Through the Eyes of a Vagrant

So after being here for a while I got to see a difference in the gender roles first hand and can pass to you my first hand knowledge and experiences.  In Japan the gender roles are fairly clear cut.  The men work and the women stay at home.  This is rarely questioned and quite accepted.

I had been getting sick a lot since I came here and I later found out that I couldn’t get adjusted to the food.  After I figured that out I started cooking all my own food and stopped eating the school lunch (read: garbage) that everyone is made to eat and consequently got better.  Upon seeing my bentou (boxed lunch) some of the female teachers and the female school counselor inquired if I had made it myself.  I responded that I did and the counselor shouted out, “Erai!!” which means admirable.  I asked them why it was so admirable and they said that men in Japan rarely cook.  I told them that that was surprising because many men in Canada can cook.  Their response was, “It must be nice to have a Canadian husband.”

This same conversation went on three more times at three other schools.

After New Year’s Day, I was chatting with one of the English teachers and he explained to me what osechi

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is, partly because he wanted to complain.  Osechi is a stacked laquered box filled with foods that keep for a few days so that no one has to cook during that period of time.  The teacher’s exact explanation was this:  “All the women in Japan cook everyday for their households.  They get sick of cooking all the time so they prepare osechi for the family during New Year’s.  This way they can take rest from cooking for a few days.  But … I really don’t like the foods in osechi so I’m happy New Year’s is over.”

Recently I attended a PTA (parent-teacher’s association) meeting because it was a farewell meeting for three of the teachers at one of my schools I teach at.  It was a nice meeting, and there was plenty of cookies, cakes, and snacks to be eaten.  The teachers said their farewell speeches and they took care of some of the things in preparation for the new body of first graders coming in.   But something was a bit off.  All the members at this PTA meeting were middle-aged females - around 40 or so.  I asked the English teacher beside me where all the men were and why there were only women at this meeting.  The teacher responded with, “The men work.”  Clear and simple.

Once I was at the grocery store doing my shopping and one of the male teachers I work with ran into me.  He was surprised to see me and I told him I was shopping for food.  His response was, “Normally my wife does the groceries.  I’m only here because my wife is sick right now” as if he was embarrassed to be doing the grocery shopping.

Today was an interesting day at Seibu.  The new school year starts here in April and a lot of things change.  Teachers get moved to new schools and new students come in.  They shift teachers around because they believe it maintains the balance of power and keeps things fresh.  I’ve been told it has its roots in the Edo period where the Shogun used to rotate the daimyo around so that they could never build up any power, and hence quell civil war.  Luckily for me, all of the teachers that I disliked were replaced, or my schools were changed in such a way that I didn’t have to deal with them anymore.  Score!  So, because the new students have come in, naturally, they have never seen me before.  Once again my first lessons with them were self-introduction lessons, lessons about my hometown, Canada, and the like.

So I walked into the room and there was just absolute silence.  All of the students were staring in awe at me; their undivided attention was on me.  Even when I said good morning to them, their response was quite delayed.  This is what happens when you are only one of two foreigners in the city.

I gave a simple introduction of myself, followed by many impressions of anime characters which I have come to learn are amazing ice-breakers for a shy class.  Some students even asked for an encore.  I was blown away by their comprehension too, because even though this was their first real English class, the other ALT in the city had spent some time with them in elementary school and had done a wonderful job.

So after the introduction I asked the students if they wanted to ask me any questions and that Japanese was OK and that they could ask whatever they wanted.  At first they were shy, as all new classes are, but then they finally opened up and hilarity ensued.  Some of the interesting questions and my responses were:

“Have you ever seen a UFO before?”
- “Nope.  If they exist they were probably created by the military.”

“Do you believe time travel is possible?”
- “Nope.  I don’t think it’s possible.  Otherwise you would see many people from the future walking around.  After all the science I learned, I don’t think you can do it.”
I swore he looked like he was going to cry after I said that.  Oops.

“What are your three sizes?”
- “I’m not really sure.  Isn’t that normally a question you ask a girl?  I think my pant size is 100 cm if that helps.”
This was followed by a “holy crap!” from many of the students.

“Are you married?”
- *Chuckle* “This is a pretty popular question (I haven’t ever had a class not ask me this one). Nope, I don’t have a girlfriend, either.”

“Do you know what kamehameha is?”
- “Oh.  You mean this?  KAMEHAMEHA!”  *Does Goku impression*
At this point I think the ambulance was rushing to the school due to a student going into cardiac arrest from laughing too much…

“What is your favourite Japanese word?”
- “DON DAKE!”
Followed by much more laughter.

But what really killed me is what happened after class.  As the students were leaving the classroom and I was packing up my things for the next class, one student came up to me and set a pad of paper and a pen on the desk in front of me.  In a very cute voice he said in English, “Sign, please?”
What!?  Are you asking me for my autograph? Full Grown Men full movie   How cool is that!?  So I signed it for him complete with a nice smiley face and left the room feeling like Johnny Depp.

Children are awesome.

One of the English teachers came over to my apartment and we had some fun watching some DVDs.  After she left, I left like having a snack.  I had some leftover baggette that I hadn’t eaten yet and I decided to warm it up.  It was still in it’s paper wrapping so I decided to throw it in the microwave and just nuke it as it was so that I didn’t have to wash another plate.  I turned on the microwave and set it to thiry seconds.  I walked away for a second in the opposite direction and it stopped while I was walking.  I wondered to myself, “That was strange.  It should’ve taken longer than that.”  I turned around and there was smoke billowing from the microwave.  I ran over to the microwave and threw open the microwave door and flames started to shoot out of the microwave.  I tried flapping my arms at it to stop it but that only made the fire bigger.  So I panicked and grabbed the fire extinguisher.  I flipped the tab back and squeezed the trigger and extinguished the fire quickly.  But, as I released the trigger, the powder continued to shoot out from the extinguisher.  I couldn’t stop it!  Soon enough powder was everywhere and the entire apartment, save for the main bedroom and the guest room, was covered in pink powder.

I spent the next six hours, until four in the morning, cleaning the apartment.  In the morning I sent the board of education a mail explaining what had happened and told them I was taking the day off to clean up the mess.  So, as I was cleaning, the vacuum was sucking up a lot of this pink powder.  As I was about halfway finished vacuuming the house, the vacuum died.  So now, all because of a piece of bread, I had an expired extinguisher, an apartment covered in powder, a microwave that was burnt to a crisp, and now a dead vacuum.  This was really becoming something else.  The problem with this powder too is that no matter how much I cleaned up, after a couple hours more would settle on the places I had already cleaned.  It was a never ending battle.  On top of that, it made leather really sticky and if it got mixed with water it became really grimy.

At about noon or so, two of the men from the BOE showed up announcing, “Fire crew!” as I answered the door.  They came in and had a nice chuckle when they saw the mess but were astonished at how much I had managed to clean up already.  I discussed everything with them and they got the girl from upstairs to lend me her vacuum.  They also decided that they were going to get me a new fire extinguisher and vacuum, but that I needed to buy the new microwave out of my own stupidity.

The only question that remains is, what exactly started the fire?  Paper in a microwave does not burn.  It’s not supposed to because of how microwaves work and I have cooked many things in paper in the past in a microwave.  Upon inspection of the now charred piece of bread, I found a twist tie in what was left of the paper bag.  The twist tie must have started a spark which was enough to light the paper bag on fire, causing the fire.

What have we learned?  Have a small box of baking soda nearby to throw at a fire instead of resorting to an extinguisher.  Check your food before cooking it.  Also, don’t be lazy when cooking.

For winter vacation I was told to travel around Japan for the three weeks I had off. I did a lot of things but in order to not bore you and save my sanity I will only highlight a few interesting things that happened. Even so, this entry is going to be long.

The first place I decided to visit was Kyushu with a friend who lives in Saga. In general I liked Kyushu a lot more than Hokkaido. It’s a shame I wasn’t placed there because I probably would have had a more enjoyable time. The one thing I was shocked by was the sheer amount of foreign people that live in Kyushu. In Hokkaido, you mainly only see foreign people in the airport. But in my friend’s small city alone there were at least thirty. The Japanese people seemed to be a lot more friendly towards foreigners, too, and I was greeted more than once on the street by people I didn’t even know. The food was also better in general and I was able to find mexican food like tacos. The tacos were funny though because they were not assembled for you. You had to do it yourself. The tomatoes, ground beef, lettuce, etc all came in separate dishes as is the Japanese way of eating food. I also ate at a couple wonderful Indian restaurants while I was there. The weather was not what I expected it to be. I thought it was going to be a lot warmer than it was but the weather was acting strange when I went. When I arrived, I was biking around town with just a t-shirt on. But later on it started to get a lot colder. On New Year’s Eve it even snowed! I’m not envious of my friend’s shower though. It was a shower where he had to heat the water manually by a gas heater on the side. Half of the time it didn’t work and we often washed ourselves in the kitchen sink. Even the maintenance guy that came over didn’t know what was wrong with it as he was able to start it without any problems. I guess there are upsides and downsides no matter where you live.

I spent most of my time hanging out with the local ALTs when I was in Kyushu. We spent a lot time going to this one mall called You Me (pronouced like the Japanese for dream, yume). It was an impressive mall and I even found a decent selection of clothes that fit me. I spent a lot of money. One of the times we went to the mall before the new year, however, the two other white friends I was with and I were stopped by a news broadcaster from NHK. He asked us if we wanted to say a couple things on TV and we agreed. We realised later that we probably should have ran for it once we figured out that we were being cast as the classic foreign stereotypes. Even though all three of us speak decent Japanese there was still some confusion during all of this, however. The first person we spoke with told us to write down on these white pieces of cardboard something important that had happened in 2007. But then, the main broadcaster said that he actually wanted us to write down our wish for the world in the new year on these pieces of cardboard. I had no idea what my wish was for the world so I just wrote down the stereotypical response, “I want the world to become more international (watashi ha seikai ga kokusaiteki ni natte hoshii).” We wrote these down in Japanese, though, and because I had little time to think I wrote something along the lines of, “I want to become the world more internationally (seikai ha kokusaiteki ni naritai).” We also agreed that when we were given the signal we had to shout out, “We wish for a happy world!” So when it came time for us to go live, the broadcaster got the camera to pan across our responses on the cardboard as the broadcaster said them out loud. He said both of my friends’ but when he came to mine he skipped it because it was incredibly wrong. We blurted out the phrase that he had told us to say and everyone clapped and that was it. Now you know why I should have ran - it was pretty awkward. Afterwards, the broadcaster played up his position at NHK and asked us all for our meishi for future endevours. None of us had them, but I made a point of making them later. I doubt it would have ended well anyways.

For New Year’s Eve most people in Japan go to a Japanese shrine (jinja) to pray. They also eat toshi koshi soba which is believed to give them a long and healthy life, much like the appearance of soba noodles. A lot of them end up watching the kouhaku in the warmth of their homes as midnight approaches. The kouhaku is a singing competition. There are two teams, one white, one red, and they sing all night long. The audience gets to vote later on which team was the best group of singers. There is quite a large audience and I’m sure that it gets massive ratings from the amount of people that watch it.

My New Year’s Eve was not so Japanese but much quieter though. I spent it with two friends playing guitar - with three guitars in total. It was a fun way to welcome in the new year. We also watched a bit of the kouhaku and ate soba.

Come New Year’s Day I was not expecting everything to shut down for four entire days. I mean, I couldn’t even withdraw money from the Japanese banks! Not cool for a person that is travelling. I had to rely on credit cards for that period of time. I had also wanted to mail the things I had bought in Kyushu to Hokkaido during that time but the post offices were closed for a good four days themselves. I didn’t think about that when I went to the post office, however. I went on New Year’s Day and everyone was jumping out of their cars and running to the post office to submit otoshidama. Otoshidama are envelopes filled with money that are usually presented from a parent to their children after the new year. Children can also get them from older relatives like their aunts or uncles. With the nengajyo (New Year’s postcards guaranteed to be delivered on New Year’s Day exactly) being delivered at the same time, it’s apparent that the post offices are very busy during this time. The building was not open for business but there were one or two people in front of the mail slots gathering these envelopes at the speed of light as they were literally being tossed at them. After inquiring with some Japanese teachers I learned that otoshidama can be submitted within the period of the first to the seventh, so why everyone was so frantically submitting these is beyond me. Perhaps someone else can shed some light on this?

There was quite a night life in Tenjin, Fukuoka which is much like Susukino in Sapporo, but better. Tenjin was full of clubs and we had the chance to go to a few of them. The first club we went to was a rock club. It had been a while since I had been to one since the last one I attended was the Underground in Hamilton. It was a wonderful piece of nostalgia. The music wasn’t the greatest but it was loads of fun. The bands were hardcore punk bands so everything was very loud and boisterous. The quiet, passive Japanese stereotype was crushed as there was quite the mosh/skank pit in front of the stage. I had no reservation slamming people into each other in front of the stage. The singer of one of the bands even grabbed me, pulled me onto the stage to scream into the mic, and threw me off the stage with momentum to slam some more people into each other. It was wicked! The people were pretty cool too and many drinks were bought for each other.

The rock concert ended a little sooner than we had expected though, and we were still ready for more partying. As we left I started drunkenly yelling “Konban wa!” at everyone as we walked down the street. I was surprised with the reception this got and many people responded and had some chats with us. It was through a group we randomly met in front of a karaoke building that we found another, much more classier club called Roots Lounge. The cover was expensive, but we got something like five free drinks each. It had a nice dance floor, a good bar, and decent music playing. I wanted to shake it so I headed out to the floor right away. There were two girls and a guy dancing in this group and I came up to them and started dancing with them. The businessman who was with them was a very awkward dancer and was trying to follow my moves. There are Japanese people that can dance rather well actually - it’s just that I never see them in the clubs. After I had had my fun with his women, I pulled him aside and showed him how to dance. We became friends, although because of miscommunication, we never ended up partying together later. The poor guy had to work three hours later, though. Crazy salary men.

Some day later, as I was wandering around Fukuoka I accidently entered a mall called Canal City. I say accidentally because it was so freaking huge that I had no idea I was in a mall until I saw the maps. This mall had hundreds of stores! It was called Canal City because there was a manmade river going through the centre of the mall. There was also a stage in front of this river where music was being played. It was here that I finally found an anime store worth writing home about called the Jump Store. It had loads of stuff and I bought a lot of anime memorabillia, half of which ended up becoming gifts for people. This mall also had a pokemon store. As I was walking by it, there was a giant Pikachu and a button underneath of it. Little children were constantly mashing this button and when they did speakers emitted a very loud, “PIKA PIKA!” It drove me bats! There was also a huge Sanrio (Hello Kitty) store and I bought many gifts there. I was in love when I came across a Wendy’s and I bought the biggest burger I could find and scarfed it down like it was my last meal. The last store worth mentioning was a celebrity memorabillia store called Teen’s. You could buy pictures, stickers, pencils, notepads, etc that all had something to do with one celebrity or another. I bought tons of Ayumi Hamasaki, Gackt, and Utada Hikaru things.

Canal City

One day, my friend and I went to a yakitori restaurant on a whim because we were hungry. We sat down at a table and we noticed that there were a group of foreigners behind us but didn’t think anything of it. We went to order our food but we were actually having trouble reading the menu. There were many things on there that didn’t look appetising such as the grilled horn of some unknown animal, so we were worried about what the rest could have been. The foreigners overheard us talking about our little problem and asked if we wanted them to provide some assitance. We had already ordered after they had asked, however. We had a chat with them and found out they were actually Canadians from Toronto, much like us. They turned out to be really cool and invited us out to karaoke after. My friend ended up going home but I spent the rest of the night with them - and it was a hoot! We ordered a special at their favourite karaoke place that allowed us to sing all night long and drink unlimited alcohol for really cheap. I also met this one other guy that apparently used to be a fairly famous singer in the area - and it showed when he sang! His friends said he used to actually used to sing for yakuza and once he had a guy give him 30,000 yen to sing a single song. I will definitely give them a call when I get back to Canada.

These Canadians recommended a club called the Dark Room to me while I was with them. I decided to check it out a few days before I left Kyushu, but I went alone because my friends were busy. It was a nice club, but dark as the name suggested. I was greeted by a Japanese girl who spoke perfect English from behind the bar when I entered. I was actually really surprised. The people were really friendly here and I was literally dragged onto the dance floor by a Japanese girl. I ended up dancing with something like 4 or 5 girls at once that night, and even during that, the bartender came out from the bar twice to dance with me. But, just as things were going well, I wanted to go up to the bar to get a drink. There were two, fairly large steps leading up to the bar however, and as I launched off my right foot to get up the first step, I heard something crack. A bolt of pain shot through my leg and I crumpled to the ground. The bartender saw it happen, told me that she was actually a nurse too, and brought out some ice for me. I had sprained my ankle. All the women that I was dancing with went home without saying anything to me. It was like God kicked me in the nuts as everything was going well. I stayed there for an hour, but when I realised that things were not getting any better I called it a night and rode a taxi back to the hotel I was staying at (I was now staying at a hotel to give my friend his peace and quiet back).

For two days following that, I stayed in bed living off what I had bought at the convenience store. I had stored some food beforehand in the small fridge in the hotel room. On the third day, I had run out of food so I had to venture out to the convenience store to get more food. The trip that took five minutes normally took me around 30. I bought food, drinks, and an umbrella to use as a makeshift cane. By the time I had to catch my flight out of Kyushu I was at least able to limp to the airport.

My next destination was the prefecture of Saitama to visit yet another friend. The people of Saitama weren’t very nice and were much like the people of Tokyo, but in a rural setting. The city Hanyu that I visited was quite the run down place in some sections. Many houses looked like they were falling apart. What’s surprising is that in the middle of this town was a brand spanking new mall that was pretty damn big with over 100 stores. We went to this mall many times, and because of my previous injury we ended up grabbing a wheelchair and I got carted around in it. In Hanyu they have a Pizza-la which is the closest thing, if not identical, to the pizza back in Canada. I was in love. I ate nearly a whole pizza myself.

Since Hanyu is so close to Tokyo, I had the pleasure of visiting the famous Akihabara. In Akihabara you can find anything if it relates to electronics or anime. It’s an otaku’s dream and was a paradise for me. We didn’t get to spend as much time there as I had wanted, but I’m sure I may have the chance to go again. Because I was low on funds at this point in time, I didn’t buy as much as I had wanted to buy either.

Cosplay maids in Akihabara

A building in Akihabara with five floors of porn.

We went to the Yodobashi Camera in Akihabara (which is the biggest there is) too and there were tons of the plastic ball machines. These machines usually have 10 or so different things that it spits out. You put in 200 or 300 yen and it gives you one of these plastic balls. The catch is you don’t know what of the 10 choices or so you are going to get. I fell in love with these machines after that because they often have anime items within them. Now I constantly look for them wherever I go.

Many capsule machines in Akihabara’s Yodobashi Camera

I finally left after a week and it was probably the most fun I’ve had since I’ve been in Japan so far. It was a good vacation. The only thing I regret was not giving myself enough time to relax before classes started again.

I had been waiting for this day for weeks now, and it finally arrived. Today I got to see Asian Kung-Fu Generation (or Ajikan for short) live in concert. The venue was Zepp Sapporo and this was Ajikan’s last stop on their 2007 tour that took them from one end of Japan to the other.

The venue was nice. It was clean, had coin lockers, a decent bar, and friendly staff. It was rather small though, and the main hall only held around 2000 people. The floor, to my surprise, was carpeted, and even in such a small place, there were TVs here and there where you could watch the stage if you couldn’t see. The floor was nice because it sloped downward allowing the people in the back to have a fairly clear view – at least until the jumping began. The acoustics left a little to be desired. The room had excessive dampening which caused the sound to come across rather muffled. The concert was also one of the quietest I’ve ever heard too with my ears barely ringing after three plus hours of steady music. Ajikan and its concert’s opener were selling t-shirts by the entrance, but Ajikan had probably one of the worst designs I had ever seen compared to some of their earlier, much more gorgeous t-shirt designs. This time it featured two very poorly drawn cows, with the headline “Project Beef” strewn across it. I’m sure there’s a story behind it because when Gotou Masafumi was MCing he explained it but I was unable to understand him completely. The other band had cute and well made designs, but sadly, few were sold as the people were there to see Ajikan rock out.

The opener for this concert was Oceanlane. I found them rather unremarkable. They weren’t bad by any means. They were professional and prepared, too, but nothing really stood out about their music. There was barely a melody to follow and the music sounded like just one bland wave of sound. They have potential, however, but their composition and performance need some fine tuning to hit that sweet spot. They played for around 45 minutes before leaving the stage crew to quickly prepare for Ajikan’s performance. I whipped out my camera here, but to my dismay, I was told to put it away by someone in the crowd.

Ajikan started out playing with improvisation behind a white backdrop. It was very cool to see because the lights were worked in such a way that the silhouettes that showed up on the backdrop would change every couple of bars. It was a good way to open. The backdrop fell and Ajikan went right into their latest single “After Dark” to a very happy crowd. The set list was quite long; they played some very fast tempo songs first, followed by their more mellow ones, and ended with more high tempo ones in the tried and true formula for a good concert. Gotou had the chance to tell some jokes twice and he was quite funny. In typical Japanese code of conduct he started complaining about how cold it was in Hokkaido. After that, he complained that every time he comes to Hokkaido he never gets to see snow fall. He said the first time he saw snow fall was in Tokyo and he thought it was beautiful. He also poked fun at the audience with, “I bet you guys want to sit down now, eh?” which was quite relevant because everyone in the venue had to stand for four hours since there were no seats.

Ajikan played all of their most popular songs including “Understand” and “Kimi to iu Hana” (Flower with Your Name). Many of the songs were from their latest album, Fun Club, and I was happy to hear “Aru Machi no Gunjyou” (A Certain Town’s Ultramarine), “Blackout,” and “Blue Train.” I was also surprised when they played “Jyuu ni Shinhou no Yukei” (Literally: Evening View in Base 12, with the possible figurative translation being: 12 Hour Evening View) which actually hasn’t been released on any of their exclusive albums. Sadly, they never played one of my personal favourites, “Angou no Waltz” (Waltz in Code). When they finished with “Entrance” they came back and did a double encore – the first consisting of four songs which included “Kimi no Machi Made” (Towards Your Town) and “Loop and Loop,” and the last with a single song – “Rewrite.” In the middle of the concert they also played a brand new song which I thought was average at best – although Ajikan’s songs have a habit of growing on you. Gotou also announced that they will be releasing a new full album soon. I believe he said the expected date is sometime in March 2008.

Ajikan played up to my expectations and as always, it was a treat to see Kiyoshi Ijichi play the drums. He made everything look so effortless considering how fast he is. He was very, very crisp at the beginning and he didn’t even break a sweat until halfway through. You could see him start to get sloppy near the end but that was understandable, of course, given the length of the concert and the fact that he never had a break. Gotou had trouble hitting some of the higher notes. He used a lot of air when he was reaching for them and they often were drowned out by the other instruments. But overall, it was a wonderful performance.

The concert was interesting because of how passive and polite the people were. I was probably the only one screaming at the top of my lungs at times. The audience would only cheer when coaxed to do so, and if they wanted to cheer on their own accord they would just clap. No one really did anything out of the ordinary and the Japanese definitely lived up to their stereotype tonight of being dependently minded (aka. Borg). No one tried to snap a secret picture of the band, and no one tried to rush the band at any time. There was no moshing or body surfing. The most action in the room was the raising of hands or people jumping up and down. Security was minimalistic at best, and even with the few people they had, they were overstaffed. I mean, security looked bored. I was surprised how friendly everyone was, too. At the beginning of the concert, I had no problems starting small talk with other fans. At the end of the concert, some random guy (who was with his girlfriend), hugged me rather tightly at the end of the concert. He was very happy, I guess.

This concert was great and I wouldn’t mind seeing them again sometime.

Edit: The date for the new album has been confirmed to be March 5th, 2008

Oceanlane. Note the lack of movement in the crowd.

Today I went to a concert by a Japanese band called Capsule. Two years ago, a Japanese exchange student introduced me to Capsule and I’ve liked them ever since. So, I was waiting for today for quite some time and was quite excited.

This happened to be the 1^st year anniversary of Mole, so they had brought in Capsule as part of the celebration. I arrived at 9pm and although the club was fairly empty at first, soon enough it became very, very packed.

There was quite a long line-up of artists which included at least four DJs and three bands. I was not impressed by many of the DJs, with the exception of one, who just happened to be one of the members of Capsule - Yasutaka Nakata. The first band to perform was Sound Around. I was absolutely in awe of this singer. She had an amazing range, wonderful clarity and was drop dead gorgeous. She only sang two songs, however, and gave way to the next DJ. The song that mainly caught my attention was “Shooting Star,” which sounded way better than her recorded version (it wasn’t nearly as digitally processed). It’s a shame I couldn’t get a good enough recording of this song live.

Sound Around

Here’s a link to Sound Around’s MySpace page: http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=1000521762

Next up was a band called MegOK. Her band is a band that has been recently produced by Capsule. In the posters she was absolutely smoking hot, but for some reason I didn’t feel that same sort of sexiness from her performance on stage. Her songs sounded lifeless and nothing stood out about her. I was actually kind of happy when she left the stage.

She gave way to more DJs, which I stayed and waited and waited for. The music was quite loud so it wasn’t really possible to have a conversation with anyone. So I just had to bear with some very repetitive trance songs until Capsule finally showed up.

Finally at 1am, Capsule finally came on stage and opened powerfully with “Starry Sky.” It was a great opening and Toshiko Koshijima was incredibly sexy as she teased the crowd with her slinky dress and hair while her body swayed from side to side. “Starry Sky” gave way to “Sugarless Girl” which happens to be my favourite song by Capsule. But I was not impressed by it at all. Toshiko ended up singing it in an entirely different key and I thought it sounded terrible. After that, Toshiko stopped singing and just hung out at the back of the stage while the DJ just did his thing. I really wasn’t impressed, and Capsule seemed very unprepared for the concert (not to mention their presence came very late and was very short). I ended up leaving at around 2pm because people started heading out and it didn’t look like Capsule was going to have any more performances.

Capsule’s Toshiko Koshijima

So leaving at 2pm actually posed a bit of a problem. I had expected Capsule to hit the stage at around 11pm, not at 1am, and thus I missed the last train home. I tried to get to get a room at a hotel, but as expected, they were full up and weren’t taking any more customers. So I had six hours to kill before the trains resumed again and I needed some place to sleep. So I wandered around Sapporo until I found a place called Comic Land. I had been in there before but only really took a small look around. I found out upon entering that I could get a booth for 1000 yen (app. 10 CAD) with a reclining chair. Inside these booths, to my surprise, was a computer with internet and online game capabilities (as well as a burner), a TV, a DVD/CD player, and headphones. There was also a safe inside along with the reclining chair and a foot rest. This was a nerd’s (or otaku’s) dream! So I flicked on the TV and passed out in the comfy chair. It was so much cheaper than a hotel, or even a capsule hotel. I woke up and headed back home on the first train. Comic Land had other facilities that you could use including a shower, and foot soaking room, something that looked like treadmills, massage chairs, and enough manga to keep you busy for months. They also had PS2 games and a small selection of DVDs and magazines. There were also many things you could purchase such as earplugs, underwear, a bowl of ramen, an eye mask, or blank CDs for burning. If ever in a pinch like this one, I recommend visiting an internet café like this one.

The rules in Japanese junior high schools are quite strict.  I’ve been warned against many things so far as I’ve committed many faux pas.  I’ve decided to write about this topic as a result of what happened today.

As you know today is Halloween.  So, I decided to buy some chocolates to hand out to the students during class, and later to the students in the classes I didn’t visit.  I wanted it to be a surprise so I didn’t bother telling anyone about it before hand.  So, in my knapsack I had roughly 1000 chocolates to hand out that I had bought at the grocery store.  When it came time to surprise them I whipped out the bag of candy and the kids started cheering.  But then as I started to hand them out, the teacher freaked out and asked the students to hand the candy back to him.  Afterwards, he very apologetically said that candy was forbidden in the schools and that I wasn’t allowed to give it them – even if it was Halloween.

So naturally, I was angry and I had a huge black cloud over my head for the rest of the period.  When I got back to the teacher’s room, all of the teachers had already heard of the incident.  News spreads fast in Japan.  I was stopped by probably the best (and nicest) English speaking teacher who wanted to explain everything to me, because I was still very visibly angry.  She said that it’s a national rule that students are not allowed eat candy in school.  Now, the school I happened to be teaching at is one of the worst in the prefecture.  Because of this she said that if we even let them budge an inch with the rules they will try to take us a mile.  I finally started to understand where she was coming from.  She also said that it wasn’t fair that I only had candy for that class and that the other students couldn’t get any.  And this is where I realised there was a bit of a misunderstanding.  I showed her the other 900 candies I had and she was very surprised.  We then made a compromise that because today was a special day I was allowed to hand out the candy to all of the students during the lunch period.

Even after all of this, when I talked to the principal later, he just chuckled and said that he thought it was ok and he didn’t see why there was such a big fuss.  He’s a cool guy.  So in the end, the students go there candy and I accomplished my mission on sharing my culture with them.  But, if I’ve learned one thing, it’s that I should probably tell the other teachers my intentions first.

Here’s a list of some of the other rules in junior high schools:  Soft drinks are not allowed; the students can only drink water, or the milk that is given to them during the lunch period.  Students can only wear white shirts underneath of their gym uniforms.  If they aren’t wearing a white shirt underneath, they can’t remove their jumper.  Manga can not be taken out unless it’s recess.  Students are forbidden from bringing any coins to school at all.  Also, students can’t wear their jackets in the classroom.

If you haven’t already guessed by now, I’ve broken almost all of these rules at one point or another.  And some I outright shattered.

To begin, this is a long entry. I’ve been thinking about this one for a couple weeks now and this is the final solidification of such thoughts. If you are going to read this one, grab a beer.

Well, the time to give my decision to recontract is fast approaching and I really wish I had more time to analyse my situation. I believe I’ve made my decision but to solidify my declaration I’d like to weigh out the pros and cons to add basis to my argument.

I’ve split the following into two more categories since I believe it would be unfair to lump the two together. I’ll begin by weighing the pros and cons of JET and then afterwards the pros and cons of Japan itself.

JET

Pros:

- My BOE is absolutely awesome. If I have a problem they take care of it. From bills to problems with everyday life, they are on top of it and do everything they can to keep me happy and in the know. Because of them, I don’t have to pay any rent for my apartment, and they’ve given me 40 extra holidays to travel Japan during the student’s winter and summer vacations. Also, instead of having to head to the BOE after classes are finished for the day, they just let me go home (so long as I use that time to study Japanese).

- I’m a super hero in the schools. When I go into a classroom, the students faces will brighten right up and they will sometimes clap and cheer.

- As for living in Japan, JET gives me enough money to live comfortably.

- My money is tax free since I’m exempt from Canadian tax while I’m here.

- I have serious job security as the BOE has already expressed its intention of having me recontract 4 more times.

Cons:

- When you get here you have to give self-introduction lessons for two whole months. If I were to stay for another year, this would mean going through two more months of self-introduction lessons. By the end, you feel almost violated because after their completion, everyone you work with and all your students know a fair chunk about you. Yet, at the same time, you know very little about them. One begins to wonder if they make jokes about you when you aren’t listening.

- I am totally unneeded at work. If I were not there the teachers I team teach with could just teach the lessons themselves and life would go on. I was hired to increase the conversational abilities of the students, but, any positive effect I might be having on them has yet to be seen. JET has been in existence for 20 years and I’d imagine that others have thought the same way I do and have tried to influence the students since that time. Yet, if you were to walk down the streets of Japan and ask something to anyone in English they would just respond with, “I don’t understand English.” Japanese have studied English on average for about six years while in school. Compare this to the four years I have studied Japanese and my ability to speak beyond everyday conversation, and you can see why I’m depressed. My presence here is just a band aid solution and is doing nothing to improve the student’s English.

- I am not treated like a teacher, but as a tool, and one that is hardly used to its full potential. In many classes, for example, after I give a short speech on Halloween, the teacher will often just tell me to return to the teacher’s room; my usefulness has dried up and they no longer need me for the rest of the class. Other times they’ll just cancel my classes because the students are writing exams or the teacher just forgot to work me into their plan for the day. A couple times, I’ve even been replaced by a tape recorder!

- Often, teachers will come up to me five minutes before class and ask me if I have any ideas for that day. Talk about short notice. Sometimes, they’ll even turn to me in class and say, “We have ten minutes left. Can you do something with the students?” as if I can just magically whip something out of my bag of tricks that suits the lesson they just taught.

- My remuneration may be enough to live comfortably in Japan, but in Canada it translates to something just over the poverty mark

- I asked to be placed close to my friend Anna. Instead they placed me 900 kilometres away from her. I am incredibly isolated with only one other foreigner in my city. I understand that they can’t guarantee a placement, but do you think they could have maybe tried a little bit harder? Was being on the same main island together really that hard to ask?

Japan

Pros:

- Tax is included in everything and it’s only 5%. They don’t try to scam you with their prices like Canadian stores do.

- The service in Japan is great. When you go for a haircut, they really give you the works, for the exact same cost it would be for a normal haircut in Canada. When you ask someone to get something done for you, whether it’s at the post office, or at an electronics store, they will literally run to complete the task. They don’t waste your time.

- You don’t have to tip for anything making taxi rides, restaurants, and hotels relatively cheap experiences. This is why Japanese people eat out often. And the funny thing is, even though you don’t have to tip them, their service is better as I have already mentioned above.

- Trains are wonderful in Japan. They are always on time and they are fast. The system is intuitive to use and is very efficient.

- Girls in Japan, in general, are a lot slimmer and much cuter than North American girls.

- The streets are very, very clean in Japan. You rarely see any garbage lying around on the streets or sidewalks.

- Bathrooms are generally very clean and are often decorated to be just like a washroom within your own home. If they have a western toilet it usually has many wonderful features such as a bidet and heated seats.

- Most things in Japan are automatic, such as taps, dryers, and doors which result in a more sanitary environment

- Technology is far better here. I was blown away by all the features that a cell phone in Japan has that the one I had back in Canada didn’t.

- Musical instruments, cell phones, furniture and computers are all much cheaper in Japan.

- There are many more second hand stores where you can buy CDs, DVDs, furniture and games for really cheap.

Cons:

- I have one hell of a time trying to find clothes that fit me. The sad thing is Japanese style is so cool too. You only wish you could fit into them! Shoes here only go up to about 27 centimetres. At some stores you can find larger sizes but your selection will be extremely limited. Shirts mainly go up to LL here which is the equivalent of a Canadian medium. Pants rarely go over a waist of 85 centimetres.

- When I go out to the restaurant I can’t understand what is on the menu. Not necessarily because I can’t read it, but because they use so many ingredients that I’ve never heard of before. If I do indeed have allergies here it may be near impossible for me to narrow down the possibilities. Then there are always the Chinese characters that I can’t read either.

- Food at the grocery stores. Where to begin with this one? There are so many foods that I was so used to eating in Canada that I can’t find here, or if by happenstance I do find them, they are terrible (usually caused by the Japanese’s need to put their own spin on it), or they are horribly overpriced. A short list of foods that fall into these categories are: pizza, subs, cold cuts, chewy candies, olives, pickles, cheese, bread, pasta sauce, beef, cereal and popcorn. Everything in Japan has either mayo, rice or seafood in it. Sushi is very unlike sushi in Canada, with natto (fermented soy beans that look like mucus) sushi, to my regret, being the most popular kind of sushi in Japan. Pizza uses very untraditional toppings such as corn, breaded fish, shrimp, and mayo. I haven’t found pure ground beef yet. All the ground beef I have found is mixed with pork, usually in a 7:3 ratio. Bananas are usually in the black ripening phase and I have yet to see a green banana. Grapes are 900 yen a bunch and if you eat the skin of them you get sick. Pickles and olives are near impossible to find, and if you do find some at a foreign foods store, they usually go for 9 dollars for a small jar and they taste like garbage. There are no delis (at least in the Canadian sense) and all cold cuts are the non-fresh plastic wrapped garbage no one buys in Canada; the only cold cut you’ll be able to find is ham.

- Consequently, because the food is so different, my body still hasn’t adapted and I’ve been sick since I got here. Even after going to the doctor’s the medicine he gave me was for the birds. Even the examination that he gave me was Mickey Mouse.

- If you live in Japan you won’t be able to avoid squatters. One day, the western toilet will be out of order, be occupied, or not exist entirely. And when you’ve had that bad sushi and nature is calling quite loudly, it’s time to become immersed in this aspect of Japan with unrelenting force! For those that don’t know, a squatter is essentially a hole in the ground that you have to do your business in. It’s hard to keep your balance and you can’t sit down and relax (hence the term squatter). I also have no idea how to use a squatter without taking off your pants with my fear of messing them in the very awkward position you have to squat in to get things done.

- In most stations’ washrooms, they don’t have toilet paper. If you don’t have tissues with you, you’re in for one interesting experience.

- If you are a gaijin, you can’t get a loan in Japan. They will turn you down flat out and give you the excuse that they don’t have enough information on you.

- Information spreads like wildfire here. Everyone gossips. Whatever conversation a person has with you or whatever they see you doing will be the topic of the next conversation, no matter who they are talking to next.

- The banks close at 3pm and are open only from Monday to Friday when people are at work.

- To get anything done at a bank it takes forever, mainly because everything requires paperwork of some sort or is convoluted with the use of an inkan. An inkan is a personal seal that is unique to you, usually within your prefecture. Without this, major things such as automatic account withdrawals, applications for services, and the like, cannot be completed. A signature for most things in Japan is not enough and will be rejected. In a sense things are much more secure, but they take forever to process. It’s my theory that this is some kind of job creation. Also, banks often have internet banking, but the most use you can get out of it is checking your balance. You can’t actually pay bills online or anything, as per reasons I just stated regarding an inkan. The funny thing is, when you actually go to pay a bill, you normally don’t do it at a bank, but at a convenience store with teenagers as the employees. Yeah, cause who would have thought that a bank handled money matters? It’s nice trusting a student to process your $2000 plane ticket when earlier you were trying to teach them how to say how the weather is in English to no avail.

- There are no casinos in the traditional sense in Japan, just pachinko parlours. For some reason it seems to be the biggest form of entertainment in Japan. In my small town there are three huge pachinko parlours. Yet, there are no dance clubs or movie theatres to be found. I find pachinko boring personally as it is much akin to slots. You push a button and balls fall down. Yet these things are always packed (and full of smoke to boot). I just don’t see what’s so interesting about them. They are pretty noisy too and hurt my ears so I can’t stay in them for long.

- This is the land of martial arts and anime. But, I have yet to find an anime store that sells more than just manga and a small selection of anime videos. Also, the only martial art I know that is offered in my town is karate and it’s only on Wednesdays in the town’s only gymnasium. Even while wandering through Sapporo I have yet to find anything advertising martial arts, although I’ve been told it exists.

- All the chairs in Japan have really short backs to them. This place is a nightmare to anyone that has a bad back. If you sit down and try to lean back, you always find that the chairs end before the middle of your back and you either have it dig into your back or you hunch forward.

- Even though the streets are clean in Japan, you’d be hard pressed to find a garbage can anywhere. If you have garbage, you usually have to carry it with you until you get home.

- The garbage system in Japan is really tedious. In my house alone, I have six different garbage cans lined up in a row to separate the garbage into. Also, bags are transparent so everyone can see what you are throwing out, and if you haven’t sorted your garbage properly, the garbage police will come after you.

- Brand new CDs and DVDs are really expensive.

- Students can’t be forced to go to school or study (although most teachers do their best to get them to). A student can’t fail a grade; they will be bumped ahead to the next grade until the end of junior high school. To get into high school you need to get a decent grade on a standardized exam, however.

- I don’t understand dating here at all. When I was in Canada, not once can I recall ever getting a fake number. Yet here, over half of the ones I’ve received have been fake. On top of that, the dates that I have gone on have been fairly boring. And to further add insult to injury, even when I thought a date went really well, the girl never ends up calling your back, or starts throwing excuses at you to avoid you! I think “foreigners can get tons of women in Japan” is seriously a myth.

- I haven’t made a single decent Japanese friend since I’ve been here in Japan for the last three months. I have a Japanese keitai (cell phone) but the only ones to call it are usually my Canadian friends that came with me and now live in other far off parts of Japan. People say they are your friend, but then never call or invite you to anything.

- The two-facedness of the Japanese makes me sick. Waitresses and cashiers put on a fake high voice to make themselves seem more polite.

- Japanese girls are, in general, boring. Many put on too much makeup, wear stilettos half their height, walk bow-legged, have no breasts, and can be seriously dumb. I recall recently a ride back on the train and a group of four girls were talking about nothing but what was on a certain izakaya’s menu.

So altogether that’s 5 pros and 6 cons for JET, 11 pros and 20 cons for Japan. By numbers alone one can already see what my decision is leaning toward.

I started out fairly optimistically when I entered Japan but I’m having some major problems. They can be summarized as follows:

• I can’t get used to the food and can’t find clothes that fit me
• It’s difficult for me to get anything done because of the language barrier
• I don’t fit in and haven’t been able to make any friends
• I feel I don’t have a purpose in my job and could be making more money in Canada
• I miss my real friends and my family
• The things I enjoy about Japan are difficult to find

For these reasons, I have decided not to recontract and will be returning home in August. I just need to concentrate on saving my money, finding some things to do outside of work that I enjoy to take my mind off the lie that is called my job, and do by best to try and make friends with people from my own country since I haven’t yet been able to so with any of the Japanese. For those that wish to participate in JET in the future, heed my words – JET is not the wonderful experience that they would like to have you believe.

Now of course, this brings up questions of what I am to do with my future, but that’s a topic for a later post (but not too late, I’m running out of time!)

So after being here for a while I’ve heard that there are quite a few gaijin bars in Sapporo. Feeling kind of bored, I figured I had some money to blow and wanted to check out at least one of them. It was a very spur of the moment decision type of thing and I didn’t plan things as well as I would have liked. On the train I used my cell phone to find the address of the first place I wanted to see, conveniently named “Gaijin Bar.” Because time was short, instead of taking the subway, I just grabbed a cab. For the first time, the cab driver actually greeted me in English and asked me if I only spoke English. I was quite surprised, but as he was struggling I told him that Japanese would be ok, although it made me quite happy to see someone was trying for once. I arrived at the block I wanted to get not after long.

Aside: Sapporo doesn’t have street names, but it does have a wonderful grid based system where you can locate a block by using cardinal coordinates. For instance, Gaijin Bar was located at South 2 West 7. This makes things quite convenient for cab drivers and foreigners alike to communicate to each other where they want to go.

I walked into Gaijin Bar which was located on the second floor. The place was small, and it was pretty packed. But, to my dismay, everyone was in a group and there was really no one to approach to start a conversation with. I ordered a beer and started walking from one end of the bar to the other. I noticed that about half of the people were in costume. I had forgotten that Halloween was approaching. As I walked along, I was stopped by a Japanese man in his 30s who wanted to strike up a conversation with me in English. Phew. I no longer looked like a tool wandering around a very small bar with no place to hide in. He was standing with who I found out later was his girlfriend who was also Japanese. He told me that the reason he spoke English is because he was a NOVA student. For those that don’t know, NOVA officially went bankrupt as of the 26^th. After telling him that I was sorry to hear about NOVA our conversation continued. I found out his name was Nori and his girlfriend’s name was Haruhi.

Finally after having some beer in me, I wandered over to the group behind them and greeted them. It was a group with a rough looking man, an older man with a white goatee, and a drop dead stunning Japanese girl who had to be no older than 20 dressed in a bunny costume to boot. I talked with the rough looking man first and he seemed nice, but he had too much to drink and wandered off in the middle of the conversation with little transition mumbling something unintelligible to himself. Then I introduced myself to the man with the white hair. I found out his name was Peter, that the girl standing next to him was his girlfriend, and that he was actually the owner of another gaijin bar I had heard of called TK6. He was a friendly guy and I thought he had an English accent, but later found out that he was from New Zealand. He told me that he should actually be working at TK6 and he was being a bad owner by spending time at another bar. I told him that I’d like to check out TK6 since I had never been there before and said I might see him later.

Since my mission was to explore more than one bar this night, I decided to head out and check out TK6. As I was leaving, Nori asked me where I was heading. After I told him I was heading to TK6, he decided to join me and his girlfriend tagged along as well. So the three of us headed over.

TK6 was a bar about double the size of the last one. But, upon entering, I noticed that there were way too many foreign men in the bar. I guess they all had the same idea I did - that by going to a gaijin bar I might meet some girls that were open to meeting foreigners. Oops. Every Japanese girl was tagged by some guy so it was fairly hopeless for me to get anywhere. So I spent the rest of the night talking to Nori and his girlfriend. As The White Stripes’ Seven Nation Army was playing in the background, Nori decided that he wanted to be the social butterfly and wandered off leaving me and his girlfriend alone. I found that kind of humourous seeing as they had only been together for six months. We had a nice chat, although her English wasn’t quite at the same level as Nori’s. She told me that she had stayed in Australia for half a year, and that’s how she picked up English. She told me she was 34, liked to sing at karaoke, enjoyed traveling, and that she was a dental hygienist. The conversation was a tad awkward at times because it was not smooth, and because her English wasn’t the greatest I had to lead the conversation. Eventually in this situation you begin grasping for things to say.

With the intention of purely making new friends (34 is too old for me anyways) I asked her for her e-mail but she hesitated. I laughed and said I wasn’t trying to hit on her and said I’d get her boyfriend’s later, which I did. I said goodbye to Nori and saw Peter on the way out and said farewell to him too. I grabbed a cab and made it to the last train home.

As icing on the cake I ran into the girl that lives above me on the way home and we went to an izakaya for a couple hours before finally returning home.

In conclusion, I probably won’t meet women at a gaijin bar, but at least those kind of establishments are more my ground. There are a few others that I’d still like to see, so you can expect another interesting story in the future.

So today I woke up thinking that today would just be some normal day at school. I would say ohayou gozaimasu after I walk into the teacher’s room and we would have our regular morning meeting and start the day. Nope. Not today.

I walked into the teacher’s room after greeting everyone and sat down at my desk, and then the Japanese language teacher walked in. He took off his jacket and then in front of all the teachers started yelling at the English teacher that sits beside me. Ok, if you haven’t learned it yet, Japanese people are usually indirect. This direct confrontation blew me out of my chair and I actually went into fight or flight mode.

It was hard to understand what the Japanese teacher was angry about but I knew it involved one of the students who was probably a pitcher. Japanese isn’t the easiest to understand when it’s being yelled at you! The English teacher kept saying, “I didn’t say that” and was almost in tears. Finally after five minutes of yelling, the principal finally grew a pair and walked up to the Japanese teacher and told him to chill and that his “loud voice surprised everyone.”

After the dust settled I discreetly asked about what the hell just happened. It turns out the Japanese teacher is in charge of the baseball team. His pitcher left the baseball team to be a part of the student committee and the Japanese teacher thought that the English teacher had coerced the student into doing so. She said that she didn’t. But the student would only have time for one club so the teachers were fighting over it.

Whoa there boy. Let’s back that up a tad. Teachers were fighting over who was in what club? Couldn’t the Japanese teacher just find a new pitcher? Did he really have to blow his stack in front of everyone like that? All I know is, that was one hell of a way to start a morning.