Round Two

It's time for another installment of my favorite game, and I hope one of yours.

What the Hell is Happening in this Ad?

I have to credit a friend of mine for sending this to me. On my commute home from work, this popped up on my cell phone with the message : What the f*** is this an ad for?

I have to emphatically agree.

My immediate response was, of course, "take your walrus to school day."

But what the, indeed. One has to question how safe it is to be that close to a large walrus. And in what context this tiny child ended up so near to one. And furthermore, what sordid chain of events led to this situation at all.

I see that the boy and the large-flippered marine mammal are clearly sharing a tender moment. But for some reason, despite his beaming smile, I personally can't get over the massive head and tusks that are, alone, four times that child's entire body mass.

I think this ad is supposed to evoke positive emotions, but mine are, as usual, ones of general confusion. I would like to think it's an ad for an aquarium or zoo of some kind, but that is probably just wishful thinking. It's most likely for laundry detergent.

But more importantly, can anyone read the blurry kana? And yes or no, what do you think this ad is about?

In Hartford, Hereford, and Hampshire, Hurricanes Hardly Happen

There are certain days where my life feels like this scene in My Fair Lady. Or more precisely, the part preceding it, which leads to Higgins slumped over his desk and Colonel Pickering with a newspaper over his head.

I find myself doing ridiculous things while teaching English pronunciation, like over exaggerated facial and mouth movements, or clanging and tapping along in a rhythm. My students giggle as I show them where to place their tongue when saying "really", or while trying to impress on them how exactly to pronounce comfortable naturally. (It turns into com-for-ta-ble, each syllable highly pronounced. And I think the Japanese r/l pronunciation already has an infamy all its own.)

But despite how tough I am on correcting pronunciation, the root of the problem is really English itself.

Today, I was teaching one of my private lessons. It's a 12 year old girl, and bless her, does she try hard. The material is quite difficult at times, and she clearly tries as much as she can to understand. And while she generally gets the concept, her pronunciation of the words is very poor. I am probably the first English teacher she's had who actually speaks English as their first language, so I am not entirely surprised by this.

But because of that fact, I do a bit of phonics and pronunciation practice with her every week. Supplemental stuff; I go through the bevy of phonics sheets my school has just lying around, and grab one to use each time we meet.

This week, I came upon one that, at first, seemed all right. A writing practice, with each corresponding letter of the alphabet paired with a word to go along with it. It started with apple and bat, and went on to monkey and rabbit. Everything seemed kosher, and then I hit the last page, where I came upon y. And what word did they give this poor girl?

Yacht.

I mean, come on. What about yellow or yard. Something that is phonetically possible for a child learning English to sound out? No, we go for yacht, which is derived from a 16th century Dutch word and is pronounced not at all the way it's spelled.

She glanced up at me with a terrified look when she came upon it. As if learning English one on one with me wasn't scary enough. So I sighed, took the newspaper off my head, and pronounced yacht for her.

Each day I spend here, I am more glad I was born an English speaker. Not only is it the modern lingua franca, but I see how hard people work to learn it. For many people, advancement in the world is entirely dependent on a language that breaks the rules as much as it adheres to them.

But that's because English is a mongrel language, with roots and words derived from numerous different sources. As English speakers were conquered, and then subsequently went on to conquer, the language became a hodge-podge of dialects, vocabulary, and syntax.

Which is actual fantastic and amazing, but a bitch to learn. I give massive credit to my students who work so hard at learning my language, and especially for the few who truly succeed at it.

And their hard work, as well as extremely insightful questions, has actually spawned a pet project of mine. The last month I have been researching not only the history of the English language, but where each and every inconsistency in grammar or pronunciation comes from. It is half done out of pure intellectual curiosity, and half out of necessity, because there have been times I have no good answer for perfectly logical questions about my mother tongue.

(My research has been compiled into an ever increasing in length document that may make its appearance here soon. Avoid it if you are not as excited by linguistics as I am).

But I never would have given English a second thought if it weren't for the fantastically perceptive questions made by people still learning it. Things we have come to accept as part of the tapestry of language, but in fact makes little sense in the context of the language as a whole.

And pronunciation is just one of those things. And while it is interesting to study, I feel for the people trying to learn it. The adults who come across chalet with a quirk of confusion, or the little girl terrified of yacht.

So I continue to do my silly mouth exercises, and try to explain the Anglicization of French words. All the while I just want to heave over my desk and throw that newspaper over my head in frustration.

Too bad my lessons don't also end in a jaunty song and dance number.

(And if you don't feel as bad for people learning English as I do, I challenge you to see how well your own pronunciation fares. It's a poem called The Chaos written in 1922 by Gerard Nolst Trenite. It must be read aloud, and points out the inconsistencies in spelling and pronunciation in English. I did ok, but had to read it quite slowly. See how you do.)

Starting New Traditions

If there is one phrase I would use to continually describe Japan, and its not "militant traditionalism" or "singing, brightly colored robot" it's bizarre absurdity.

And nothing is more bizarre than the advertisements and signage.

Engrish aside, the ads are the most misleading compositions or psychedelic mashups I've ever come upon. So much so, it's usually hard to tell what they're even advertising. (Yes, I immediately think of men in silver suits and human transmogrification when I say hair gel. It's a natural thought progression.)

Most of the time it leaves me figuratively scratching my head in confusion.

So because I want to inflict my own confusion upon the unfortunate readers of this blog, I'm creating a new series:

What the Hell is Happening in this Ad?

Our first piece today is a prime example. What's going on in this picture?

I have no idea. I can only read the "ka" in that sign, but there is clearly a hell of a backstory here.

I may not have the foggiest, but I will tell you what I love.

-The punk demon vampires that are clearly being easily driven out by the angry villagers (aka kids, a few housewives, and the odd salaryman)

-That said villagers use the power of well-placed signage to vanquish evil forces.

-Despite how "badass" the demons are, they have tattoos of sakura blossoms. (Plus, they're running screaming from children.)

-What's with the fenced in trees?

-The leader of this people's revolution appears to be a ramen chef.

Ignoring the piss-poor quality of my picture, I know what your thinking. Kate, you cold-hearted monster, this is clearly a children's drawing. How dare you poke fun?

To which I counter, I bet you ten dollars a full-grown Japanese adult drew this. It's just how they roll in Nippon.

The real question is, what do you think it is?

In other news, they played WPLJ 95.5 at the school I worked at this week. It was really disconcerting to hear ads for things in the tri-state area in the middle of Nagoya, Japan. It was surreal, like I was back in high school. Driving around in my old white Oldsmobile, flipping through the stations.

If only they played better music.

Kate Bobs Her Hair

And other tales of new beginnings and misguided self discovery.

Poor blog, left sad and alone to rot, nearly forgotten, on this poor corner of the internet. How I have missed you.

But in Japan, Spring is slowly turning into Summer and nothing is sad and forgotten. Today was the latest in a string of beautiful days and I couldn't be happier. I feel as if now, I am finally getting settled into a routine for the new year.

For most of the world, the new year is in January. The year turns ahead and we begin again. As if the changing of the calendar signifies the start of something new beyond just the date. It's that way most of our lives.

Or, in a different mindset, when we are younger, we say September is the beginning of the new year. Summer is dying, the world is cooling off, and we mourn the passing of the fine weather and the certain freedom that inherently comes with summer by starting the new year. Death of freedom to the rebirth of routine? It's very poetic.

But as with most things, as I've come to find many times before, Japan does it very differently. The new year in school, work, and most people's mind, is in April. As Spring first blossoms and the winter finally leaves us behind, we begin the new year.

There's something extraordinary lovely in the simplicity of that.

I've had people tell me that they have talked of changing the beginning of things, especially that of school, to September. The government wants to give the people of Japan a way to be more in tune with the rest of the world as we become an ever-growing global community. But the discussion never goes beyond talk for one significant and very crucial reason.

Graduation and School Entrance ceremonies must coincide with cherry blossoms.

It sounds silly, but for a brief two weeks Japan is beautiful. Everywhere you look is pink and blossoming. Normal streets become beautiful and natural scenery becomes extraordinary. It is the time of hanami, or picnicking under the numerous sakura blossoms. And for Japan, a land or stout tradition, it seems sacrilegious to have a beginning of the year not decorated lovingly and pristinely by mother nature.

Which I can understand, because my second cherry blossom season lost none of the charm of my first. There is a certain calming presence that comes from watching the pink petals fall. It's amazingly peaceful, and despite the reveling around you, can be very zen at the best of times.

Which was very important as I started my second year with my company. It was, as I said, the beginning of the school year and my company was no different. I learned a new schedule, a new set of school and classes, and got a whole new batch of students. In truth, I have a fantastic second year schedule with a great bunch of kids and adults. All of my kids are (so-far) well-behaved and my company class is a dream. I teach business-level english to three very successful and intelligent men I am most likely not qualified to teach. But I still feel very privileged to do so.

But easy as most of the change was, there were still the quirks of commuting and trains to figure out. And while I just now have it down, I am beginning to miss my old schedule. Which seems silly, for I don't miss the schools, just the commutes I took. I loved my Friday afternoon train rides out past Gifu, going past mountains and rice fields on a nearly empty three o' clock train. I liked my long Thursdays of traveling, using several forms of transportation, as I commuted across Aichi and Mie Prefectures to several business to teach.

But most of all, I miss the Meitetsu Line. It is the regional line in Nagoya, less regular, only written in Kanji, and with an insufferably confusing platform system. But I loved it for its imperfections. It was cheaper, easier to access, and the trains were a hell of a lot more fun.

If I can get to work on a train decorated with Pokemon, I call that a win in my book.

I've also been getting to know my city much better as I recently purchased a bike. It surprised me how utterly dependent on subway transportation I had become in the cold winter months, and now with my very Asian two-basket bike, I fly around Nagoya's streets as I get to know her a little better.

So it's a new year, with a new schedule, a new attitude, and a new haircut. About three weeks ago, I decided to completely lob off all my hair. Sick of the increasingly unmanageable tresses that were way past my shoulders, I went in on a Friday afternoon and told them to bob my hair.

The hairdresser looked at me with more than a little apprehension. I guess he thought maybe he had misunderstood; his english is practically nonexistent, and my japanese is very poor when it comes to situations of long description. I kept saying "A short hair cut!" while moving my hands in a wild pantomime of nonverbal instructions. He pulled out a photo book and laughed, a typical response to linguistic confusion. I finally pulled up a photo on my phone, and my varied explanations were understood.

The salon is a local place, only a few blocks from my apartment. I found it unexpectedly as I walked to the small train station just down the street. The place is clean but hip, and the cut is not very expensive. And I know I get the standard treatment. But the standard treatment here is above and beyond most places back home.

For example, a head, back, and shoulder massage are part of the package deal. When they shampoo, you get a head massage during as well as after. They massage your scalp, a scented hot towel on your face (of which you get a choice of scent). They then take you to a special chair where you hang over what looks like a bean bag as they massage your upper body. Shoulders, back, arms and hands.

It's unexpected, but delightful.

And the sink they wash you in is so different from the ones I've experienced back home. There is always a sense of discomfort to the ones in the States. As if my head is pulled back slightly too much, and I'm both choking and trying to hold my head up within her reach. But not here. Japan has an aerodynamical design that completely eradicates the discomfort of hair washing. I don't know how that did it, but we seriously need to import that information home.

And while he cut and styled my hair, I was impressed by the details her recalled from my life. I had been there once before, and yet he remembered where I was from, my job, and even my favorite kinds of movies.

Now that, my friends is service.

So I left with the shortest, but possibly one of the best hair cuts I've ever gotten. It was exactly what I wanted, and I was quite pampered in the process. I am still getting used to how short my hair is, but change is good.

New is good. And as I venture into my second year here, I look forward for what else awaits me around the corner.

Of Hopefuls and Heroines

I've had quite a full week.

Over the course of this week, the final stages of the massive redecoration of my apartment went into full effect. But because of the long hours spent moving furniture and meticulously sewing tablecloths (and oh how I wish I was kidding), its left me time to watch lots of ridiculously trashy television. TV of the kind I have not watched since I was in college, and my roommate and I would sit on the couch on a Sunday afternoon and marathon America's Next Top Model while we pretended to do homework and recovered from the weekend.

While finding my mindless reality TV online was not difficult, watching it actually brought back to mind many things I had forgotten. Like the fact that the second season of Project Runway was surprisingly great, both with the drama and the clothes produced, so much so the current incarnation is a poor substitute. I remembered that Tyra taught me that there is a difference between smiling and smiling with my eyes, and the seriousness with which she imparted this lesson. And lastly, how ridiculously stupid some people on these shows can be.

Now most of my reality show viewing, limited as it was, was really reserved for Project Runway (high on drama queens, low on the stupid people), but Top Model was ripe with stupid comments. And I think the pinnacle was from the beginning of season 11 (I refuse to call them cycles), which I never saw the first time around.

In the audition process we meet Susan, a recent grad from Harvard University, lamenting how her ivy league education was detrimental to her being taken seriously as a model. Besides the fact that her comment was extremely condescending, I would have told her not to worry about her brains getting in the way of anything. Because after talking about her university, and the fact that she majored in English Lit, Tyra then innocuously asked her to name her favorite literary heroine in English literature.

The girl could not name a single one.

I mean, are you kidding me? Not only could it give Tyra, god bless her, a chance to act superior by talking about Jane Eyre and White Fang (umm...heroine?), but I actually find it extremely sad the girl could not name one! Leaving aside the fact it was her major for four years, and at the risk of sounding like a unrelenting feminist, you can't think of a single strong woman in literature since the invention of the English language?

Are you crazy?

Mind you, the males generally have it better in literature. For awhile in my teens I had a mixed literary crush/hero worship for Edmund Dantes because he was just that deliciously bad ass. But despite the role that most women were placed into in classic literature, I could still name an innumerable amount of awesome ladies that I admired almost as much as the Count.

The aforementioned Jane Eyre. Elizabeth Bennet had wit and sense in spades. I always felt Miranda from the Tempest had a certain strength. Hester Prynne, Lucy Honeychurch, Isabel Archer. Jo March was, personally, my ideal as a young girl. Still is, in fact.

So I find it extremely disheartening that this girl could not name a single literary lady. There are so many to choose from! Make a sister proud.

But speaking of awesome ladies, and literary heroines, I also reread Northanger Abbey this week. I am quite the self proclaimed Austenite, but Northanger Abbey has always been low on my favorites list. But reading it with fresh eyes, I had a lot more patience for, and in fact finally found the charm, in Catherine, the heroine's, naiveté.

This truly surprised me.

I know it was written as a satire of the Gothic novels of the time period, but a few years ago I found her annoyingly gullible. But her artless observations and judgement of the world actually make her unknowingly witty, and I finally found the humor in it. And this realization gave me a new appreciation for the love interest of the novel, Henry Tilney. He was constant in affection, amazingly clever, and found delight and admiration for Catherine's good nature along with me. This, coupled with Jane Austen's proto-feminisist comments as an omniscient narrator have made me reassess its position on my favorite Austen list.

But its interesting that I get so mad about stupid girls on American TV, read Austen's criticisms of patriarchy and delight, and yet can exist happily in Japan. I think its part of being a foreigner, clearly labeled as such, and the exclusion from society as a whole also affords me a sort of freedom from the restrictions of said society.

I do not exaggerate when I say that, in terms of women's rights, its 1964 here. I could write a dissertation on the parallels, but suffice it to say that this is a country where women have a taste of education and are in the workforce, but men still hold all the power. For most of them, their only drive in their early 20s (and truly, what many see as their only option) is to get married and have children. A valid choice if it is just that, but here females are pressured to the extent that women over 25 are referred to disdainfully as "Christmas Cake," or past their prime and unmarriagable.

I wish I was making this up.

There is a younger generation, women in university or just out, yearning for something more than what they see set out before them. And as a Western woman, they confide in me, sharing with me the desire to keep working when they marry. To do more with their life then just find a man to support them.

If ever there was a country in serious need of some bra burning, Japan is it.

So what can I do? Bite back the bile I feel at the inequality and continue to encourage those who do want more to just take it. But Japan is still a country where, in 2009, there are certain jobs only men can apply for. Where there are true office ladies, low level paper-pushing positions with no chance of promotion, who are sometimes forcefully phased out of their jobs at the age of 27 to make room for a 21 year old girl. Where being a flight attendant is seen by most girls as a dream career, international and unattainable. A society where they are expected to giggle and wink and be just the right mix of cute and subservient, while never contradicting the men around them. A country where husbands are out drinking till late every night, but dinner is still expected to be ready and waiting on the table when they stumble home.

But I don't parcel the blame to the men, its the society as a whole. And there are some accomplished women, and many good men. But the system is flawed, and no where near what it's like back home. Its quite jarring at times, and turns me into the angry feminist I never set out to be. And suddenly silly posts about reality TV turn into something more.

So I leave someone more capable to conclude it then I. Miss Jane Austen said it best in Northanger Abbey, and though speaking of Regency England, I find it frighteningly applicable to Japan today. It is the facetious assessment of the qualities good in a women. So please enjoy the wit of Jane, the kind of which I could never supply.

She was heartily ashamed of her ignorance. A misplaced shame. Where people wish to attach, they should always be ignorant. To come with a well-informed mind is to come with an inability of administering to the vanity of others, which a sensible person would always wish to avoid. A woman especially, if she have the misfortune of knowing anything, should conceal it as well as she can. The advantages of natural folly in a beautiful girl have been already set forth by the capital pen of a sister author; and to her treatment of the subject I will only add, in justice to men, that though to the larger and more trifling part of the sex, imbecility in females is a great enhancement of their personal charms, there is a portion of them too reasonable and too well informed themselves to desire anything more in woman than ignorance.

Because When the Sakura Comes Out, The Inhibitions Leave

I have not updated in some time because life, fortunately enough, has kept me far too busy. The new school year has began, so I’ve been learning the routes, getting to know my schools, meeting my students, all while trying to find time for fun in between.

But as I get more used to life in Japan, I found that these past few weeks, thought the busiest, have been some of my favorite so far. After about two months here, and one and a half months of full time working, I am finally feeling settled. And now that I have really set down roots and let them begin to grow, I feel like I can really enjoy lots of the little things that are around me.

For whenever moving to a new place, everything inundates you all at once. Everything is bright and new, so you scramble to find places to go, various things that need to be set up, and items need to be found to make it feel more like a home. And now, as I slip into a daily routine, I find I actually sit back and appreciate the small things around me. In the last two weeks I have gotten my schedule for next year, set an actual date for internet installation (April 21st), and settled all bills and bank accounts in Japan. I am here, and now to stay.

But with that all done, I’m over the mass deluge of information and experiences that had been my first two months in Japan. Now I’m onto taking in things one at a time, and as the season changes to spring, oh boy have I had a few firsts. It’s the rebirth of the year, and I’ve had several first experiences that have left me equally amused and awed.

Spring, in history, has come to celebrate rebirth and fertility. And in a country like Japan, what better way to celebrate such a time than with a whole festival dedicated to fertility. It is another thing to add to my list of inconsistencies about Japan; the melding of old and new. Because can anyone else think of a modern industrialized nation that still has ancient Shinto fertility festivals? I sure as hell can’t. But in the town of Komaki, at the Tagata Jinja shrine, the Hounen Matsuri festival is alive and well.

As I mentioned, the festival technically celebrates fertility, but it is the way in which it is celebrated that drew our attention. It is the usual fare of too much food and drink, traditional music, and overpriced trinkets, but with the staggering addition of an 8 foot carved wooden phallus that is paraded down the street.

I think that should be repeated. An 8 foot male sex organ.

If it sounds unbelievable, they you only feel about a third of the shock I did upon seeing it. Hearing of such an event, I knew I had to attend what we gaijin affectionately call the Penis Festival.

We were warned before we left that there would be only two types of people there: old people celebrating the religion, and drunk foreigners there to see a huge wooden penis. And this prediction turned out to be true. But even though it was half foreigners, the penis festival was definitely one of the most surreal experiences I’ve had in my life. The Japanese are a very subdued, reserved people. They may have wild signs and clothing, but the people themselves are quiet and shy, and as compared to westerners, don’t try to stand out above the rest. And yet, at the same time, no western country could even fathom having something as insane as a celebration of penises.

Leaving Nagoya station with about 40 other people I work with, we set out trying to imagine what to expect, and ended up being completely bowled over by the reality of it. As I left the train station in Komaki and came upon the shrine, I was immediately inundated by penis lollipops, penis picture stands, penis souvenirs, and phallic shaped food items. Giant carved penises were set up around the fair grounds as children ran around with bright pink penis lollipops in their mouths. It left me half blushing and half awed, but entirely amused. Through an odd mix of uneasiness and pure amusement, the foreigners I was with couldn’t help but crack jokes the whole time. I spent a few happy hours on the shrine grounds, enjoying the festival food, annoying the Shinto priests, and buying inappropriate souvenirs, but by the time I was just getting tired of it, the main event began. And what an event it was.

A long procession of priests and local officials, all in ceremonial garb, paraded by with various religious items on wooden portable shrines as well as flags painted with uncomfortably realistic phalluses. And then the center of the festival itself arrived in all its glory. Upon its appearance, everyone I was with was felt the repressed Puritanical western tradition ingrained inside of us stir to life, and immediately degraded into giggling 6 year olds. Though we are all in our twenties, we felt like naughty children; doing something we knew was wrong, and both thrilled and frightened by the possibility that we’ll be caught in the act. But our own reactions, coupled with the Japanese’s complete lack of one, made the situation, as well as the entire day, absolutely surreal to me.

But special events such as fertility festivals aside, I have been working so steadily that most of my firsts have been smaller things done on my infrequent days off. I traveled to Inuyama to see the oldest castle in Japan. Going with absolutely no plan, we wandered till we found the castle, which was beautiful in its austerity. And though it was absolutely frightening climbing to the top with the steepest, ricketiest stairs known to man, it was completely worth it for two reasons. One, the fact that they made me take my shoes off before I went inside (which is the equivalent in America of going into a museum with no shoes on), and two, I got a gorgeous view of the mountains that Japan is famous for.

I also took my first trip to a famous rotary sushi place, Kappa Sushi, where you sit at a table while various sushi and sashimi whiz by you as everyone does their best to eat as much as possible. And speaking of food, I have discovered an unknown passion for Japanese food. Takoyaki and okonomiyaki may be some of the best things I’ve ever put into my mouth, and the cheap eats at Izukaya, especially the Tabasaki Nagoya is known for, is always worth the price. Even on my birthday, I got a birthday cake from two Japanese friends that may be one of the best bought cakes I‘ve ever encountered. There is a subtle sweetness to cakes and other desserts here that I find I prefer to the over sugared concoctions that many places in America have.

And though the night before my birthday was spent with friends out and about in Nagoya, then till the wee hours at my apartment, my actual birthday was spent more relaxed. It was a vary warm and sunny afternoon, so I woke up late, strolled downtown to meet up with some friends, and on a whim headed out to Gifu to take in the mountains and nature there. Though we attempted to make it to a hot springs, keeping with the theme of relaxation, we never quite made it. Instead we ended up going to Gifu Park, which is a huge cluster of mountains at the edge of the city with a castle on top. The park itself is beautiful, but we took the ropeway all the way to the top to get the Panoramic View of Gifu and the encircling mountain ranges. It was near twilight, so the orange sun lit up the uneven rooftops of the surrounding city and winding river in a subtle color display. With that shining in our eyes, the mountains then stretched out nearly endless around us, their edges growing hazy and ill defined in the mist the further out they went. The beauty of it left me so breathless that we sat quietly at the top of the mountain, gently soaking it in as the sakura fell around us.

But sakura brings me to my now favorite part of Spring: hanami. Hanami is the name of the traditional cherry blossom viewing party, which consists of lanterns, fireworks, picnic spreads, music, dancing, and that staple of every Japanese celebration: alcohol. But despite the Japanese’s deep desire to try to make everything cutesy and neon, the cherry blossoms is the one thing they could not really taint with such trappings. I went out to Okazaki where a woman I work with lives, about 30 minutes from Nagoya. The town has a beautiful old castle set on a hillside, large stone bridges, and cherry blossoms that spread out and line the Yahagi River. And regardless of the Japanese’s grandest effort to saccharine-soak the Okazaki Festival into tackiness, the austerity and simple beauty of Okazaki and the Cherry Blossoms themselves thwarted their best efforts.

Setting up just on the edge of the castle grounds, we laid our blanket out next to a large arching bridge strung with softly lit red lanterns. Underneath a particularly beautiful tree with Okazaki castle rising just before us, we enjoyed an early dinner of festival food and convenience store snacks. And as the sun set and the sky grew dark, lights strung through the trees came to life. Strands of traditional music floating down from the castle, the melding lights of the lanterns, trees, and colored booths around us, with food and drink warming us from the inside, it was one of those moments that could only be described as perfect. Maybe its because it was my first hanami, maybe its because traditional Japanese things still charm me, or maybe it is because hanami is the simple and artless Japan that reveals itself with such rarity, but it really was everything that I expected it to be and more.

So though this is beginning to sound like a love note to Japan, I do now understand why everyone says spring is the best season here. And even if its because of the natural beauty of the new season, or the excitement of a new chapter in my life, I have found enjoyment out of every new endeavor I’ve been fortunate to come upon.

And what more could a girl ask for.

Art for Art's Sake

So preparing a lesson the other day, I came across the idiom Art for Art’s Sake. I was supposed to be planning on how to explain such a phrase to a non English speaker, but it only made my mind wander to art. Being inclined as I am, I realized I haven’t really talked much about the art here. This is something that needed to be rectified.

Japan is the biggest mix of the beautiful and the garish I have ever seen. There is the austere beauty of temples and gardens, and yet overly loud and gaudy resonances in the signs, music, and fashions. Its this clash of old and new that makes everything so fascinating, but there is no doubt that no matter what, Japan has a highly visual culture. Whether it be traditional or pop art, it constantly surrounds you.

It really hit me this last Sunday as I spent the day walking around Nagoya. We have had a stretch of rain, but that day had perfect weather, with a sunny blue sky and unseasonably warm weather. I threw on my light trench coat, grabbed my ipod, and walked. It actually turned into the perfect Sunday, for apparently Sunday is the day to walk around Nagoya.

As I wandered to meet some people in Osu Kannon, a neighborhood south of my own, I let the music on my ipod wash over me. I find that when I walk through the city streets by myself, especially when listening to music, I become much more observant to things around me. I start to pick up on the little things that I pass over every time. It was in this way that I finally realized the subtle beauty of some of the daily things in Nagoya.

My street, being as busy as it is, is a bevy of bright lights and restaurants. But there are tiny pockets along the way that stand as a stark contrast to the overpowering brightness of such things; small, beautiful places that are easily ignored unless you are really looking. For example, there is a Buddhist temple on my street. In between the large buildings, convenience stores, and gas stations, there stands a beautiful old temple that is easy to miss unless one is looking. It is not very large, but it is everything one would expect a temple to be, with arching gates, peaked roofs, and a giant brass bell. Its absolutely breathtaking in its Zen-like austerity.

But there are even smaller touches that can be ignored. My neighborhood is very residential, and mixed within the newer houses and apartment buildings there pops up every once in awhile a very traditional home. It still retains the Japanese style roof, wooden frames with sliding doors that open onto tatami mats, and gated entrances. They look exactly like they may have 400 years ago, with none of the modern trappings of everything else around them. I find myself caught off guard and entranced every time I happen upon one. But as beautiful as they are, I find my personal favorite are the manhole covers.

The Japanese like to turn everything, from writing to clothing to advertising, into an art form. And for me, the manhole covers have been one of the most delightful surprises. I have actually taken to taking pictures of new ones I find, for there are quite a few around Nagoya. I think my personal favorite is the one of Nagoya castle, which is in and of itself a beautiful sight to see. But here are a few prime examples:

And these are the beautiful things that are tramped on and maybe taken for granted by most people here, except when seen through the eyes of a foreigner. But the wild stuff can be beautiful in its own right, if not fascinating in its ridiculousness.

So I commented before about three O’s: Outrageous Street Acts, Over-the-Top People, and Overwhelming Shopping Centers. Though they can be found separately all over the city, there are a few places they can be found all together in an trifecta of tremendous garishness. One of these is the Asunal Shopping Center in Kanayama. I happen to work nearby, and the entrance to the subway is smack dab in the middle of the shopping center. Now I have mentioned shopping before, and what an experience it can be, but I feel I should paint the picture of Asunal in a more specific manner.

I leave work right before dinner time, dressed conservatively and mentally unwinding from the day. And as I begin to relax, my tired mind is suddenly inundated by a loud open shopping center with bright, shining lights and lots of people. The people themselves, then, range from normal to over-the-top, with the over-the-top taking the spotlight. They are young Japanese people with dyed hair, styled to gravity-defying proportions, held up with gel and possibly magic to break the laws of physics as they do. Some go ultra blond and tan to look “western,” with both sexes going with large, bouffant hair. But whether blond and tan or not, the clothing ranges from stylishly ripped, loud, tight clothing, to “hip hop” style with velour track suits and rude, grammatically incorrect English phrases, to bastardized interpretations of 1950s American style, complete with leather pants and poodle skirts. But no matter what subsection these youths belong to, they are all like walking pieces of pop art, with everything being loud and bright and highly stylized.

And as if this wasn’t already a feast for the eyes, then the music wafts in. Asunal Shopping Center has an Asunal Live! Stage where various musical acts and idols perform. Every time I walk out, I am greeted by another J-pop concoction. Infectiously catchy in its mass-marketed way, I can’t help but stop and listen for a moment, if not just to laugh with a few other teachers as we marvel at their clothes and carefully manufactured siren song. I love when the young female idols sing one simple song, and then are surrounded for 40 minutes by adoring fans of awkward youths and middle aged men. But as hilarious an interaction that is to watch, my personal favorite so far were the J-Soul Brothers. A group of 7 Japanese male idols, they are a carefully constructed group where two of them actually sing, five just kinda sway in the background looking cute, and their music is anything but soul.

But if all that makes up Asunal is amusing, these factors were only intensified in Osu on this past Sunday afternoon. After my contemplative walk, I met up with a few people in Sakae and headed towards Osu. After walking through the beautiful Osu Kannon temple, we were then greeted by bright lights and painted walls to welcome us to Osu Shopping center, an open air shopping center that spans many blocks. And though I had been freely talking and laughing up until a moment before, after I entered the shopping districts, everyone I was with spent half the time in an almost awe-struck silence. Lured by the smell of takoyaki, the noise of people, and brightly colored shops, we poor gaijin were struck into silence by it all coming at us at once. And when we left, back out into the safety of the temple, we were nearly breathless from the experience.

But as I sat in the temple square and listened to the chanting monks from inside, I couldn’t help but be equally struck by the opposite and yet equally fascinating beauty that is Osu Kannon. A large temple, and one of the oldest in Japan, with grand architecture and Zen gardens, a perfect example of the beauty of traditional Japan, sits in conjecture and on the same grounds of an overwhelming shopping center, the bright lights, people, and signs that represent all that is modern Japan. They should be complete opposites, and yet they share the same space in almost blissful harmony. It is one of the many things that I absolutely love about this country, finding equal beauty in the old and the new. For only in Japan would such a place exist.

Multibabel

So I’m in the middle of an internet drought, and I think I’m dying from it.

It seems that, on average, it takes at least two months to get internet set up in Japan. I have been without it for about one month, and I can‘t even comprehend one more month like this. My cell phone has become somewhat of substitute, albeit a poor one, but it only keeps me loosely connected. But beyond that, I never truly realized how much I relied on it for entertainment until I have been without it for a extensive amount of time. So for that reason, I have found a considerable lack of things for me to do in my apartment when I get home from work. I have tried Japanese television, which despite being unintentionally hilarious, can get old after awhile. Then I tried DVDs, but a limited supply keeps me restricted. So now as I stumble in from work, I long for some form of entertainment as I cook dinner. But worst of all, the lack of fast internet in and of itself is an inconsistency for me. A country that has such advanced technology and internet, even going so far as to get television on the cheapest of cell phones, can’t get me a decent internet connection in a short amount of time.

But such a situation may in fact be a blessing in disguise. It’s impossible to blog and email as much as I would like, and I have no stupid TV during dinner, but I also find I try to entertain myself with much more fulfilling pursuits on my days off. Instead of sitting on my bed all day glued to a glowing screen, I am up and out of my apartment exploring. And in Nagoya, there is always something ridiculous and fascinating going on.

In a nutshell, when I’m out in Nagoya, I find myself constantly bombarded by three O’s: Outrageous Street Acts, Over-the-Top People, and Overwhelming Shopping Centers. And it would be easy to think that one would fade into the background against such situations, but gaijin in Nagoya are still enough of a novelty that I don’t. In fact, in some situations, I feel like I stand out, and are made to be somewhat of an ambassador of the Western world. Whether it be the young child who shyly turns towards his mother because I don’t look like any one he’s ever seen before, or the izukaya owner who speaks no English and yet greets us warmly with a bit of an awestruck smile, one cant help but remember that you are a minority here. I guess that over time it can get old, but for now I’m still somewhat pleasantly amused by it.

When I think of it, the term multibabel comes to mind; how nuances of meaning are lost in translation, but the general message remains the same. And in truth, I feel that’s what I have been experiencing. Things that are similar enough to connect us, and yet different enough to keep it interesting.

For example, I was out last weekend with a few people at a local western style bar. It draws an even crowd of foreigners and Japanese, and therefore is a cool place to go. Somehow, through happenstance, my group ended up trying to sit at the same table as a few Japanese men. After a few polite laughs and nervous shuffling, somehow we ended up sharing the table with them. Now one person in our group spoke poor Japanese, and one in their group spoke poor English, and yet somehow we spent the whole night together. We discussed, through gesture and broken language, topics varying from drinking to hanami to the Wutang clan (the rappers, not the martial artists), but half of the time our conversations broke into the international reaction to a language barrier: raised eyebrows and lots of laughter.

But then someone, by stroke of genius or dumb luck, brought up baseball. It was like all floodgates broke away. It didn’t matter that none of us really fully understood each other; we all understood baseball. A full ten minute conversation without a peep of incredulous laughter then erupted; we discussed the Nagoya Dragons as they shouted out famous Japanese players in the Major Leagues. Though it eventually degraded into screaming “Matsui” and then responding with cheering, it was an absolutely hilarious moment as it was going on.

And truthfully, since then I’ve discussed baseball several other times, and was even informed of all the differences between the American and Japanese baseball leagues by one student of mine. But there are a few other interesting cross cultural experiences I’ve had. Like the fact that Denny’s is everywhere in Japan and apparently way more delicious than the greasy grossness that is Denny’s in the states. I would even go as so far to call it amazing. Or even better, I have finally experienced Karaoke as it was meant to be.

On the day we signed our contracts, my training group decided to celebrate in one the most Japanese ways we could imagine. So that night, we wandered Sakae, found a huge JoyJoy karaoke in the downtown area, and rented ourselves a nice big room. And let me tell you, I finally understand the obsession.
You walk into the brightly colored building and pay a flat rate. This gets you a private room for karaoke, free drinks the entire time, and an endless amount of bad 80s rock ballads to keep the night going. Sitting in the dark karaoke room, surrounded by TV screens, tambourines, and drinks, you cant help but belt out every bad song that comes up on the screen. With an extensive list of English songs, it was like a catalogue of songs drunk white people like to sing. I swear, I have never sung so much Queen in my life. (Which I would like to have my Aunt know had the largest collection of songs of any band in the English language section, and I have heard them many a time in bars and department stores. She was right about how popular they were here.)

So as I go out and explore Japan, the biggest cross cultural experience of all is the one I undergo every day: my job.

Work is something I have been asked a few times to blog about, but in truth, it’s the only thing I haven’t really wanted to write about. It’s something that I experience every day; something that takes up so much of my time and thoughts, that in my free time, I want to think about other things. What Japan is like to live in, and what happens when I’m outside of the realm of teaching. Though there is one thing I will say for certain: I love this job.

I feel like I am being paid way too much to talk to people and play with kids. Of course they’re learning English, and I do structured lessons, but I try to make it fun enough for all my classes that it sometimes doesn’t feel like work. And yet at the same time I feel a certain pride in being a teacher, that I am helping someone else to learn something new. This realization was quite shocking for me, actually, and filled me with great respect for people who choose to be educators. The time flies effortlessly as I am wrapped up in teaching the nuances of the English language, and then I get home at the end of the day and am utterly drained from the output I had to put out.

Kids classes are phenomenal, and have become some of my favorite lessons to teach. They require the most prepartaion and energy, but I love rolling around with kids being stupid, so the work I put in seem entirely worth it. And on the whole, Japanese students are some of the most well-behaved and good natured kids I’ve ever met. Of course, generalizations are never true, and I’ve had a few kids classes with five 7-year-old boys who just want to wrestle and throw cushions at each other. But they are normal kids, and if the class degrades into that, I can always corral them by chasing them around the room a little and wearing them out. And the adults? Some of them are such interesting people with enough of a grasp of the English language to make for really entertaining discussions. Of course not every student designs robots or travels across most of southeast Asia, but if you can find a topic they are really interested in, they can go on about it for a long time, English skills be damned. They also ask questions about the intricacies of English that I myself never really considered. When I get a really thoughtful one, I feel like I’m learning a little more about English myself. I’ve never thought of all the subtle differences of my mother tongue, and I am constantly impressed by the insightful people who study English.

In fact, their drive and constant embarrassment at not speaking English well has really driven me to learn Japanese. When they apologize for messing up a sentence, I try to remind them that they speak English infinitely better than I do Japanese. It is a certain mentality that many English speakers have, unfortunately, that everyone should speak English around the world. But I get almost embarrassed that I know next to nothing of the language of Japan. So in my free time, I have been studying Japanese with a passion. I sit for about an hour each night and review my Japanese or do a few lessons on my Japanese program. And truth be told, I study for the fun of it, if not just the necessity. Japanese is infinitely simpler and at the same time much harder than English. And though speaking is difficult in and of itself, it is a masterable task. Reading and writing, on the other hand, are infinitely harder.

If you are not familiar with Japanese writing at all, there are two main alphabets. Kanji is the very difficult one with thousands of characters, and really, you must study for years to master. You need to know about 2,000 just to read the newspaper. The Kana, hiragana and katakana, conversely, only have about 60 characters total and are much easier to learn. This is the writing that is used on menus and signs and in most daily usage, and the one children learn before they move on to the more difficult kanji. It’s a phonetic alphabet used for Japanese words and loan words, and each character represents a sound in the word. So where as my street, Kurumamichi, only has two Kanji to represent it, in the Kana there are 5 characters, one for each sound (Ku-ru-ma-mi-chi). And that, my friends, is a simplistic and very short explanation of the very confusing writing system that surrounds me daily. Between the two, the Kana alphabets are much simpler and much more useful. I will never be able to read a book with Kana, but I will be ok with menus and food packages, so it is the writing I have been working on mastering.

Between the writing section on my Japanese lessons and workbooks I have purchased (Let’s Have fun with Kana! I’m serious, that is the title), I have been working on learning a few characters each day. And in truth, I’ve really enjoyed it. This last Saturday, as I got home really late from my shift, instead of going out, I stayed in and practiced my Kana for a few hours. And seriously, I had fun doing it. There is something so artistic about the characters that I feel more like I’m drawing then writing when I practice. At this point I only recognize a few characters in a long string, but when I do? Its very exciting.

For example, one of the first few words I learned was otokonoko, which means boy in Japanese. The kana are separated as o-to-ko-no-ko. The first time I read just the Kana and recognized the corresponding sounds and words? I was left exhilarated by the fact that I comprehended these foreign symbols. It must have been the same as when I was a child and realized for the first time that I could read things around me. And written out, the characters are almost like art. It was a thrilling experience, and the main reason I have really buckled down and started to study.

So now that I’ve sufficiently bored everyone with the intricacies of the Japanese writing system, this all goes back to my respect for the Japanese I am teaching and the fascination I have for the differences and similarities between them and ourselves. So I leave you with an interesting anecdote the illustrates this fascinating cultural exchange.

My first day teaching, I had a two hour lesson with a really low level English student. He was very driven, but the first hour completely dragged as I tried to get through a structured lesson and watched him struggle on the grammar. Being that it was a lesson designed for at least three students, my heart went out as he tried to do it, and I helped him as much as possible by breaking up the lesson with enthusiastic encouragement and trying to engage him in side topics. But even with this, at the end of the hour, we both were utterly drained.

Dreading another lesson, I returned after ten minutes with one in mind and steeled determination. But as he came back from the break, he simply sat down and placed in my hand his open diving license. Intrigued, I asked him about it, and his eyes lit up. Even though his English was very poor, using gestures, broken English, and lots of pictures on the white board, he painted a portrait to me of his many extreme sport adventures. It didn’t matter that we didn’t speak the same language, I spent an amazing hour with a really interesting person telling me all about his intense ski trips in Hokkaido where he hiked up the mountain before skiing down, and showing me photos of sharks and fish from scuba diving trips in Bali and Tahiti.

So no matter the differences, the seemingly insurmountable language barriers, we can always find a way to communicate to understand each other. So if you’re ever in Japan, don’t worry about being understood, because somehow you will make it work.

Or worse comes to worse, you could always bring up baseball.