food or towards people, without much of a negative reaction.

I suppose it's more likely that this is why I have a cold.

Lawson

My city is covered with convenience stores. No - "covered" is too mild a word; it's littered with convenience stores. And almost all of them are called Lawson. This is incredibly convenient, to have a Lawson at almost every corner. There's one place where I pass three Lawsons, each within a 10 to 15 second drive from each other. There are other convenience stores in Japan (7-11, Poplar (not Popular), and various independents) but in my area Lawson is by far the most evident.

I have become inured to some formerly surprising sounds that occur upon entering a Lawson. "Bing-Bong!" every time someone goes in or out. Many people go in and out, and the bing-bong is quite loud. I would surely go mad if I had to work there. Not a moment after the bing-bong erupts, all of the 3 or 4 workers in the place look up from what they're doing, and say (not necessarily in unison) いらっしゃいませ！ which means "Welcome!" But, usually they say a bit more than that. Usually, they say: "Welcome! Good morning/afternoon/evening! Welcome" or
いらっしゃいませ、こんばんは、いらっしゃいませ！ which is an earful, when a number of people say it in staggered fashion.

Lawsons are quite amazing in the diversity of their products: a million different types of pop, tea, milk drinks, etc.; a billion different types of snacks: chips (I tried what I think was a marmalade flavour last week!), chocolate, candy; and truly edible meals for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. I would never buy something hot or cooked from a Western convenience store, but here, I have bought many a delicious bento lunch at Lawson (pronounced Ro-sun of course, ローサン). New products seem to get released every week: there's always a new fizzy drink, potato chip flavour, or chocolate dessert.

As you leave, all the staff thanks you for your purchase and invites you to come back and shop at their store again.

Oh, and of course "Bing-Bong!"

A Yellow-Brick Road

A blind person can get around well in Japan. In the city where I live, almost every single street that has a city sidewalk has got, running down the centre of that sidewalk, a slightly bumpy yellow path. A mild annoyance for pedestrians and bicyclers, this road feature must be wonderful for those whose vision is diminished. I have yet to see a blind person in this city, but I am amazed that the city (actually, I'm not sure which level of government sets this up) pays for something like this. I don't think this would go over well in the West, where the slightest word of a tax increase provokes an angry mob. At first, I didn't know what this yellow path was, never having seen one before. Does this exist in the West, and how common is it?

Cute Cars

Cars are pretty cute in Japan. Oh sure, you come across the occasional behemoth vehicle, which doesn't really fit on a Japanese road, and really shouldn't be sold in this country. You can drive them between cities on major routes, but once arrived at your destination, you must park it (across 2 or 3 normal parking spaces) somewhere outside the city and move into more convenient transportation.

Anyhow, back to the small cars. They're cute. Half the length and width of your average western vehicle, although the same height or higher. I am more comfortable in Japanese cars than most American cars I've sat in.

Some Japanese drivers like to put cute things on and around their dash. Shiny things, tiny stuffed animals, etc. For the most part, this is fine, and makes for interesting driving: "Oh look, there are 6 tiny Hello Kitty dolls on the dashboard of that car!"

However, sometimes these drivers get carried away, and it looks like a dump-truck full of cute things emptied itself onto their dash and front window. Shiny hanging things and stickers and all sorts of miscellany frame the (usually female) drivers' heads. It is often difficult for me to see their faces. Can this be legal?

Possibly the policemen (おまわりさん) find them cute too.

B-Dash

B-Dash refers to a move in the Mario Bros. series of Nintendo video games, where you press the 'B' button to make one of the brothers run (or dash) across the screen. I hadn't heard this term before coming to Japan, but I'm not an ardent game-player, so it may be familiar to some folks in the west too.

This move has been immortalized by a Japanese music group called Tongari Kids (トンガリ　キッズ) in their appropriately-titled song B-Dash. The song is light, rappy electronica, and contains a constantly repeating portion of the Mario Bros. theme song, which may either please you or severely annoy you.

If you can find the CD (it's a single with two songs; well, actually four, but two are karaoke versions of the other two), at least give it a listen in the store if you're able too. Or if you can find a preview on the web, make sure you're able to listen to more than the introduction, as it doesn't properly foreshadow the rest of the song.

Japan has the best * in the world.

Just for the hell of it, I ran this search through Google: Japan has the best * in the world. This a powerful type of search, where the asterisk is used as a "wild-card". My search is not very powerful or important, but the results are kind of interesting.

First 20 results:
Japan has the best cost performance ADSL in the world.
Japan has the best arcades in the world.
Japan has the best public transport system in the world.
Japan has the best engineers in the world.
Japan has the best cellphones in the world.
Japan has the best candy in the world.
Japan has the best rail network in the world.
Japan has the best welfare system in the world.
Japan has the best trains in the world.
Japan has the best mobile phones in the world.
Japan has the best bilateral agreement in the world.
Japan has the best gardens in the world.
Japan has the best ecosystem in the world.
Japan has the best customer service in the world.
Japan has the best rail service in the world.
Japan has the best restaurants in the world.
Japan has the best economy in the world.
Japan has the best life-expectancy in the world.
Japan has the best baked goods in the world.

Driving behind Death

In the city where I live in Japan, and most likely elsewhere in the country, drivers are required to prominently place special labels on their vehicles if they're either very young or very old.

In line with the culture's emphasis on nature, these stickers depict a green summer leaf, and an orange-brown fall leaf, respectively.

The perils of driving are perhaps symbolized by the ease with which a leaf is plucked from a tree, as any driver's life can be torn out of existence in an unhappy instant.

Seeing the fall leaf always leaves me smiling however. This driver could die at any time. He's a brown wrinkled leaf; his stem could detach from the branch momentarily; he could drift down slowly to the dark earth, never to drive again. But unlike the gently falling leaf, once "detached", this driver could send his vehicle careening into pedestrians or through shop windows.

I smile when I see the brown leaf, but I also pull back... a lot.

Fireworks can be dangerous

Some people almost got killed at the Fireworks festival last night. (fireworks = hanabi = flower fire = 花火)

It was a great show. We eventually found a tiny rectangle of sandy cement near the shore amongst hundreds and hundreds of happy onlookers. Either there was some "park-cat" poo in the bushes right beside us, or one of the happy onlookers was having gastro-intestinal issues, as every few seconds my girlfriend and I exchanged wrinkled-nose glances. I started breathing out through my nose and in through my mouth in order to enjoy the show.

It all started with a count-down: kyu, hachi, nana, roku, go, yon, san, ni, ichi, BOOM!! (9 - 8 - ... - 2 - 1 or 九、八、七、六、五、四、三、二、一 for those of you who can enable Japanese fonts). The fireworks were truly incredible. One hour straight using 7000 casings, with 2000 saved for the 10-minute grand finale. The show was a combination of aerial- and water-based explosions. This was the first time I had seen the latter type. As the main fireworks were shooting up from a barge in the middle of the bay, a small boat could be seen traversing the width of the bay from right to left and back again, dropping water-based fireworks every 10 to 20 metres. These would produce a hefty explosion like a bomb blowing out of the water. These were much closer than the aerial explosions - the flash and the sound were extremely close together and you could feel a blast of air push against your clothes. The feeling in the crowd was a mixture of excitement and fear - it felt like an aerial attack of some kind. And then something went wrong.

The water-based explosions started to get closer and closer to land. At one point, I held up my fan (uchiwa) to prevent some burning ash to fall on us from above. Then, about 50 metres to our left, an explosion occurred extremely close to the shore - maybe a few metres out. Half the explosion went directly into the spectators. I can't imagine how loud the blast was, nor how frightened the people must have been. A few minutes later, two injured people in stretchers were carried out by police.

Soon after, we decided to move further to the right. We didn't fully enjoy the next part of the show, knowing that some people had been hurt. Then the finale, accompanied by some odd choices of music (although I liked the Dance with Sabres by Khatchaturian), seemed to erase our worries and we smiled and laughed in amazement until the last ember died in the sky.

It's hot here

Japan is quite hot in the summer for your average Canadian. And, especially for this Canadian. I have to break my employer's dress code every day here, as long pants would surely cause me great distress. So, I am constantly in a pair of shorts and a light shirt, and a pair of Japanese thongs (called zouri or ぞうり if your computer displays Japanese fonts).

I am utterly amazed when I see the average Japanese man, wearing a full-length black suit, or woman, wearing a long-sleeved shirt with bonnet. (Well, perhaps these aren't your average Japanese people, but I do often see very old women, rice farmers I think, wearing these bonnets around their heads.) Are they being punished? Who is forcing them to wear such heavy, un-summerish attire?

I have contemplated buying a portable fridge simply for the storage of my underwear, as well as buying ice packs to sit on as I drive to and from my classes.

Random details on the hot weather:
-convenience stores sell frozen ice tea and other drinks to keep cool on those hot days at the beach
-most women walk and ride bikes here holding umbrellas or parasols to protect themselves from the sun
-both young women and young men can be seen fanning themselves with Japanese fans (uchiwa or うちわ)
-cars idling for a very long time are often seen in parking lots containing sleeping men waiting for their wives to finish their shopping
-outdoor vending machines (which truly blanket the streets here) are available at every 5 footsteps to quench your thirst