So Long...

I say, "So Long" to Japan. It's been the most fun I have had in my life. Being able to have this kind of freedom, I feel very lucky. Living in another country with a great family, eating great food every night, and stepping out of my comfort zone on a regular basis. I wish everyone could experience something like this, whether just for a week or for years...

Everyday I start to add things to a list of things I will miss in Japan and here are the current contenders...

1) The Class I teach English To
2) Being able to go out late any day of the week and eat at delicious restaurants with friends
3) Speaking/hearing Japanese on a regular basis
4) The lady I see every morning on my way to school. I see her walking a different dog every day, and each one slightly resembles her...
5) Coco Ichiban Curry House (A cheap and delicious unhealthy Japanese Curry meal)
6) My host moms cooking and my host sisters insane cooking...oh man their Kimuchi Nabe is insane.
7) Japanese Toilets (Self heating seats MAKES the difference)
8) The new friends I've made at school. Being able to make friends who don't understand you in your native language is a very interesting feeling. I've made friends from China, Japan, Thailand, Korea, Netherlands, Poland, and Vietnam...I never ever thought I'd have friends all over.
9) The new friends I've made on my trip. It's strange that I came here knowing absolutely no one and now have friends that I consider some of my best friends.
10) My host family. The funniest and nicest host family of them all...

Things I won't Miss/Things I am happy to get back too...

1) Fruit. The fruit here, although much tastier, is disgustingly expensive so it's a rare eat. I'm looking forward to eating fruit on a more regular basis.
2) Better Showers...
3) Japanes Toilets (though the one in my house has a self-heating seat...public toilets are a dread)
4) My Bed
5) My real family (and yes, Step-family is included)
6) My other moms cooking and the food she buys (i.e. bagels...dear god, I want bagels)
7) I won't miss being stared at so hard you can feel it in the back of your skull...
8) Masks...I hope they don't catch on in the USA
9) I miss my guitars...
10) My friends and teachers back home...



The bad toilets...


The good toilets...



Working at the Cram-School teaching english...

Searching for My Mind (As I Am Unsure Where I Lost It)

While the clock is slowly (was to fastly) clicking down to the time I lave. I have a lot to do. I have to get some good gifts for my host family, I have to get hotels ready for my family when they come, I have to hang out with my friends before I leave, I have to register for classes for next quarter at school, I have to finish writing songs that I started, I have to... well I just have a lot to do. This is a position I should never ever be put in. When it comes to taking responsibility to get things like this done, I am not the person to put in charge. There are somethings, that I have extreme interest in, that I will work myself to death trying to finish. For instance, I worked hard on helping produce and get permits for a submission to the Chicago Comedy Television Pilot Competition this year and I worked my butt off. When it came to filling out papers for my study abroad to Japan, I just couldn't get myself to do it. When I want to finish recording a song or finish writing a song, I will lock myself in my room until it's done. When I have to wash my clothes because all of them are dirty, I will avoid it like the plague. Ask my mother, I wouldn't be in Japan if she hadn't helped me out.


I have had to book a lot of hotels lately and it took all the energy out of me. I booked a hotel in the town I live in but they didn't have enough rooms on the days I wanted. They had two rooms open on the 18th, but not the 19th. The other hotel in the city luckily had rooms on the 19th, but not the 18th. This worked out conveniently, though having to switch hotels will be hectic. Yesterday I was contacted by the first hotel saying they have space the second day. So I called the first and cancelled. Starting to get annoying? Yeah, that's just the beginning of it. The same thing happened with my sisters hotel in Nagoya. The hotel in Miyajima, and Tokyo. I haven't reserved a hotel for my second return to Nagoya yet, though I should probably get on that.

In order to relieve myself from the pain of reserving things (I think I just hate to use the phone, especially here because it's harder to understand Japanese on the phone since you can't see any gestures...gestures speak louder than words.) I have been writing a lot of music. I started writing two lullabyes and a small collection of piano solos, kind of jazzy-bluesy-boogie-woogie piano solos. All of them are about the different trains I ride/have ridden here in Japan. One is called the Tsurumaisen Boogie Woogie. Tsurumai is the name of the line sen is "line". The others that are coming are the Meijo-sen, Higashiyama-Sen, Meitetsu, Shinkansen (bullet train), and possibly a small Aonomi-Sen. I haven't really written anything in months and they are just pouring out and it's a great feeling. There's no forcing, writing has never felt easier. It's also nice because since I haven't had a guitar here I've been able to work on my piano skills a lot at home. I can't wait to get a guitar in my hands though, as much as I play piano, it will always be my mistress. Guitar is my true love.

For those interested, I have loaded the Tsurumai-Sen Boogie Woogie (in its current Synthesized Piano, slightly unfinished status) to my music website http://www.purevolume.com/michaelmalarkey feel free to visit and listen.

My older sister arrives in two days, I can't wait. It's a lot like having this weird dream you get excited about so you keep telling people about and everyone just goes "...oooh cool...yeah..." but then you get to finally get to bring someone else into the dream with you. Maybe that's a strange analogy, but that's what it feels like...

Happy Mothers Day Mom and any other Moms or Grandmas who read this.

The Tanjyoubi!

Here is exactly how I celebrated my bithday in Japan...

First, let me say that I wasn't really looking to celebrate my birthday, I didn't really care at all. On the 29th, I actually had forgotten that my birthday was the next day... anyway...

Once a year my host family's extended family from Tokyo comes and visits. This year it was on April 30th. We went out to an incredibly expensive, incredibly delicious Japanese style restaurant called "Hari Hari." We were put in our own small room with a very low table. Under the table the floor is dug out and you put your feet below. My hostaunt, two host uncles, and two host cousins were there. My host mom, host sister, host dad, and host grandma... I guess I could have left off the word "Host" for all of those and you would have gotten the idea, but...it's too late to go back.

All your food comes on separate plates. One small plate with sushi, one with some vegetables, a small bowl of soup, etc. You get ten or eleven different plates of food. It's a lot like eating at my grandma's house where each thing requires it's own plate. (The land where a sandwich, an apple, blueberrys, chips and cheese can never share one plate. Clearly each one necessitates it's own resting area.) I was wished happy birthday by everyone and my host grandma got her mothers day wishes because everyone was around. Following lunch we went downstairs in the building to a fancy cafe/cake restaurant. We drank coffee and orange juice and they brought me out a big cake covered in delicious fruits (not a fruit cake) and then my host-extended-family gave me expensive chocolates and some nice little tea treats. We took some pictures, chatted and then we went to my host familys house. Here we talked, drank tea, I played piano for them, we watched TV and it was nice.

At about 4pm, I met up with my friends and we went to a kaitenzushi (the place where the sushi travels around the little moving sidewalk thingy on little plates.) I ate 12 plates (about 20 pieces of sushi), and a piece of cake. I felt so sick. All of my friends were mostly out traveling so I was only with my friend Lisa and my friend matt but it was really nice keeping it low key. Sometimes it's really difficult to go out here because everyone always wants to come and it ends up being a big a group and everything gets harder when there's too many people. It's not that it's BAD with a lot of people, it's just a little much at times. We walked around and drank some soda. That was it. It was a relatively low-key birthday which is just how I like it. I couldn't have been happier.

Today, however, my friend Jessica wanted to celebrate (she's a very motherly friend) and so she invited a bunch of people out to lunch (The same Kaitenzushi..I could barely eat there after eaching all those sushi last time.) It ended up being me, Jessica, and 4 Japanese girls from school. Lunch was good because we all just talked. They gave me some Japanese Mochi-Ice Cream. After we went downtown to Sakae and they went shopping. How I end up getting stuck with girls who want to shop is beyond me. I've had years of practice though, growing up with two sisters and my mom. I wandered around and watched them all touch various articles of clothing while they considered buying it... it was entertaining. I had fun... but...I don't really think any males idea of a fun birthday celebration is watching girls shop. No offense. I still had fun though.

Thanks for any birthday wishes I recieved from anyone! I will surely see everyone soon (The unfortunate countdown has begun...About 28 days left.) Part of my wants to stay forever but part of me is a little tired of being an extreme outsider, it's a very interesting feeling. It's strange coming from America. I realize now how blind people often are to other people's race because we are so used to seeing all different kinds of people. Again, thanks everyone.

-Mike

Oh Johnny!!

Johnny Ohkura... The greatest Japanese rockstar of them all. My host parents gave me tickets to his concert, they weren't really sure who he was, they knew he used to be famous in the 70s, he was coming to Nagoya and that he's a rock and roll man. They gave me some tickets and a small poster that showed an intense older man with large sideburns sporting a purple velvet suit with a giant white collar towering out and sash tied around his neck. His guitar was a big purple one and boy did he look cool.

I had no idea what to expect (I say that, but I really did have a pretty good idea of what to expect just from the poster...) It was incredible. I went with Lisa and Bob, my two friends here. We entered the club, put our belongings into a little coin locker and watched this older gent rock out to a half empty club. Even though he's older, kinda washed up, and a lot of his songs sound the same, the man could really rock. His band was so together and on top of things. They rocked out, people were dancing, everyone was extremely drunk (except for us as it was a thursday night and our last week of classes and we all had big tests the next day.) We were also the youngest people in the club by about 20 years. The audience consisted of older business men and women, small superfan groups who all had greasy pompadours and leather jackets that said "JOHNNY!" On the back, then there was 3 exchange students.

For two or three songs we just kinda bobbed to the music and watched as some of the most drunk people we've seen in Japan moved to the music. Eventually Lisa was flagged down by a man and some women, she wen tover and boy oh boy did she cut the rug up. Soon enough Bob and I were all dancing...well... the lady wasn't really dancing...more like...moving...to the music. Lisa put it best when she said "You had NO idea where she was going next." He body was just thrown around randomly until she got a little dizzy and had to stop...yikes...She was awesome, her strange behavior included frequently holding my hands and spinning herself, sticking her finger into bobs ear, and sucking on lisa's cheek.

Johnny himself was quite a strange inspiration. He's famous, but he's not superstar...but he acts like it, he was a huge diva. He absolutely has fans and he has fun music, but it's not liek he's selling out arenas or anything (for now at least...) He could have easily been your average burned out ex-rockstar and acted like a jerk and played a half-ass set to the half empty club. But he didn't. He acted like he was the kind of the fucking world. He walks out in his sparkle vest and giant collared shirt and just owned the place. There weren't many people and he absolutely knew, but he didn't care at all he gave it 163.7%...his all. At times he'd leave the stage while the band played an instrumental selection, when he returned he'd have a large towel hanging around his neck...but then he'd grab both sides of it and break it apart with a powerful face only to reveal it was TWO towels that said "ALIVE THE LIVE! JOHNNY OHKURA!" and he'd spin them in the air and finally throw them into the audience for his super-fans to wrestle each other to the floor to get their very own "ALIVE THE LIVE!" Towel. Amazing... Following his towel trick, his stange hand would come and put on his guitar while he stood and just glared into the audience. Then another stage hand would come out and fix his collar and sash. He was a total diva. I loved it. He knows he's isn't the biggest star int he world, but he doesn't care, he makes everyone think he is just for his concert and as I said before, it's oddly inspiring. I don't think having a big ego is a good thing by any means, but for him, when he's on stage is the best thing in the world because it gets everyone excited and a little bit jealous. His songs were kind of a mix of Chuck Berry, late Elvis, Early Rollingstones, and other various Rockabilly/Rock and Roll bands.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Johnny Ohkura!

Type A Influenza

I don't get it. I floss. How many people actually floss? I eat vegetables, I drink a vegetable juice for breakfast every morning, I eat fruit and salads, and I shower regularly. I was my hands often and don't do very bad things to my body. Why do I have Type A Influenza? I wish I had an answer, but this happens all the time. Though it's been years since I've gotten the actual flu, why did it have to find me NOW. One more week of school is left, all my finals and papers are due this week except I was instructed by the doctor (which I'll get to in a minute) that I have to wait a week to go back to school.

I woke up this morning with 102 degree temperature. Yesterday the temperature was almost completely gone but today, for some reason, it was super strong. I was light headed, not hungry, and my whole body hurt. I wasn't upset, I was just kind of annoyed. My host mom insisted that I go to the doctor. I agreed and we went. First I get there and they make me wear a mask, I could understand this, they don't want me to get everyone sick incase I have flu. They take my temperature, and I just lay on a bed for a while. They tell me to go into the doctors office and we talk. He asked me questions in broken english and I responded in broken Japanese. My host mom could hear this in the waiting room and told me that everyone was laughing. Oh well, I tried.

He lay me down on another table and said " Influenza Examination. close your eyes and squeeze this tissue." I watched him pull out the worlds longest q-tip and I wished I had closed my eyes before I saw it because I knew it was going in my face. He put it up my nose. I felt it go into my nose but it just kept going deeper and deeper to the point where my eyes were watering and I could feel the q-tip cleaning off the back of my skull. I checked for chuncks of brain when he pulled it out but my eyes were watering so bad that I couldn't see. The tested it and it came back as "Type A Influenza" and he told me I couldn't go to school for a week and that I'd be feeling better by monday of next week, not the monday coming up...the following one. Oh well, I've had worse things happen in my life, although sometimes I wonder if this is actually worse than the time I vomited on my grandma's bed from jumping on it and eating popcorn at the same time when I was 6.

A Fight to the Finish...

This weekend (Saturday morning) I am scheduled to take a trip with my fellow abroad students to Nara. Of course I am very excited to go to this old city that has the worlds largest brass buddah, tons of old temples and shrines, and tons of aggressive hungry dear. Of course, whenever something exciting is going to happen what happens to me? If you know me, then you know the answer is, I get sick. The day before I came to Japan I got the stomach flu (which I managed to wrestle all day while I ran errands), The summer before college? mononucleosis and my wisdon teeth out. Stevie Wonder concert here? Got a cold. Host-Family trip to Shizuoka? Sick. Trip to Nara? SICK. Of course I have been very light hearted about all of this because I am still lucky enough to be in Japan and being in Japan and being sick is much better than being back home and being sick. I came home from school today took my temp (which rings in at 101 degrees or 38.3 degrees in celsius). Although being sick sucks it does give me a nice break to relax.

Explaining what happens when I get sick is very difficult for me here because my host family continues to believe that the reason I am sick is because I didn't have an umbrella in the rain yesterday. Sure someone could get sick from that, but I haven't slept well for a few days and I've been working and everyone at school is sick, not to mention the packed trains where I am face to face with people who are wearing masks full of their germs.

The strange thing is about being this sick is that even though I should be angry and frustrated (as I was right before I came to Japan.) I haven't really. Everytime I'm about to get angry or frustrated something good happens. For instance, I was in my room translating song lyrics and my host mom called me out for dinner. I was really really tired, had a horrible headache, and a serious case of the chills. My host mom went into a frenzy of Japanese and I was having a hard time understanding as my head wasn't all together. I just kept quiet (I am good at it) and started eating. In Japan, it's easy to feel better when you're feeling beat and down, just turn on the TV.

I watched a TV show where two men have little houses attached to each other and there was one wall missing. There was a big gate that opened into a little fenced off field that was full of Goats, Sheeps, and one cow. Their mission was to live with these animals for one week, every morning they would have to get them to enter thier little houses and then milk them and that's all they could use for food for one week. They pretty much just ate cottage cheese for a week. It was perfect to see because it was so ridiculous seeing two Japanese chasing Goats and sheep around. There was one black sheep that hated being milked and they would chase it screaming "Kurochyan! ochichi!" which means "Ms. Black! Milk Please!" I don't know if that is funny to anyone, but I find it hilarious.

Japanese people put "-San" "-Kun" "-Chyan" "-Sama" after everything. Mt. Fuji? Fujisan or Fujisama. sama is usually what people would use for a king or a god or someone who is very very important. Sometimes they will refer to fish they are about to cook as "Sakanasan" which means "Mr. Fish" I am not sure, this is an educated guess but I think it has something to do with shinto, it is believed that there is souls and deities in almost everything...all of the "incredible natural wonders" at least. Mountains, Trees, Flowers, Animals, the Ocean...things like this.

Anyway, I am sick with a temperature and if I don't feel better tomorrow I'll miss a Kanji test and a trip to Nara so I am going to go to sleep.

A little lift up...

I don't have much great news and I thought that people might want my blog to have a little bit of a pick up because it's been a little bit on the downs...

Since not everyone will be able to enjoy the wonderful joy of Japanese Television, here is a nice clip I saw and that I think everyone will enjoy... I don't think any context is necessary as it makes no sense no matter what...




Enjoy.

Here it Comes...

I attended my first ever Japanese baseball game. It was beyond interesting. The game was the same but all the bells and whistles that go along with it were all different. We were in the `fun` area, the farthest seats from the field. First, let me start by saying, I have never been to a stadium that is so clean in my life. A man spilled some little cracker things on the ground and a security guard came over and immediately cleaned it up.

Quite a different experience from being ankle deep in peanut shells. The audience was an interesting group of folks too. Of course you had your younger college student age fans, the families with kids enjoying the game, and of course your older-sports-fan-man group. There was also a huge number of cute girls, and a surprising number of older women who were dressed relatively nice. There was a 70-80 year old woman in front of us and a librarian women near us too all enjoying the game together....


Also, everyone partakes in song and mildly choreographed dances throughout the game. Yes we have our "Take Me Out To The Ball Game" which I have come to realize is pretty cool, BUT these were throughout the entire game and entire stands were screaming/singing and dancing together...it had a whole other feel. It seemed a lot like a soccer game in Europe except all in Japanese. They had cheerleaders who ran out onto the field every now and then and would do some silly dances and get everyone pumped. Each time a new batter went up they all sang a song that would give him good luck to hit a home run. THEN whenever the teams would switch and the Chunichi Dragons (My team) were up to bat they had a song for the whole team. It was just silly and fun. People kind of stared at us for a while, while we sat and observed the behavior.

Other things I have been noticing and loving about Japan is its sense of community, friendship, and family. This was something I also found rather powerful in my trip to Africa. Japan is a little different though. At any time of night (usually between 9 and 12 at night, people just "come over." They always always always bring some kind of present, usually a box of small sweet treats that are to be enjoyed with tea. It's pretty rude to show up at someones house for anything empty handed. Tonight, for example, my host-aunt and host-uncle and their children came over at about 9:00pm. They brought some sweets and people just sat and talked and had tea for an hour or so then they left. It was just a casual "stop by" type of thing. Other visits have included past students of my host parents, friends, and family. This is something that rarely happens in America, with my family at least. Dinner with the grandparents, or a stop by usually has to be planned out and wouldn't be that late. It's these little things that I think I'll miss the most when I have to go home. Other things I'll miss include amazing tea, great food, and heated toilet seats. You haven't truly experienced all a toilet has to offer until you've sat on a heated toilet seat. (They also tend to have many other features with weird sprayers and other buttons that I haven't really experimented with...)

Family Bonding...

As you have probably noticed (specially noted by my little sister) my english has been getting poorer and poorer. I often speak in a weird hybrid language containing Japanese, English, and Onomatopoeia. This works fine for anyone in Japan who speaks English and Japanese. It doesn't work well on the phone. Phone conversations have been the hardest struggle for me (Phone calls directed to America). I don't know if my family noticed but I fight myself to not say things like "Hatsuon" when I mean "Pronunciation" or "Hai" instead of "yes" or throw in a pretty little "Ah! Sou desune!" when I want to agree with something. It's quite difficult. A good example of what happens is when a friend of mine was looking up "Computer Science" in an English-Japanese dictionary and thought "What the hell...Computer isn't even in here..." He soon realized that he was looking at the "coN" part of the dictionary because that is how you'd spell Computer the way Japanese say it (Conpyuuta).

I'm sure this will all change after a day in America again...saldly, it will most likely mean that my Japanese will start to get worse though. That's a shame. I don't want it to get worse. Today we had presetations in front of a Japanese audience. the 300 Levels went first, then 400, 500, 600 and finally 700. Seeing the 700's was ridiculous. Their Hatsuon (See above for meaning) was great and they flowed so well. They gave a presentation on something serious...something about starving children. I couldn't understand it and some teachers even confessed the Japanese was so advanced that they didn't understand some of it. I want to get to the 700 level one day...but at the same time, I don't. The 300's and 400's were definitely the most entertaining of the presentations.

In other news, since my host Mom is in Hawaii enjoying the rays. I've been eating dinner with my host sister (she's 28). We watched a TV show the other night where there was a big blank Calendar for a week. (Monday - Sunday) and there were two hosts. Each host picked 7 of their favorite shows from other countries. They then explained the shows and showed clips to a Japanese Celebrity Panel and everyone voted on what would be shown on each day of the week at 6:00 at night. Many of these shows I've seen. It included Cheaters (A show where the host helps women catch their boyfriends in the act of cheating), the Swan (a plastic surgery reality show where they choose the ugliest person they can to give them a full body plastic surgery makeover), But Can They Dance? (The Dance version of "American Idol"), 101 Amazing Things Removed from Human Bodies (I don't think this needs to be explained...), the Worlds 10 Best Mummies (...exactly what it sounds like)...and "Hells Kitchen" (Some famous chef is SUPER mean to training Chefs, one is eliminated each week). It was a really interesting experience to see my host sister react to these shows. Especially the Chef one. Japanese are often polite, especially when it comes to complementing others. This Chef takes a bite of someones food and says "This tastes like DOG. SHIT. (They didn't have to censor it...weird.) it was subtitled. Japanese people FREAKED out. They wre like "WHOA! I CANT BELIEVE HE SAAIIIIDDD THAT!!" Or he'd spit food out which is so Shitsure (rude).

They call the shows "Audition Shows" which makes sense. They loved the dance one, especially seeing the audition clips of people who are bad at dancing. The 101 things removed from peoples bodies was way way over the line for them though. No one could look. Even I could barely watch. One was two guys riding on a motorcycle and they crashed into a truck carrying poles and it went through both of them. They both lived, but were stuck together. It shows the process of them removing it and all this stuff...it was hard to watch...This one was up against the worlds 10 best mummies. My host sister was yelling "ZETTAI MIIRA!" which means "DEFINITELY THE MUMMY SHOW!!!"

Everyone seems to think all thes whacky reality shows came from Japan, but they didn't really. I think ideas are taken from them but my host sister claims Japan never has such things. They have more game-show esque games which usually have funny punishments... I explained Fear Factory and she didn't even want to hear about it. All I said was "people eat bugs..." and she had had enough... I love this country. I'm sad to be returning so soon 5 months is not nearly long enough, though I'm glad I'll be returning and thinking "I don't want to go" rather than "I really need to be going home, I'm so tired of it here."

Hanami and Dinner Last Night

I haven't written anything in a long time, not because I am busy, not because nothing interesting has happened, because I just haven't had time to use my computer in a while...

So every spring when the Sakura (Cherry Blossoms Bloom) what do Japanese people do? They get drunk. It's probably one of the coolest celebrations of the year though. The trees bloom and parks suddenly look like clouds have landed in them. The Japanese take this as another excuse to let loose. So far this year they've had Oshogatsu (New Years Celebration), Setsubun (The Bean Throwing Festival), Hadaka Matsuri (Naked Man Fest), and a few others here and there. This fest rolls around and it's time to get down. EVERYONE takes part in it too. Parks all around the country get giant blue tarps laid out where people can sit and have picnics. Some parks have sign up sheets where you sign out a spot to have your picnic. Then, you and your friends show up and drink all day and night. Some companies will send people out in the morning to reserve a spot, the people will wait there all day saving the spot and then at night the other show up and boogie down together.

Sunday when the blossoms really started to show themselves I went for a walk with my friend for a few hours checking them out. Then today class was held at Tsurumai Park and all we had to do was write one haiku. Then we walked around, ate lunch, ate ice cream, and just got to relax. It was a great start to the weeks and I wish we had class at the park everyday...




Last night, my host family got home from their trip out to Shizuoka. My gift from the trip? My very own strawberry bush that has strawberrys slowly getting ripe on it. I couldn't be happier. I love strawberries. We then sat down for dinner and ate Whale Blubber Miso Soup and a giant Tuna Fish's Head. It was massive, big enough that everyone in the family shared one and there was still plenty left. It was hard to go at it at first but it was pretty delicious. I was even given a spoon and was offered to eat some of the Eye. They pulled the outside of the eye off and scooped out the back of the eye area and I just dug right in. It was pretty tasty buuuut once is probably enough.

My host mom left for Hawaii today. SHe'll be there for a 5 days. Her suitcase weighed 30 Kilograms which is 66 pounds. How's that for over packing? She's visiting some people in who she visited for a wedding a year ago and before she met them she wanted to write them a letter in English. Since she's really amazing at english she was fine writing it but she wanted me to look over it. There was a few grammar points I changed and I had to break up some run-ons to make it sound a little more fluent but she's so good at english... my favorite line was the following... (Midori is the girl who got married, she is writing her parent-inlaws.)

"Midori called us the "Crazy Japanese Trio" because we became so relaxed without our husbands that we shopped so much that our bags became so large that when we were in the elevator it became so narrow that other people could not board. SO STUPID!!!!" I don't know if anyone else finds this funny, but I really really did and I laughed when I was reading it. My host dad kept asking me what it said and she told me not to translate it for him...

As Always If you'd like see more pictures from the Sakura season and my little exploring of a shrine, feel free to go to www.michaelmalarkey.myphotoalbum.com

What... a WHAT? Park?

About a week ago, I went on a mini-trip to Kyoto. It was here that I went to Arashiyama. Arashiyama is a cute little area in Kyoto where they have a nice little river, a monkey park, a bamboo forest, and some cute little stores. Wait... what? A Monkey Park? What is a Monkey Park? Good question... This is a monkey park... What you are seeing is a shot from after a small hike up a mountain. There`s a little park that...well, I`m not sure ifi ts FOR monkeys or for people but taken over by monkeys. I didn`t think it`d be so weird to see monkeys in person. There are swings, a slide, benches, handrails...everything a regular park would have except the monkeys are all running all over so...I think it`s theirs. Also they were probably there first.Though it appears it`s in a cage, it is actually the opposite. At the top of the mountain there`s a cage where humans sit to be protected from the animals. You can walk outside but you might want a little break from almost stepping on angry monkeys. (At least I think they were angry. All of their faces were so red. Maybe they forgot that SPF30, it was the first really sunny day in a while)

The rest of Kyoto is a beautiful place. It is full of beautiful shrines and temples (over 1000) It`s hard to get more than 5 in in one day though so if you go, go for a few days. One place we went to was Fushimi-Inari where there is an endless row of Torii (these big red gates). Look towards the center of this picture and, its hard to see, but theres this kind of reddish brown line that goes all the way up the mountain to a shrine. That line is all Torii... since it takes two hours to go up the whole thing, we decided to just walk through a little, I got the basic idea.

More to come. The cherry blossoms are blooming now and by next week they should all be bloomed.

A Case of the Shakes...

I woke up this morning at 9:40. "Why?" you ask? Because there was an earthquake of course! It was probably the least scary natural disaster I've encoutered because it was pretty weak (4.0). However, north of me where it "really struck" it was 7.0 which is pretty pretty heavy. But still, it was a very strange feeling, I woke up and the room was shaking and I thought "WHO IS DOING THAT!!!!" and I was kind of angry, then I realized what was going on and just stared at the shaking light and though "this CAN'T REALLY be an earthquake..." I stared more, after about 30 seconds it was done and I completely passed back out. When I woke up and went out of my room, my host parents were gathered around the TV and said "There was a big earthquake North of here, I can't believe we didn't feel it." "I felt it!" "Hahahaha, no you didn't" "Yes. Yes I did." "No, we would have woken up..." then we had guests over and the first thing they said was "Did you feel the earthquake this morning?" I turned to my host mom and said "IN! YOUR! FACE!!!!!!!" I didn't say that. I mildly though it.

This is How Japan...

There was a plane about to land in Japan, a regular domestic flight. As they checked the wheels, they realized the front set could not drop. This made a problem. Though the plane was large and safe, there were propellors so if they touched the ground there was sure to be a problem. They decided it best to do the following, put all the wheels down that were possible (all except those in the front of the plane.) Then fly around for two extra hours and wait until all the fuel was gone so they wouldn't blow up. While this was happening, they cleared the whole runway and sprayed it with fire extinguisher foam. The plane landed completely fine. In fact not a single person was injured. The font of the plane dragged on the ground and made nothing more than a few sparks, then the plane stopped and everyone deboarded. Apparently, they did, however, countdown to the landing which would have scared the crap out of me. "ONE MINUTE UNTIL LANDING.... THIRTY SECONDS....FIFTEEN...FIVE...FOUR...THREE...TWOOO.... OOOONNNNEEEE." Tell me that's not good preparation...





Of course as always there are pictures to be shown... the Spring Break Trip pictures were just uploaded and are ready to be viewed at ...
http://michaelmalarkey.myphotoalbum.com/

A Short Travel...

-Shinkansen-

On the list of great things I've done with my life, I can add peeing at 186 miles per hour. The Shinkansen (Bullet Train) was our means of transportation to and from Hiroshima and Himeji. It's the fastest, smoothest, and coolest train I've ever ridden on. I think it's the second fastest in the world, I think there's one in China that's faster. BUT it's pretty fast. I didn't even realize how fast we were moving until a non-stop train passed while we were waiting at the station in Himeji. It's dead silent until it's directly in front of you and it scares the crap out of you. It just blows by. Inside its pretty much exactly like an airplane, it's great. Chicago needs a shinkansen train instead of the El, imagine going from south loop to Evanston in like 4 minutes or something. (That was not calculated and was just a random number.)



-Hiroshima-

I saw lots of pictures of Hiroshima and the Atomic Bomb Dome and the peace park. I never would have thought it'd be as powerful as it really was. Our hotel was literally across the street from the atomic bomb dome. The atomic bomb that leveled the entire city went off 490 away from the building and it was the only building in the epicenter of the blow that survived. The building was left as it was after the blow as a memorial and a rememberance of what occured. It's a really beautiful place, but it kind of has this really heavy weight to it. The peace museum was definitely the strongest part. They have tons and tons of artifacts from after the blast that are just terrifying. Like someone was waiting outside of the bank when the bomb went off and the only thing that was left of them was this kind of shadow of them sitting there. They have the actual bank steps with the persons shadow in the museum, it's creepy... I figured it was a good place to see and experience though. I enjoyed it.
Atomic Bomb Dome


-Miyajima-

This could possibly be the most beautiful place in Japan. I can't say I have been everywhere but it's ridiculously beautiful. We took a little ferry out to the island and got off only to be swarmed by people loving deer. These things want food and if they don't get it, they will eat your map or clothes. I got a few butting me with their heads and chewing on my jacket. We bought some little crackers and fed them, it was fun and kind of scary. I never thought I'd be afraid of deers but those guys were aggressive. We went and visited what is considered the most beautiful shrine in all of Japan. It was. It's in the ocean so when the tide is up it is in water, when the tide is down it's on a beach. There was a shinto wedding taking place on it the day we were there and we watched for a little, as did tons and tons of other people. I felt a little awkward standing, so we left. We explored the island a little. We took a cable car up almost to the top the kind of hiked up to the top. There were little red faced monkeys up there. One of them ran over by us and hid then screamed at this lady and scared the crap out of here. It was hilarious. We stayed at the most awesome hotel ever too...



The shrine at lowtide




-Himeji-

Japan's national treasure. It's got a giant giant giant castle that has not been rebuilt. There has been a little bit of fixing up, but it's all done using the same techniques that were used in the times of it being built. It was really beautiful. I was pretty tired from traveling everywhere else that I didn't really get to take it in as much as I wanted, but it was still really cool to see. It's weird as hell to think that people live near a castle. I wish America had castles. They are such a foreign concept to me. It's just so intense saying something like "I live near a castle." A CASTLE. Just think about that. A giant white beautiful Japanese castle. Weeeeeiiiiiiird.

Hounen Matsuri (The Fertility)

Hounen Matsuri...

This is the Fertility Festival in a little suburb of Nagoya Japan. While it turned out too look a lot like a penis worshipping festival, it was slightly different...slightly.

The point of this matsuri is to give good luck to those who are trying to have children or to prevent childhood sickness's to those expecting. I think over the years it's kind of lost some of it's purpose in a few ways. Like...the part where buckets and buckets of free sake (rice wine) is given out to everyone. I don't think pregnant women really NEEED that, though I am sure it lowers peoples standards to the point where more children are concieved.

There is a shrine (Tagata Jinja) where people go to pray for these types of things. There are tons of phallus shaped wood carvings and rocks here to pray on/to.



There is a nice large parade esque march from one shrine that is about a mile away to the Tagata Jinja. From the far one, a giant giant penis shrine is carried. First a priest walks by with salt to put on the part of the penis shrine. Following this, various people run around giving out more free alcohol, then various other shrines and things are brought by. Finally a giant flag is brought by to teach the male anatomy to everyone. (Though, it's probably not the male anatomy people need the lesson on, probably the female Rubik's Cube of an anatomy would have been more productive for everyone...no offense...) Anyway, finally the big guy arrives (I can say guy, because it's a penis.) It's carved out of a tree (Cedar I think.) it's 620 pounds and 96 inches long. It's brought to Tagata Jinja and everyone cheers when it makes it there.



(This is the final stretch... the were spinning it faster earlier but I think they were tired after a mile and 620 pounds.)



After this little show they put on they throw rice cakes off of a raised stage (about 20 feet up). They warned us before hand via a PA system that old people and young children should NOT partake in this. We figured it was kind of a silly little warning that Japan just HAD to say because someone probably got hurt ones and sued. There were buckets and buckets of these big white rice cakes (not dried rice cakes, they looked like balls of dough), guys came out and on the count of three started throwing them into the audience. I reached up to catch one and I'm pretty sure the rice cake stopped, took out a bat, and hit my hand and fingers with them. Because there is no way a rice cake should be that painful to catch. Suddenly it went from cute little balls of dough to realizing they were hard-as-a-rock-rice-hockey-puck-bullets. I tried to take a video of it but it's hard to see what's going on because I was scared for my life and stopped paying attention to the camera and payed attention to what could possibly be the last few seconds of my life. I ended up catching two. This was a horrible idea for a potential musician.




We witnessed some serious casualties as we left the rice cake party. One guy with a broken nose sat with blood all over his hands. (I'm not kidding, they were HARD. AS. ROCKS.)

Anyway... what a weird festival. Of course, for my photographs feel free to visit
http://michaelmalarkey.myphotoalbum.com

I'll be away going to Hiroshima/Miajima/Himeji for the next 3 days... stories to hopefully follow...

Pulling Through the Grey Area

I frequently have too much on my plate. Especially as far as hobbies and interests go. As soon as I start to make progress on one thing it spawns an interest in something else.

Sometimes it feels like I am downloading 30 at once so everything goes really really really really slow. (How about that for a 21st century analogy.) I was always kind of mediocre at Japanese. I'd have little speed bursts. The same thing happens with guitar. And piano. And electronics stuff. And tech stuff. The most stuff I started learning, the slower each one got at each one. This is the first time when I have kind of "stopped" everything except one. My Japanese has improved a lot...but it works a lot like my Jazz guitar. I can hear things just fine. I know what I want to say. When it comes to forming my own ideas on the spot, I choke...kind of. It's not a horrible fall on my face kind of thing. I can get simple basic stuff out and be fine, but when it comes to doing what i really want to do, I can't do it as well as I'd hope... this sounds likes it getting sad. It's not.

My speaking, the hard part, has gotten a lot better. I think this has to do with my complete immersion in Japan. (Other than my occasional computer uses and secret TV shows that I download from time to time.) I don't have a guitar near me. I have a piano, but no sheet music. I can't really push myself with music or electronics or anything of this sort. I can do what I already know well and tighten that up some, but I can't move forward. My Japanese, however, that seems to be moving ahead juuuuuust fine. I wish there was a land where people only spoke in Jazz. ii-V-I's and alternate changes, piano fingerings, guitar technique, and composition terms. Oh yeah. It's called Music School.

COUNTDOWN To Hiroshima/Miajima/Himeji: 3 days.

That is Soooooo Japanese, Also.

I just had to share this...

on the third floor of Nanzan Daigakku's E-Building (The school I go to) I noticed this by the hallway windows...





As you can see. Incase of a fire, you are supposed to wrap a belt thing around you and jump out the window. This is a perfect example of the brilliant yet strange inventions that Japan has to offer. If this were in America we all know that some couragous college student would try it out when there wasn't a fire and would surely kill himself. His parents would then sue the school for having it... it would just get out of hand. I get sad when I think about that. All the genius live saving inventions we COULD have but alas, we can't have.

Anyway, I think I am gonna try it out this week, wish me luck!!!!!

Secret Part 4.

Sometimes, when there is a food I really like, I pretend I don`t know what it is so my family will make me taste it `for the first time.`

Re: Sick

Dear Japan

1) Get some soap in your washrooms
2) Get some Towels to dry your hands in the washrooms.
3) Stop giving me acute viral nasopharyngitis.

Other than that, you are all good. Thank you.

-Mike

Approachable Mr. Me

Yesterday I went to my first English class. I just started teaching with my host mom at their Cram School. Cram School is a second school that Japanese people go to. During the day they have school, then after school they go to ANOTHER school that kind of covers the same stuff to help. It's long though, like 4 or 5 hours long. I only teach one 50 minutes period though. My students are eleven twelve-year-old boys and one girl of the same age. My host mom warned me on the walk over that they are probably going to be really shy and afriad to talk to me since I am good at English and they don't know me. (Japanese tend to be very shy when it comes to speaking English. This is why a lot of them aren't very good at speaking but many tend to be excellent with reading and writing...)

I walked into the little Cram School and my host dad was finishing up teaching his Science class in one of the classrooms. My host mom and I waited outside for him to be finished. The second he opened the door to step out, a door-full of a faces filled the door frame all saying "Hallo!" "How Are You?!?" "Nice to meet you!" "Hey!" I walked in and those kids were just bouncing off the walls with their english. By age 12, they have had no real English experience. They exercised all the English they knew in the first 10 seconds.

I went over the first half of the ABC's which they were already able to recognize but they don't know the English way of pronouncing the letters names. Then we covered some of the words that Japanese borrow from English. "Radio" "Pizza" "Sandwich" "Jacket" and practiced pronounciation. It was quite fun. We then did self introductions. "Hello, my name is Mike. I come from America. I live in Chicago. I am 20 years old. I have 5 people in my family. I like to play music." Then they tried.

When the class ended I was called into the other room with older students who wanted to talk. We did some basic conversation stuff, I drew a map of America and labled chicago. They asked me to draw in the 5 great lakes which I could not do...they currently have a false perception of where Lake Ontario, Eerie and Huron are. I could fill in Chicago and New York just fine though.

No one was afriad of me. No one in this country is. They don't really have a reason to be afraid of me I guess. I am skinny, fuzzy, really white and make strange faces frequently. Although, once a Japanese friend of mine sat in my seat when I got up to walk around at lunch one day and when I got back she said "Are you mad at me because I am in your seat?" "No, not at all, it's fine, I'll just sit here. (at another chair)" "You look mad!" I was smiling and kind of laughing "Why?" "Your eyebrows look mad!" These Malarkey eyebrows sure can be a curse sometimes. For those of you who watch Seinfeld, their is an episode where Uncle Leo gets his eyebrows singed off and Elaine paints on new ones for him and they are pointy and angry looking so everyone always thinks he is really mad and mean...yeah...I'm pretty sure that's me in this country....except only sometimes.

Today when I was standing at a Convenient Store with my friend a group of tennis players from a university just walk up and go "HELLO!" "OH REALLY????" "HI!" "I AM SPEAKING ENGLISH!" "I PLAY TENNIS!" to my friend and I. We had a half english/half japanese conversation...but of all the IES students I seem to get the most people who approach me to try speaking english. I am not sure why, I feel like it's a big practical joke....anyway...

When I got home my host mom told me she was amazed at how laidback American teaching method is. She said she loves it. All I did was steal ideas from how I learned Japanese. I think the Japanese approach tends to be a little serious and "by the book." Casual English isn't widely understood. For instance, one of the most common "slang" phrases in English "What's Up?" is so utterly confusing for many people. To those who don't know what it means, of course it's weird to hear, it has no real meaning other than "what exists above you?" or "What does the word 'up' mean?" depending on how you look at it. You would think that this would be an early lesson since everyone says it to everyone.

Instead of knowing this, they just have a much better understanding of English grammar and a good set of polite english phrases and words. For instance my host mom used the words "Symbiosis" and "Lucrative" the other day. I know what they both mean, however, I can't recall the last time I used either of them. Lucrative, I guess, is a little more commonly used...

Anyway... I'm on Spring break in one week and I am exciiiiiiiiited.

The Quiet Pain...

Japan is awfully smart when it comes to certain things. I was given a newspaper article, from my father, about the following...

A lot of places don't really like teens loitering so what do they do? They send out this high high frequency that is usually so high, adults can't really hear it. Young people, on the other hand...we can hear it. Loud and clear. I stepped out of a convenient store and I felt this pain in my teeth and I could hear this pitch. I remembered the newspaper article and thought "well...it seemed cool when it was on paper, but this is just stupid." I also learned that a lot of kids use this to their advantage and get cellphone rings that are these frequencies because their teachers can't hear them sending messages in class to each other.

Everyday in class we have to arrange desks into a circle. We just changed rooms from a carpeted room to a room with a hard floor. Let me tell you what the most painful sound ever is... arranging desks into a circle by dragging them. Japanese desks are all very old and heavy and no one reallly wants to lift them, with good reason. This is also another one of those sounds that makes your teeth hurt. This isn't anything that is specific to Japan, but I just thought I'd add it on since it's a new part of my stay here...

In other news, more gooder news...

I have my first part time job (Arubaito) with my host mom. She teaches English, and for some extra money, she does a night class thing for younger kids. I get go in and teach with her. The kids are all 12 years old and have no english learning experience. They know a little, just from hearing it and other random things, but they've never studied it. My host mom says English sounds beautiful when spoken by a native, she especially likes when I talk to my family on the phone.

I personally think English is a really funny sounding language. I even asked my host sister to speak in English jibberish. We all kind of do fake jibberish of other languages, I was curious what we sound like to those who don't know English. We all kind of do funny Spanish or Italian, maybe Chinese stereotypes of what we think languages sound like...though I cannot transcribe what the English Jibberish sounds like, I must say, it is really really hilarious. There was a lot of B's L's and R's and my host sister said that there's a very specific rhythm that stands out when we speak English which I thought was funny.

That's all for now really, nothing else too new is going on.... I'll update more later.

HADAKA MATSURI

First, a brief history of Hadaka Matsuri (The Naked Festival)...

The Matsuri (Festival), I attended, takes place on the 13th of January on the Lunar Calendar which, this year, was on March 2nd. (Other Hadaka Matsuri take place on other days too). It was in Konomiya.

A week before the actual festival, a man is selected at random (Kind of a drawing straws type-o-thang). He then must shave all the hair off of his entire body and lives and prays in the Shrine the festival takes place at. He is the "Man of God" and represents a purified divine character. He eats nothing but rice and water for 3 days before the fesitval takes place. One the day of the festival he will be completely naked.

The day of the festival, a lot a lot a lot of men dressed in white loin clothes go to the shrine with their "team". A team, I understand, can have from 10 people to 200 people from their town/area. The bring a large bamboo tree, or many, bound with colorful cloth. They carry these down the street to the shrine screaming chants and stuff. They do this to have good luck and make their wishes come true. They drink lots and lots of sake at this time. Then they all stand around waiting for the "man of god" to appear. They then attempt to touch him and get good luck. This is very difficult for a few reasons. 1) everyone is drunk. 2) People beat the shit out of each other trying to touch him. 3) there are hundreds and hundreds of almost naked men trying to touch ONE naked man. 4) there are "goons" who try and stop people from touching the naked man. They run around with buckets of cold water and throw them in peoples faces and as i witnessed...hit people in the face with their buckets.

The festival is actually for people who are ages 23 and 42, in shintoism, these are unlucky ages. However, any age can participate.

After about an hour, the naked man makes it to the shrine. (He's been trying to get there for a while...it's kind of his "Finishing line". He will faint many times before making it to the finish line and will be covered in cuts scrapes and will be pretty bloody.

My Experience:

This festival is insane. We got there around 4:00 which is around the time the naked man is released. We were down towards the shrine enterance watching. We saw a lot of teams bring their bamboo to the shrine. There was tons of screaming, coins thrown, and cheering. I thought to myself "I could TOTALLY do this. It looks so fun!" Around 5:00 they set up a new guard/gate about 10 feet away from the gate we were watching from. This is when I started to question whether I could do this or not. The "Goons" showed up and were throwing water in peoples faces. People started to get a little rough. Twenty minutes later the naked man arrived. I actually saw him, which was surprising because he's almost impossible to see. BUT I saw his bald/not-so-happy-face pop up for a second then go back down. I feel like it's one of those things that seems like a good idea...then when he draws his straw and it's the naked man straw, he's like "uh oh. I dont want to!" Then after 3 days of rice and water he's like "DAMMIT. I AM SO FRUSTRATED! WHY DID I DO THIS???" Then when he steps into the street to run to the shrine, he's like "NO. NO. NO. NO. NOT FUN! NOT FUN! I DONT LIKE THISSSSS!!!! WHY AM I NAKED???" Then finally, the next monday at work, he's sitting at his desk, covered in bruises, scabs, and still bald, people are like "So, Craig, what'd you do this weekend?" (everyone giggles) "Why don't you just finish your work, Marcus. I didn't make fun of you when you forgot to finish those time sheets last month!" "yeah but I wasn't naked and bald and..." "just FORGET IT, MARCUS!" Except with Japanese names and in Japanese.

There were a lot of people carried out covered in blood and scrapes and were clearly too drunk to finish participating. There was a lot of punching, elbowing, and hitting going on. I won't lie though, it looked like fun. I would immediately regret doing it, if I were to ever try this festival. When some guys would try and step out of gates to take a break. These old men shrine guards would run out and start kicking them and pushing them and they'd have to go back in. It was hilarious.

Festivals in general here, are really fun. There is a ton of great food, funny people, and just a good vibe. Everyone has fun, except for the naked man. Today (and yesterday actually) was Hina Matsuri which is the girls festival. NOTHING like Naked Men's fest. There are just these really beautiful dolls put out in homes and at places. There is a lot of good festival food too. I had some last night. There's these little shoots of bamboo filled with jello stuff, it was goooood.

Over all, I love this place. As always, feel free to leave comments.

Fuzz...

Today while walking to lunch with my friend Matt, we came across a very interesting difference in Japan and America. The "crazy people" in Japan all seem to devote themselves to jobs. This might be an illusion since maybe we don't see all of them. However, riding the trains, there are frequently people who just stand at the doors and anounce the train stops out loud to everyone. They don't work for the train company, they just kind of harmlessly stand around screaming out train stop names. There's a guy who goes to the same corner every day and is a crossing guard. For hours. It's not his "real job" but it seems that to him, it's his job. Some people just sit on the train platform with a watch and check to see if the trains come ontime or not. They aren't harmful, but I frequently see these people who have "jobs" that they aren't assigned, they just feel some obligation to do them. It's almost backwards... The people that seem to be out killing and brutally murdering people are stressed school students and business men. The people doing jobs for the community...are the "crazy people." Just an interesting little thing I noticed.

I am currently watching a commercial on TV for an air conditioner that has a sensor on it so it knows where you are in the room and blows air towards you... wow.

I get to watch a lot of TV here. 1) it's really funny and entertaining. 2) It's great listening practice. 3) The first thing my family does when they get home from anything is turn on TV. If we're sitting down for dinner and the TV is off, they turn it on, and actually move it so they can see it better. One day the TV broke and they had to take it in to get fixed. Dinner that night was so awkward that night because there wasn't TV going in the background. We don't have cable or anything so we don't have many channels, maybe 9. It seems the only types of shows they have on...ever...are News, Dramas, Game Shows, Food Shows, or Food Game Shows. My favorite game shows are the following...

1) People get guest chefs to make them the most expensive menu they can make. The contestants order the food not knowing the price. Each person gets to eat their meal then guess how much it costs. The person farthest off has to pay the whole bill in the end. Meals are usually between about 80 and 200 dollars and there are usually about 6 or7 contestants so you could imagine the bill.

2) There are two teams of 5 and they are asked questions with 5 letter answers. They each are at a booth and can't see each other and have to write one letter of the answer. For instance... A question could be "What instrument does Herbie Hancock Play" The first person writes "P" the second write "I" third "A" fourth "N" fifth "O". Except the words are harder and they change language sometimes. Sometimes they are in english, japanese, kanji... you get the idea. It's really entertaining.

3) Two teams of two people, there's a comedian and a guest famous person. The comedians ask the other teams guest questions that require words borrowed from english or other languages as answers and if the other person uses one of them, they lose. Like "Whats your favorite kind of juice?" if they say "Apple Juice" they'd lose points because the Japanese word for "Apple juice" sounds like "Ahpooroo (Apple) joosoo (Juice)". Another fun show. They have random interludes of food too.

Then of course, there are a ton of random shows with people having to guess what the Kanji readings are and things like that. Let's not forget the late night ones where people have to do ridiculous things like wear raw meat on their heads and put their head inside a cage of alligators...but I don't tune into those TOO often. There are also tons of cooking competition shows with celebrity guest judges, those are fun too, especially all the dessert competitions. They are kind of masters of dessert here...though the Malarkey's could give them a run for their money maybe.

Naked Man Festival... 18 hours!

God, That is sooo Japanese...

I have been noticing more and more interesting Japanese perspectives from my family recently. For instance...

Last night I was explaining what the "Polar Plunge" is. My little sister did it in Wisconsin this past week or so and I thought it was an interesting thing that Japanese people would probably find interesting. I explained it (For those of you who don't know, it is to raise money for the Special Olympics. You raise pledges and then dive into a frozen lake. Saftey, of course, is there to make sure you don't die...) My host family really didn't get it though. They kept asking "So, she gets money from people. Then to say 'thank you' she jumps into the lake?" "No, not quite, it's more like 'How much would you pay me to jump into this frozen lake?'" "I don't understand, why would someone pay her to jump in the lake? It's cold and dangerous." "Exactly, because it is cold and dangerous." "...." "...." ".............." ".................."

I guess that is just the "American Way" This morning I explained what a Date Auction is, my host mom loved that idea, she thought it was so funny.

Another funny thing is the way I eat, compared to how they eat. My host dad stopped me and asked me why I had so much rice left. My host sister said "All the host students we have always save most of their rice for last." I realized that I eat each little chapter of food until its gone and then move on. I rarely do one bite of food, one bite of rice, as they tend to do here. My dad said "That's crazy! Rice has no taste! why would you want to eat it alone??" The answer is: Rice. Is. Good.

Another thing I am realizing is that, probably because my vocablary and speaking ability is that of a child, my mother thinks I am a child. I was sharing starburst and reese's with my family to see how they liked them (They love them) and after I popped a starburst into my mouth, my host mom said "Make sure you brush your teeth!" She also likes to point random things out to me. Last night, at the grocery store, she stopped me in front of a little food stand and said "Look! They have a stove!" Then this morning as I was leaving and saying "Ittekimasu!" (which is what you say when you leave) she started laughing and when I asked why she said "I was going to tell you to make sure you have your gloves and commuter pass...I keep forgetting that you are an adult." Then she continued to laugh the whole time she walked me outside.

Also, on a side note, last night we went to a Kaitenzushi (The sushi restaurants where the sushi is on the little conveyorbelt and you take what you want) and when you'd order your own sushi on a separate track, it'd be brought to you on top of a little Bullet-Train. It made eating 1000 times more fun... I guess I am a child.

Naked Man Festival Countdown : TWO DAYS

Trains, Trains, Trains, Trains

I'm not sure what it is about me, whether it's my incredibly pliable and stretchy skin, beatufully thick eye brows, thin hair, or pale semi-transparent skin... but it seems that I'm a very approachable person in public. Not all Japanese people think this, especially my Japanese Peers. Those who DO like to approach me are old men, small small children, old women, then last is probably junior high boys. Junior high girls will approach me, but only when in large groups. I think nearly everytime I ride the train, an old man will at least look, smile, and wave at me. I do get a frequent conversation though and they usually seem to be pretty crazy conversations...

While at a train station my friend and I decided to take the elevator down to the subway. As the elevator arrived we heard an old man go "It COMES SO FAST!" (but in Japanese). We tried to hold back our laughter. Then, the entire ride down the elevator he wouldn't stop saying "Irashhai!" Ira-Ira-Ira-IrasSHAI!!!!" This is the word people say when you enter stores and restaurants to welcome you to the store. When we got to the bottom he said "That was fast wasn't it?" and we nodded and walked away. We met up with our other friends who took the stairs and suddenly the old man appears in our little circle out of nowhere. He kept telling me that the train was coming and we should get ready. He then laughed at us and he said he was laughing because we were laughing at him. It was awkward. But funny. I made him sound like he was a crazy person. He was. But he wasn't REALLY. He was just a nice old man trying to make us laugh. (He was crazy.)

We rode the train one stop, transferred to the train home and of course what happens? An old man comes and talks again. He asks us where we are from, then he goes off into this elaborate story about how he used to be a high school teacher, he retired and went to America and went to Boston, Indiana, San Francisco, San Diego, and then came back and decided to be a principal. Then apparently 10 years ago the Emperor of Japan invited him and his wife to his house and gave him a giant medal. He explained this while puffing his chest out and pretended to show off his invisible medal. Then he got off the train.

Of course there is the couple who talked to Matt and I and invited us over. The old man from that couple acts in Noh Theater and is a Flute Master apparently. They also live in a giant giant house and have a Noh Theater in their home (this was confirmed by Matt, he went to their house and survived. I wonder though...).

Today an old man with a giant Blue leather purse sat down next to me and talked to me for a while. He had the worst breath I've ever smelled in my entire life. But he was nice. I knew he wasn't crazy because his daughter was with him and she talked to me too. God, his breath was horrible though.

The other night two older men from Vietnam had a nice convo with me on the train. We were both practicing our Japanese on each other.

OH! Another weird one this afternoon. I was standing on a train and an older man who was clearly really rich (He had a fancy sport jacket on with a really dumb looking purple vest with horses on under it) SLAPPED me. He pushed me and slapped me. Not hard. Very subtley too. The train was kiiiinda crowded. By Japanese standards, it wasn't very crowded. This guy gets on, kinda bumps me with his hip, then pushes/slaps me out of his way. I wasn't sure if I should make a big deal out of it but something seemed fishy so here is what happened... I grabbed his arm as he was walking away and pulled him over to me. I got real close to his face and said "You think you can just push me, but you have NO idea who I am. If this were my territory you'd be in pieces before you even touched me." (In Japanese) he said "Good thing it's my territory and I have eight men on this train who have weapons pointed at your brain!! right now!!!! Make your move, Mister bucko!" (In Japanese, also). I scream for everyone to hit the deck and pull the emergency stop chord. The train slams to a stop and everyone hits the floor, including his goons. I grab the man and jump out onto the tracks. I see the rear train conductor and motion for him to drive off. He does as told. He'll obviously rewarded later, generously. The old man says "Hah, fine, you got me alone now, but what do you think can happen." I say "All I want, is that purple sweater." "You don't deserve to wear this sweater." "Oh yeah? I'll tell you what I do and do not deserve" and in one swift move, the sweater is on me. His inner circuits are exposed. The man is clearly a robot. "I KNEW IT! You're one of the MWE908 DROIDS!" I splash water on him and deflect his punch as I roll flip off of the tracks JUST in time to miss the train that crushes the evil MWE980 Droid. One down, four more to go.

But yeah, an old man in a purple vest really did push/slap me. After that wasn't true. (You probably knew though, since Japanese trains OBVIOUSLY don't have an emergency stop cable.)

I think this blog will ruin my reputation with a lot of people. People I work for and some of my teachers read this I think. I don't tend to be this strange, but I need some sort of random creative silly output for these thoughts. But do feel free to leave comments on these, it's always exciting to see who reads these. Even if the comment is "Yep, definitely semi-transparent." or "Yeah, you DO have thick eyebrows."

Countdown to the Naked Man Festival: 4 Days

Thoughts on Kanji...

Since I've been sick and haven't really gone out today, I've grown slightly bored. My family went out to the Onsen (I guess being sick probably got me out of another awkward adventure), and I think I'll take the time to write a brief essay on my struggles learning this strange strange language.

Kanji: Kanji is a system of writing used in Japan, borrowed from China. It's basically a picture that is a word. For instance..

This is a kanji that means "Day" There are quite a few different ways to read this kanji's sound. You can say "Hee" "Bee" "Nichi" "Jitsu" "Ka". But you can't just pick which ever you like. It'll confuse Japanese people. In different combinations with other Kanji, it's read a different way.

You cannot tell what a Kanji's reading is just by looking at it. The only way is by either guessing based on whats around it, (For instance if you know the word for Post Office and you sound out the surrounding Kanji, you could figure it out) or by memorizing. The only REAL way is to memorize, memorize, memorize, and memorize. You can get by in Japan by knowing about 800 or 900 Kanji. (In order to graduate middle school in Japan, a student must know 900 Kanji, or so I am told.) When I asked my host mom how many Kanji she knows, she told me "2,300" for me to know this many kanji would be insane. One day when there is a way to pull a "Matrix" and download stuff into our brains, I'll be mad that I spent so much time trying to memorize kanji.

For us who speak english, imagine this scenario... The word "person" we know the sound of each letter and that in that combination it sounds liek "person" If I put up a random arrangment of letters liek "Jifdren" We could all sound that out. Now Imagine if when we wrote "person" instead of spelling it we drew a small picture. When we put it next to the picture for the word "fire" it wouldn't be said as "Fire Person" it'd be "Fire Fighter" the sound of the "Person" picture would be changed. What if we put it next to "Airplane"? It'd probably become "Flight Attendant" The picture we use for "Airplane" would then sound like "Flight" and Person would then sound like "Attendant". Confused yet? Great. That's how Japanese works pretty much. Sometimes you can understand the meaning of the Kanji combinations but not know their reading, or sometimes you can know the reading and not the meaning.

Kanji is so weird and difficult there are a number of game shows on TV that involve Japanese contestants having to guess the reading for certain Kanji. It's kind of like the "spelling bee" of Japan I guess. The good thing with learning a language that uses our same writing system is that you can read everything right off the bat. I'm not trying to say Japanese is sooooo much harder, all languages are hard to learn. What I am saying is that, if you know of a place that can download languages into my brain please send me their phone number.

The Bottom of a W

So now that I've had these wonderful two months of good luck. (I am pretty sure they were kind some "greater power" saying "I know I've given you a bunch of shit over the past 7 or 8 years, but if you redeem your tickets now, you'll get two months of fun!") Well it all came to an end literally the day after the Stevie concert when I felt a slight tingle in my throat. 30 seconds later (when calculated in dog-years) my face pretty much appeared to be melting. I currently have the absolutely worst cold I have ever had in my life. It's not the kind of thing that's sending me to my knees, contemplating a return home, or long sobbing phone calls to my family, but it does kind of suck. It was so intense this afternoon, that I left school early. I ditched out on Sumie. SUMIE, the best class in the world! I couldn't get the energy to go to a class where you paint leaves and bamboo in one stroke. So basically, I've got my eye on your cold. Watch you ass.

Now, I don't dislike Japan or anything like that, but I figure now is a good time to express things I don't like/reasons why I think I got sick...

1) Japanese people do not wash their hands. Ever. (except maybe after they cook)
2) When Japanese people DO wash their hands, they don't use soap (Not using soap would be "okay" if they spent time scrubbing, but they do a quick dip then call it a day.)
3) The trains in Japan get so packed that you're constantly face to face with people.
4) When Japanese people get colds they all wear these masks, much like those surgeon masks, and I have a feeling when you're face to face with them, it actually does the opposite of what the mask is used for. I mean come on, this big mask full of the person's breath, germs, it's slightly wet from breathing on it all morning, and it's RIGHT there. It's like a breeding ground for "sick". When a safe distance away, I could see it's purpose, but I mean, face to face...ugh. (I take the train at LEAST 2 times a day.)
5) When people get sick in Japan, they all go out and pretend they aren't sick. Sick days are kind of a "no-no".

That's all for now I guess. I am starting to get a low grade fever which sucks, but don't think I won't take this son of a bitch without a fight. If I had my olive leaf extract on hand it'd be completely destroyed. It's like a sucker-punch-of-a-cold if you ask me, get me when my back is turned. That's ok, I've got Airborne AND Zycam AND a lot of TV shows I can download off of Itunes incase I decide to not go out this weekend. Hopefully this isn't payback for when I made fun of my old roommate for blowing his nose so hard that he vomited into his hands (I mean, COME ON! It happened TWICE!). I REALLY hope this isn't payback.



Fashionable eh?

Will It Go 'Round in Circles

Japanese class is divided into 4 periods each day and we have a different teacher each period. We go to a language lab for one of them for listening practice. The language lab is very close to the one we had in high school. There's the individual cassette tape things, a tv, and a headset with a microphone. Today we started off doing some basic listening exercises, listen to something and fill out a worksheet. We flipped over the worksheet to see something that started to make me uneasy. There was a series of random names in one column, followed by their age in another, their country in the next, and a blank column after that. At the top of the blank column it said "Things they like to do in Japan..." this was followed by "watch the video and then answer the questions".

The last name was "M***ael" (But in Japanese). The video started and low and behold, one of my teachers happened to see the commercial for the TV I was on on Saturday morning. She taped it and then gave it to the Language Lab teacher. My whole class, aboooout 40 people, saw it with me in the room. How many times? Twice. BUT I got a pretty awesome round of applause and laughs afterwards. My teachers gave me pretty good praise too, apparently people are impressed I know that song because it's "so Japanese." It was embarassing, but that's ok. A lot of the Japanese students at my school have apparently seen it too, when I walk into the cafeteria I can tell who has seen it because I'll hear "Zoom In" (The TV show) or "Ue wo Muite Arukou" (The songs REAL name, not "Sukiyaki") then giggles and people stare. People stare at me all the time though so it's nothing really new. Also I don't really care because I've already run, naked, into an old lady. It's gonna be hard to be really embarassed about anything after that one.

Wonder-san

So last night, it happened. I attended my first Stevie Wonder concert and I can pretty much safely say Japan didn't know what they had coming. He pretty much aurally destroyed everyone. He played every good he's ever written and avoided most of his "questionable" material. Also, I was worried that his voice would be all "old" kind of like Paul McCartney's is. Not that McCartney can't rock any place, but in comparison to his younger years, he's lost a little bit. Stevie, my friend, is in his 60s and sings like he's 20. His band had live horns, live percussion, a drummer, a guitarist (who suuuuucked), a bassist, and 4 back up singers who were nuuuuuts. Stevie even used a REAL bright blue grand piano when necessary which was great. He avoided cheesy synth sounds at all cost, except for songs that originally included the cheesy synth sounds.

The place was pretty small, about the size of a largish-high school basketball arena. I had goooood seats. The concerts in Japan seem to be pretty different though. People don't really "let loose" here. So when they hear this funky soulful music their bodies are like "I feel something, I'm not sure what, but I feel something...I need to move. I NEED to. But how?" and the result is this kind of awkward jerky thrusty thing. Ya know when the muppets would dance on Sesame Street and they would just kind of flail around? It was similar to that, maybe mixed with a baby hopping around to music. I'm not saying ALL Japanese people aren't good dancers, but it's just a lot less part of their culture than ours is all I am saying. I am sure if my friends from Senegal came to America and saw how I dance they'd think exactly the same thing. Probably even worse. I only saw 4 other forgieners at the concert too which was weird.

My favorite moment of the night was when it was dead silent, before the show started someone yelled "Stee-bee Wan-Dah SAN!" (Stevie Wonder San!).

Japanese security is pretty nuts. These guys are in really nice suits and have a little arm band thing on, their hair is neatly combed. The rule was, no photos, and don't use your cellphone. If they saw someone as much as holding a cellphone, it was immediately confiscated (I'm pretty sure you can get it back at the end though). During the concert if they saw the glow of a cellphone out, they'd take that too. They don't want pictures taken and they are super stealth security guards. This woman near us took out her camera and within seconds on guard was at her side politely taking her camera and 4 other guards were waiting at the top of the section in case things got too rough.

Stevie came out and launched into song after song. My intial reaction was this: I stood up, clasped my hands together, kind of hunched over smiling and screamed "I KNOW THIS SONG!! I KNOW IT!" to Matt. His response was "I KNOW! BECAUSE YOU LIKE STEVIE WONDER!!!!" Here is the setlist with a few missing...

Too High
Innervisions
Livin' For the City
You Are the Sunshine of My Life
Higher Ground
Superstition
Don't You Worry 'Bout a Thing
If You Really Love Me
Shelter in the Rain
(a ballad where two Japanese ballet dancers came out and danced)
Master Blaster
Improvised Doo-Wop Song
I Just Called To Say I Love You
My Cherie Amour
Signed, Sealed, Delivered
Sir Duke
I Wish
Ribbon In The Sky
Giant Steps (That's right, the Coltrane song)
Part Time Lover
What The Fuss
As
Another Star