Sunday, April 29, 2007

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!



Friday, April 20, 2007

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.

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

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.

Friday, April 13, 2007

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.

Sunday, April 8, 2007

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...)

Wednesday, April 4, 2007

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."

Monday, April 2, 2007

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