Tuesday, February 27, 2007

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


Monday, February 26, 2007

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

Saturday, February 24, 2007

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.

Friday, February 23, 2007

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?

Thursday, February 22, 2007

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.

Wednesday, February 21, 2007

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

Monday, February 19, 2007

A Trip to the Local "映画館"

So I went to the local movie theater with my host family last night. We saw Dreamgirls (English with Japanese subtitles). This was a very interesting experience for a few reasons...
1) Movie theaters in Japan are wicked expensive. a ticket costs between 20 and 30 dollars. If you go to the first or last show of a day, you get half off though, so we went late and it was only 10 bucks.
2) The tickets you get are assigned seats. This has its plus and minuses. If you got tickets to an opening night movie early, youd' get bitchin seats. BUT who deserves it more? The person who shows up two hours early or the person who buys them online fastest? Tricky, tricky.
3) I'd occasionally glance at the subtitles in Japanese and would be kind of weirded out at how different the translation was...then I realized that I was the only American in the whole theater, while some of the other people may have known English, I'm pretty sure I was only person who actually fully understood the movie.
4) It was the best sounding theater I'd ever been to in my entire life. It was kind of crazy.

My host-family pretty much had no idea what happened in that movie. The plot, in my mind, was pretty simple too. The movie was more about the music (which was pretty badass) than the plot. In the car ride home my host mom kept thinking that everyone in the movie was related. Eventually this problem was solved when I explained that "brother" doesn't always mean a male sibling. For those of you who have not seen the movie, it doesn't ruin anything to say that there's a lot of broken love relationships in it. My host fathers response to this translates to "American human relationships are very difficult to understand. I just liked music, and I really liked the sound of the drums." My host family wants to see "Babel" next, we'll see...

Countdown to the Naked Man Festival: 11 Days

Friday, February 16, 2007

Fourteen Minutes and Thirty Seven Seconds Left...

This morning this was a banging on my door like no other. I heard someone screaming "Maiku! Maiku! MAIKU! OKITE!" Which means "Mike! Mike! MIKE! WAKE UP!!" She then told me she saw me on a commercial on TV for a TV show that was about to start. This is what was shown across Japan (luckily at 7:30 before most people woke up, I think)

The link!

I made Japan TV!!!

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=1963114789

Thursday, February 15, 2007

The Fifteen Minutes Might Be Up

So while I was in Tokyo we went to this place called Akihabara. It's kind of a geek-out place with tons of electronics and anime stuff. I liked the electronics, but we didn't have much time to walk around. One our way to the train we came across some people with TV cameras and this really hip looking Japanese guy ran over to our group and asked if we would like to be on a TV News Show. We were pretty scared because we aren't great at Japanese, but figured we could get through with it. The said the girls would go first, then they'd interview the guys. The girls talked about a lot of stuff and were pretty rockin with the Japanese. After they finished they called us guys over. Mike E. is good at Japanese so all of my answers were pretty much based off of his because I could only understand chunks of what the news lady was asking us. But it was ok, and good practice for speaking Japanese. She was basically just asking us what we like to do in Japan, whta we think of it, things like that. My said he liked doing Karaoke and she asked what songs we sang. I said "A lot of American 80s songs..." she wasn't impressed (Even though I do a mean cover of "It's Raining Men" "What a Fool Believes" and "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go"...seriously, they would all leave you in tears.) She asked if we knew any Japanese songs. I remembered back to my Sophomore-In-High-School days where we translated "Ue Wo Muite Aruko" (Also known as Sukiyaki) by Kyuu Sakamoto. She then said "Sing it!" I said "Well..." looked around at the slowly gathering crowd of weird forgieners and Japanese people. "GIMME THAT FUCKIN MICORPHONE, LADY!!" (I thought in my head) "Sure!" (I've recently stopped caring about what people think of me in this country because I already stand out, have run (naked) into old ladies, bathed with old men and unfortunately little girls, eaten fish sperm, sang bad 80s songs in karaoke (seriously, you'd CRY they're so good, and I also frequently drop food/my chopsticks, and bang my head). So I decided "why not do it" it's only some local news show. All the people laughed and pointed at me which I expected and was funny, the attractive news lady even laughed and clapped and told me good job. I'm pretty sure I got a lot of the words wrong. Anyway, after that they told me a bunch of jokes to say and made me redo some random stuff. It was fun! They gave me a fancy pen that is actually 4 pens in one (one blue, one black, one red and a white out pen) that had the TV show info on it. I showed it to my mom when I got home and she totally freaked because it's a national news/variety show that's on every saturday morning. It may not make it onto the news, they said they'd call us if makes it on, but lets just say, I'm in for one embarrassing trip if it DOES make it on! I can't wait.


(Talkin...)



(Singin...)

Monday, February 12, 2007

The Tokyo Syndrome

Tokyo has got to be the strangest city I've ever been to. It's like New York, California, Chicago, old-Japan-town, and small-European-town rolled into one. It's got massive buildings, old temples and shrines, crazy new technology, small windy roads with little bakeries, an ocean...and a lot of people.

When I left my family kinda was just like "yeah yeah, bye bye. See you later." and they all went out to work at night and I left by myself. I wasn't looking for a big "goodbye" but I mean, I was going to Tokyo for the first time EVER. Everyone elses mom made them food for the bus and gave them other goodies. But that's ok!. I took a night bus there. As far as money goes...that was a great idea. 6800 Yen (About $65.00) round trip. The bullet train costs, at the cheapest, about $140.00. We left Nagoya at 10:30 at night and arrived in Tokyo an hour early...at 5:15 in the morning. It was dark out, freezing cold, and nothing was opened. We walked aorund for a while looking for food. Eventually made it to the Hostel 4 hours early, dropped our bags off and walked around our area. We were 1 block away from here...



which lead to here..



I went clubbing for the first time in my life only to learn that Japanese people are worse at dancing than me. This is a great feeling because I looked like a dance machine sent from the future to teach Japan how to move and how to groove to the techno rhythms they seem to love soooooo much. We left, went home, chatted with our Irish and English roommates and then crashed. The next morning we woke up, walked around Asakusa (our area in Tokyo) and then we just wen all over pretty much... in a very loose order we went to the following places...

Ueno Park - we watched lots of great performers perform music, doing circus acts, sing songs. We went a beautiful old art museum that you could spend a week in and still not see all of it.

Shibuya - The most crowde city I've ever been in. It was a constant sea of people, lots of bright flashy lights and giant monitors on buildings. We got delicious cake and dinner food and looked in all of these weird stores. My favorite went from selling garden hoses to sex toys and everything in between.

Harajuku - This places, on weekends, has a bunch of teenagers who dress up in whacky costumes and face paint and hair and stuff. Some are anime characters, some are "ganguro" or "Yamanba", come have signs that say "Free Hugs." There's also people who go there to protest this and say it negatively reflects Japanese culture. this is Ganguro/Yamanda...



Afterwards we went to a Kaitenzushi (the place where the sushi is on the rotating belt thing and you eat all you can.) If there isn't a piece of Sushi on belt that's on the menu you just ask a chef to make it for you and he'll do so. There was one on the menu called Shirakogunkan. Gunkan is a kind of sushi, for instance the ones with the orange salmon eggs..that's gunkan. Now take out the orange eggs and put in a whitish brain looking thing. That's Shirako. My friend Masako dared me to get one so I ordered it and threw it back in one bite. Neither of us had any idea what it REALLY was. i immediately felt like vomiting and faught my gag reflex with all my pride. I settled on moving it to the side of my mouth and slowly swallowed parts of it for about 2 minutes until it was gone. It wasn't bad tasting really, the consitancy was just digusting. It was cold and kind of mushy. Shira means "white" and "ko" means "child" or "children" anotehr Japanese person told me she thought it was part of the female reproductive system. Current research tells me, it's a type of fish Sperm. I ate fish sperm. I want to make sure you all get this. I ate fish sperm sushi. In one bite.

Capsule Hotel... we landed in Akihabara at 9 at night. We had our bags and everything. Walked into the Capsule hotel and immediately realized there was no way in hell we'd be sleeping there. It was dirty and scary and I expected to see a bloody capsule. I didn't, but I thought it might be fitting. We turned around, called our hostel and they let us back in with welcoming arms. I was really scared of the capsule hotel. REALLY scared. Maybe I'll give a second try when I know for sure that it's safe.

Finally, I got home to Toyotashi and walked in. My mom immediately started apologizing to me. Apparently what happened was she thought I was going out with my friends that night and the next morning when I wasn't home, she thought I'd missed the last train home. She called me but I didn't get the message til I got back to Toyotashi. She gave me $50.00 and said "I was going to give this to you for spending money! I'm SO sorry!!!!" then she gave me Chocolate filled with whisky and another kind of Chocolate for Valentines Day. Yeaaaaaaaah.

I'll write more about Tokyo speficics later...

Wednesday, February 7, 2007

The Dullest Akaike

I find myself in awkward situations a lot.

I was riding the train one afternoon with my friend Matt, frequently people will say random things to us in English or Japanese. This doesn't usually happen with anyone else on our trip, but people really seem to enjoy talking to us for some reason. On this particular day and old lady and an old man were staring directly at us with giant ear to ear smiles on their faces. The old lady says "Are you from America?" "Yes. I'm from Louisianna, Mike is from Chicago" (Matt said that.) We had a short conversation about why we were here, what we were doing, what our hobbies were and stuff. Matt said he lives right off of the "Akaike" stop. Coincedene: So do the old people! They told us that the old man was a Noh theater actor. (Noh theater is a pretty strange style of theater... you can wikipedia it if you want to learn more.) And apparently this couple has a Noh theater inside their house. Or so they claim. Anyway, they eventually asked us for our phone numbers and told us we had to go to their house one day. This is where I got nervous...

At our orientation they continuously said "Japan is NOT safe." "Do NOT give your phone numbers out to strangers" "Do NOT tell strangers where you live, or your full name." "Many people think Japan is safe but Japan is NOT safe."

Not to mention the years and years of "Don't talk to strangers." that is drilled into our skulls from the time of birth. or "Don't get into a strangers car." "Don't go anywhere with someone you don't know."

We gave them our numbers...
I couldn't help but think we'd show up at their home one day and there'd be 25 buff men who would torture us. OR they'd brand obscene Japanese words on our faces. Maybe they'd brainwash us to the point where we became sweater-vest-wearing A+ students who says things like "That's swell." or "Aw shucks." I also imagined them saying "Go into that room!" and we'd walk into a room full of American students where we'd be locked into a zoo like room where people would come to watch us walk around a small room that is decorated like an American home so we'd be in our "Natural environment." My family would definitely never hear from me ever again.

Well Matt got off at the Akaike stop and they insisted he get a ride home from them. Matt hopped into their Mercedes and drove off. I still had 8 more stops to go so I kept to the train. The next weekend we decided to call them and see if we could go to their house. How much damage could an old couple do? They never answered, their phone just rang and rang and rang. About two weeks went by and we never saw them. One night at about 7 or 8 during rush hour when the trains were packed Matt and I were riding home and I noticed a familiar face. What are the chances? The old lady and man were sitting in the jam-packed train. I see her wave me over and she said "Can you come over right NOW?" "No. How about tuesday?" "Tuesday at 10 am?" "Perfect." I was nervous, but I also thought, these were just sweet old people.

At school the next day we told people what happened and that we were going over and they all said. "You guys are gonna get killed." or "You guys are dumb." Matt wasn't scared, but to be honest, I was starting to get a little bit nervous...

Tuesday comes, I wake up at 8 am because it takes me a while to get to Akaike. I meet Matt at the train station. The old couple decided to not show up. After 45 minutes of waiting for them and multiple calling attempts, they never showed up. I got stood up by an 80-something year old couple. What the hell? How is that for anticlimactic? I bet they were sitting around the corner in their car watching us and throwing their heads back in laughter. The just LOVE to stand up American college students because we easily just walk into traps. Either that or their torture equiptment was malfunctioning that morning so they called it off. Damnit, I got stood up by two old people. What the hell?

Next Post: Finally, Tokyo.

Secret Part III...

My job is to distribute the miso soup at dinner time. I secretly give myself more miso soup than everyone else because I like it more.

Saturday, February 3, 2007

Setsubun

This past saturday a bunch of the Japanese students at my school arranged a little trip to a place called Osu Kanon. It's a place with a bunch of cool little shops and what not but during Setsubun (I'll get to it in a second) they have a big fun festival. Setsubun is a kind of ritual for the start of a new Season. It's kind of like the New Years Eve of season changings. Basically people throw these roasted beans to get rid of evil spirits and to bring in the good luck. Some people do this in their home but if you go out to a temple there's usually a big gathering. At Osu Kanon, they have a big big temple and this big stage type thing where people throw beans for hours. People gather underneath them with bags to try and catch these beans. You're supposed to catch and eat however many years old you are plus one. (Since I'm 20, I had to catch and eat 21.) I totally made bank with the beans caught about 8. It's basically a giant rough mosh-pit of old people. It was way rougher than I had imagined it would. It was a blast. Old ladies were grabbing my tush like nobodies business. It was, by far, the most action I'll get in Japan for sure. After doing this for an hour or so, we broke off into groups and walked around the shopping area looking at stores and finding cheap delicious food. In Japan, I am hungry all the time. Japan is the king of snack food so I frequently go to the convenient stores and get very delicious food like chocolate waffles filled with ice cream and strawberries, giant cream puffs, chocolate melon bread, or these mean sandwich things. Luckily I do enough walking that I haven't gotten fat...YET. (If I can break 140 pounds while I'm here, I'll be extremely proud of myself.) We later did a set of Karaoke and then moved to the highlight of the evening. Tabehodai (All you can eat) and Nomihodai (all you can drink). This was at a yakiniku (cook your own meat). For an hour and a half (for about 26 dollars) you basically can order where kind of delicious meat you want and any alcoholic beverage you want. It was delicious. I sat at a table with one friend who knew english, then a non-english speaking Japanese student and a guy from China who is in the same level Japanese as me and knows no english. Let's just say I tore up Japanese without even knowing it. I was pretty proud of myself. Knowing I had to get on a train and ride for an hour by myself, I was careful with my alcohol...some people weren't so lucky. I ate so much I wanted to vomit (again... see an early essay on a giant lunch I had). As soon as we left, though, I wanted a cake or something from a convenient store so I got one on my way home. I finished and realized it was a bad idea immediately. I walked in the door of my house and my host mom had saved me HUGE sushi rolls she made and very special miso soup. My host mom and dad watched until I finished it all. Then I drank a cup of tea, two cups of water and ate a starburst I found in my backpack. I lay down to get to bed and was pretty sure i was going to vomit within seconds. Using a very effective technique called "Michaelmalarkeyhatesvomiting" I prevented it and survived the night. I think this story is kind of boring. But I had such an awesome time last night.

Thursday, February 1, 2007

Lessons Learned

How do you top the Onsen story? You can't. Anyone who has read it will probably be utterly dissatisfied with any other message I write...

So I keep missing random parts of my homework here. Not because I don't like it and don't want to, but because I can't read my homework-schedule-sheet because it's in a confusing writing called "Japanese." So today I finally piped up and told the teacher. He told me to "never come back to Nanzan University until I know how to read." He told me this by saying "Haha, here let me explain..." I will, now and always, do my homework.

I don't have a lot of great stories to tell today since this week has been pretty quiet so I will give you a small bit of knowledge about Japanese Culture incase any of you decide to make the trek over here...

Since space in Japan isn't too abundant and 96-98% of Japanese are buddhist, when people die they are almost all cremated. After an extremely extremely elaborate funeral, the casket is brought to be burned. After it's burned the family sifts through the remaining ashes with chopsticks to take out any remaining bones. They pass the bones to one anothers chopsticks, and places them into an urn. Because of this, it's VERY "taboo" to pass any food during a meal from chopstick to chopstick. Always take it, place it on a plate, and then pass it. Or just move the serving place to that person.

ALSO, they often place a bowl of rice out for the deceased with a pair of chopsticks stuck into the rice. Because of THIS, you shouldn't ever stick your chopsticks into your rice when you aren't using them. Instead, lay them across your bowl or plate.

I'll be heading to Tokyo for 4 or 5 days next week and I can't wait. I've got my fingers crossed for spending a night in a capsule hotel!