Through the Eyes of a Vagrant

I have been in Japan now for a year and a half. Since I arrived, there have been many things that have surprised me. A lot of these things I actually knew before coming to Japan, but was still surprised by them all the same. Some of these things that I knew about, I still had to see with my own eyes to truly understand them. I am often asked the question, “What has been the thing that surprised you the most since you came to Japan?” and that question has actually been one of the hardest to answer on the spot. So, I have compiled a list of things that surprised me for your viewing pleasure, and also, to consolidate my thoughts so that one day I may effectively answer that question properly. Perhaps some of these things you have also heard of, or noticed yourself, but I guarantee you there will be something in here you didn’t know as well. Some of these things I have already mentioned in previous posts, and some I have yet to fully explain. So, if anything, this can act as a kind of summary, or perhaps a taste of things to come. Feel free to add your own in the comments! Red entries are the things that surprised me the most.

1. People at gasoline stands wipe down all the windows on your car as they fill up your tank, but they don’t ask you if you need more oil or washer fluid.
2. Everyone must pay for health insurance in Japan.
3. You can flag anyone down in a restaurant with “Sumimasen!” and they won’t get annoyed.
4. A lot of English teachers can’t speak English properly.
5. Farmers light their fields on fire after they are done harvesting their rice to prevent weeds from growing or to plant wheat after. This creates white smoke so thick that roads are whited-out and it hurts your eyes and throat if you have your windows open in your car or in a building.
6. People wear facemasks in public to stop the spread of their germs or to protect themselves from the germs of others.
7. Librarians wear pink aprons and look more like housewives than librarians.
8. ATMs aren’t open 24 hours and most close before 8pm.
9. You can pay your bills at a convenience store.
10. There are very few kinds of cereal.
11. There are entire aisles dedicated to soy sauce, miso (fermented soy bean paste), mayonnaise, and seaweed.
12. Most of the vegetables in supermarkets are wrapped in plastic. All of the ones in the convenience stores are wrapped.
13. A medium pizza costs about $30 in Japan.
14. Shipping within Japan is dirt cheap.
15. Apples cost over a dollar each.
16. When someone invites you out, they don’t usually really mean it.
17. Roads without speed limits posted are 60 km/hr.
18. There are more types of tea than soft drinks.
19. Tea can be made from wheat (mugicha).
20. Japanese people prefer squatters to western-style toilets.
21. There are buttons in most public washrooms that allow you to create the sound of running water to cover up the noises you make on the toilet.
22. Curry is one of the most popular foods in Japan.
23. Drivers turn on their four-way lights briefly and bow to thank you for letting them in.
24. Most times, the red is the only time you can successfully make a right hand turn.
25. Often four more cars end up driving through an intersection after the light turns red.
26. Police officers do not hide just anywhere to catch you in a speed trap; they set up sand bags and crouch down behind them with their radar guns.
27. Police cars often drive around with their lights flashing. If you see a police car with its lights flashing, it does not mean pull over.
28. You are not allowed to make a left on a red light.
29. Scooters and motorcycles all weave in and out of traffic or pass you on the left.
30. All major expressways are raised above ground.
31. There are no four-way stops.
32. There are no guardrails to protect your car from falling off a cliff, into a ditch, or into a rice field.
33. There are two types of cars: Light cars (kei cars), with yellow licence plates, and full-size cars, with white licence plates.
34. Most people get rid of their older cars, even if they work well, because paying for the bi-yearly car exam (shaken) is too expensive.
35. Honda is not as popular here as it is in Canada.
36. The Japanese think that their rice is the best tasting in the world and only like to eat their own rice.
37. Japan cannot produce enough food to feed its own population.
38. Japan has no natural resources.
39. Tatami mats and kimonos are not rarities, nor are they exotic.
40. Daikon, apples, and leeks in the grocery stores are huge.
41. Japanese teachers work on holidays and on the weekends and often don’t go home until 10pm.
42. Japanese students cannot be expelled, suspended, or kicked out of the classroom for anything that they do.
43. Teachers don’t put their hands in their pockets, nor do they sit on the tops of desks.
44. The school halls are not heated in winter.
45. Japanese turn on the heat or air conditioning according to the day of the year, not according to the temperature.
46. High school and university baseball are more popular than professional baseball.
47. It is very rare to see kissing or hugging in public.
48. Japanese aren’t allowed to unionise and protests are rare.
49. Non-decorated bras, bras that are larger than A-cups without padding, socks or shoes bigger than 27cm, shirts bigger than an American medium, and pants with a waist bigger than 87 cm are very difficult to find.
50. People in stores and restaurants shout “Irasshaimase!” (“How may I serve you?” or “Welcome!”) to you and you are supposed to ignore them.
51. Guys are just as fashionable, if not more, than the women.
52. Anime is not popular in Japan.
53. Crosswalk buttons say if they have been pushed or not.
54. There is yellow rubber on all of the sidewalks, and its purpose is to help lead blind people.
55. Most Japanese have crooked teeth.
56. Any teacher can wear gym clothes to work.
57. Japanese people jog lightly or sometimes run around the room to give the appearance that they are working harder.
58. Japanese variety shows subtitle most of the dialogue across the screen for everyone. In other words, you can’t turn it off. But I like it.
59. There are no general practitioners in Japan. You go immediately to a specialist if you need to see one.
60. If you take a sick day, all Japanese people need a receipt from the doctor. No exceptions.
61. Most women shave their arms. They also shave their eyebrows and then draw them on after.
62. Almost every show on Japanese TV has a segment where they eat and critique food. When they critique the food they never say that it tastes bad.
63. Dieting is a hobby in Japan.
64. Love hotels are not rare, and you wouldn’t be able to tell that they were love hotels unless you knew what they were.
65. There are DVDs of girls as young as eight years old sold in adult stores. They are not naked, nor are they having sex, but they are often wearing bikinis made of something akin to dental floss.
66. Most water is heated by gas, and you have to turn on the gas heater every time you want hot water. Hokkaido is often an exception to this. I actually had no idea how to turn on the ones that sit over the sink the first time I saw them.
67. Most couches are very low to the ground. More often than not, when sitting on them, your legs are almost parallel to the ground.
68. Japanese resumes all follow the same format, and you must include a picture of yourself. They also prefer them to be handwritten to see your ability to write kanji.
69. Everyone studies English for at least six years in Japan. Most can barely say hello to you in English.
70. You are allowed to drive around in a van early in the morning, or late at night, and blare an advertisement through loudspeakers.
71. Instead of seeing a “face” on the moon, the Japanese see a rabbit making mochi.
72. How freaking hard it is to transfer money (furikomi) to someone to pay for a bill through an ATM for the first time.
73. Most sumo eat chanko nabe to get big.
74. Ovens are not standard in houses or apartments, and most have a gas burner with two burners.
75. Things in the supermarkets are not sold in fours because four in Japanese (shi) is a homonym for death.
76. Bread comes in loaves with 5 or 6 slices.
77. Japanese use many English words regularly that have entirely different meanings from the original English.
78. An insult towards you is actually usually an act of kindness.
79. The Japanese large size of potato chips is nearly the same size is an American small.
80. In a Japanese theatre you can choose your seat, and whether you want Japanese subtitles or Japanese dubbing.
81. Japanese English teachers often know grammar better than I do. I sometimes know Japanese grammar better than they do.
82. Only half of the things in a 100 yen store are 100 yen.
83. Most Japanese do not dry their clothes in a dryer.
84. Most Japanese shower and bathe before bed and not in the morning.
85. When Japanese take a bath, the entire family uses the same bath water. The father always goes first.
86. Streets do not have names. Blocks do.
87. Japanese people are much faster at putting their shoes on than I am.
88. Japanese will say your Japanese is good even if you can barely manage a word.
89. How expensive CDs and DVDs are here.
90. Everything from cookies to candies are individually wrapped.
91. Toilets have a setting for small flush or large flush.
92. Izakayas give you an oshibori, a kind of facecloth to wash your hands and face for free, before serving you. I had no idea what to do with it the first time it was given to me.
93. It is not strange to see a girl walking around shopping in a French maid’s outfit just because she feels like it.
94. The Japanese think roman letters have a stroke order.
95. Japanese maps have Japan in the direct centre of the map.
96. Most public places, such as bars, play English music rather than Japanese music.

I will refer to “a person who does not look like a Japanese person” as a gaijin for the remainder of this post to make things simpler.

1. Do not greet a gaijin you don’t know in English

   How do you know that their native language is English? What if they came from another country that does not speak English, such as France, or Russia?

   I knew another teacher in Hokkaido who was from Quebec. Sure, in Canada we speak both English and French, but in Quebec they mainly speak French. That teacher came to Japan to teach English, and get paid for it. Not to converse with you on the street in it for free. She used to get so pissed when people used to ask her questions in English when she wasn’t on the clock. And rightfully so.

   This would be the equivalent of me saying “Ni hao!!” in shitty Mandarin to an Asian person in Canada. You don’t do it. If they were Korean, for example, you would get the nastiest glare.

   If by chance you are burning to speak to a gaijin you don’t know in English, the best way to do it is to ask them first in Japanese if they speak English. If they tell you they do, then by all means have at it. Otherwise, stick to Japanese.

2. Don’t try to converse with a gaijin in English if the only phrases you know are “Harro,” “Nice to meet you,” or “Good bye.”

   I get a lot of people, mainly punk-ass kids, who to try and impress their friends shout out in the shittiest English possible, “Harro!” If by chance you respond to them they give you the “Eigo waka~nai!! Hahahaha” (I don’t understand English). Yeah, real funny you little prick. I was trying to be nice. I’ve stopped responding to those kids now. If you can’t read the meaningless English on your shirt, don’t even try.

   Sometimes I get “One more?” several times if I end up having to converse with a person in English who doesn’t speak it. You are wasting my time. And furthermore, it’s “Once more?” or “One more time, please?” you dimwit!

3. If a gaijin is living in Japan, and you don’t know them, and they ask you a question in Japanese, don’t respond back in English.

   I get this all the time. Especially in restaurants. You order something in Japanese, and they respond with something in English, which is usually a set phrase in most cases. I’m not teaching you English right now, and I live in Japan. I’m not being paid to converse with you. I’m just trying to have a nice sandwich and you are ruining my meal.

   I make it a fact to always respond to a person in the language they asked me the question in. If you don’t understand the question or don’t want to respond, then just say, “I don’t know” in whatever language you natively speak. The other person will understand.

   This is different however between friends or coworkers. If you know each other, and you know the level of each other’s language abilities, you can use and respond in whatever language you think that phrase would be easiest to express yourself in. You can even use both languages in the same sentence if you want.

4. If a gaijin enters your store, room, restaurant, castle, rice field, etc., treat them the same way you would if a Japanese person did.

   Don’t comment on a gaijin’s ability to use chopsticks. You wouldn’t tell a Japanese person that they can use chopsticks well. Don’t do it to a gaijin. It’s basically the equivalent of telling someone that they are good at tying their shoes.

   If there is a foreigner on the train, don’t stare at them. If you are going to stare at least say “Hi.” That shit is creepy.

   Don’t call a person by their first name, or without –san added to the end if you are speaking with them in Japanese unless they have allowed you to do so. You would only do that with people who are in your in group in Japanese, don’t do it to some you have just met. Just because it’s ok in that stupid McDonald’s ad to call the goofy gaijin Mr. James, doesn’t make it right for other gaijin. It’s humiliating.

5. Don’t assume that a gaijin is from America

   Many times my friend and I are asked, “So how is America?” upon meeting someone for the first time. How should I know? To be fair, most Japanese people are much better with this one than the above points. Most of them ask me in Japanese, “What country do you come from?” before asking me silly questions about a country I know little to nothing about.

   It’s also a pretty big insult because you then take on the image of a country with a mixed reputation in Japan. I’ve been asked many times already, “How many guns do you have?” I didn’t nuke your country, I didn’t bomb the crap out of the Middle East, and my country’s obesity rate is not 30% (although it’s not much lower). I don’t want to be associated with that.

6. Don’t treat them like aliens

   Don’t touch a gaijin’s balls, hair, facial hair, stomach, ass, tits, etc. unless you ask for permission first. You might think I’m kidding about this one, but the sad part is, I’m not.

   A friend of mine has blonde hair and when she was in Japan she would get a lot of feelers – people who would just come up and touch her hair to see what it was like. I’ve had more Japanese school boys grab my balls than I would like to remember.

A lot of these things happen at the same time and are not mutually exclusive. For instance, I often have people respond to my questions in Japanese with English, when they don’t know English.

Gaijin living in Japan or have lived in Japan: if you have any others to add to this, please add a comment after this post.

When I was browsing around the internet I went to the homepage of Bonnie Pink and noticed that during her new “One” tour that she would be coming to Okayama on July 17th. Rockin’! The tour took her all across Japan starting with Nagoya and eventually ended in Tokyo. I knew well in advance and was able to buy tickets on the first day they went on sale. I did it using a Lawson’s kiosk. The way it works is, you first get a piece of paper from the kiosk after you choose your event, and then you have to give it to the convenience store clerk. Then you pay the clerk and they hand you the tickets in a nice Lawson’s envelope. It wasn’t too hard, especially if you knew the code to get the venue to pop up quicker on the machine, which I learned from the website. The tickets were around 5500 yen which wasn’t too bad for a concert.

It was held at Crazymama Kingdom Okayama. The venue is fairly small and sits on the 4th floor of a building. Upon arrival, a security guard was waiting near the stairs, who was basically just greeting people, and therefore it was pretty easy to tell where the venue was from that alone. After I climbed up to the top of the stairs, two men immediately asked me for my ticket and 500 yen. What? I just paid for these tickets, and they cost me 5500 yen. I have to buy a drink too? What a dirty trick.

Anyways, they had people selling stuff related to Bonnie Pink near the doors, which I just glanced over before heading in, as it was fairly unimpressive. The venue was maybe only 2/3s full of people and there was probably no reason for me to buy my tickets so quickly. There were many signs around the venue and the most notable were “No bodysurfing or moshing” and “No re-entry.” Luckily, none of the signs said “No photographs” like most concerts in Japan. With that being said, I only saw one other person with a camera.

There was no opener and at 7pm the band went out on stage without Bonnie and played an intro leading up to her eventual entrance. I was surprised at the number of people in the band. There were six members in the band: a percussionist, a lead guitarist, a bassist, a drummer, a pianist, and the singer herself – Bonnie Pink. The stage was too small for Bonnie’s band though and the drummer was tucked away in the back corner out of sight. This was a little bit disappointing for me. Instead, the percussionist stood in the centre with a large number of instruments surrounding her.

I had bought the “One” CD when it first came out, but I wasn’t altogether impressed with it and ended up selling it shortly after I bought it. It didn’t have a lot of songs that really grabbed me, and many of them were boring ballads. The recording quality also didn’t seem as crisp as I like. But apparently this album was recorded in a large number of places all over the world, which she mentioned during the concert. This concert changed my impression of the album however. She used a variety of instruments and the made the music very colourful. The entire album has a very uplifting feel and almost the entire concert itself was fairly upbeat and cheery. Bonnie is known for using a lot of happy-sad chords, and that’s the kind of flavour I’ve come to like and expect from her. But these songs aren’t really like that at all.

Bonnie didn’t take one break and played for two hours straight, which I found pretty impressive. She had an incredible amount of confidence on stage and she never once looked shy or nervous. Her drummer, on the other hand, was quite shy and blew his chance in the spotlight when she called upon him to do some rhythmic clapping in front of everyone to the song “Tonight the Night.” He fumbled with his hands and couldn’t really come up with a good rhythm, but it was cute anyways. And like this, the concert was fairly interactive. During “Happy Ending,” one of her new songs, she had the males and females do a two-part harmony in the middle of the song. It sounded really good and it was a lot of fun! During “Tonight the Night” during the encore she had the audience clap along to several impromptu Latin rhythms that she clapped out, characterised by their syncopated beats. That kind of participation was a good way to end the concert. Most of the songs during the concert were from her new album “One” but she played some songs from her past albums including “Mint” which was a treat to hear. She also did a surprise Michael Jackson medley in tribute to him. It was well prepared considering he just died recently. It had seamless transitions and sounded like they had been practicing it for a while. The medley started out with “Black or White,” and was followed by “Billie Jean,” and “Rock with You,” with it returning to “Black or White” to finish the song. Near the end of the concert she played one of her new songs “Get on the Bus” which she said was created with the tempo of a bus in mind. It didn’t seem too popular as not too many people in the crowd seemed to know too much about it when she asked them from the stage however. To top everything off, she finished the concert with an encore of three songs.

Altogether it was a lot more fun than I expected it to be, and it raised my opinion of her new album “One.” The biggest downside was that there weren’t many songs I could sing along to since most of the material was new.

Set List (starred songs are not on the “One” album):

Rock You Till the Dawn
Fuschia, Fuschia, Fuschia

MC

Princess Incognito
Won’t Let You Go
*Mint
One Last Time

MC2

Try Me Out
Play and Pause
Himitsu
*Anything for You
Michael Jackson Medley (Black or White, Billie Jean, Rock with You)
*A Perfect Sky
Joy
Get on the Bus
Kane wo Narashite
Happy Ending

Encore:
Mousou Lover
*Heaven’s Kitchen
*Tonight, the Night

Bonnie’s homepage: http://www.bonniepink.jp/english/main.html

It’s been a while since I updated my blog, but now I will begin updating it regularly again. This entry is to bring everyone up to speed on what has happened in the past year, and to where exactly my travels have taken me until this point.

In August of 2008 I returned to Canada from Hokkaido since it was the end of my contract on the JET programme. I had decided not to re-contract when they had asked me to in November of 2007. Little did I know that at the time, when I chose not to re-contract, that the economy of the entire world would start to go down the tubes.

When I returned to Canada I tried for eight months to find a job in the programming field, or in academia (without a teaching licence), to no avail. Here is a list of the job offers I received (some of which I rejected) while looking for full-time employment to actually start out on my own with:

• Job at a copper factory working occasionally for two days a week making $10/hr
• Job at Cineplex in the box office making $8.50/hr for only four hours a day part-time with an unpaid break
• Position as a professor making $22/hr for only 13 hrs/wk with a four hour commute every day by car (best offer I received)
• Position as a Japanese teacher at a shady school for only three hrs/wk with an hour and a half commute by car

It was very depressing. Without any tangible experience with programming or without my teaching licence, finding a position, much like other recent graduates, was very difficult and competitive.

So I had a nagging voice in the back of my head telling me that I should try to go back to Japan. I knew things wouldn’t be as cushy as they were on the JET Programme. Many of the other offers had much lower salaries and I had heard many bad things about other English teaching companies in Japan. So, I would spend hours, time and time again, looking at job offers for English instructors only to close the websites in the end.

Until one day, I had had enough of all the terrible job opportunities in Canada, and for the hell of it applied to five job offers that I had found on the net. Within two days, I had received three out of five replies requesting an interview with me. They were from Teach Away, Interac, and ECC. It was like night and day.

The sad thing was, I had also applied to teacher’s college to the tune of around $300. And by the time I had interviewed with Teach Away and accepted my position with them, I had received acceptances from all three teacher’s colleges. Of course, I’m not sure why I had applied to teacher’s college in the first place. It’s definitely something I want to do in the future but there was no way I had the money to be able to support myself and go back to university for a year.

So I was off to Japan again. The funny thing is, Teach Away is actually a placement agency and introduced me to Interac (my current employer) and thus, only two companies had offered me a job – which still wasn’t too bad.

Now I live in Okayama City. It’s known for its peaches and the story of Momotarou. I had actually originally asked for a placement in Fukuoka or Kyoto but was given a placement in San-you Onoda as it was fairly close to Fukuoka. However, that teacher at the last minute decided to keep their position and I ended up being placed in Okayama. It’s fairly close to Osaka, but still, it costs about $60 to get there and back from Okayama so it’s not something I can do on a regular basis. I agreed to Okayama because it has a population of about 700,000 people, but upon arrival I realised quickly that it is still very much countryside. The city’s downtown reminds me of Sapporo and has many of the things that I came to like in Sapporo in it as well, such as the foreign food store “Jupiter,” a large shopping street, many large stores such as Bic Camera and a five-floor Daiso, internet cafes, and a few good dance clubs and bars. Some things that I like about Okayama over Sapporo are the warm weather and lack of snow, and the larger foreign population. Some things I dislike are the humidity (almost always over 80%), the massive spiders, and gaijin traps (a name we gave to deep concrete pits on the side of the road to prevent flooding due to the large number of rice fields. Many foreigners in Japan that I know have fallen into these by accident and have injured themselves, and driving next to them still scares the crap out of me). Overall, however, Okayama is a better city than Sapporo I think. I’ve been able to make many more friends here than I ever did in Hokkaido and I am enjoying my free time much more than the last time I was in Japan. Work is problematic, and my new way of life also leaves some things to be desired, and getting set up here again was hell on earth, but that’s an entry for another time.

In Hokkaido, from July the 7th to the 9th, Japan will be hosting the 2008 Toyoko Summit (G8). This time, Japan, the United States of America, England, France, Italy, Germany, Canada, Russia, and the President of the EU Commission will be meeting to discuss things such as global warming. This summit has been held in these eight countries since 1975 to discuss various issues in an open manner.

However, this has made things very interesting in Hokkaido with regards to foreigners and Japan’s xenophobia has begun to shine through again. In every station you can see signs in Japanese that say such things as “we are on watch for terrorism!” or “this is an ideal time for terrorists to appear.” Some of these most foreigners will miss or not understand because they are written in Japanese - which is part of the point.

This seems natural for an event of this scale, but this is where things get interesting.

Recently, at Chitose International Airport, everyone that remotely looks like a foriegner is beig stopped and asked for ID. However, the police do not stop Japanese people, and in fact, can’t legally. I have not made a trip to Chitose airport but many ALTs that live in Hokkaido have been stopped.

Last month was the Yosakoi dance festival. In 2000, during the Yosakoi dance festival, a bomb exploded injuring 10 people in Sapporo. This year, according to Mainichi news, someone mailed postcards to a radio station stating that if the festival was not stopped they would plant a time bomb (1). Yet, even knowing that, there was only one article on the threat that I could find and it was not in the Japanese newspapers. There were no signs with regards to terrorism at the Yosakoi festival. Why were they not put up at that time, and why are they being put up during the summit? Because of Japan’s unjustified fear of foreigners.

This year, as you may know, Japan also implemented a system at Narita airport where everyone who is not Japanese that is entering the country must have their fingerprints and pictures taken.

There has not been a single incident of foreign terrorism in Japan (2). The most recent acts of terrorism, the main one being the Matsumoto Incident that occured in 1995, was caused by the Japanese and consequently led to the removal of garbage bins from public places (3). This xenophobia that Japan has is not going to help stimulate internationalism when Japan needs it most. I’m getting fed up with seeing it and I finally decided to consolidate my thoughts here.

That being said, I attended the Yosakoi festival, however, and it was a very safe and entertaining festival. Today, I also visited a hotel were many, many policemen from Osaka were staying temporarily before helping with the summit. While I was there, I shared an elevator with 12 policemen and not one of them asked me to ID myself. The only question they asked me was what country I was from. They seemed really nice. I was with two other Japanese however, and that may have quelled their fears.

“This is an ideal time for terrorists to appear. There still can be terrorism in Japan! We appreciate your cooperation in (notifying) the police.”

“On watch for terrorism.”

(1) http://mdn.mainichi.jp/national/archive/news/2008/06/03/20080603p2a00m0na015000c.html
(2) http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/anger-as-japan-moves-to-fingerprint-foreigners/2007/10/26/1192941320246.html
(3) http://www.opcw.org/resp/html/japan.html

The new website is still under construction, but because I recently took my computer for a swim I may not be able to do a proper update until the end of July (consequently, the same time I return to Canada).  Around that time the website should explode with content so it should be well worth the wait.

Today I also was told by the Board of Education to take down any pictures of the student’s faces to respect their privacy.  I have done as they have requested so those pictures no longer exist in the gallery.  It’s unfortunate as some of those pictures are some of my best art, but I understand where they are coming from.  I heard from a fellow ALT that some other ALT was fired for the same thing in the past.

Ever have one of those days?

Last night when I went to bed, I saw on the forecast (on the internet) and it said that there would a be chance of rain (80%).  So I thought to myself, “Ok.  Well I’ll just remember to bring an umbrella with me tomorrow morning.”  I woke up and got to the school with no problems.

When I arrived at the school, after a couple periods had passed, the teachers suddenly held an emergency meeting.  Someone smashed the glass on one of the doors to the school.  It was the door leading to the sports equipment room so they believe it was the baseball club.  I went to check it out and it looked like the glass had been struck by something thin and hard at least seven times.  In this meeting, the teachers were each given photos of the current state of the door so that they didn’t have to take a look at it, along with a form to fill out with any information that they had about the incident.  The Japanese sure are thorough.

Last night I was making the new website so I went to bed late.  My mind wasn’t 100% there.  As I was filling out the answers to the tests of the correspondance course I’m taking, I ended up putting the answers for book 4 on book 5’s answer sheet.  Great.  So I had to rewrite my essay again and attach it to the paper I had made a mistake on.  With only one week left to submit these, I couldn’t afford to damage the answer sheets, and I hated wasting time on things that were already supposed to be completed.

During 5th period, half of my English class was cancelled because the students needed to have a check up by the doctor that was visiting the school.  In Japan, there are no such things as general practitioners or family doctors.  Instead, a doctor comes to the school a few times a year to check the students with a stethoscope and measures their height and weight, etc.

Also, because the glass door was smashed, my 6th period English class was cancelled too and the school needed to hold an emergency meeting in the school gym with all of the students.  I had nothing to do at this point, so I headed home early.  The bus comes infrequently at this school, so knowing when to leave is essential.

As I went to leave, the nurse said to me, “Are you going to be OK?  It’s raining pretty hard out there and the wind is pretty strong.”  When I checked the forecast last night, the forecast failed to state something like chance of typhoon.  To my great delight, the same typhoon that hit me in Sendai when I was on the school trip hit me again back in Hokkaido.  We flew past it to the north, but it felt like following.  To those that don’t know, a typhoon is the same thing as a hurricane.  They just call hurricanes that originate in the east here typhoons.

I arrived at the bus stop 15 minutes before the bus arrived, but it was a long 15 minutes.  The rain was not falling on me, it was running into me.  Clinging to my umbrella for dear life and trying very hard to protect the answer sheets for the tests I had just filled out I waited.  Finally the bus arrived and I stepped onto a much more crowded bus than usual.  I took a ticket which quickly got soaked through and fumbled through my soaked backpack for change.  The seats were sopping wet and as I sat down I was greeted with a nice squish.  Nice.  My clothes were soaked through too - down to my underwear.  As I looked up at everyone, it seemed that everyone on the bus was wearing rubber boots and a rain jacket.  Was I the only one that didn’t know about the typhoon?  This typhoon just brushed us however.  Were it to hit us directly, I have no idea how much worse it might have been.

To top things off, when I took my electronic dictionary out of my drenched bag, it no longer worked.  If I can’t get it replaced on warranty that’s $250 down the drain.  My MP3 player also suffered some minor damage (dead pixels).  I’ll be sure to buy a waterproof case next time for both.

So there are these energy drinks in Japan. I see the teachers drinking them the odd time and I didn’t really think anything of it. They look like bottles of cough syrup, so that has kind of deterred me from trying one. So a couple days ago I saw one of the teachers drinking one and during our conversation I decided to pick it up and take a look at it. Upon asking her to tell me a bit about it, the teacher said it was a “refreshing tonic” with vitamins in it to give you energy. So I figured I’d take a look at the side of the bottle and read the contents:

Vitamin B1
Vitamin B2
Nicotine
Caffiene
and the list went on…

“Holy crap!” I exclaimed. This has nicotine in it! And 30mg of it to boot! That’s one way to get you addicted to the stuff.

An example of an energy drink in Japan

Case in point. When you eat or drink anything in Japan, it’s nice to be able to read Japanese. You have no clue what goes into this stuff, or even what you’ve ordered. Believe me.

Today I woke up at around 2pm and didn’t really feel like getting out of bed since it was the weekend. I got up anyways because there was a Beethoven and Brahms concert that I was planning on attending. Going by the tradition that I have with my friends, when attending an orchestral concert, it is imperative that you wear a suit. So, I put a suit on and spiffied myself up before heading out. I purchased a ticket at the door and headed in. I arrived fairly early so I had my choice of seats. When I had planned on attending, I didn’t really know much about the concert. I just knew the time and date and that it was going to be Beethoven and Brahms. When I entered there was just a piano sitting there so I assumed it was going to be a piano concerto. Once everyone was seated, a half hour after I arrived, a man began speaking. He gave an introduction about Beethoven which lasted a good 45 minutes. I thought it was a little lengthy but it was fairly entertaining, although, many of the people around me were falling asleep. It was difficult to understand because it was entirely in Japanese but I did learn that Beethoven really liked his wine! The man speaking also played a short rendition of “Blue Danube” composed by Johann Strauss on the piano which was very well done. He did it to illustrate some point but I wasn’t sure exactly why. After finally finishing his speech he began playing Beethoven’s “Piano Sonata No. 17 d-moll op.31-2 ‘Tempest’” after taking a large, nervous breath. The piece consisted of two movements. The sonata was not that long which was probably the reason he had spoken so much. It was a difficult piece to play. The sonata was charaterised by notes that would alternate between a very slow tempo followed a by a burst of very fast notes. This sonata was more dissonant then what I was used to listening to from Beethoven and I didn’t really enjoy the first movement so much. He finished to a hearty applause and everyone took a short break. When the break was over, it was time for Brahms. This time a beautiful girl in a long blue dress introduced Brahms to the audience. It was much shorter this time and I learned that Brahms was apparently quite the ladies man. Why he adopted the long white Santa Claus beard later is beyond me. When it came time to play the piece by Brahms the girl brought out her clarinet and the piece was actually a duet. The name of the piece was “Sonata for Piano and Clarinet No. 2 Es-Dur op. 120-2″ which I think I remember having four fairly short movements. I enjoyed this piece a lot. It had a beautiful melody, characterised by call and response with the clarinet leading. The first movement was in a major key and would have made for great background music as opposed to the previous piece by Beethoven. The later movements started to sound a bit sadder as they switched into minor keys and the third movement sounded a lot like it came out of an adventure movie. Both musicians were very skilled and professional. They had practiced a lot and worked well together. After the concert ended, I took a look around and noticed the music teacher from one of my junior high schools there as well as the head of the Board of Education (aka. my biggest boss). I said hi to my boss briefly and headed out.

Shunsuke (piano) and Ikuyo (clarinet) performing in Hana Hall.
(apologies for terrible cell phone photo)

As I left the room, the man playing piano thanked me and I asked him for a programme. He said he had one and he asked me to follow him. It turns out he spoke English really well and most of our conversation was in it! He gave me a programme, his business card, and we chatted a bit. I learned that his name was Shunsuke Inada and that he was studying at a university in Vienna. He was joking that he couldn’t speak English very well anymore because he’s so used to speaking in German now. I was quite impressed that he could speak English, Japanese, and German as well as play the piano perfectly. He said that he had started playing piano from the age of six. I found out his hometown is actually the same as where I’m living now and I told him that I’m an English teacher here. He introduced me to his friends and to my surprise Shunsuke invited me out to a party that they were having. It was close by and when I entered, the mayor and the head of the BOE were there too. His friends and family were also there and it looked like the food was pretty expensive. I chatted it up with everyone there and many of the people were pretty interested in me and where I came from. I ended up meeting the head of international relations in Sapporo, too. Talk about being in high company! Shunsuke’s mother introduced herself to me and said that she owned a soba restaurant nearby, gave me her business card, and asked me to come by sometime. Then Shunsuke’s friends invited me to bowling tomorrow at 3pm. I ate my fill and thanked everyone. When it was time to go, I thanked everyone for inviting me and bid them farewell. I asked them who exactly was paying for it but I never did find out. One thing was for sure though - I didn’t have to pay for anything. I’m pretty sure the meal was more expensive than the admission into the concert!!

So I guess the lesson learned is - when you go to an orcestral concert, wear a suit!

Living in Japan as a foreigner (for the time being) means you get special treatment. When this works in your favour this is called a “gaijin smash.” This term was not coined by me but has been around for a while now. I hadn’t explained this term until now so I figured I’d clarify it before continuing.

I sent a package to a friend containing some extremely late Christmas gifts. I sent it through EMS which is a courier, but when you do, you have to fill out a detailed form stating the addresses, contents, how much it is worth, etc.

Having mailed the package I figured it was done with and all was right with the world. The day after, the post office gave me a phone call. I’m always nervous about answering the phone in Japan because it’s much harder to carry out a conversation in Japanese over the phone than in person. You don’t have the crutch of hand signals and you can’t follow their lips. So I answered the phone and this was a time where I had no idea what he was saying. I could pick out most of the words but I couldn’t make sense of it. I understood that the package wasn’t able to be sent but I couldn’t figure out why. At the end of the conversation when I asked him to repeat himself he just responded with another question that once again I did not understand. He hung up and I called the BOE and asked them to ask the post office what the hell was going on for me.

As I got off the phone with the BOE there was a ring at the door. I answered the door and to my surprise the guy who was just on the phone was standing there. He had the package in his hand and a new form to fill out. He explained to me that I had filled out the application using Chinese characters for the return address but that EMS wanted me to fill out the return address using English characters, which I understood now that we were face to face. So I filled out the form again properly and he left and remailed the package for me. I may have language difficulties once in a while but at least the Japanese can be understanding about it.