TeamKB

Byebye Kitty

2010-05-16T22:17:00.002+09:00

Just kidding- nothing is official yet. This article from the NYT suggests that Kitty's days may be numbered, but I think that's far off yet. She may be declining in popularity, but she's still everywhere. I was surprised to read she's not the highest-grossing character in Japan. No, that honor goes to Anpanman, who is, as the article states, "based on a Japanese jam-filled pastry." It can sometimes be called jam, but the more standard English term is bean paste.

Only in Japan would the highest-grossing character be edible. And literally full of beans. He's not really even based on a pastry- he IS a pastry. Well, his head is. That is the part that is edible. Don't worry, Chef will bake him a new head.

Best since Koizumi

2010-02-10T17:33:00.003+09:00

In two years and ten months total in Japan, I've lived under 5 prime ministers. Koizumi was in his third term (terms are only two years) when I first arrived in 2006. Upon returning in 2007, we had Abe, Fukuda, Aso, and now Hatoyama. Quite a lot in two years, huh? Abe and Fukuda resigned over scandals and declining popularity; Aso stayed in office despite scandals and declining popularity. His party was resoundingly defeated in the election last summer. The Japanese don't use the electoral college system (being, you know, not America) but I saw a great American-style map of the winning party by prefecture. 45 prefectures went majority Democratic Party of Japan, while only two stuck with the incumbent Liberal Democratic Party. Japanese politics works a little differently than anywhere else I know of. Cabinet members are always being indicted for their role in some scandal or making ridiculous statements such as "Japan has only one culture, one civilization, one language and one ethnic group." (Courtesy Taro Aso; at the opening of a museum whose displays tell about the influence China and Korea have had on Japan's heritage.) Fukuda also made comments (off-the-record) that some college women who were raped were "dressing as if to say 'Give it to me.'" Yikes. Before you get too mad, remember that comments like this are what helped force him to resign.

Political families are the norm- rags-to-riches tales hold no sway here. Americans have the Kennedys and the Bushes, but just imagine if EVERYONE was from that type of family. Technically, Fukuda was the first PM (in over 100 years of prime ministers) whose father was also a PM, but it is very typical for your close relations to have been Cabinet ministers or members of the Diet. Many political families are related by marriage, too; Aso's and Abe's fathers-in-law were PMs. It's rather incestuous. The average Japanese is not very political; you can guess why. My friend Kayoko once told me she feels she can't trust any politician. People are interested in local politics- I saw plenty of parades leading up to Hyogo's prefectural election day last summer, and some campaign offices for city councilmember hopefuls were located on my street, so I got a front-row seat to the action. But national politics is so full of corruption and scandal that it seems to be a big turnoff. Sidenote: I read a review of Jenny Sanford's book-- juicy!

But I think the revolving door of prime ministers has stopped for now. Since Hatoyama was elected in August, I felt that he was different. He is from a different party, the DPJ, whose image is not as scandal-tarnished as the LDP's. He went to Stanford for grad school (met his wife Miyuki there) and his son is a visiting researcher at Moscow State University, so I thought he'd be more worldly than past PMs. Just as I thought: he has been praised for improving ties with Asian neighbors and making American policy decisions more transparent. But lately he also made a controversial statement: Hatoyama is antihuman!

What he actually said, in Japanese, was that the earth would return to a natural state if there were no more humans. He went on to say that "Since we humans are here, we must take responsibility for the Earth." He also made statements about global warming and how it is a big mistake on our part. In Japan, global climate change is accepted as fact and we have all moved on with our lives and begun to ecologize.

The ironic thing here is that in a country where politicians are constantly making gaffes and saying things they should not, this was not one of them. The Japanese are so much more environmentally-minded than most Americans I've met, and would not have viewed Hatoyama's comments as controversial. Thanks to CNNgo for trying to kick up a storm about his statements. Aren't there real controversies you can cover? Another sidenote: Do you really think Paterson will stay in office?

In fact, I think Hatoyama is the best PM we've had since Koizumi, and perhaps may prove to have a better foreign policy. I'm excited for Japan's near future.

Adventures Await

2010-01-23T12:03:00.003+09:00

So what is this fabulous adventure I mysteriously alluded to in my last post?

Well, it all started a few years ago, even before we left for Japan. Actually, I can even trace it back to an AIM conversation between me and Bob before we started dating. We were doing the all the "get-to-know-you" stuff, and Bob said that his passion in life was to travel. I agreed. At that time neither of us had been to more than a few foreign countries, and had barely seen any of our own country, but what traveling we had done, we liked. And we wanted to do more. So when we were moving to Japan, one of noted Japan's proximity to Russia. I don't remember who first suggested that perhaps we could ride the Trans-Siberian Railroad when we were done with Japan. The original plan was to stay one year, then go home via train all the way to Western Europe, maybe London, and then fly home. I even bought a Trans-Sib guidebook back in July 2007 with some Barnes and Noble gift cards I got for graduating college. Then we arrived in Japan. The plan soon snowballed. We liked living abroad so much that we wanted to do it in more places. So we got to thinking. The plan became to ride the Trans-Sib to Europe and then work there, probably teaching English, perhaps in Poland or Turkey. Or the Czech Republic...or Greece...or Spain... so many opportunities!

At some point we ended up staying three years in Japan, and while we still like living abroad, we want to do more traveling. We do travel every break we get, which has allowed us to see the Philippines, Vietnam, Korea (twice!), Hong Kong, and quite a bit of Japan. But on these travels, especially in Southeast Asia, one always meets long term and round-the-world travelers. I met quite a few of these people when I went to Malaysia and Singapore four years ago, and Bob met several when he went the year after. Meeting people in hostels and hearing their fabulous stories is so inspiring, and also quite jealousy-inducing. The icing on the cake was when I found this great blog of an American family of six who went the whole way around the world without losing a single kid. At first I thought, I'd love to do that with my kids one day. It didn't occur to me that I have a great opportunity to do it right now.

Luckily it did finally occur to me, or Bob, and we started making plans. They were small-scale at first. Well, we already have this plan to go to Russia and Europe. Why don't we add in Southeast Asia at the beginning? It's quite easy to get from Japan to Bangkok, Singapore, Manila, or Jakarta. Then we could just work our way up through China and hook up with the Trans-Sib. And Bob has always wanted to go to the Middle East, so... why not go through Eastern Europe to Turkey, then swing down and see Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Israel, and Egypt? Then from Egypt, Africa is right there....

Several good friends who we met here in Japan have returned or moved to the southern hemisphere, so we decided to add Australia and New Zealand as our first stop. And we had such a good time at home last summer, plus Bob's got a free plane ticket home, that we decided we should go back to America for a month or two. We've also got two weddings to attend. So the trip as it now stands:

Fly to Virginia- stay through at least October 2nd- drive cross-country to California- fly to New Zealand- Australia- Southeast Asia, most likely including Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, Lao- China- Mongolia- Russia- Eastern Europe, most likely including Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, and others?- Turkey- Syria- Lebanon- Israel- Jordan- Egypt- down the coast to South Africa- fly to South America- meander about with a sort of northward direction, and eventually find our way back to VA.

Here's where you come in. If you are moving abroad, live abroad, or have a good friend who does, let me know! We want to visit as many people as possible. Heck, you don't even have to live abroad; we'd love to come visit you on our cross-country trip. We will definitely be seeing friends/family in South Carolina, Texas, Colorado, Christchurch, NZ; Canberra, Melbourne, and Perth, Australia; Damascus, Syria; and possibly Liverpool, England. Know anyone else we should visit? Let us know!

New Year's Resolution

2010-01-06T16:30:00.002+09:00

I'm going to be a better blogger.

It would be hard to be worse, considering my last post was over a year ago. There's nowhere to go but up! That is good news. I don't even know if anyone reads this... it's not like I've given you any good reason to, with my erratic/ nonexistent updates. But I've got only about 200 days left in the Land of the Rising Sun. Okay, maybe a little more, maybe as many as 220. Still, not many. I want to document this whole experience... well, I wanted to document this whole experience, but it seems that I will have documented just a little here and there and (hopefully!) a lot in my final months. Whatever. Point is, I don't want to forget everything that happened. My life in Japan is fantastic. Honestly, I don't want to go. But Bob is ready to leave, and we've had three great years here, so I guess it's time. Little known fact: we originally came planning to stay only one year,but ended up staying three. For that I am eternally grateful to my husband. And, even better, a new adventure is starting soon.

So. I need to get back into the habit of blogging (or into it for the first time) so that I won't forget the end of this adventure, or the beginning of the next one.

What's your New Year's Resolution?

That's Why I'm Not the Iron Chef

2008-12-06T22:39:00.007+09:00

Bob and I have been watching a lot of "Ryoori no Tetsujin" lately. That's Iron Chef to you. It's not on the air anymore but many of the episodes are on Youtube, including some fantastic ones on milk, natto (fermented soybeans,) and umeboshi (pickled Japanese plums.) I started to play Iron Chef in my own kitchen, trying to come up with "original dishes that can truly be called works of art." I'm afraid, though, that my creativity is severely lacking compared to anything the Japanese pizza companies can dream up.

I like to read the ads that come through my mail slot purely for humor value. I've never ordered a pizza here, at least not for delivery. Dominos and Pizza Hut do exist here and I think they do a pretty brisk business (pizzas cost 18-30 bucks a pop, so I think they must be making money.) Papa John's is still limited to South Korea, sadly. If any Papa John's authorities are reading this now- GET OVER HERE!

But do not think that the pizzas here are the same as your precious American Dominos. No no no. It has all been reenvisioned, repackaged and renamed for the Japanese consumer. They have the fairly normal ones like Margherita, Pepperoni and Mozzarella, and the "American Special." None of these are on the top 3 "Most Popular" list or the 5 "Children's Favorites." No, to understand what makes a Japanese pizza, you need to go back to the very foundation of pizza. First, take the crust. Crust can be either regular, thin, mille-feuille (kinda like puff pastry, with many layers), or double mille-feuille (that means two thousand layers!) Camembert cheese often makes an appearance, layered between two crusts or sneaking in between the sauce and the mozzarella cheese. Moving on to the sauce- normal tomato sauce is used on about half of all pizzas, and pesto maybe once or twice. But the rest feature bolognese sauce, chili sauce, teriyaki sauce, curry sauce, SPICY FISH EGG SAUCE, and the vaguely named "white sauce."

I cannot even begin to describe toppings to you other than to say: Potatoes. Corn. Mayonnaise. Scallops. Anything goes. And this is at one of the more Americanized pizza chains. Expect seaweed, cauliflower, canned tuna and fried glutinous rice at the homegrown chains. Yes, you can order a la carte toppings, on a normal cheese pizza, but the instructions for doing so take up about a 1-inch width at the bottom of the 2-page menu spread. It seems that is not done here. The pizza topping that sticks up must be hammered down. I will give Japan points for one thing- pizza technology, it seems, has advanced further than in America, and pizzas can not only be divided into halves but QUARTERS. With radically different toppings. And no tipping your delivery guy!

So now with a bit of background, you understand how bizarre pizzas can get. But even knowing all this, and feeling quite original lately in the kitchen, I was gobsmacked when I got the Dominos ad today. Yes- they have figured out a way to combine STEW and PIZZA. Their new "Cheese Ristorante" line of pizzas has 2 options. You can get the Truffled Beef Stew: a pizza crust, smothered with the aforementioned beef stew, covered in mozzarella cheese, and for the finishing touch, dollops of whipped cream cheese adorn the edges like the numbers on a clock.

Perhaps the Tomato Cream and Crab sounds better. It's similar to the above but instead of stew the crust is topped with a tomato cream sauce, crab meat, and broccoli. That is then covered with mozzarella cheese and artistically arranged Camembert cheese. (I don't get it with the Camembert here.) I wish I had a scanner so I could show you the scientific-looking cross sections of pizza, on page 3 of the ad. Oh, and by the way, these cost 4500 yen each, which right now is about $40 or $42. Just can't decide which one to get? Simple! You can order the Half and Half, and try them both. Honestly, if I had my whole life to do it, I don't think I could have ever come up with such a pizza. Bob told me, "That's why you're not the Iron Chef." That's true. Once again, the Japanese Dominos has astounded me with their creativity. I'm not sure why they were never on Iron Chef- though I have a sneaking suspicion that they'd get all points for originality and none for taste. All I know is, I don't want to be eating that middle piece where the stew and crab cream blended together.

Book Report

2008-09-10T07:10:00.004+09:00

Have you read Barbara Kingsolver's new book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle? If you haven't, go read it. NOW.

You're back? Good. I would be a little ashamed to tell you just how much I learned from that book. I should have known, for instance, how potatoes grow, or how to store things like tomatoes and zucchini when the season is over. (Just freeze them whole, apparently.) Thanks to a summer working in a grocery store, I know when the different summer crops come into season, and how to pick the best fruits or vegetables off the store shelf. Even cantaloupes. And since starting our little garden out back, I've learned quite a lot more. I thought that if I had to start producing a majority of my own food, I could do it. That's what Kingsolver and her family did, for a whole year. The premise appealed to me (though I'm certainly not going to try it anytime soon, my backyard isn't that big) from a gardener's standpoint. Since moving to Japan, I've become interested in growing my own food, since I have the space to do it, it's cheaper, and it's healthier (I don't use pesticides.) I started off with some tomatoes, recalling summers at home spent eating delicious homegrown tomatoes. I added bell peppers, which tend to be expensive here. It snowballed from there. For the winter, we're planting onions, garlic, potatoes, and spinach. Now it's less about the money aspect- I can afford all the onions and potatoes I want. It's more about having that homegrown taste, and lessening my impact on the environment.

I've started reading labels in the grocery store on almost every item I buy. I bought lemons last week. There were two types; each cost about $1. One was imported from Chile, the other two prefectures away in Hiroshima. I don't have any statistics for you, but just think about it: how much fuel did it take to get that fresh lemon from Chile to Japan, keeping it cold the whole way? And how much fuel did it require to get from Hiroshima to my street (a distance of, I don't know, about 150 miles.) It's obvious which choice is better for the environment. I'm not sure why everyone isn't complaining about this, since we sure do enough complaining when it comes to filling up our gas tanks. And we're paying for it- if you're not paying for it at the cash register, you're paying when you pay your taxes, since farms (of any size, I believe) can deduct their transportation expenses. The average item on your grocery store shelf probably traveled farther than you did on your summer vacation this year, according to Animal, Vegetable, Miracle.

The other amazing thing to me is that these lemons cost EXACTLY the same amount, despite the wide difference in cost in getting to my local MaxValu. So which farmer will be getting more of my money? Guess. Which lemon did I buy? That's right.

Being in Japan has made me more aware of things like seasonality and local crops. While the Japanese, like Americans, enjoy the luxury of having everything, all the time, for the most part foods are enjoyed only when they're in season. I have recipe cards that tell me what season I should cook each dish in. At first I thought it was silly, I had a mentality of "I can eat onion soup whenever I want!" and so on. But it makes sense, considering our living situation. In February, no Japanese person would say "Oh, I just want something light tonight, like a salad" and then complain about being cold and turn up the heat to 80 degrees. Because you can't. It is 40 degrees indoors, there is no central heat, and if you don't plan on freezing while you sleep, you had better eat some stew for dinner. I'm not saying it's perfect. If I had the choice, I'd go for the central heat, without a doubt. But I'd make sure to eat lots of stew and take lots of baths in the winter, to save some money and help the environment too.

The Japanese also firmly believe in local specialties, another concept I thought was dumb at first. Just about every city has something they are famous for. A city near me, Akashi, is famous for its particular style of grilled octopus balls (they dip them in broth) and there are countless different types of noodles. Every bag of rice is clearly labeled with its area of origin. People travel to Hokkaido just to try the fresh crabs. To me, it seemed silly, because couldn't anyone make some broth for their octopus balls? Well, they could, but Akasahi is on the Japanese Inland Sea, and they probably use some sort of local seaweed that tastes different from the seaweed that grows near Okinawa or Tokyo. It's widely accepted that wines grown in different regions or even different counties will taste different. Why not food? When I ate crab in Hokkaido this summer, it tasted fresher than any other crab I've had here. There's no substitute for it. When I returned from Hokkaido, my coworker asked me these questions, in order:

Her: Welcome back! Did you have a good trip?
Me: Yes, it was very relaxing.
Her: Did you eat jingus kan? (grilled mutton on sticks, a famous Sapporo dish)
Me: No, but I ate a lot of ramen. (Sapporo is also famous for its style of ramen.)
Her: How about crab?

And so on. And don't forget the number one most important thing of Japanese vacations-- you must bring back o-miyage, or souvenirs. This is ALWAYS food. The idea is that you should bring back some local food for all your coworkers to sample. From various vacations, I have brought back chocolates, chips made out of bitter gourds, fruit-flavored cookies, tofu cookies, bean-filled dumplings, buckwheat pancakes, and so on.

I think that if Barbara Kingsolver were to come to Japan, she would be disappointed that Japanese mothers do not "take the time to roll out the sushi by hand," as she suggests in her book. The only people I know who make sushi are sushi chefs, and no, even in Japan, there is no such thing as a "sushi machine." But she would be pleased to find a- dare I say it?- UNIQUE food culture that is built entirely upon eating local food, in season.

Japan: Year One

2008-07-31T10:37:00.002+09:00

On Tuesday of next week, it will have been one year since I first set foot in the Land of the Rising Sun. I wanted to take this opportunity to reflect a little bit on the experience and how it's changed me and the way I see the world, in part to convince myself that I'm not wasting my time here.

The most obvious thing that comes to mind is that I'm better on a bike now than at any other point in my life. Even when I was really young, like 10 years old, and the bike was my primary means of transportation, I couldn't do all the cool things my friends could do, like ride with no hands. Now, I'm proud to say that not only can I ride a bike with no hands, but also while holding an umbrella, texting on a cell phone, and avoiding old ladies who don't bother to look when they step out onto the sidewalk directly into my path.

The second is that while I'm by no means proud of my Japanese, I speak considerably more than I did when I came. And I can understand far more than I can speak, as I'm sure is often the case. My main regret is that I didn't start seriously studying the language sooner, so I wasted a lot of time trying to absorb Japanese through osmosis when I could have been going to my Kumon/conversation lessons every week from Day 1. Unfortunately, Japanese isn't quite like Spanish or Italian, which people living in those countries tend to "pick up" after spending a certain amount of time there, and it takes considerably more time to become proficient if you don't start hitting the books right away. Indeed, the only foreigners I know who have excellent Japanese either 1.) studied it previously in college, or 2.) have simply lived here for a long, long time. Since neither is true in my case, I should have been more serious about learning the language from the beginning. But hindsight is always 20/20, as they say, and I'll just have to work doubly hard from now on to catch up.

The third thing is that I'm much more aware of the seasons. This mostly has to do with the fact that you're exposed to the weather to a greater extent than back home. The lack of insulation or central air and heating means that you're hotter in the summer and colder in the winter, which of course is the natural order of things. This stands in direct contrast to America, where we frequently turn up the a/c so much during the summer that we have to put on jackets while indoors. Also, certain fruits and vegetables, as well as certain items on restaurant menus, are only available during specific times of the year. Now I know, for example, when eggplants are cheapest, when not to buy grapes, and when nabe will be widely available at restaurants.

Fourth is that Katie and I have made quite a few friends in a year, both foreign and Japanese. We didn't really start hanging out with the local kids in earnest until this spring, so we missed out on a lot of good times. Now she and I are more socially involved and we frequently find ourselves booked solid the entire weekend (and often during the week when we have no previous plans). This has been the most welcome change from how we spent the majority of our time at the beginning of the year.

Fifth is that I've managed to do quite a bit of traveling in the last year. Domestically, I visited many places and got to see quite a bit of the western part of Japan. I was also able to visit Korea, Malaysia, and Singapore: three places I never thought I'd ever be able to visit, but which living in Japan has made accessible and convenient. This summer Katie and I are going to Hokkaido with her family as well as to Vietnam, so opportunities to get out and see the world continue to appear, though with gas prices being what they are, such opportunities are getting pricier. Hopefully it won't prove too detrimental to our insatiable wanderlust and we'll be just as active in the coming year as we were in the past one.

Sixth is that I've been able to save a substantial amount of money. With little in the way of expenses, and with no debt between us, both she and I are making the most of our situation. I need to become more financially savvy, as right now most of my money's sitting in a Japanese bank accruing very little in the way of interest. That will be one of my goals for the coming year.

Seventh is how I've changed physically. I'm now a morning person, and I can't seem to sleep past 8 AM anymore even if I try. Katie and I often cook for ourselves using fresh ingredients, so we tend to eat well. We also go for a morning run three times a week, which combined with my twice-daily 40 minute commute by bike, has served to whip me into half-decent shape (though the daily biking has given me quite the embarrassing farmer's tan). The other weekend I found myself spending Saturday climbing up approximately 1400 steps - the equivalent of a 70 storey building - to visit a shrine, only to spend the next two days cycling 75 kilometers across an island chain in the Inland Sea. A year ago, if you told me I'd do something like that, I'd ask you what you were smoking, and if you could bear to part with any. There's so much to do in Japan in the way of outdoor activities - hiking, skiing, etc. - that you're really doing yourself a disservice if you stay cooped up all the time.

There are plenty more to mention, but since seven's a nice number, I'll stop there. I'm definitely looking forward to seeing what this next year in Japan has in store. Whatever happens, it certainly won't be boring.

-Bob

Moderation

2008-07-20T22:54:00.003+09:00

Some Japanese people react very strangely to summertime. There are two major types of people (and I see them on a daily basis):
The first type is the ganguro girls, who look somewhat like a stereotypical California girl. They are not American. They are Japanese. Somehow they have convinced themselves if they grow their hair very long and then bleach, and perm and tease it, it will look like they have naturally curly blond hair. Actually, when you perm and bleach fine, straight black hair, it turns out an orange mess. They also tan excessively so their skin kind of matches their hair. They wear shorts that are about the length from my outstretched thumb to my pointer finger. Their shoes are about that same height. The strangest part is that they put white eyeliner all around their eyes and sometimes down the middle of their nose. In the summer they like to hang out at the beach, wearing bikinis with lots of extra padding on the chest, where they can get their photo taken by creepy middle aged men who walk around the beach with giant cameras and photograph any mildly attractive girl.

The second I like to call the beekeepers. These are women, usually aged 30 and above, who are petrified of getting a suntan. Most women in East Asia dislike suntans because it looks like they've been out working in the sun or something else low-class. Elbow length gloves or long sleeves are de rigeur, even when it's 100 degrees out. The grandmas are the most extreme. When I go jogging at 6:30 am, I often see lots of older people out exercising. The women wear long sleeves or long gloves with their short sleeves, and a hat. The really hardcore ones wear long pants and long sleeves, with gloves, of course. They put a towel on their heads (covers the back of the neck) and put a hat (very long brim, naturally) on top of that. Then they pull the ends of the towel around to the front of their face and clip it with a clothespin. Now it's time to go for a walk! At 6:30 am there is no way there is enough UV to change your skin color. They literally look like they were taking care of their bees, and then suddenly decided to go exercise. That's how much skin is exposed. I think perhaps the Taliban was more lenient, I think during their regime you could at least show your hands as well as your eyes.

I'm not sure who scares me more.

Through fresh eyes

2008-06-16T10:03:00.002+09:00

After you've been living in a place for a while, you tend to forget the things that shocked or amused you so much when you first arrived. You take for granted the fact that, in Japan anyway, there are cigarette vending machines on every corner. You understand that you don't have to tip at restaurants, and the displayed price for the convenience store candy bar is exactly what you pay at the register - you don't give it a second thought. You think nothing of the teenage kid decked out in his punk-rock finest, hair dyed red, a skull-n-crossbones patch safety pinned to his black bowler hat, strolling arm in arm with a girl in full kimono, a Louis Vuitton clutch dangling at her side. So nothing amuses me more than going to all my favorite locations accompanied by people who are seeing Japan for the first time in their lives through fresh eyes, wide and bright from the adrenaline rush that comes from actually being in a place to which you never thought you'd have the opportunity to travel.

So it was that Katie and I were called upon by our Japanese surrogate parents, the Masaokas (to whom we are indebted forever for all the help they've given us over the past year, not the least of which involved guiding us through the labyrinthine entrails of Japanese hospitals and American insurance companies when Katie had her emergency appendectomy last August), to come to Kyoto Station to meet our predecessors - the people who had my same job and lived in my very house two years ago. We knew precious little about Ned and Megan: they were from Washington State and had translated the menu at the Chinese restaurant next door which we frequent into English. That's about it. So we were excited to meet them and, selfishly, were excited to have any excuse at all to go to Kyoto.

When we got to Kyoto Station (Ned refers to it as the Death Star because it is the largest and most futuristic-looking building you'll ever set foot in), we saw Mr. and Mrs. Masaoka surrounded by a group of foreign kids; they looked like high school students. "Oh no," Katie said, "Mrs. Masaoka found a group of high school kids on a school trip and has probably taken it upon herself to personally show them around for the day." Such behavior would be totally normal for Mrs. Masaoka, which goes to show you the kind of person she is. She was dressed in summer kimono, which we suspect she does for the benefit of the foreigners she meets (when Katie's family came in March she showed up to our house dressed like that, for example). As it turned out though, Megan and Ned are both teachers back in Spokane and Ned had brought along some of the students from his Japanese class - apparently he teaches mainly social studies but also beginning Japanese on the side. So Katie and I go down to meet 12 more people than we had originally expected to, and we didn't quite know what to make of the situation. As it turned out, the kids were all really nice and subdued from the jet lag, so we were mercifully spared the horrific fate of keeping tabs on a bunch of teenagers running amok around the Old Capital.

Ned and Megan were incredibly nice people and a lot of fun to talk to; they knew the area around our house quite well as they had lived there, of course, so we talked about that quite a bit. Ned's students seemed to be quite mature and responsible as it turned out, so Katie and I were able to talk to them and answer their questions about living in Japan. The best part, of course, was just watching their reactions to things we simply take for granted living here: the ubiquitous vending machines, the lack of public trash cans, the fashion, just to name a few. To watch them taking pictures of the most mundane objects and shouting excitedly about stuff you see on your way to work every day energizes you and makes you feel privileged to live here. I often felt the same way when I was working downtown in DC and would walk down Pennsylvania Avenue on my lunch break past the White House, passing groups of tourists pointing and taking pictures. I was so fortunate, I thought, to live in such a place. I've no doubt my friends currently scattered across the globe experience the same when they spy a group of out-of-towners talking excitedly to each other, bedecked in backpacks and walking shoes, cameras at the ready, able to see things they'd long since forgotten through fresh eyes.

Update 6/9

2008-06-09T12:50:00.004+09:00

Well, yet another week begins, with Monday and Tuesday leaving me very little to do aside from my Japanese lessons. This past weekend was a lot of fun: on Saturday we had some of our new Japanese friends over for Korean food. One of them brought her 5 year-old daughter who's enrolled at a local international school and thus speaks English relatively well. We taught her how to play Life (the board game), the Japanese version of which Katie found at the local recycle shop for a measly 300 yen. For dinner we made sam gyeop sal, or barbecued pork grilled alongside various toppings which you then roll into a sesame leaf and eat with your hands. It tasted exactly the same as what we ate in Busan, which pleased us - and our tummies - greatly.

Sunday I really wanted to get out of the house, having spent Saturday cleaning up, going grocery shopping, and helping to prepare dinner. Katie and I decided to go to the Osaka aquarium, which we had heard was a great way to spend an afternoon. After the obligatory Sunday breakfast of blueberry pancakes (the packet of frozen blueberries we bought at Costco several months ago are still going strong), Katie tended the garden for a bit, then we headed downtown. Admission to the aquarium was outrageously expensive, so we decided to buy a day pass which, in addition to covering the aquarium's entrance fee, would allow us to ride the subway as much as we wanted for free. The aquarium itself looks like a giant modern art installation, sitting on Osaka Bay. Inside we saw all kinds of fish in an incredible array of sizes, shapes, and terrifying-ness. The main attraction is the whale shark which easily dwarfs the next biggest fish in the entire aquarium several times over. The best part of the whole thing, though, wasn't what lives in the water, but what spends most of its time above it. Katie and I spent a lot of time at the otter, penguin, seal, and sealion tanks. It helps that those animals are the cutest ones, but there you are.

After the aquarium we rode the subway to Shinsaibashi in South Osaka to eat at an Ethiopian restaurant we had heard about. It was expensive (and we were the only ones eating there, which worried me a little), but the food was so damn good. It made me miss Mesob in Charlottesville so much, and filled me with regret for all of the great Ethiopian restaurants in DC I neglected to try when I lived so nearby. At the bar sat two barrel-chested and bearded Ethopian fellows - I could tell they were authentically Ethiopian because of their narrow-bridged noses. Otherwise, it would be safe to assume they were Nigerian, since those are really the only black people you see in Japan on a regular basis. They spoke a bizarre pidgin of English and Japanese, and chatted away over their beers unperturbed by the conspicuous lack of customers on a Sunday evening. Sometimes Katie and I wonder how it is that these places we love - a Vietnamese hole-in-the-wall in Nishinomiya, a pizzeria in Osaka that serves up pizzas blessedly unadorned with creative Japanese topping like corn and mayonnaise, any number of Turkish restaurants in Kobe, etc. - manage to stay in business when we seem to be the only ones patronizing them. I like to think they're all fronts for the Yakuza.

Outside looking in

2008-05-27T10:34:00.002+09:00

As you know, I try to keep up with current events as much as I can, and the fact that I have loads of free time at school means loads of time to read the news religiously. I have a few favorite websites - Drudge Report, Fark.com, CNN, BBC - but for all things Japan-related, I turn to JapanToday.com. Japan Today's journalism isn't as good as the other major English language newspaper in Japan, the Japan Times, but it does give its online readers the opportunity to comment on articles. So I mostly read the comments, truth be told.

Anyway, today I clicked on an article - well, more a poll than an article - that asked readers if they thought the word gaijin was a racist term. This particular topic is one of frequent debate among foreign residents and visitors of Japan, but for those of you unfamiliar with it, here's a little background:

Gaijin, 外人, literally means "outside person", and is commonly used to refer to foreigners. It's an abbreviation of the more "official" term gaikokujin, 外国人, or "outside country person". Most foreigners overwhelmingly prefer the latter term, because they consider the former to reinforce the idea that they, as individuals (regardless of their country of origin), are inexorably "outside" Japanese society. Which is true, but nevertheless, it takes the edge off when you refer to someone as being from a foreign country rather than label them as a foreigner.

Further, while you could translate gaijin as "foreigner", it doesn't mean the same thing to the Japanese as it means to most of us. For non-Japanese, being a foreigner usually means being in a country other than the one you come from. So while someone from France would be a foreigner in the U.S., an American would be a foreigner in France. To the Japanese, however, being a foreigner means being something other than Japanese. So, a Japanese would consider her American neighbor to be a foreigner (non-Japanese), but when she goes on vacation to Hawaii, she finds herself surrounded by "foreigners" (again, non-Japanese). It sounds funny to us to hear a Japanese person, when vacationing abroad, say, "Look at all the gaijin!". But we must remember that it's not some weird insular provincialism at work here (at least not entirely), but rather a simple difference in how Japanese and non-Japanese conceive of "the outsider".

Anyway, a lot of my fellow expats get miffed when they hear that particular term, staging a mini protest every time (it's gaikokujin, thank you very much). Others bandy it about quite liberally, in some instances ironically (hey, look at the dumb gajin over here!) and in others quite earnestly. The word definitely means different things to different people, but I personally think it has a lot to do with the context in which the word is used, and the intent of the person who uses it. Obviously an drunk densha otoko yelling, "Get out of Japan, gaijin!" means it in a racist way, but your buddy Takeshi who says, "I have a lot of gaijin friends," doesn't. It's all about context, you see. I have always believed that no object in this world has meaning other than that which we impart to it. In other words, words mean what you want them to mean. As my former boss was so fond of saying, "Perception is reality."

That quote's a pretty good end to this entry, but I feel like I could write so much more about the relationship between foreigners living in Japan and the Japanese - and indeed, dozens of books have already been written about that very subject. But for now, I'd like to leave you with a handy guide to what I call the "Hierarchy of Foreigners" which will help you locate your place in Japanese society, should you ever wind up living in or visiting this island nation behind the sun. It goes like this:

1. Japanese - all strata of Japanese society, from the Emperor on down to the burakumin, people descended from the lowest caste who face discrimination even today. As long as you have pure Japanese blood, you're in this group. Welcome to the club!

2. Japanese returnees, halfus, Ryukyuans, Ainu - maybe you're Japanese, or half-Japanese, but you've spent some time in a foreign country and have, as a consequence, picked up some weird habits. Maybe your Japanese language ability has suffered a bit. Unfortunately, when you come back to Japan, you'll be bullied accordingly until you can properly "fit in" again.

3. White people - the Japanese look up to you and look to your European heritage as a source of inspiration. They don't necessarily want you living in their neighborhoods or marrying their daughters (though most are probably OK with it these days), but they're more than happy to practice their English on you and appropriate your food and fashion.

4. Black people - you're considered cool, and many Japanese will try to emulate your music and fashion (albeit with hilarious consequences), but to many Japanese, you're incredibly scary. Be prepared to face this grim reality, though you might win some points if you casually mention that you know Beyonce (and you probably won't be the one who brings it up).

5. Chinese and Koreans - you are blessed, or cursed, with the ability to blend in - at least until someone starts talking to you and you don't understand what they're saying. The Japanese find you to be quite disturbing because they think of themselves as being special and unique, but yet you, a non-Japanese, managed to fool them into thinking that you were one of them. Also, their contempt for you has well-established historical roots, and don't be surprised if they regale you with tales of how they "liberated" your country in WWII.

6. All other Asians - same as #5, but unlike many Chinese and Koreans, you lack the ability to blend in as well as they. The historical stuff still applies, though. Good luck!

-Bob

It's easy being green

2008-05-22T13:16:00.004+09:00

Apologies for all the posts this week; consider it my way of making up for the lengthy waiting times between some of our past posts. It's exam week at school (and in Japan, it seems like every other week is exam week) which means I have zilch to do all day. I don't bring this up to Katie, of course, whose admittedly understandable response would be to glare menacingly into my very soul, given that her school has recently put her in charge of potty training someone else's kids all day long. We'll keep you posted on how that goes.

In the meantime, I have some downtime with which to wax literary about a variety of topics. So today, I want to talk about composting. More specifically, I want to encourage you all to try it.

Now while my political leanings are fairly left of center, I don't consider myself the leftist type. I certainly wouldn't call myself a hippie tree-hugger, for instance. But recently, and maybe it has something to do with living in a country where so little is wasted, I've found myself becoming more and more interested in conservation and the little things normal folks like you and me can do to reduce the amount of waste in our lives.

In Japan, you don't have a choice when it comes to recycling - it's mandatory. It varies from location to location, but here in Amagasaki, you have to separate your burnable trash (food wrappers and various kitchen waste) from your non-burnable trash (plastic and glass bottles and cans). Each is picked up on a different day of the week. Further, there are one or two days a month where the trash guys come around and pick up things like paper & cardboard, metal objects, and even old appliances, though sometimes you have to pay extra for the latter if it's a large item like a TV or old refrigerator. So getting people to recycle in Japan is not an issue; they're doing it all the time.

The Japanese don't really complain about the whole "mandatory" part, because they have a seemingly built-in contempt for wastefulness. They even have an expression they like to trot out fairly often: mottainai, or "what a waste." Given the limited amount of livable space in the country, it's no surprise that everyone's keenly aware that there simply aren't landfills where garbage "magically" disappears to every week. Contrast this with the US, where New York City and New Jersey actually send their garbage to Virginia because they can't deal with it all. I can't imagine Hyogo Prefecture, for instance, knocking on, say, Niigata's door and asking, however politely (it is Japan, after all), that shitsureishimasu, very sorry, but could it humbly dispose of its humble garbage in Niigata's honorable backyard? There's just no space that hasn't already been claimed by people, industry & commerce, or agriculture.

Now there are a lot of behaviors Western journalists, upon returning home from their week or two in Japan, claim we should adopt from the frugal and efficient Japanese. Most of them are complete nonsense, and anyone who's spent more than a month in the country will tell you the same. However, I do think we should follow Japan's example regarding our attitudes and behaviors towards waste. It's with this in mind that Katie and I decided to start a compost pile.

First, what is compost? They sell it at any home supply store: it's that stuff you add to your soil to make your plants happy and healthy. That's the long and short of it. But what is it, really? Compost is the result of millions of chemical reactions occurring simultaneously, breaking down organic matter into its simplest components - carbon and nitrogen - the appropriate combination of which is like black gold when it comes time to grow those tomatoes out back. If it helps, think of the process as "controlled rotting".

Second, why should you compost? About 1/3 of your kitchen waste doesn't need to go in the trash can. You throw away things like banana peels, apple cores, autumn leaves, and grass clippings without a second thought, then trash day comes and the nice people take your bags to the local landfill, where that perfectly useful organic garbage is mixed in with plastics, metals, chemicals, and other unsavory and un-biodegradable refuse, buried, and as a result takes far, far longer to break down than it would have if properly composted. Also, you'll have a nice pile of compost you can use on your flowers and plants, and it won't cost you a cent. What's more, if you have enough, you can share it with your more horticulturally-inclined friends and neighbors (and charge them a nominal fee).

Third, how easy is it to make a compost pile? Easy! If I, a lazy individual by almost every objective standard, can make one, then so can you. I'll give you an example of how easy it is: did you just eat a banana for breakfast? Are you holding the peel in your hand, ready to drop it into the rubbish bin? Why don't you, instead, take that peel out to the yard, and just drop it. That's right, just drop it right on the ground. There you go. That's the beginning. It's that easy. After that, just keep adding more and more organic material to the pile. Here are some links to help you get started:

You may run into some hitches here and there, but in general, a well-maintained pile stocked with appropriate material will not stink and will not attract rodents or other pests. Even if you experience problems, they're usually fixable. For example, right now our pile has a lot of ants and fruit flies (solution: bury exposed fruit and veggies lower in the pile and mix pile more often to disturb ant colonies) and smells strongly of ammonia (solution: too much "green" material, need to add more "brown"). Check out the troubleshooting sections of the above websites to guide you through any issues you may encounter.

Just remember, mottainai, and spare the trash man a hernia.

Good luck, and happy composting!

-Bob

TeamKB Does Korea

2008-05-21T10:04:00.004+09:00

Katie wrote up a summary of our recent trip to Korea and sent it to her family and friends, but since my family - whom I assume are the principal readers of this blog - have not yet seen it, I decided I'd post it here so they could read it, too.

Hello my dear readers,

As this monthly newsletter goes to press you'll notice that I am not reporting from Japan, but somewhere totally, completely different: Korea.

Day 0: We left our house at 9 pm to get a 10 pm night bus from Osaka to Fukuoka. The trip was mostly uneventful, other than the fact that the driver would stop every 2 hours, turn on all the lights, and make an announcement over the PA system that began with "I'm so sorry to wake you, but..." If he was really so sorry why didn't he just KEEP THE LIGHTS OFF!

Day 1: We arrived in Fukuoka at 6:40 am, and after eating some breakfast, we went over to the international ferry terminal. There are overnight ferries or high-speed hydrofoils (which take only 3 hours) to Busan, Korea. We opted for the hydrofoil, which was a very pleasant journey, so pleasant I slept through it. My friend Adam teaches English in Busan, so we were staying with him while we were in Korea. He and his girlfriend took us around the downtown area of Busan where we discovered such Korean fads as "face rollers" (a tool you roll on your jaw to make your face smaller) and "couples t-shirts" (2 t-shirts with matching or complementary designs, worn by young couples.) Photos of face rollers here and couples shirts here

Days 2 and 3: Sightseeing in Busan, which is on the southeastern coast of South Korea. Here are some more facts you might not know about Busan:
It is the world's third largest port, and Asia's largest container port.
It has thrown its hat into the ring to host the 2020 Summer Olympics (it hosted both the Asian Games and some of the World Cup in 2002.)
Ground has been broken on the Lotte World II Tower in downtown Busan, which will be taller than any other existing skyscraper in the world. I think the Burj Dubai will be finished first though.

Days 4 and 5: We took a quick trip up to Seoul, to do some sightseeing and of course, visit North Korea. On the morning of Day 5 we took a tour of the DMZ, led by the USO. We stepped inside the building where negotiations are held-- since this building straddles the border, everyone sits on their respective sides of the table. Tourists are allowed to step across the line, so I have now legally set foot in North Korea. It... felt a lot like South Korea. The rest of the tour was fascinating, especially meeting the Army guy who led the tour. He'd only been at Camp Bonifas (nickname "In Front of Them All") for 3 weeks, yet he was already trying to extend his stay for 2 years instead of one. I guess it's better than Iraq. North Korea's government is pretty scary, but honestly I don't think they're that dangerous-- I think that it's all political, and they want the world to pay attention to them. They really couldn't try anything without having the ire of almost the entire world come down on them. Even China is trying to distance itself from North Korea. An interesting note: South and North Korea have technically not made peace, so the Korean War is not yet over.

Day 6: Having returned late the last night from Seoul, we did the only rational thing: we got up early the next day! We had to see Gyeonju, a city that is often called Korea's Kyoto for its history as the capital of the Shilla Kingdom (from about 0- 1000 AD) and abundance of cultural sights. It was a bit of a tourist circus, but worth a visit as the city is basically a giant repository of historical artifacts. We saw some giant tombs that were nearly 2000 years old, and visited a mountainside temple. We also happened to be visiting an astronomy tower at the same time a field trip of Korean 3-year-olds was there. I rescued one kid when he attempted to climb over the fence while his teachers weren't looking. I just can't get away from kids, even on vacation.

Day 7: The weekend! Adam and his girlfriend Hyun-mi were off work, so we all went downtown to see a parade. We just caught the end of it-- actually it was a Korea-Japan friendship parade, which I found interesting since there tends to be a lot of distrust on the part of the Koreans towards the Japanese. Many Koreans are still angry over the colonization of the Korean peninsula, the Japanese enslaving the Korean people and raping their women, and the fact that they've never gotten so much as an apology. The parade was fun, but I didn't really catch the Korea-Japan friendship aspect. Some of the ladies in the parade saw us foreigners, and invited us to come dance-- actually I think they wanted Bob to come dance, but he was too shy so I went instead. One old man told me I was great at it, I didn't really believe him... as always, you can check Bob's Picasa account to see photos (they'll be up in a few days.) In the evening we all went to Haeundae beach, which is a great nighttime hangout since you can drink and set fireworks off on the beach. Adam's friend from Seoul met up with us there, and I found out she went to TJ and graduated in '03. Small world...

Day 8: Hyun-mi's friend Jiu, who has a car, drove us out to the eastern edges of Busan, into Gijiang county, to visit a cliffside temple overlooking the sea. Adam said quite accurately that this was a day of waiting. We waited in traffic for a long time-- but the temple was totally worth it. We also waited a very long time for our meal, but it was worth it as it was very delicious, consisting entirely of Korean side dishes. I didn't know much about Korean food before I went, but I feel like I learned a lot. The side dishes were my favorite part. Every meal is served with a variety of side dishes, usually a half dozen different dishes. Kim chi is always included but the rest vary-- I couldn't even describe them to you, there is such a range. Just know that there is usually a lot of garlic and hot pepper involved. Delicious!

Day 9: We left very early to catch our hydrofoil back to Japan, spent some time in Fukuoka doing some sightseeing, and, just before we caught the bus back to Osaka, we were serenaded by a homeless man outside the station who kept telling us that we were wonderful and I should have kids. Other than that, our day was pretty uneventful.

Ok, so I lied. Korea and Japan are actually pretty similar, as much as each country doesn't want to admit it. I'm still not sure exactly why. I guess that would mean facing the fact that historically, Korea and Japan both drew so much from China, from language to religion to food. The cultural similarity is still apparent-- in fact, I was able to read some signs and understand a handful of Korean words because of its similarity to Japanese through Chinese. But in the last few hundred years and especially in the present day, each country has gone its own way, so to speak, to try to differentiate itself and to make their place in the world. Each country has a lot to offer and should be proud to be compared to the other one.

Love, Katie

Our yard

2008-05-20T09:25:00.006+09:00

As you know, Katie and I have been periodically getting out into the backyard, trying to make it look presentable so we can eventually throw fabulous garden parties this summer. So far, it hasn't proved to be the easiest of tasks, given that we have no easy way to mow the grass. I don't think I've ever seen or heard a lawnmower or weedeater in Japan. We resorted to using hedge clippers and small scythes to trim the grass as best we could, but of course we were left with an uneven mess - but no matter; it's not really important that it look perfect, just that it be short enough that it's not an attractive hiding place for snakes or other such unsavory creatures. So we were out there for a few hours on Sunday afternoon, whacking, cutting, clipping the brambles, and throwing half of the refuse into our compost pile and half into the drainage ditch behind the house - there's really nothing else we can do, really. It was hard work, but as it was a nice day - not too hot - it wasn't bad being outside, although I did discover that mosquitoes find me particularly delicious, despite the insect repellent I had slathered on myself.

So I get to school on Monday, at which time I'm informed that the school will be sending someone to our house on Thursday to cut our grass (the Hyogo Prefectural Board of Education owns the property and is responsible for maintaining it, although Katie and I always try to fix small problems ourselves). What luck! Just after we (mostly) finished doing that very thing ourselves, as best we could at least, given the tools we had to do the job. So now we get a professional - hurray! I can only wonder, though; is this just a coincidence? Why would the school pick this week to do some lawn maintenance, immediately after we tried doing the same for the first time since we started living at the house? Katie said that it's just because they're required to maintain the property, and it just so happens that this was the week they had planned to do it anyway, and the fact that we were just out there is simply coincidence. I suspect otherwise, however. What I think is that one of our neighbors saw us working out there, making a crap job of things, called the Board of Education and told them to have mercy on us and take matters into their own hands. I'm sure if any one of our neighbors did see us out there, it would have been quite the strange sight: two do-it-yourselfers, two foreign do-it-yourselfers, no less, practicing lawn maintenance in a country where practically no one has a lawn.

As an aside, I'd like to note that some of our neighbors have absolutely beautiful topiaries in front of their houses - immaculately trimmed hedges fashioned into elaborate shapes, bonsai trees, bushes and shrubs pruned just so, so that they would grow in the most aesthetically pleasing way. As I understand it, no one does this themselves - they hire professional landscapers. I'm not quite sure how expensive it is, but damn...I want a beautiful Japanese topiary, consarn it!

Anyway, I should also mention our garden. I'd mentioned our garden in a previous post, but I thought I'd provide a quick update on its progress. We have, now, tiny tomatoes! The plants look healthy, though we think they're in need of some pruning now. The two mature basils we bought and the mint are thriving. We threw down a ton of basil seeds once we learned that basil doesn't need to be spaced but a few centimeters apart, and now tiny little tops are peeking out of the ground. Soon, we'll have more basil than we know what to do with, which means a lot of pesto, bruscetta, and caprese. As for the bell peppers, well, I'm not quite sure. They look healthy, and they're budding, but I'm not sure what's going on there - maybe they take a long time to grow. Who knows? Still, Katie and I are very excited; it's so rewarding growing your own food.

Until next time,

-Robert

Favorite new website

2008-05-07T21:12:00.003+09:00

So I just joined this website called Postcrossing a few weeks ago. It's a program started by a guy who likes to receive real mail from all over the world, and it just so happens that I do as well. You can register your address and then request to receive an address to send a postcard to. You can have 5 going at any one time, so of the first 5 I sent, one went to Finland, one to the US, the third to England, another to South Africa, and the last one to Holland.

Once your postcard is received (confirmed by entering a handy ID code) your address is then in the pool to receive a postcard from somewhere random. I got my first one while I was on vacation, from exotic Winchester, VA. The photo was of Natural Bridge. Small world, isn't it? But I got two more today: one from Thailand and one from Finland.

I know it sounds scary--give out your address to strangers all over the world? But there are a few things that make it secure: first, users don't exchange postcards with people in their own country. So anyone who is seeing my address is at least across a large body of water. Also, I don't give out my last name, I think most people don't. And of the postcards I've received, they seem to come from very nice, normal people; the Thai girl is a university student who is studying English, and the Finnish boy signed his card "(name) and parents." The website only allows 5 postcards to go at a time, so it's a waste of time for companies and spammers. All in all I think it's a great idea, and a wonderful way to learn about the world. It's like having a local be my tour guide, without having to bother with long flights and taking time off work, and I've already gotten cards from towns I would probably have never heard of otherwise.

by Katie

The business (problem) of study abroad

2008-05-06T14:39:00.005+09:00

I know I don't actually post all that often, but I'm trying to rectify that. The truth is that I'm too busy-- really! Read Bob's description of his average day, and then compare it to mine:

I leave the house at about 8:45, to arrive at school by 9:20 ("on time" in Japan means 10 minutes early.) The morning preschool classes begin at 10 and last till 2 (of course, lunch and a daily visit to the park are included; I'm not lecturing 3-year-olds for 4 hours.) On two weekdays, I have planning time in the afternoon; the other two weekdays I teach a 2-hour afterschool class for kids who go to Japanese elementary school. On Saturdays the schedule is flipped: I get to plan in the morning, and teach a 4-hour intensive English class in the afternoon. Add "parent comment" time to all these classes and I don't exactly have as much down time as Bob does. All that will change, of course, when he gets a new school in August, but until then he's got about 7 hours of teaching per week, and I've got 24.

Anyway, I wanted to share a couple of articles I found recently. The first is NYTimes article from last August, about an inquiry into the study abroad industry. It works like this: Schools can run their own programs in foreign countries, have exchange agreements with institutions abroad, or partner with a private company that runs similar programs. As far as I can tell, every university has all 3 of these options available. The problem with the private companies, though, is that they are too focused on the bottom line. In August 2007, some of these providers were caught bribing universities to get kids to sign up for their programs-- you can read the article here.

I understand why colleges use these companies: it's just too hard for every school to develop their own programs, or to partner with other schools. With thousands of institutions of higher education, it's just not possible. There isn't enough money, faculty, or time-- relationships between schools and local professors can take years to develop. The demand is increasing, too: over 200,000 students studied abroad in 2004-5, which is more than double from a decade ago. The Lincoln Commission just released a report stating its goal of sending 1 million American students abroad within 10 years. So schools turn to these companies to diversify their offerings. The problem with these companies is that they are too expensive and too sheltering.

The first part is easy to explain: third-party providers can, for example, provide a program that places students at a foreign university. However, directly enrolling in a foreign university often costs less, much less, than U.S. tuition. Exchange programs- where two students from different countries trade places- also have this problem. A friend of mine who studied in France told me she enjoyed her program, but was frustrated by the fact that she was paying a few thousand dollars (her normal UVA tuition) to be there, and her French classmates were sitting in the lecture halls for free. The private programs, however, usually cost upwards of $10,000 per semester, even $20,000-- and that's not including airfare. Few scholarships are available, so most of the kids who enroll in these programs are wealthy. Universities exacerbate this problem, too-- read the article above!

So the group of students on one of these programs is going to look pretty homogenous: most- if not all- have wealthy parents, and statistically speaking, they are likely to be white, female, liberal arts majors, college juniors, studying for 1 semester in Western Europe. But I'll get into that stuff another time. Essentially, students may be spending their semester with Americans who are very similar to them, so they won't have to step out of their comfort zone. Companies advertise their programs by offering "personal pre-departure advisors," and group field trips, which exclude the local student population. Depending on the program, some are not integrated into any foreign university, which is called an "island program." Americans take classes with Americans, study only in English, and live with Americans. I think the reasoning here is "Let's make our program sound exciting yet easy, not too different from an American campus, and lots of students will sign up!" Which equals lots of $$$. If a program is led by experienced, passionate faculty, has comprehensive student support services, and most importantly, has depth, then an private program may be the best fit for a student. But if programs are developed with attention to quantity and the bottom line, with little attention paid to quality- and this goes for university programs too, if they are developed poorly- those 1 million kids will have experiences closer to this. It's an article from the Onion, but it accurately captures aspects of the American college overseas experience.

When abroad, traditional learning often takes a backseat to experiential learning, but when done poorly, experience can be (according to Homer Simpson) "just a bunch of stuff that happened." If students remain in the "American bubble" the whole time and are never forced to step outside their comfort zone, they're not experiencing anything new at all.

by Katie

Katie's green thumb, among other things

2008-04-14T10:50:00.000+09:00

Yesterday, Katie and I decided to transform our backyard into something that's not such an utter abomination. The first step in this epic struggle will be to get a decent vegetable garden going. We bought a few different varieties of tomatoes (roma and plum), red and yellow bell peppers, basil, and mint. We figured we'd get the most use out of those guys, even if others, such as zucchini or eggplant, might be easier to grow. We spent a few hours yesterday pulling up grass and weeds and turning up soil, and Katie's going to head to the home center today to buy bricks for making a raised garden so we can transfer the seedlings this afternoon. It's a grand experiment. I'll keep you posted on its progress.

Recently, I decided not to be such a shameless slacker and started taking actual Japanese lessons. I'm taking a couple, actually. Twice a week I do a program more focused on grammar, reading, and writing, and once a week I have conversation. Ok, technically the last one isn't exclusively a conversation class, but I'm going to call it one anyway because I'm talking to a living human being instead of working out of a workbook. In my spare time, I've also been making a more concerted effort to cram as many kanji into my head as possible. I'm not worrying so much right now about how to pronounce them, just learn what they mean. For example, I don't necessarily know that this character 起 can be read as "o" or "ki", but I do know that it means "get up". Once I learn the vocabulary "okiru" 起きる (to get up) or "kiritsu suru" 起立する (to stand up) I'll be able to remember the readings in context.

At the end of the month, Katie and I are going to Korea to visit our friend, Adam. We'll be taking the night bus to Fukuoka, and from there we'll take the high speed hydrofoil across the Sea of Japan and disembarking in Busan. I'm not exactly sure what the itinerary will be, but we'll head up to Seoul for at least a day or two, where we plan on taking part in the DMZ tour. Apparently, the USO runs a tour of the demilitarized zone, the strip of land that separates North and South Korea at the 38th parallel. It should be a hoot.

As for the summer, Australia is out of the question (we'll go sometime when prices aren't so ridiculous), so now we're looking at some more domestic tourism. And for that, we're looking north to the barren (by Japanese standards), snow-capped and wildflower-covered island of Hokkaido. It'll be nice to escape the oppressive heat and humidity that sits on the Kansai Region during mid-August. I'm especially interested in going to Hokkaido as it's one of the last vestiges of Ainu culture and civilization - the Ainu being the aboriginal people of the Japanese archipelago, sort of like the Native Americans back home. They're ethnically Caucasian, looking far more Siberian than East Asian, and are, among other things, the hairiest people in East Asia. Today, there are only a few hundred who can claim pure Ainu parentage, unmixed with the Yamato people we now know as the Japanese who drove them northward so long ago.

I've posted a backlog of pictures on the picasa web site. You can access them via this link: http://picasaweb.google.com/rmhollands . Please enjoy!

-Bob

Katie's family's visit

2008-04-03T12:57:00.000+09:00

Katie's family left for Itami Airport this morning at 6 AM in two taxis: one for them, and one for their luggage.

It was a sad farewell, not only because we enjoyed hosting them and were sad to see them go, but because of how quiet and empty our house seemed after they left.

Since I'm writing this account of their stay now, instead of as it happened, I can only remember the main details. But since I doubt you'd care to read all the nitty gritty details anyway, I think I can safely give them a pass.

-Katie's mom Roseann, her aunt Linda (her mom's sister), and Linda's friend Gwen arrived on Friday, the 21st of March.
-We spent Saturday and Sunday walking around Kyoto. Among the more notable things we did were staying at a Buddhist temple on Saturday night, visiting Kamigamo-jinja, Kurama Onsen, a machi-ya and the Higashiyama area which was all alight with lanterns on Sunday night.
-I had to work on Monday but Katie was off work, so she showed them around where we live. She took them to a 100 yen store, the grocery store, and various other places on the street in front of our house. On Monday night, Mr. and Mrs. Masaoka, my principal and his wife, came over for dinner. We served them chili, cornbread, and salad ("traditional" American food), and Katie made her famous guacamole. Mrs. Masaoka offered to show Katie's family around Nara on Wednesday and Thursday, since she went to university there and knows the area well.
-Tuesday, Katie and I were both at work, so our three guests went out on their own to visit Himeji Castle. Katie and I met them in Kobe for dinner, where we wanted to take them to an izakaya so they could try a variety of Japanese dishes. It was exceptionally crowded that night downtown (I later learned that it was because a lot of college students just graduated), and it was nigh impossible to secure a table anywhere. We ended up settling for a burger and sandwich place, which was hardly Japanese, but nevertheless tasty.
- Wednesday and Thursday, Mrs. Masaoka kept her word and led our guests around Nara. They saw all the usual sights such as Todai-ji, the Great Buddha, the deer at Nara Park, Horyu-ji, and Nara Women's University (where Mrs. M went to school). For a middle-aged Japanese woman, Mrs. Masaoka moves rather quickly, and our guests had quite the time keeping up with her. She took it easier on them on Thursday, moving at a slower pace and always trying to find escalators and stairs where available. Even so, she kept them out late, and on both days I arrived home from work before they came back.
-On Friday, while Katie and I were at work, our guests went shopping in Kobe (they had been enticed by all the big department stores they saw the last time they were in the city).
-Katie took off work on Saturday, and we all decided to go to Osaka. We stayed mainly around the northern Kita area of town, around Umeda station and its shops, but later that day we made it down to Osaka Castle and the surrounding park. We were originally going to eat dinner downtown in the lively southern district, but we decided that we'd rather eat some home-cooked lasagna which Linda graciously offered to make.
-Early Sunday morning, we hopped on the train to Kobe Airport and flew to Naha, Okinawa. Our first order of business was to see Shuri Castle, which was the seat of the Ryukyu Kingdom before the Islands were appropriated by Japan. We spent some time exploring the castle grounds.
-Monday was a day of bloody history. As a brief aside, let me say that it's nigh impossible to negotiate Naha by public transportation; the buses run irregularly and at outrageous intervals. We actually had to "hire" a large taxi that could fit five people and would wait for us while we explored the sites. First, we went to the secret, underground base the Japanese military used during the Battle of Okinawa in WWII. It was a rag-tag series of tunnels with several alcoves set aside to serve as meeting rooms, medical facilities, or quarters for certain ranks. The most macabre and, for me, the most interesting part was the section of tunnel still riddled with shrapnel holes from when the Japanese soldiers killed themselves by detonating their own hand-grenades. Afterwards, we took a taxi to the Memorial Park commemorating the lives lost during the Battle of Okinawa. The memorial itself was quite impressive: black marble slabs engraved with the names of both the Japanese and the Allied troops who were killed. If you climb up the hill above the memorial, there are separate monuments dedicated to Japan's 47 prefectures. Finally, before going back downtown to dinner and eventually, our hotel, we went to Cape Kyan to search for the "suicide cliffs". We found cliffs, but I'm not sure if they were the ones Roseann was looking for.
-Tuesday morning, Roseann, Katie and I tried to find the only beach in Naha only to find its ocean view annoyingly obstructed by cranes and shipping crates. It seems that if you want the white sand beaches and cobalt blue shores your mind conjures up when you think, "Okinawa," then you need to get the hell out of Naha. At the same time, Linda and Gwen headed down to Kokusai Street to do a little souvenir shopping.
-Wednesday morning we returned to Kobe. Katie, Roseann, and I went to Osaka while Linda and Gwen returned to Amagasaki to revisit the 100 yen store. The three of us tried very hard to find the perfect birthday present for Katie's younger sister, Jennie, but to no avail. We went back home, Katie made some more guacamole, our three guests finished their packing, we went out to eat at the Chinese restaurant next door, and it ended up being an early night for everyone.

That's about it. Later I'll ask Katie to fill in any missing details she thinks are important enough to include here. She's much better at remembering things than I am.

That's all for now,

-Bob

What would you say, you do here?

2008-02-26T11:37:00.000+09:00

So what, exactly, do I do here?

I get up in the morning at around 7. If I was smart the night before, I'd have already showered and packed my lunch, which usually consists of whatever Katie and I cooked the previous night. I pack my laptop in its case, grab my lunch bag from the fridge, and try to be out the door no later than 7:40. If it's not raining, I'll bike to work. It's a 40 minute journey from my front door to the school's front gate. The terrain is flat enough, so the ride isn't too strenuous, which allows to let my mind wander while I'm riding. I ride like everyone else: on the sidewalk and without a helmet, both baskets filled with my personal effects. I take two main roads to get to my school: one is the north-south road, Ama Ho Sen, which runs from South Amagasaki to nearby Takarazuka and beyond. The other in Route 2, the main east-west road that connects Osaka and Kobe.

If I'm lucky, I'll arrive at school at 8:15 - 5 minutes before the office announcements begin. I enter the sliding door leading into the staffroom, offer up my daily rounds of "ohayo gozaimasu!" (good morning!), throw my stuff down on my desk, stamp my hanko in the attendance book, turn on my laptop, take out the yoghurt or whatever I threw in my lunchbag to eat for breakfast, and start my day.

First period begins at 8:40. Periods are 50 minutes long, with 10 minute breaks in between. If I have a class, I'll use that in-between-time to make photocopies of any handouts I've made for the class, or simply to discuss and finalize the lesson plan with my team teacher. I don't teach the classes by myself, you see. Notwithstanding the aneurism I'm sure my students would experience if exposed to English with no intermediary to translate it into safe, comfortable, and wholesome Japanese, foreign teachers are, by law, prohibited from teaching by themselves in a government school. I'm not exactly sure why this is so, and I can't be bothered to find out. Besides, I really wouldn't want to teach alone anyway. As I said, there's really no way for my students and I to communicate with each other, barring the rudimentary skills we both possess in each others' respective languages, which for them mostly consists of "What is your hobby?" or "What do you like Japanese food?" or "America is very crime."

Even taking into account my busiest day, Monday, I teach no more than four out of six class periods a day, and that's just one day a week. Most days I teach two or three. The rest of the time I honestly spend in front of my laptop surfing the internet. Rarely, very rarely, I'll practice writing some kanji, but I can never remember them the next day. I wish I could find the will to be more productive, as there are so many better things I could be doing with my time. To my credit, I've developed a keen interest in political science - religiously following the 2008 Presidential Campaign, reading anything and everything I can about who's a fascist, who is or is not a Muslim, and who's forgotten to wear his or her flag pin this week. To be certain, I am not impressed with the level of political discourse back home.

At work I'm more or less a ghost. If I talk to any other teachers it's almost always the English teachers, and that's only because I have to plan lessons with them. Everyone else leaves me alone. Sometimes, such as when we have an office party after work at some bar or restaurant, I'll get to socialize with teachers with whom I never interact on a daily basis. Most of them are really nice, and even if we can't understand each other perfectly, we still manage to have fairly pleasant conversations. They won't talk to me at work, but I know it's not because they don't want to, it's just that the language barrier is too great, and the conspicuous lack of alcohol (not a problem at office parties) only further inhibits them. My failure to overcome this is my own fault; I don't study Japanese enough or practice it enough, I'm not very outgoing with the other staff or the students, I spend most of the day sitting at my desk instead of visiting student clubs or activities - everything the stereotypical JET is supposed to do to get the most out of their "JET experience".

I have no right to complain because I knew what this job was going to be like before I even set foot in Japan. I had read others' accounts of their time here on this Program. I knew that the number one complaint JETs had was "too much free time." You wouldn't think it would be a problem, would you? Most people would kill for a little more free time during their day. So I don't necessarily find that to be an accurate assessment. I'd prefer the phrase "lack of purpose". That, my friends, is a killer.

Don't get my wrong, it's not all doom and gloom. A lot of my students are joys, and some pop periodically into the staffroom just to say "hello!" Actually, the conversation goes just like this, every time:

Student: Hello. (Louder) Hello.
Me: Oh! Hello. How's it going?
Student: ...
Me: Sorry. How are you?
Student: I'm fine, thank you. And you?
Me: I'm fine.
Student: See you.
Me: See you.

Anyway, I've gone off on a huge tangent here. I'm supposed to be telling you about my typical day.

After school (around 3:15) is cleaning time, when all the students clean different parts of the school. I'm sure you've heard about this wonderful utopia that is Japan where all the good little boys and girls help clean their schools while rainbow gumdrops fall like manna from the heavens. The reality, as is often the case, is quite different. First, students actually complain about having to clean, when "cleaning" in this case amounts to generally no more than pushing a swiffer around for five minutes and then calling it a day. Second, there is precious little cleaning involved. As I said, students gather together to push dust around for five to ten minutes. In the bathrooms, students take out a hose and spray down the urinals, toilets, and floor with water. That's it. No bleach, no soap, no nothing. Of course, the point probably isn't to clean anything, but to instill the students with a sense of ownership and responsibility for the school - the students will be less likely to deface that which they'll only have to clean up later on.

Even though I'm not technically a part-time teacher, I'm allowed to leave at 4:15 (the regular teachers can leave at 5 though many stay far later than that - this is Japan after all). Again, if it's not raining, I make the return journey towards home. Depending on what Katie and I've decided to eat for dinner, I'll pick up a few ingredients at the MaxValue near our house. Katie doesn't get home from work until 7:30, so I have a few hours to kill. I'll watch TV or movies I've downloaded, read, do dishes, snack, etc. until Katie walks in the door. If I'm the one making dinner for the night, I'll typically start prepping the ingredients around 6:30 or so, so that it's all ready to go on the fire when Katie walks through the front door.

We eat dinner anywhere from 8 to 9, then have dessert (usually pudding we picked up on sale at MaxValue) in front of the TV and, during this time of the year, under the kotatsu. After dinner we clean up, make our lunch boxes for the next day, and go upstairs where we read until we fall alseep, which is generally around midnight.

Now the weekends are totally different: I don't work on Saturdays, but Katie does, so I do laundry and clean up around the house a little bit. Saturdays are also when I call my parents. I'm almost always able to talk to Mom; Dad's a little harder to get a hold of. Mostly I spend the day milling around the house until Katie gets home at the usual time. On weekend nights we've taken to going out for dinner instead of cooking, and with the selection of restaurants available on our street alone, we're never out of delicious options.

Sundays are our exploring days. It's on Sundays when we hop on a train and go somewhere of cultural significance. Recently, we've been on somewhat of a Kyoto kick, even though it's twice as far as the closest big city - Osaka. As a result, we've become pretty familiar with the ancient capital, so if anyone has a hankerin' to come visit Kyoto, Katie and I are practically certified tour guides.

Well, that's about it. Lather, rinse, repeat. If my tone seems dismissive or even depressed, don't be fooled. It's just that I've come to realize that daily life in Japan, even though I'm thousands upon thousands of miles away from home, is almost identical to daily life back home. We have our routines which we follow with nary a second thought. Most people seem pretty content with this situation as it stands, but Katie and I are the restless sort. Any downtime we have is spent plotting and planning our next great adventure, patiently enduring our routines until the day comes to go somewhere new, to experience something else.

-Bob

Outrageously overdue

2008-02-12T12:24:00.000+09:00

Ok, so I kind of let the blog get away from me for a month and a half, but to tell you the truth, not much has happened in that time. Some things of note:

My trip to Southeast Asia was great and I'd do it again in a heartbeat. I highly recommend Malaysia as a tourist destination because 1.) everyone speaks English, and 2.) even though you're almost guaranteed to get the runs, the food is awesome. The best parts were the cheap food and tropical weather. Also, I enjoyed meeting fellow travelers from all over the world. In fact, that was probably the most interesting part out of the whole trip. Based on my encounters, I feel nothing but love for Canadians, the British, Australians, Austrians, Germans, New Zealanders, the French, Koreans, Chinese, Bulgarians, Bengalis, Malays, Indians, Swedes, and of course, my fellow Americans (one of whom was in the process of bicycling across Asia). I learned that I should be eternally grateful that English is the most popular second language in the world, because were it not for that, I wouldn't be able to talk to a great majority of these fine people.

Katie and I met up in Tokyo and saw quite a bit of the city. We were especially impressed by the good eats in Roppongi (including a relatively inexpensive Thai place which boasted a commanding 13th-story view of the city) and by the plastic food in Kappabashi, between Asakusa and Ueno. If you ever asked yourself, "Where can I find quality refrigerator magnets that look like pieces of sushi?" then this is the place for you. Of course, Tokyo being as large as it is defies even the most determined tourist to see everything in a mere three or four days, so Katie and I will definitely be going back for more.

On the home front, the third years are done with classes, which means I have even more free time to screw around on the computer at work. I also read, and sometimes, if I'm especially motivated, I open my Japanese textbook. On a positive note, however, I've pretty much learned what works and what doesn't in my classes, and my students' eyes don't seem quite as glazed over as they used to. I learned that they love intonation practice. The Japanese language being fairly flat in terms of intonation (think how a robot sounds when it talks), my students cannot seem to shake themselves of this habit when speaking English. To correct this, I overemphasize the sentences I read to them to a cartoonish degree. Example: "HOW do I GET to the STORE?" taking extra care to force my voice through its full range. I then have the students repeat over and over again, refusing to stop until they've all made complete fools of themselves. Only then can the real learning begin.

In other news, our friend Adam, who now lives in Korea, visited us this past week. Unfortunately, Katie and I had to work, so he was forced to explore the local sights largely by himself. He seemed like he had a pretty good time, all in all, but I got the sense he was pretty disturbed by how cold it actually was in our house. He brought us delicious homemade kimchi (pickled vegetables, usually cabbage, in chili sauce), which we appreciated greatly.

For whatever reason, Katie and I keep getting sick. I got some kind of cold when I got back from Singapore, Katie got a horrible 24 hour stomach bug, which I got about two weeks later, and now we both have colds again. Ugh. It seems everyone's sick right now, though. Everywhere you look, the Japanese are sporting those surgical face masks all over the place. I can't imagine that they actually do anything for you other than signaling to other people, "Hey! I'm sick! Stay away!" But when you're riding trains and buses all over creation, and the little old grandpas and little old ladies haven't quite mastered the art of covering their damn mouths when they cough, it's pretty easy to contract all manner of nasties. I can only hope that this will improve as we move into spring and, hopefully, warmer weather.

Because of our frequent illness, Katie and I haven't been out gallivanting around Japan as we were wont to do, so you won't find too many new pictures or descriptions of all the new places we've been. We'll try to get on that as soon as we stop coughing...

-Bob

Local haunts

2007-12-04T10:43:00.000+09:00

First of all, my apologies for the inexcusable lack of posts for the last couple of weeks or so. It's impossible to write anything worthwhile if the creative juices just aren't flowing, and often it takes the right combination of factors to loosen the tap. I could merely offer up a brief accounting of our adventures here, but that would be a bland exercise in banality, and you deserve more than that. You deserve careful, measured commentary, and I intend to provide it for you. So here goes:

By now, I'm sure you've realized that life in Japan isn't just Hokkaido cream and peach blossoms; it's full of cultural walls to scale and linguistic obstacles to overcome. No seemingly simple, daily task is without its own devilish twist; going to the doctor for a checkup might as well be going to the moon. Nevertheless, there are moments that are so "Japanese" that I can't help but love my new home.

Case in point: two local businesses, each about two doors down from our house. One is a public bathhouse, and the other is a hole-in-the-wall sushi bar. I'll describe each in some detail.

Way back when, it used to be the case in Japan that every community had its own sento, or public bathhouse (this was before the days of private homes having their own tubs). The way it worked was like this: typically before or after your evening meal, you'd throw some soap and a towel into a little basket and you'd trot on down to the bath, where you'd get naked, take a long shower - in full view of the other bathers - and then soak in the hot, communal bath. "Skinship", as it is often called in English, was and continues to be an important aspect of Japanese society. At the baths, one can find both CEOs and street sweepers enjoying a hot soak, having divested themselves of the trappings of their respective stations.

I had previously been to an onsen, so when we finally decided to start frequenting the local sento, I was prepared. An onsen is like a sento, except an onsen uses mineral water pumped in from hot springs located all over Japan. Japan is an island rife with geothermic activity, and volcanoes, earthquakes, and hot springs all seem to go hand in hand. You take the good with the bad, I suppose. Depending on where you are, the hot spring water is said to have various healthful and restorative properties. The water from one town might help relieve arthritis, whereas the water from the town over might help cure migraines. You can never tell. As you can imagine, onsen are fantastically popular both with the locals and the tourists, both coming from far and wide to experience a few minutes in the tub. The sento, on the other hand, just heats up regular old tap water for its baths. In any event, the older lady who runs the sento next to our house had treated us very kindly in the past and had repeatedly asked us to visit her establishment, so we were more than happy to do so. That, and the fact that it's been getting pretty cold around here at night made taking a hot bath seem like a very agreeable way to spend the evening.

The entrance to the building is open, as are many storefronts in Japan, with only a half curtain hanging in the doorway. The sign outside displays the large, red, hiragana character ゆ, "yu". Yuu is the word for hot water. It has a corresponding kanji (Chinese character), but I've read that the kanji is used to represent hot water used for tea, whereas the hiragana is used to represent hot water used for people. Upon entering, you see that there are rows of foot lockers on either side, and that each side is divided by sex. You take off your shoes and hold them in your hand as you step up onto the actual floor (many establishments, including our own house, have an area exclusively for taking off ones shoes). You place your shoes in an empty locker and carry the wooden key with you as you enter the bath area - men entering through the doorway marked 男, and women through the doorway marked 女. Upon entering, the first thing you see are naked people walking around. As veterans of the stage, Katie and I are no strangers to seeing people in various states of undress (quick costume changes backstage quickly rob you of any sense of modesty), so seeing all this wasn't such a big deal, but I can easily imagine how the more repressed among us might have reacted to such a sight. Although really, anyone who goes to the gym and uses the locker rooms there with any regularity should already be quite desensitized. You pay several hundred yen (a few bucks) to the person supervising the bathhouse, and she gives you a little bottle of shampoo, soap, and a small towel. Most people prefer to bring their own supplies, though. You undress and throw your clothes into a small locker, taking only the towel (which is for washing - hopefully you remembered to bring something to dry yourself off with), shampoo, and soap with you, and proceed to yet another room which contains the actual bath.

In spite of their reputation for being polite and demure, there are a few sure-fire ways to piss Japanese people off, and one of the surest is failing to wash yourself properly before entering the bath. All along the walls are shower heads expressly for this purpose. You simply pull up a little plastic stool, have a seat (the shower heads are at waist level so you actually have to shower sitting down), and get to work with the shampoo and soap. Once you've scrubbed yourself completely, you take a well-earned seat in the bath. For a modicum of modesty, you can use the washing towel to cover your nether regions on your way from the shower to the bath, but be advised that the towel is not to go into the bathwater. Instead, many people put the towel on their heads. I'm not sure why it's customary to do this, but I've heard that in cases where the bathwater is extremely hot - as it sometimes is - putting a wet towel on your head actually prevents you from passing out. The most important thing to remember is to relax; once you're in the bath you can sit back and enjoy the mural of cranes flying in front of Mount Fuji painted on the tile wall in front of you, hazily obscured by steam.

The best part about visiting the bathhouse is how spectacularly relaxed you feel afterwards. Leaving the sento with your hair still wet and your insides still warm, stepping out into the late autumn chill, is a delicious feeling. Even better is the fact that it takes literally 30 seconds to walk back to our house which, although just as cold inside as it is outside, has certain indispensable amenities like space heaters and hot water heaters and a few seasons of Arrested Development on the computer for our viewing pleasure. C'est la vie!

I have less to say about the sushi bar a few doors down in the opposite direction, but please don't mistake my lack of prose for an indictment. Like the sento, it exudes old-school flavor; there might have been many such places that dotted our fair city in the not-too-distant past. Indeed, our whole street, complete with its fruit vendors and specialty boutiques, is somewhat of an anomaly when compared to the sprawling industrial landscape of Amagasaki. There are several sushi places on our street, and to be honest, this is the only one that we've tried. The other places, though no doubt delicious, loom large and commercial over our local dive which can only be described as elegant in its practicality. It seats maybe 8 people around a bar where a very nice man and (I presume) his wife toil busily away. It was here where Katie met some of our other neighbors for the first time; everyone seemed to be delighted to talk to us, even if it was in a broken mish-mash of Japanese and English. The most recent time we dined there, it was a Sunday night, and there were only a few laborers occupying the opposite end of the bar. They looked close to finishing their meal. We took a seat and the proprietor immediately asked us what we wanted. We ordered maguro (tuna) first, then sake (salmon). We were close enough to watch him take a block of fish and, using what looked to be extraordinarily expensive knives - I had seen such knives at a specialty cutlery store in Kyoto where some items went for as much as the equivalent of $500 - went to work.

"Sushi" is a word that refers to rice, not fish. One might translate it as "vinegared rice", which is exactly what it is: one first steams the rice and then folds in a mixture of vinegar, salt, and sugar. This addition makes the rice sticky and easy to manipulate into various shapes. "Sashimi" is the word that refers to raw fish by itself. If you order sashimi at a restaurant, what you'll get is a plate full of decoratively arranged raw fish, no rice to be seen. There are a couple of ways of combining fish and rice, however. The first way is the most common, called "nigiri". Nigiri is simply a piece of fish that has been pressed onto a little ball of rice. The next way is called "makizushi", or rolls. To make makizushi, one takes a sheet of nori (dried seaweed), lays it down, spreads out sushi rice over the nori, then places strips of fish and vegetables in the middle of the spread. Then, you roll it up (so that it's one long roll), cut it into smaller pieces, and serve. The last way is called "temakizushi", which are conical rolls constructed individually by hand.

I also have to issue a public service announcement: soy sauce is for fish, not rice. One of those aforementioned "things that piss Japanese people off" includes drenching rice in soy sauce. Seriously, the rice is often prepared with great care, so much so that a sushi chef in training might spend years just learning how to make the rice. It is prepared to be just the right consistency and flavor to perfectly complement the fish. The Western equivalent would be to drown your expertly cooked and seasoned steak in sauce before even trying a bite. Sure, you can do it, but say goodbye to earning any brownie points with the kitchen staff. So when you pick up that nigiri (yes, you can use your hands), dip it in the sauce fish side down.

Oh, and one more thing I wanted to clear up. For whatever reason, a lot of people in America think that Japanese people frown on mixing your wasabi into your soy sauce. Let it be hereafter known that I, Robert Hollands, have witnessed Japanese people doing this very thing - it's OK.

The chef went a little heavy on the wasabi this time - he takes his finger and spreads a little wet wasabi between the fish and the rice as a kind of cement to hold the two pieces together. We readily forgave him, though, because the fish was cool, fresh, and buttery in its texture. As we ate and drank, the little colored discs that indicated how much each item cost accumulated in front of us. Halfway through the meal, he thrust a bowl full of what looked like fish salad in front of us. "Fugu no kawa...karai," he told us. Pufferfish skin...spicy. As you might have heard, fugu is one of the deadliest fish known to man. Some of its internal organs contain a compound called tetrodotoxin; a powerful poison of which a minuscule amount can kill several people. Always ready to flirt with danger, the Japanese will pay top dollar for the thrill of eating this fish. It's a popular wintertime food, so here and there in our neighborhood one can see signs beginning to pop up, advertising fugu courses for somewhere in the range of $40 to $50. The danger is negligible however, because chefs who prepare this fish are well-trained and have to undergo a rigorous examination, which includes eating the fish themselves. Nevertheless, for a hypochondriac such as myself, eating any part of this animal might prove disastrous, poison or no. After returning home, so much as a sneeze might have sent me running for the nearest emergency room. As it turned out, though, I didn't sneeze or cough or anything which could otherwise be mistaken for impending death, so Katie was saved the hassle of filling out forms in triplicate at the local hospital while trying to remember the kanji for "overactive imagination".

So there you have it: an exclusive sneak peek into a couple of the quaint, local businesses that grace our neighborhood. If I had more energy, I'd tell you about the guy down the street who fixes bikes. He speaks decent English and has some friends from Vegas. He charged me 4000 yen for a new front tire, which was more than my bike cost (it's a crappy bike), but I'm not going to hold it against him.

Until next time,

-Bob

On Foliage, Costco, and Christmas

2007-11-28T16:03:00.000+09:00

Wow, it's been a while since we've posted! Our apologies.

Some notable events from the last week and a half:

- The Thanksgiving Thankstacular was a grand success (as I'm sure you read), and we received many positive responses from our friends and my fellow teachers afterward. The next day at school, in fact, everyone whom I invited came up to my desk and thanked me personally for inviting them. Apparently this is a very Japanese thing to do, but I think it should more appropriately fall under the category heading of "common courtesy" -- a concept which I fear is altogether lost on the more lamentable members of my generation.

- Last week wasn't particularly memorable; there were classes and more classes, both for myself and Katie. We were really just waiting out the week for Friday, which was a national holiday (Labor Thanksgiving Day). Many of my students conflated their Labor Thanksgiving Day with America's Thanksgiving, and I had to repeatedly remind them that their holiday might more appropriately be compared to our Labor Day, which is in September. Nevertheless, we had Friday off, and to celebrate, Katie and I joined some other JETs living in our prefecture in hiking up Mount Hiei - the highest mountain in Kyoto. It was quite a steep climb up to the top and it took several hours, but the views along the way were well worth the effort. And unlike a lot of other mountains, Hieizan holds a reward at its summit for the more determined hikers among us (and for those of us who have cars and can drive there): Enryaku-ji Temple. It was a beautiful temple, made all the more spectacular by the changing autumn leaves.

- On Sunday, Katie and I went back to Kyoto to see some more kouyou (fall colors). We did a little shopping and went to Kiyomizu-dera, which is one of the more famous temples in Kyoto and, therefore, in all of Japan. Unlike Enryaku-ji, it was difficult to enjoy walking around the complex because it was so crowded. Kyoto in general was crowded: it was impossible to walk at your own pace on the sidewalks as you were being jostled and prodded by throngs of people walking to this temple or that shrine, stopping to examine the plastic food displays prominently featured outside many restaurants in Japan, or doing any one of the myriad of activities one does in a cultural capital. If you ever search the internet for pictures of Kyoto, you'll invariably find scores of photographs of cultural landmarks with nary a soul to be seen. It all looks so calm, so tranquil. This is, as Mom is so fond of saying, "A lie from the Devil." Now, don't let that discourage you from visiting what is the undisputed cultural hotspot for all things Japanese. The sights there are breathtaking and the shopping is unparalleled. Ironically, we ate dinner at a fabulous restaurant called "Falafel Garden", which I think is owned by an Israeli. Sometimes there's only so much Japan you can take in one day.

- Monday featured a trip to Costco with some of our good friends. We were running seriously low on bulk, wholesale items, and we needed to stock up. I can tell you that there is nothing more hilarious in this world than trying to fit boxes of stuff - some of which are nearly as big as your own torso - into whatever backpack, purse, or sack you can find, and then attempting to get it all home using only public transportation.

- Yesterday Katie visited the hyaku en shoppu (100 yen shop) to pick up some Holiday Cheer. Now that Thanksgiving is officially over, we can now usher in the Christmas Season, even though Santa and his reindeer have been prominently displayed in certain places around these parts since Halloween. You see, it's for this reason why I absolutely refuse to get into the Holiday Spirit until after my birthday. There's only so much Burl Ives a person can stand in a year. Even though Japan is, by and large, an irreligious country*, the Japanese passion for gift giving combined with the marketing potential of cute, furry creatures makes Christmas in Japan quite a popular holiday. On my street alone, almost every shop has some sort of display. The foreign food store down the street, Mon Marche, is absolutely decked out in its holiday best - colored lights and the flashing silhouettes of reindeer festoon the windows. On my daily ride home, I pass a barber shop that features an outdoor arrangement of dancing figurines singing Christmas songs; among them is a polar bear dressed like Santa Claus. All in all, it captures the commercial aspect of Christmas as it's celebrated in the States quite nicely. Katie was not immune to the swiftly approaching "most wonderful time of the year", and so she couldn't resist picking up a few things for the house. She bought the tiniest Christmas tree you ever did see, complete with lights, tinsel, and ornaments. Yes, Christmas has come to the Bob and Katie household.

*That is not to say that they don't believe in a higher power or powers, but it's my estimation that the majority of Japanese are more superstitious than religious, at least in the traditional sense of the word.

- The rest of this week is still up in the air. I'm taking paid leave on Friday because my one class was cancelled because, instead of conversation, the students will study grammar so that they don't fail as spectacularly for their upcoming exams as they did the last go around. Instead, I'll be headed to Arashiyama, which is another spot near Kyoto where the fall foliage is said to be particularly beautiful. On Saturday, we're having some friends over and on Sunday, Katie is taking me somewhere for a "birthday surprise". I guess and guess at what it could possibly be, but she assures me that I'm quite far from discovering whatever diabolical scheme she has concocted. Needless to say, I'm looking forward to it.

-Bob

Thanksgiving Thankstacular 2007

2007-11-19T11:30:00.000+09:00

Last night Bob and I did something we thought near impossible. We cooked Thanksgiving dinner for 18 people. Here is the story:

THE LEAD-UP:
For a long time now, I've been suggesting to Bob that we should have his coworkers over. We have the space for it, and it's the polite thing to do, anyway. So we decided to do it at Thanksgiving. We invited the principal and his wife, the vice-principal, and all the English teachers (I think there are 6 or 7, besides Bob.) However, only 4 told us they could come. Luckily none of them showed up in costume. The principal's wife, who speaks excellent English and has a very good understanding of American culture, said "We have to wear costumes, don't we?" And the vice-principal RSVPed by saying "Yes, I will come to your Halloween party." I was inclined to just let them dress up and see what happens, but Bob informed them that no costumes were required.

One guy told Bob he was really excited to eat turkey. We had been going back and forth over whether to have turkey, or maybe just chicken or ham, which are much easier to find and also smaller. We don't have an oven, so our friend offered to lend us her electric oven. No one bakes in Japan-- it's a big waste of energy to heat such a large space when you're only baking one dish. And the ovens they do sell are much smaller, not exactly turkey-size. So we thought maybe we just won't have one. The side dishes are the best part of Thanksgiving anyway. But when that teacher kept talking about the turkey, we couldn't disappoint him, right? We took a trip to Costco, where we found the smallest turkey was 16.8 lbs/ 7.6 kg. And it was $40, having been imported from America. We got it anyway.

Now, with this turkey on our hands (which barely fit in our fridge and ended up breaking the glass shelf it was laid on) we knew had to invite more people. We sent out an email to a few foreign friends in the area, all other English teachers. A few people replied, so we now had a guest list of about 8. I was still worried, though, so I told some people at my office about it. I thought maybe 1 or 2 people would come. But many of the Japanese staff got really excited. "My first Thanksgiving dinner!" they said. We ended up having 3 people from my work. Then some more of our foreign friends replied to our email. Uh-oh. We now had a guest list of 15 people. As it turned out, another of Bob's coworkers showed up anyway, making a grand total of 16 guests.

COOKING:
With all these people on our hands, we doubled and tripled recipes in order to feed everyone. Never mind that we had never cooked an entire Thanksgiving dinner for even a few people. In addition to the prize turkey, we made stuffing, garlic mashed potatoes, mashed sweet potatoes, macaroni and cheese, garlic green beans, and ginger carrots. We bought corncobs, rolls, 2 pies, ice cream and most importantly, black olives. We asked people to bring drinks or desserts, or a side dish. So in addition to the main meal, there were chips, guacamole, salad, raisins, and enough beer and cheap wine so that it flowed all night.

The hardest part was cooking the turkey. I don't really know anything about cooking meat. Since Bob used to work as a prep cook, he got the job of cooking the turkey. At first he saved the giblets, thinking that we could use them in gravy, but then decided that it might be a bad idea to eat the parts of a turkey that are used as a filtration system. At least it wasn't a Chinese lead-infested turkey. I put some spices together and he rubbed them on the bird, and it went in the oven at noon.

The rest of the cooking was pretty standard Thanksgiving stuff, but with a few complications: 1. Our stove only has 2 burners. 2. We have few cooking tools. 3. With the turkey in the oven (or in the fridge, or in the freezer, or anywhere else we kept it) nothing else would fit. Now, I'm used to putting everything in the oven and letting it all cook, and then going and watching the parade. Not here. From 12-6, the turkey took up every available centimeter of space. So anything else that needed to be cooked had to go in the microwave on "grill" setting, or on the stove-- if there was room on the stove. It was a process. And then the was the most frustrating thing of all: 4. Measurement conversions are a bitch.

You would think that it would be a simple matter of converting US measurements to metric ones. And you would be wrong. You see, there are also Japanese measurements in addition to metric ones. A Japanese cup is equal to 200 milliliters. A US cup is 237 milliliters. All of our measuring tools mark the Japanese cup, not the American one. It was only a month or so ago that I finally figured this out. "Hey, does this look like a cup of water to you?" "Um... I don't know-- wait! I think it's missing 37 milliliters!" Well, it wasn't exactly like that... but I did think that Japanese cups look smaller. Now I know why.

And then there was the not-so-simple matter that the oven had temperatures labeled only in Fahrenheit (not sure why) but our meat thermometer was only labeled in Celsius. This is usually okay, since I've gotten used to describing the outside temperature in Celsius, but I'm not so good with higher temps. And when cooking turkey so that it's still juicy but no one gets salmonella- you kind of have to be precise. We left a Fahrenheit-Celsius converter webpage open on the computer, so we could keep running back and forth to check if it was bacteria-free yet.

THE PARTY ITSELF:
With all the turkey fuss, it wasn't done until 1 hour after the party technically started. People began to arrive at 5, and at first, the Japanese people all remained in the back room while the foreigners stayed in the kitchen. Bob and I were still cooking, and were trying to be good hosts while quickly finishing up dinner. Once the beers and boxed wine started flowing, however, the problem began to sort itself out as people loosened up. We did introductions right before carving the turkey. The best part was making everyone say what they were thankful for. Most foreigners expressed thanks for the Amagasaki Costco, or Bob's stepdad's awesome macaroni and cheese recipe. But some people mentioned that this was their first proper Thanksgiving in years. Some people have been here for 3 or 4 years, and missed having home cooking on Thanksgiving. One girl noted that this was the time of year that many foreigners start to get really lonely-- the excitement of being in Japan has worn off, the weather is starting to get pretty chilly, and many people miss being at home during the holiday season. To her, the party was the perfect antidote to that. I didn't realize how much our crazy Thanksgiving scheme meant to some people. For me, it was the most fun Thanksgiving I've ever had. At home, it can feel routine-- we eat the same things every year, my family always argues, and the Cowboys win the football game (boo.) But when we pulled the turkey out of the oven yesterday, everyone cheered. The foreigners were so happy to have a taste of home here in Japan. The Japanese people all gathered round to see exactly how we planned to serve this thing. Everyone was excited.

Our Japanese friends all said the opposite thing: they were thankful to be invited to a Thanksgiving dinner, since none of them had experienced one before. Some had never tried turkey before, and I don't think anyone had ever had mashed sweet potatoes with marshmallows on top, or Southern-style mac and cheese. Again, I didn't realize how much it meant to them to be invited into our home to celebrate with us. But here in Japan, where it's less common to have people over (since people have much smaller houses, so there's no room), and certainly less common to have people over for Thanksgiving, it was a pretty big deal. They were even impressed with the cranberry sauce from a can. One of my friends explained to a roomful of bewildered Japanese people that "it's very hard to make." He then gestured towards me chopping the jelly into slices.

THE END:
So all in all, it was a grand success. Maybe we'll do it again, but I think next year might be a potluck instead.

Hikone, earthquake, and other assorted things

2007-11-06T15:07:00.000+09:00

Just a few things to report (I'll make this quick):

Last weekend Katie and I went to Hikone, which is the city where Katie spent her semester abroad during college studying Japanese. Hikone is located in Shiga Prefecture and is situated on the eastern shore of Lake Biwa - the largest lake in Japan. Hikone's population is around 100,000 or so, making it a relatively small city and therefore very convenient to traverse by foot - indeed, you're often required to do so, since there are only two train stations: JR Hikone and JR Minami-Hikone. The city's main attraction is Hikone Castle, which is one of precious few original castles in existence, meaning that it was not completely destroyed over the years by various fires, earthquakes, WWII, etc. It occupies the highest point in Hikone, and a short hike from the inner moat to the main tower provides a sweeping view of the city below, the mountains to the north, and of course, Lake Biwa itself to the west. It was truly one of the most spectacular views I've seen since I came to Japan three months ago.

This week has been unremarkable, with a few minor exceptions. First, there was an earthquake on Tuesday. It was barely a tremor, but it occurred during my only class of the day. The students felt it before I did: I just saw them looking at each other with wide eyes and wondered why they looked surprised, when all of the sudden I felt a little shake underneath my feet, like a giant truck had just passed by. It was small enough to be exciting without being legitimately scary, but big enough so that I really don't care to experience anything more powerful!

Also this week, Katie and I tried out some new recipes. The first was a standard Chinese stir-fry. We make a lot of stir-fry around Chez Robert and Katie, but we usually add sauce from a packet instead of making it ourselves. So we gave the latter a go this time around. The second, which I tried out last night, was a really simple chicken curry recipe I found on the internet. I've shared it below if anyone's interested (you do need a s*** ton of garam masala though, so don't forget to hit up your grocer's spice aisle before you attempt to make it!)

This weekend, Katie and I are headed back to Nara (the place with all the deer running around) to check out the famous Shoso-in Treasures. My principal walks up to me one day and hands me two tickets to this exhibition and says, "Here." Apparently the tickets were for him and his wife, but because they are busy this weekend, Katie and I get to enjoy them! It will be nice: I really enjoy getting out and doing cultural and, dare I say, "Japanish" things on the weekends, because I find it compensates rather nicely for all the time I spend at school doing a whole lot of nothing when not in class. :) Tonight, though, we're "fonduing" with some fellow gaijin down in Kobe; sometimes you just need to hang out with other ex-pats, eat some melty cheese and bread squares, and complain about how there seems to be some gene in the Japanese DNA that makes them walk right in front of your bicycle. Seriously. Even if they've been standing in the same exact position at the bus stop for five minutes straight, as soon as they see you heading towards them on your bike, no matter how fast you're going, they will suddenly be overcome with the urge to take a step either forward or backward - whatever will put them directly in your path. We've all been there. Although I suppose it would be healthy to also get some Japanese friends, so we could hang out with them, eat some melty oyakodon, and complain about how the gaijin are ruining this country. I mean come on. And have you seen what big noses they have?

Katie and I are putting together a little Thanksgiving dinner on the 18th, and we've invited all the Japanese English teachers at my school to our house for the festivities. Anyone care to help me think of some side dishes to serve? Please bear in mind that we don't really have an oven big enough to accommodate anything bigger than your average dinner plate.

Well, that's all for now! Oh, the chicken curry recipe is below.

-Bob

Chicken Curry

Ingredients

1 tbsp Oil
10g Butter
3 Cloves Garlic, crushed
1 Medium Onion, finely chopped
2 tbsp Garam Masala
1 tsp Ground Coriander
½ tsp dried mint (for lack of mint, I used dried basil instead)
570g Boneless, Skinless Chicken Breast, diced
200 ml water

Method

Heat the oil and butter in a wok or large, heavy frying pan. Add the garlic and onion and stir fry for about 5 minutes until onion is golden.
Stir in the garam masala, coriander and mint. Add the chicken and cook over a moderate heat for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Add the water, stir, and simmer without a lid for 10-15 minutes until the chicken is cooked and sauce has thickened. (I also added a little flour to the sauce. You could also try adding less water)

Happy Halloween!

2007-11-01T06:39:00.000+09:00

Many things happened since my last post:

Katie went to the Jidai Matsuri (pictures up on Flickr) and had a lot of fun while I did a whole lot of nothing at school. At least I had a class on Friday!

I went to Katie's school on Saturday and had a Halloween party with the childrens, and my definition of "cute" has been forever changed by what I witnessed there.

On Sunday we went to Kobe and did a bit of shopping.

This week, Katie didn't have to work on Monday, Tuesday, or today, so she was able to go and get some administrative things done related to her work visa. Every gaijin (foreigner) in Japan has to get an Alien Registration Card. Sometimes cops will stop you randomly, and you have to be able to produce either a passport or an ARC (aka "Gaijin Card") on the spot, or you get in big trouble. I feel like being a foreigner in Japan is probably a lot like being black in most places: a lot of people are afraid of you and police stop you for no reason. I do get a little paranoid around cops, I've found, even if I haven't done anything wrong and I have all the appropriate documentation on me. My friend Adam, who's teaching in Busan, South Korea, said he felt pretty much the same way.

This weekend Katie and I will be headed to Hikone, in nearby Shiga Prefecture, which is the city where Katie did her semester abroad a year and a half ago. She's going to show me literally EVERYTHING there is to see and do there ("It'll take a whole day," Katie said). So that should give you some idea of how big the place is.

Oh, one more thing of note: today I taught my kids how to play King's Cup, which, if you've never heard of it before, is a drinking game you can play with a deck of cards. Here's how it works:

Players sit in a circle. In the middle of the circle is an empty cup. Around the empty cup is spread a deck of cards - all cards face down. Each player, in turn, picks a card up from the pile and displays it to the group. Depending on the value of the card, you or the other players have to perform a certain activity.

If you draw a...

2 - You. The person who drew the card selects a player to take a drink.
3 - Me. The person who drew the card takes a drink.
4 - Floor. Last player to touch the floor when this card is drawn takes a drink.
5 - Guys. All the male players drink.
6 - Chicks. All the female players drink.
7 - Heaven. Last player to point to the ceiling when this card is drawn takes a drink.
8 - Pick a mate. The person who drew the card picks another player. Both drink.
9 - Bust a rhyme. Going around in the direction of play, the person who draws a card says a sentence. The next player has to come up with a sentence that rhymes with the first one (it doesn't have to logically follow the first sentence in terms of content). The players continue this until one of the players is unable to come up with a rhyme. That person drinks.
10 - Categories. The person who drew a card announces a category of items, for example, "car manufacturers". Going around in the direction of play, the players have to name items in that category. So the next player in turn might say, "Toyota", and the player after that might say "Honda", for example. The first person to repeat an item or fail to come up with one has to take a drink.
J - "Never Have I Ever". The player who drew the card says a sentence with the following format: "Never have I ever _________". Any activity can fill the blank, such as "Never have I ever stayed awake for 24 hours straight." Anyone in the group who HAS done that activity (in this example, anyone who HAS remained awake for 24 hours) takes a drink. In the direction of play, the players each take turns thinking of a new "Never Have I Ever" until all the players have had a turn.
Q - Questions. The player who drew the card asks another player a question. The person to whom the question was asked may not answer the question, but must instead ask a DIFFERENT question to a DIFFERENT player. The game keeps going like this until someone makes a mistake. The first person to mess up takes a drink.
K - King's Cup. The player who drew the King must pour some of whatever they're drinking into the cup in the middle of the circle. The player who draws the 4th and final king must drink the contents of the cup (which now contains a mixture of potentially 3 different kinds of drinks). The drawing of the fourth king also ends the game.
A - Make a rule. The player who drew the Ace must create a rule that will apply for the duration of the entire game. The player may choose to cancel a rule previously created by another player. Some commonly used rules are "Little Green Man" (before taking a drink, every player must make the gesture of taking a little man off the lid of your can/bottle, placing him gently on the table, and then gently placing him back on the can/bottle after you've finished. Any player who fails to do this must drink again) or "Chin on the Table" - if you say a word (determined by the creator of the rule), you have to put your chin on the table and keep it there until another player says the word.

There are other variants of this game, of course. Because it's a school environment, though, I couldn't very well give each of the students a beer, so wherever it says "take a drink", I would give them a point instead. The object of the game, then, is to finish the game with the least number of points. It's actually good practice, since it's all in English. Certain activities, like questions, are good practice for forming questions in English, and Categories is excellent for practicing vocabulary. And "Never Have I Ever" is ALWAYS a good way to get to know your other players.

-Bob

I don't have a real job

2007-10-23T02:48:00.000+09:00

This week, the students are taking their midterm examinations, so I don't have any classes at all. I have essentially nothing to do this week. I have to be physically present at school, but being mentally present is totally optional. This leaves me with a lot of free time to bring my daydreaming and time-wasting techniques back up to their pre-college-graduation levels.

Katie has Mondays off, so she had planned on going to Kyoto to see some sort of festival of some sort. Kyoto's the "cultural capital of Japan", and as such it has more than its fair share of festivals. I've never actually attended a festival before, but I've had them described to me and I've seen pictures, and it seems (to the uninitiated observer, at least) to be a lot of guys yelling and parading through the streets in an effort to appease _____________ (insert minor deity here) or to celebrate _____________ (insert seemingly insignificant event or random season here). My tone may strike you as somewhat dismissive, but rest assured that until I attend a festival and see for myself what it's all about, I can only do the responsible thing and resort to sweeping generalizations and offensive stereotypes.

Anyway, since I have no classes today, it hardly seems fair that I'm expected to be at school while Katie gets to galavant around Kyoto. It would seem unfair, at least, had I not learned early on in my professional career that where you are is frequently as important as what you do when you're there. Someone once said, "90% of life is just showing up". I don't remember who said it, but boy were they smart. So it follows that even though I have nothing to do, my mere presence at the school helps to establish my identity as one of the team.

This weekend went by really quickly. Katie's friend Hiroko visited from Shiga for Katie's birthday celebration on Saturday at our local bar, Half Moon. We met up with some of our fellow ex-pats from around the area: Anna and Erin from Seattle, Dave from Wisconsin, and Jeff from London. We bought a chocolate butter cake from a local bakery and brought it to the bar for mass consumption (they let you bring in outside food, which is awesome). On top of the cake were these little animals fashioned out of gumdrops and icing: there was a chicken, a dog, and a raccoon. We decided to make up a story about these animals, and Jeff took some pictures to accompany the story. I'll be posting those to my Flickr account later on (www.flickr.com/photos/wahoobob312 for those of you who haven't been there yet). Needless to say, it was very dramatic and we all had a good laugh about the pictures.

Sunday Katie and I went to the Kyocera Dome in Osaka to check out the Ryukyu Festival. It was a really interesting event: you could walk around on the lower level and buy snacks from the various vendors that had set up inside the arena while watching the live performances broadcast on the giant monitors that hung from the top of the stage. At one point Katie and I ventured up to our actual seats in the nosebleed section, but we found that it was a lot more fun to go down to the lower level and lounge around on the big tarp with everyone else (many of whom, by the end of the evening, were drunk and dancing around). We were able to taste several Okinawan dishes: Okinawan curry, Okinawa style soba and yakisoba (noodles and fried noodles), goya champloo (goya is bitter melon, and champloo is the Ryukyu term for stir-fry). We also got a curly fry and root beer set (random). Oh, and everything contained Spam. It may strike you as odd, but I think Spam is really big in the islands. For example, it's really popular in Hawaii. And since Okinawa is to Japan as Hawaii is to the US, it's only natural that they would share a mutual love of Spam, I suppose.

Happy Birthday to Katie!

2007-10-19T05:20:00.000+09:00

Yesterday was Katie's birthday. She's 22. We celebrated by going to a nice Italian restaurant called "Da Vinci's" that's somewhere between our house and the closest train station (about a 5 minute bike ride or so). I had veal marsala and Katie had lasagna; it was pretty good! Not the best meal I've ever eaten, but for being in Japan where a lot of ethnic food is watered down for Japanese tastes, it was damn impressive. This weekend we'll celebrate some more by attending the Ryukyu Festival in Osaka. Katie is really into Okinawa (the clothes, the music, the culture, etc.) and the Ryukyu Festival is all about the various aspects of life in the Ryukyu Islands (of which Okinawa is a part). The focus is mainly on the music, though. It's basically a big concert with various acts performing throughout the day.

The Ryukyu Islands, a long time ago, comprised a kingdom entirely separate from Japan. Over the years, Japan came to dominate these islands, and in the process suppressed their language and regional customs in an effort to "Japanisize" them. Flash forward to World War II, when the battle of Okinawa proved to be one of the bloodiest in the Pacific Theater: almost 2/3 of those Japanese killed during that battle were civilians (a little fewer than 150,000 people). After World War II, Okinawa became the location of the United States Forces Japan (USFJ) and was fully under American control for the first 27 years, at which point it was ceded to the Japanese government. The US still maintains bases on the island; many US troops are stationed there.

In spite of such hardship, the Ryukyu Islands never fully lost their identity. In fact, Ryukyu culture and music is currently enjoying a resurgence in popularity among the mainland Japanese; walk around any large Japanese town and you're likely to find Okinawan cuisine right alongside more "traditional" fare. Okinawan born artists are among the most popular musicians out there today; hopefully Katie and I will get to see some of the more famous ones at the Festival (I haven't yet seen a lineup).

-Bob

I'm lazy

2007-10-16T07:52:00.000+09:00

So I have a nasty habit of letting things go...

Recently I bought a plane ticket to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, because that's where I'll be spending the winter holidays. Well, there and Singapore to be specific. Anyway, I'm expecting my plane tickets to arrive by post, forgetting that, of course, the post will come when I'm still at work and no one will be home to sign for any packages. So to my surprise, one day I come home from work and there's a little slip of paper in the mailbox (in Japanese) telling me that the postal service attempted to deliver a package from ANA (All Nippon Airways), the company from which I had bought my ticket. It then has instructions detailing how I can go about contacting them - they even have an English help line - to arrange a more convenient delivery time. Being the responsible adult that I am, I contacted them immediately to arrange delivery for that evening, and now I have my tickets in hand, ready to go.

I'm lying, of course. What actually happened is that I promptly misplaced the notice and forgot all about it for about a week, at which point I saw it lying on the table and thought to myself, "Self, I really should get that taken care of." So I called the post office's English help line, and they informed me that, naturally, it's one day past the last day that the post office can hold it before sending it back to ANA, so I have to call the airline and have them re-send the tickets. I don't know if I'm going to get charged for this, but it's the least I deserve.

-Bob

Visit to Nagoya

2007-10-15T11:49:00.000+09:00

Last weekend, Bob and I went to Nagoya to see my old roommate, Kayoko. Kayoko and I were roommates back from January to March 2006 at the Japan Center for Michigan Universities. She lives in Saitama-ken, in the suburbs of Tokyo, but happened to be in Nagoya on business. By express train (not bullet train) Nagoya is only 2.5 or 3 hours away from Amagasaki, so we went to visit for a day and a half. We had lunch at her cousin's okonomiyaki restaurant. Her aunt is a waitress there, so we got to meet her as well. They were very sweet to us, and gave us free ice cream. Okonomiyaki is cooked like a pancake, on a griddle, except the batter is filled with cabbage, onion, meat, seafood, etc. It's topped with a sweet sauce, mayonnaise, and dried fish flakes. Bob's okonomiyaki was shaped like a heart. As we were leaving, her cousin recommended we go see the Nagoya Daibutsu (statue of Great Buddha) at a temple nearby. The temple itself looked like it had come from South Asia, not Japan-- there were statues of elephants all around, and the altar was gilded and very ornate. Japanese temples tend to go more for the simplicity-is-beauty aesthetic. We walked around the inside of the temple, where there were many framed documents on the wall proving the temple's connection to Sri Lanka. I'm not sure why there was a Sri Lankan-style temple in the middle of Nagoya, but it was really neat to see. It was so different from the other temples I've seen. And the Great Buddha himself was quite impressive.

Then we went to a park in the city center, with a large viewing platform, several stories high, from which we watched the sunset. We had dinner reservations for 7:30, so we had some time to kill. First we found a hotel for the night, and then Kayoko took us to a huge 100-yen store, where we happily wandered around for quite some time. For dinner, we went to a Moroccan restaurant called Casablanca. It's been such a long time since I had Middle Eastern or Mediterranean food! I read in my Japan guidebook that there was a Moroccan restaurant in Nagoya with belly-dancing shows on the weekends, and I immediately asked Kayoko if she wanted to go. I don't think she had eaten that type of food before, but I think she liked it. We all ordered a set meal, so we were in there for at least 2 hours, watching the show and finishing all the food they brought us.

The next day, Bob and I headed out to the Tokugawa Art Museum. The Tokugawa clan was from Nagoya, and the museum is a display of Edo-period life. The best part was that most of the items were displayed in context-- for instance, there was a reconstructed teahouse inside the museum, in which the tea wares were all set up. The next room had a real Noh stage, around which were displayed costumes, props, and masks. It made it easy to see how everything was used. They also had an impressive collection of swords, samurai armor, scrolls, and books. Some of the scrolls dated from the Heian period (794- 1185 AD) but most objects were a bit newer, usually from the 17th century. Afterwards, we met up with Kayoko and her uncle for lunch. One of the local specialties of Nagoya is kishimen-somen, a type of wide, flat noodle. You can't really go anywhere in Japan without hearing about all the local specialties, and Kayoko insisted we had to try kishimen-somen. It was quite tasty-- apparently you can't get these noodles anywhere else in Japan. Although Kansai is definitely my favorite region in Japan, the Nagoya/ central Japan region also has a lot to offer. I hope I get to go back sometime- I really want to visit Nagano and the Japanese Alps.

I got a memo today

2007-10-11T04:00:00.000+09:00

Today, my supervisor left a memo on my desk. Here it is, in its entirety:

"To all participants of the JET Programme,

Every year during a weekend at the end of October, a large number of costume-wearing foreigners take over several cars on the Osaka Loop Line and hold a Halloween party. The party attendees engage in a number of activities that disturb other passengers, including drinking alcohol inside the train cars, attacking others, damaging the cars, and leaving a large amount of garbage throughout the train. In addition, every time the train stops at a station the attendees all yell and run out onto the platform, then run into a different car to ride again, causing delays not only on the loop line, but also on other lines that are connected to the loop line. As a result of this party, a large number of complaints are filed with JR West and the police every year. Unfortunately, we have also been informed that some JET Programme participants attend this party.

This year, the Osaka Prefectural Police Department is planning to place a number of police officers at the stations and inside the cars of the Osaka Loop Line and arrest people on the spot if they observe any illegal activity. We strongly request that none of the members of the JET Programme participate in this party, as it causes a great amount of trouble for others.

In addition, participants caught engaging in any of the following conduct will be arrested on the spot by the Osaka Prefectural Police.

Causing the train to be delayed (Forcible Obstruction of Business)
Ripping the advertisements in the train (Destruction of Property)
Spitting in the train (Destruction of Property)
Vomiting in the train (Destruction of Property)
Standing on the seats without removing ones shoes (Destruction of Property)
Attacking others (Assault and Battery)"

I added the bold for emphasis. The implication here is that it's perfectly acceptable to stand on train seats, just so long as you remember to remove your shoes beforehand!

The memo also conveniently omits mention of the fact that many Japanese people participate in this activity as well - not just foreigners. I guess perhaps the innocent Japanese were manipulated into fiendish behavior by the wide-eyed gaijin devils and are therefore absolved of their responsibility. *Sigh* When you're a minority, you stick out, and so people are a lot more likely to notice when you slip up and do something stupid and will naturally apply it to the entire group of which you are just a representative sample. Every time I fumble with my chopsticks, or fail to produce adequate Japanese, or fall off my bike (don't ask), I inwardly cringe, because I know that every Japanese person watching is thinking to themselves "I knew it! Typical foreigner!" It goes way beyond the typical embarrassment of being caught in an awkward situation - now your entire race/gender/nationality/etc is on the line! You have to maintain dignity for the sake of foreigners everywhere! It's a lot of pressure to deal with, let me tell you.

New Joint Blog

2007-10-02T16:17:00.000+09:00

This will primarily be a place to keep our friends and families up-to-date on our goings on in Japan and elsewhere. Please check back regularly for updates; both Katie and I will be posting here periodically and independently of each other.

-Robert