Shirami

Sayonara

2006-08-11T23:00:00.000+09:00

Well, after two years the end finally arrived. Having spent a fortnight saying what felt like an eternal spiral of goodbyes, I didn't actually think the final sayonara would be especially emotional. I was, however, proved sorely wrong on that point. When I boarded the night bus in Hachinohe bound for Tokyo - well let's just say I was more than a little overcome emotionally. Having come to Japan with nothing more than an open mind (and a 35kg bag full of somewhat mangy clothes), I found myself leaving behind, almost in its entirety, the life that I had built for myself in Aomori during my two years on JET. A life that included many people and places that have become very close to my heart.

There can't be many times in a person's life when you have to say goodbye to someone forever, and doing it every day for weeks became a very bizarre and almost farcical ritual. Being great lovers of ceremony, the Japanese like to choose a fixed moment that is designated as the time for your defintive goodbye. As is to be expected, this is usually a very sincere and emotional moment, and can be a very touching way to part. What happens if you just happen to bump into a person that you have already gone through the motions of an 'offical' Sayonara with, however, came as rather a suprise to me. In the event of such an encounter the atmosphere quickly becomes palpably uncomfortable: the Japanese person facing you is cleary unaware of how to deal with such an unstructured situation. Conversation is kept very brief, and the person who might have been all smiles and pats on the back the day before, is now desperately hoping that they can scarper from the scene with little more than a wave and a mumbled "see you!". I count myself lucky that I only had a few such encounters.

I don't feel that it is an exaggeration to say that living in Japan has been the greatest experience of my life. Without any Japanese language abilities, and very little true appreciation of the culture of Japan, life here has at times proved difficult, frequently frustrating, and sometimes just very strange - as was noted by a previous departing JET, there can be few experiences in life more humbling than becoming completely illiterate overnight.

During my final week in Gonohe I found a little piece of folded-up paper, which on inspection turned out to be a questionnaire that newly arrived Aomroi JETs had been asked to fill out during our arrival orientation two years previously. One question asked on the form was, "What are you most worried about concerning your new life in Japan?". I wrote that I was worried that I'd be overcome by homesickness and want to go home. Thankfully, the expected homesickness never surfaced. The strangest thing was that when the end of my life in Gonohe arrived, it actually felt a bit like I was leaving home.

2006-07-30T10:38:00.000+09:00

Japan 2004 - 2006

Well everthing is very crazy at the moment. Every spare moment I have is being used to pack, so I apologise for the deficit of blogs. I will be back soon with some concluding musings, most probably written in Hong Kong. Until then I leave you with this.....

2006-07-16T00:36:00.000+09:00

Farewell Khazakstani Dance

Mind Your Manners

2006-06-28T23:32:00.000+09:00

It is perhaps no surprise that good manners have come to form a core national characteristic in a land where 127 million people live huddled together in the few open plains that exist in a relatively small, and highly mountainous, island chain. On the surface at least, the Japanese surely have to be amongst the politest people in the world. Visit any Japanese supermarket, convenience store or restaurant and be prepared for such an onslaught of courtesy, that you would be forgiven for thinking that that you had been mistaken for Prince Rainier of Monaco. When I first arrived in Japan I couldn't help but piss myself with laughter every time I went to fill up my car with fuel. The send off I received from the petrol station staff, who all lined up to bow farewell to me and scream “arigato!” until their larynxes took early retirement, seemed more appropriate for the launching of a ship on its maiden voyage, but I was just driving off to buy a loaf of bread.

JETs generally find that politeness plays a larger part in the culture and language of Japan, compared to in their home country. Take for example the fact that Japanese verbs conjugate differently depending on the level of politeness inferred. For example, the Japanese word for 'eat' would be 'taberu' if I was speaking to a friend, 'tabemasu' if I was being reasonably polite and 'omeshiagari ni narimasu' if I was speaking to someone especially important, god, or just kissing arse a bit. Generally speaking, learners of Japanese will start out by learning the 'masu' forms of verbs, which is the fairly polite form of the verb. There are several reason why starting with this verb form is useful, but it does have some particular drawbacks for ALTs like myself. The main problem is that while using the 'masu' form of verbs is fine when addressing teachers, it would rarely be used by a Japanese person in casual situations or when speaking to children. However, as many new comers to the language haven't yet learned the plain form of the verb, they are forced to communicate in the same unusually polite manner with everyone they meet. This can quickly become rather frustrating, especially early in the learning curve, when you are just starting to muster enough of a command of the language to communicate with your students, only for them all to start giggling at you because you continually address them in an inexplicably polite manner.

For foreigners the most commonly encountered manifestations of Japanese politeness can sometimes be the most irritating. First of all there are the “oohs” and “ahhs” that you, as a gaijin (lit. outsider), will almost certainly receive if you manage to so much as pick up chopsticks, never mind use them competently. Then there is the curious Japanese custom whereby foreigners are congratulated on their marvelous Japanese language abilities, even if the words uttered were painfully rudimentary – my record so far is when I was congratulated on my Japanese abilities for simply saying “konbanwa” (good evening).

Of course all this is not to say that Japanese people are always polite. For some unusual reason the Japanese seem to be painfully blunt when it comes to any kind of comment about body shape or general appearance. “You're looking fat today Ewen, you should try and lose some weight” is just one example of the friendly banter I have with one of my co-workers in the office. At first it is difficult not to take offense from such statements, but you have to appreciate there is rarely any malice intended. Indeed, such bluntness may at times result in an inadvertent compliment. One friend of mine, while on visits to the onsen (hot springs), has, on repeated occasions, received open remarks about the size of his manhood from surprised Japanese .

When I first came to Japan I think I found the levels of politeness here somewhat overwhelming, as well as sensing that the practice was so insitutionalised that sincerity was frequently absent. Yet there is something I have came to admire about the Japanese respect for civility, even if it does often ring hollow in its superficiality. Given what must surely be among the world's lowest crime figures, it seems evident that the nation's heavy emphasis on courtesy has contributed towards fostering the strong sense of mutual respect – on the surface at least – that appears to exist in Japan. If only they could just work out a Japanese equivalent for 'big boned'.

Wierd and Wonderful

2006-06-22T19:48:00.000+09:00

If you were to ask a random Japanese person on the street* what they think their country is famous for abroad, the response volunteered would no doubt simply be a list of some of the well known features of Japanese culture familiar to people throughout the world. Sushi and samurai aside, however, one thing that the Japanese would be very unlikely to suggest, yet perhaps one of the things that Japan has come to be best known for outside its borders, is the nation's apparent quirkiness.

When I first arrived in Japan I was bracing myself for encounters with the weird and wonderful on a daily basis. If the UK media are to be believed, you'd expect to find that robot dogs are all the rage in urban Japan, while square melons have nudged their boringly round counterparts off the shelves, and cyber toilets that not only wax, buff and shine, but also send information on your diet to the fridge so it can order you a healthy dinner, have become de riguer. Indeed, one late night TV show in the UK dedicates its entire focus to the latest quirky crazes gripping Japan, while another contains a regular feature which simply consists of clips from Japanese commercials and TV game shows.

This image of Japan as a land of abundant hi-tech weirdness has became so established in the UK that people will sometimes believe anything. One British comedy show conducted a mock interview a few years ago, in which the presenter successfully convinced a prominent UK celebrity that the Japanese had developed a new, and rather novel, way of smoking cannabis: via a dog. This new method – whereby the unfortunate mongrel did the smoking, acting as a sort of filter, while the user had the fumes channeled directly into his veins - was alleged to aid users in getting that extra powerful high. Of course it was complete fiction, but the celebrity was convinced. It was no doubt the fact that the story had been attached to Japan which lent the 'Cannabliss' tale a false air of authenticity. Bar financial news, the national press rarely turns it's attention to Japan unless it is to report on the latest quirky fad.

Unfortunately my expectations about the fantastical weirdness I would in encounter Japan have largely been disappointed. Of course there are many things about Japan that I find strange because of cultural differences, but it would be wrong to label these as weird simply because they are unfamiliar. In two years living here I have not yet seen a single robotic dog, or indeed ever heard mention of one, and the one square melon I did see while up in Sapporo led to such an inquisitive grilling from my co-workers when I told them about it, as to suggest that this novelty fruit is not widely encountered. That is not to say that the odd little gem of quirkiness can't be found, however.

Just last night I had the great mispleasure of sampling the latest contender to enter Japan's already crowded drinks market: 'Sparkling Coffee'. It's a wonder really that nobody ever thought about carbonating coffee and selling it in a can before. Well, not really. Up until now drinks manufacturer's common sense has spared us from its fizzy wrath. Tasting somewhere in between Coca-Cola and a cup of Nescafe, the drink isn't actually as unpleasant as you would think, but that doesn't mean it is a beverage to savour. From the reaction of the one Japanese person I saw trying this new drink, I feel confident in predicting its imminent demise – although, as my Deputy Headmaster told me today, when Coke was first released in Japan everybody hated it and said it tasted like medicine, but now they can't get enough of it; but then again Coke isn't fizzy coffee is it.

Then there is Japan's second round of Beatle Mania, although this time the beetles concerned are of the small, black and shiny variety. The 'Mushi King' craze (Mushi is the Japanese word for 'insect') has been a hit amongst primary school kids for the past couple of years here. Kids collect playing cards with beetles on them, wear clothes featuring them, can buy computer games based around beetles fighting, and are often seen having battles with their friends using plastic beetle figures. The appeal of the craze eludes me, but the kids can't get enough of it. Come this summer, parents across the country can look forward to spending their weekend foraging around the woods with their children, net in hand, as they try to catch their own real live mushi. For those who don't fancy all that hassle, they can simply visit one of the many toy stores that now stock live Beetles, complete with food, earth and plastic box. Those beetles lucky enough to catch a discerning child's eye can look forward to a life been shaken about in a tiny plastic container in an effort to make it 'do something interesting'. I haven't discovered yet whether the kids try to encourage their beetles to fight, but remembering the childhood game 'Arena' that my friends and I used to play down at the fisherman's pier, where we used to make various sea creatures fight each other for our own pleasure (crabs always won, jellyfish were rubbish), I think it's safe to say there are probably a few 'Mushi Battles' taking place across the country at any given time.

Finally, there is the now infamous Hard Gay, a leather clad Japanese comedian whose camp antics have captured the heart of a nation. As far as I can see, the joke with the Hard Gay character is that he's gay. Dressed in a skin tight leather vest and shorts, Hard's TV show follows him around as he grinds his hips in the direction of the various strangers he encounters. The results are generally very amusing, although scenes where he does his grinding into the faces of children are just a little worrying.

Just how those Japanese who travel abroad feel when they discover that their country is widely regarded as being a tad eccentric I'm unsure - although in my experience Japanese people have always appeared to revel in the idea that they are different. One thing is for sure, if they all take up drinking Sparkling Coffee, it will be a reputation well deserved.

* Warning - It should be noted that approaching or speaking to a Japanese person can be potentially hazardous and may cause them to: panic; tell you that they “don't speak any English” (in English) even though you are talking to them in Japanese; forget all their Japanese language abilities rendering the person completely unable to understand what you are saying to them; insist on using English very badly even though they are clearly uncomfortable and have virtually no knowledge of the language; cross the street to run away from you.

The End is Nigh

2006-05-31T16:18:00.000+09:00

Well I can hardly believe it, but there are now only two months left until it's all over. It has been an incredible twenty two months, but sadly my time to leave Japan is nigh, and on the 1^st of August I will walk out the door of apartment 101 Karuni Haimu for the very last time, ever. Although I have always known that two years would be the longest that I would ever stay here in Gonohe, that hasn't made the actual prospect of leaving any less strange. It's not often in life when leaving somewhere feels so definite. Ever since I signed the piece of paper in January, confirming that I would not be re-contracting for another year, I haven't been able to shrug the rather uncomfortable feeling that the clock is ticking down on me.

As is always the way when you face leaving somewhere you have been a long time, there is a tendency to remember the good times and forget the bad. With so many fond memories at the forefront of my mind the imminent prospect of leaving Japan does make me feel a little sad. But then I guess it's necessary to remind yourself that, of course, it wasn't always sunshine and smiles, and – horrendously cheesy though it sounds - the end of one stage in your life also marks the beginning of another.

During my time living in Gonohe, many of the things that appeared so bizarre to me when I first arrived have become relatively normal. These days being obliged to drive at 30mph on main roads hardly ruffles my feathers at all, I never give a second thought to the (once infuriating) fact that bank ATMs close at 9:00pm, and I even relish the prospect of eating raw horse meat – a dish that scared the life out of me when it was first served up as a treat on my arrival in the town. Thanks to Japan I have virtually forgotten what it is like to fear crime, and even in the seediest parts of Tokyo my guard is always down. Simply finding myself in situations where I have no idea what someone is saying to me has almost come to feel the natural state of affairs.

But it's not just the idea of leaving Japan that feels strange, equally the prospect of returning home is a little weird. If you'd asked me just before my departure for Japan if I thought much would be different by the time of my return, I'm sure I would have said that I expected things to be much the same. After all, two years isn't that long a time. Yet, gradually, I've come to doubt whether this will really be the case. Of course, whenever I speak to people back home they always say how everything is just the same and little has changed, but for me, having left the context of my life in Scotland, I can see many things will be different. Just take for instance the fact that in the course of the past two years several people I have known have passed away, quite a few have given birth, some have got married, and one even went bald. When I got on the plane back in the summer 2004 you still had to empty your wallet to cross the Skye Bridge, people were more than free to spark up a cigarette in the pub, and if your mobile phone had a camera built in you were very much the exception. Now the bridge tolls are gone, the smoking ban passed and camera phones are all the rage. Yet those are just examples of some of the changes that I am aware have taken place. I will also return home with a two year gap in my knowledge of UK pop culture: two whole seasons of Big Brother, the Crazy Frog ringtone craze, and the meteoric rise of The Arctic Monkeys all passed me by (which was probably for the best actually).

Of course coming back to Scotland isn't going to be like The Planet of the Apes, I'm sure that when I return it will take a little time to readjust to the 'reverse culture shock', but I feel confident that the chances that the apes have taken over are relatively slim. I did ask one friend who returned home for a visit if it was strange going back, and was interested to hear that one of the first things to strike him were the many smells that were so unlike those of Japan which he had become accustomed to. I can't help wondering that if something as basic as the smells of home can become unfamiliar then there must be a whole host of other things that I will need to reacquaint myself with. I guess this summer I shall find out.

2006-05-19T13:28:00.000+09:00

Traditional Japanese Costume

The Art of Wasting Money

2006-05-11T16:17:00.000+09:00

As a child I can remember my grandfather's frequent despair at the way money appeared to “burn a hole” in my pocket. Given a fiver, I could last no more than a day or two before the urge to spend would simply overwhelm me and I would be forced to buy some utterly forgettable sculpted plastic toy. To an extent this childhood habit of frivolousness has lingered into adulthood, however my arrival in Japan has shown me, thankfully, that I am not alone in my capacity to fritter away my funds. You see throwing hard earned yen down the drain is somewhat of a creative endevour in the land of the rising sun. Take a brief stroll around almost any small town in municipal Japan and you would be forgiven for thinking that the local town hall must be awash with cash, even if the town's residents don't seem to be particularly plush. Indeed, it can sometimes be quite a surreal experience exploring Japan's rural towns, never quite knowing, as you pass dilapidated housing and empty shops, when you might encounter a 50,000 seat baseball stadium, complete with rotating roof, cybernetic toiletry and a heated playing field.

Local government spending splurges most frequently manifest themselves in the magnificent public parks that seem to exist in nearly every Japanese town and village, no matter how small. The creation of such parks, often as public works projects, proves beneficial for local politicians as they provide employment for locals, generate prestige for the town, and create a useful public amenity. It is also widely acknowledged that contracting such work also creates a lot of scope for politicians to secure kickbacks from the local construction industry. Subsequently public parks in many small towns tend to have a dizzying array of facilities, which very often seem completely out of proportion to local needs. Examples range from small infrequently patronised parks that have three or more car parks, providing massive excess capacity, to one local park that I occasionally visit, which has three individual playgrounds right next to each other, as well as a monumental bird shaped bridge.

Even here in my beloved home town Gonohe, a relatively poor place, itself located in the poorest prefecture of all Japan, we have our own selection of prestige constructions. Take for example the local school. When it was built, Gonohe Junior High School was widely regarded as having the best facilities of any school in the entire Tohoku region (a large area of northern Japan). Such a lofty title is perhaps not so surprising given that the school's impressive collection of facilities includes a closed network TV system complete with recording studio, a sculpted Japanese garden with water features, and, most remarkably, a planetarium – all of which are lucky to be used once annually. Other surprises include the town library which must surely be one of the only libraries in the world to have its own flight simulator (if you think that is good, there is a town north of Gonohe whose library houses a painting by Picasso), and the local community centre is an impressively grand construction. It is hard to believe that all this can be found in town whose economy has been in the doldrums since long before the Japanese economic bubble burst.

The title for perhaps the most amusing waste of money, however, must surely go to the infamous ASPAM building in Aomori city. The giant triangular building, constructed out of glass and steel, which was designed specifically to provide the city with a memorable landmark. Located in the heart of the downtown, there is certainly no denying that ASPAM is an impressive sight when lit up at night. The trouble with the building, however, is that it failed to achieve its intended function. You see, when it was built, it was hoped that Aomori's glass pyramid would quickly turn into a cash-generator, securing high rents from local companies keen to have office space in such a 'prestigious' structure. This idea might have been fine if function had been allowed to triumph over form on the architect's drawing board, but those responsible for planning the construction of ASPAM were evidently more concerned about impressing people with looks rather than creating something with practical utility. It didn't take long, however, before the flaws in the design became clear to all: triangular buildings, with their impractical shaped rooms that diminish in size with each level, do not make for ideal office space. In the end Aomori's answer to the Trump Tower was forced to search for a new raison detre, eventually becoming a kind of glorified tourist office.

I guess as a Scot it is a bit cheeky of me to be commenting on the frivolous spending of Japanese politicians, when Scotland herself so recently threw such an extortionate amount of taxpayer's money at the new parliament building in Edinburgh. But you have to give credit to the Japanese, who, just as they did with the simple acts of putting flowers in a vase or folding bits of paper, have turned something fairly straightforward and mundane into an art form. My grandpa might have hated it, but there is something I almost admire about the incredible ways that my hosts in Japan can think of to waste their cash. Hell, they even wasted some of it on me.

Not like us

2006-04-04T13:18:00.001+09:00

Blond hair, blue eyes, big nose, a tall frame, I have none of these features. Indeed, neither do a great deal of the ALTs on the JET programme, yet the presence our rainbow coloured community in Japan has done little to dispel the classic clichéd image of the 'Westerner' which prevails in popular imagination here. Quite where the Japanese get their ideas from I’m not so sure. Perhaps it is an enduring legacy of the old World War Two alliance with the Nazis that can explain why foreigners are generally portrayed as sturdy Aryan thoroughbreds. Or it may simply be that such easy classification suits a nation fixated about well defined boundaries and definitions. Certainly the strength of this stereotype's hold can be confirmed by the not infrequent tales from those JETs of non-European ethnicity who, to their great surprise, have been greeted on their arrival in Japan not with joyous welcome, but instead despondent sighs: their hosts apparently disappointed at not being sent a 'real foreigner'. Thankfully I tick enough of the right boxes to qualify as a 'real foreigner’for my hosts here in Gonohe - although I suspect, secretly, they would prefer the same model but in blonde.

Of course, in fairness, it's not just the Japanese that are guilty of stereotyping. It is no secret that in Scotland many people still tend to think of Asians as being uniformly short, rake thin, cursed with horrendous teeth and gifted at martial arts. What has really come to surprise me during my time living in Japan, however, are some of the more curious notions that abound about foreigners. Some of these fantastical beliefs distinguish Westerners from Japanese in ways that delve deep into the realms of the absurd.

It takes only a short time spent living in Japan as a foreigner, before one starts to get the feeling that Japanese people view themselves as being somewhat of a breed apart: human certainly, but a sub-species not quite on the same level as the rest of us. I remember being taken aback the first time someone hinted at the Japanese national pedigree to me. I was at a friend's house, with a few other Gonohe locals, on a particularly cold winter's day. We were all sitting around the kitchen table having dinner together, and I was having a bit of a gripe about the pervasive chill that was making it difficult to sleep at night. Before I could finish my moaning, one of the Japanese women sitting round the table suddenly interjected, exclaiming, in a rather boastful tone “the cold doesn't affect me!”. My first reaction was to simply assume that she was referring to the superior heating system in her house, and so I was left rather incredulous - not to mention bewildered - when she actually followed up her opening gambit by smugly explaining that “Japanese people are fortunate to have blood at a different temperature to Westerners”. Elaborating further, she then proceeded to educate all those unfortunate enough to be present about how this apparent difference in blood temperature (in her mind at least) is what allows Japanese to endure their country's fierce winters and, of course, explains why foreigners find the waist deep snow and minus temperatures ever so slightly uncomfortable.

At the time I just brushed the incident off, reassuring myself that the women's curious belief must surely have been the uttering of a fringe imbecile. However, only a few months later a friend recounted a similarly worrying tale. Whilst casually chatting to a Japanese man, she had made the almost unbelievable discovery that he, for reasons that seem almost impossible to fathom, believed that Westerners are born without mouths. Of course, there were a few fatal flaws with what he was saying, but in a desperate attempt to reconcile his insane theory with reality, he rationalised that as Westerners quite evidently do have mouths later in life, that an opening must be cut by the midwife in the delivery room. My friend, bottom jaw to the floor, couldn’t quite believe what she was hearing, but thankfully disabused the lunatic of his preposterous belief.

What is most worrying of all, however, is that what sound like the fanciful prejudices of the occasional maniac, are in fact a reflection of attitudes which receive a degree of official sanction by the Japanese government. Take for example the female contraceptive pill, legalised here only four years ago, owing to fears that it might affect Japanese women differently to their foreign counterparts. It was argued that insufficient testing had been done on Japanese women to make sure it was suitable for them – 40 years of use by women in the West was deemed an insufficient guarantee of safety. In an amusing conclusion to that particular tale, the Japanese feminist lobby were actually able to secure the Pill’s legalisation when, spotting glaring double standards, they questioned why Viagra had been approved for almost instant release. It was evident that the men staffing the Japanese drugs approval board weren't too worried about that particular drug affecting Japanese men differently from foreigners. Perhaps we're only different when it's convenient.

In the Club

2006-03-07T23:08:00.000+09:00

Earlier this week I had the great pleasure of attending Gonohe Junior High school's 23^rd annual Judo Takai (competition). Offering Judo in schools has been strongly encouraged by the Japanese government recently in an attempt to promote indigenous sports, and I was personally pleased when I discovered that the education authorities in Gonohe had heeded the politicians' nationalistic call. The event itself was quite a spectacle, with around 60 students drawn from the three grades knocking the shit out of each other to try and win the title of 'School Judo Champion'. At any one time three fights would be taking place, and I can assure you that the students certainly weren't shy about getting physical, there were spotty teens being chucked about right, left and centre. As can only be expected, a few of the quieter students proved reluctant to give it their all when fighting the cooler kids. There were, however, a few plucky young characters who did manage to muster the necessary courage to take on the school Trendocrats – a readily identifiable group of surly teens, noted for their intensely preened hair, severely plucked eyebrows and an amusing tendency to wear their trousers half way down their arses. I have to confide that I drew considerable satisfaction when this happened, finally getting a chance to watch some of the most irritating kids from third grade getting thrashed in a way that I can only dream of doing to them.

Although my involvement in the day went no further than acting as a spectator, I actually left the tournament a little battered and bruised myself. As I sat on the floor observing one particularly exciting match, which pitted the previous year's champion against a strong contender from the same year group, I suddenly felt a violent impact against my left shoulder which caused my entire body to lurch forward. Before I had time to even think about reacting a second blow fell, this time it was my right shoulder that had been targeted. As fast as I could I swung round to try and catch the culprit before a 3^rd blow could be inflicted upon me. But when I turned round I was surprised to discover that my phantom thrasher was in fact a student, a young girl who quickly explained that she was simply treating me to a shoulder massage. The student in question evidently interpreted the term “massage” in the loosest possible way, as the experience that followed was rather akin to having an angry male gorilla thumping you on back repeatedly. Quite why the student, a third grader of dubious mental faculties, decided it was a good idea to sneak up behind me and started punching my shoulders violently I will never know. However, the custom of students giving teachers massages is not all that unusual in Japan, and to be honest it's also not really that surprising that teachers are in need of massages here, not given the amount of time they spend teaching club activities.

In Japan the school day usually finishes between 3:30 and 4:00, varying according to the school, yet virtually no students will go home at this time. This is because Japanese schools are expected to offer a range of after-school club activities for the students, covering sports, music and art. You shouldn't be confused, however, by thinking that these clubs are anything like what you'd expect back home. Club acitvities aren't just about larking about with your mates and climbing all over the school gymnastic equipment while the PE teacher is in the toilet: in Japanese schools club activities are serious stuff. Once the students arrive in first grade they are required to choose which club they want to be a member of; once they have decided, that will be the club they remain in until they leave school at the end of third grade.

You see Japanese people don't take adopting a pastime lightly; if you choose a hobby, then that becomes your thing; you buy the best equipment you can possibly afford, you practice as much as is humanly possible in your free time, and you never, ever, stray from your chosen pursuit by taking up some other hobby. As a result Japanese people tend to be ridiculously good at whatever pastime they have decided to fill their free time with, something which I discovered when I mistakenly made the decision to try joining in with the school basketball club one day after school.

One Thursday I decided that I wanted to get to know some of my students better outside the context of the classroom, so I asked one of the teachers if I could maybe join in with the basketball club for a day. The teacher agreed so I headed for the school gym to join my students. Once there the team coach immediately instructed us to begin a harsh regime of training exercises which the students were expected to do every day. There was no laughs or smiles from the kids, just a lot of sweat and numerous determined looking young faces. Almost immediately my piss-poor abilities became clear to all, as I ran about the court erratically, barely managing to control the ball. Things went from bad to worse when I accidentally knocked, not one, but 3 first graders in a row to the ground as they tried to get the ball off me. The coach looked both bemused and slightly disturbed by the presence of this lumbering foreigner who was taking out his prized players one-by-one. After about an hour of intense training he decided to call me over for a chat, during which time the kids actually had a proper game. For around half an hour the coach and I made some small talk about Scotland, covering the staple themes of whisky and Nessie, and then, unfortunatelly, the clock dictated that I had to leave, as it was time for me to catch the next bus back home.

The following week I came along to try my hand at basketball once more, but it was a similar run of events, and yet again the coach called me to one side to have another - and essentially exactly the same - strategically timed chat about Scotland. It was then that the reality dawned upon me that training was as far as I was going to get in this particular club. The coach was clearly trying to get me off the court so the kids could play, as tactfully as he could. And so it was that those 2 visits became my one and only foray into the curious world of club activities. I guess that while my brutal massage at the Judo Takai showed that being a spectator does not always ensure safety from injury, I came to learn that my non-participation in school sports is definitely in my the students' best interest.

2006-03-01T19:18:00.000+09:00

I'm worried that I may be influencing the teacher who sits next to me.

Secrets of the Japanese Smile

2006-02-22T17:50:00.000+09:00

The Japanese, like their equally unfortunate neighbours the Chinese, have traditionally received a lot of stick from Westerners regarding the condition of their teeth. During the Second World War propaganda posters even made a feature of it, regularly portraying the bestial “Jap” with his slight eyes grossly exaggerated, a squat pig-like nose occupying the centre of his face and an exaggerated mouth almost bursting with jumbled zig-zagging fangs grinning sinisterly at the viewer. If such posters were to believed then the Allied soldiers had more to fear from their opponent's molars than their bayonets. Even to this day politically incorrect children throughout the western world continue to indulge this classic stereotype in the playground: the typical school impersonation of an Asian generally involving tugging at the sides of one's eyes and then biting over the bottom lip with your top row of teeth in an effort to reproduce the perceived dental malady of the average Asian. Of course as we get older, and hopefully a little wiser, people begin to dismiss such crude stereotyping, but sometimes the playground can be closer to the mark than you'd perhaps think.

Last week I was enjoying lunch in the company of my 6^th graders at the local elementary school. Normally I would have my lunch with the teachers down the stairs in the staff room, but this week the kids has especially asked if I could join them upstairs in their classroom (lunch is eaten in the classroom here, not in a dining hall as is the case in Scotland). Once lunch was finished I hung about for a bit of chat with the kids, something, as a very infrequent visitor to elementary schools, I'd never really done before. After 10 minutes or so had passed it was time for everyone to brush their teeth, this is standard procedure in Japanese schools and even the teachers join in. In the junior high schools this ritual simply involves everyone grabbing their brushes and then heading out of the classroom to negotiate a space along one of the trough-esque sinks than line the corridors. But in the elementary school the procedure was somewhat different: instead the teacher instructed one of the students to switch on “the video”. Driven by curiosity I decided to hang about to see what was about to be shown. Once all the students had filtered back into the classroom and had seated themselves at their desks, brushes at the ready, it was time to hit the play button. The large television screen began to glow revealing a figure who I guessed was most probably a dental nurse as she was balancing, with considerable difficultly, a giant set of teeth on one hand and holding a large toothbrush in the other. The featured women began to clean the over-sized dentures using the novelty brush, all the time shouting out instructions at the kids telling them to copy her. For the next 5 minutes the classroom was filled by the sound of 30 children brushing in perfect unison. It was a very Japanese sight. Afterwards I asked one of the kids if this procedure was the same every day, she replied that the exact same routine took place every single lunchtime.

Given that the Japanese instill good dental care practices so rigorously, and at such a delicate age, you would be forgiven for thinking that the Japanese could perhaps serve as an example to the rest of the world, a shining beacon of good dental hygiene. That, however, would be until you actually visited Japan. One of the first things I was struck by on my arrival here was the pitiful condition of the nation's gnashers. Blackened calcium pegs indented with patches of assorted metals featured regularly in the otherwise pleasant smiles I was greeted with. I'd see pretty young girls who evidentially invested a lot of time in their appearances, dressed in soft pastels, the delicate scent of perfume enveloping them, and with grins that bore the dental profile of Ken Dodd. Poor dental hygiene and the accompanying bad breath, meant that in my first few months here I regularly found myself reeling from both my co-workers and students due to the stench of rotting gums and festering abscesses emanating from their gobs – I have now learned to keep ample distance from those I am talking to. Braces are a rare sight, mouths full of protruding overlapping teeth are not. The legend of the Japanese people's terrible teeth is indeed no myth. So where does it all go wrong? Do the kids simply forget all they were taught in elementary school?

There is, of course, no short answer to such questions as there are many factors which contribute to making Japan the living embodiment of every dentist's nightmares. Traditionally when a Japanese child loses a tooth, they are taught an ancient custom, "ue no ha wa en no shita e, shita no ha wa yabe no ue e nageru." Literally translated, this means "throw your upper teeth under the floor, your lower teeth over the roof." The idea is that the upper teeth will grow downwards towards the tooth on the ground, and the lower teeth will grow up towards the roof, and all the teeth will grow strong. Indeed children would sometimes even pray for strong teeth. Yet baby teeth, are regarded as ephemeral and as such little importance is placed on keeping them in good condition, after all, parents reason, they will fall out eventually. Resultantly, many parents do little to encourage brushing, which in turn simply hastens the decay of their little darling's teeth. It doesn't take long for the cumulative damage to become evident: one look at an average Japanese teen's smile and you would be forgiven for thinking that scurvy is endemic in the country. The failure to encourage a habit of regular brushing amongst young children is often the first step on the slippery slope.

Then there are the dentists, who are unfortunately more often part of the problem than the solution here. For any work done on the national health service dentists are paid per appointment, as a result getting a simple filling can require up to 10 appointments, a serious disincentive for the infamously time-strapped Japanese. On top of that, toothpaste in Japan does not contain fluoride, and neither does the water supply, meaning that the Japanese tend to have rather week teeth - and foreigners with any sense get their toothpaste posted from home. Social pressure to keep your teeth in good condition isn't strong either: for a start if everyone else has bad teeth then why should you worry about your own, and in Japanese culture the quality of someones teeth has no bearing on the beauty of their smile – hence many Japanese models have stunningly beautiful faces, accompanied by stunningly bad teeth.

So given all this in mind it seemed especially unfortunate about a month ago when I made the discovery that I have a fairly large hole in one of my back teeth. It's obvious that it's going to require a filling but, having already seen plenty of evidence of their work, the prospect of visiting a Japanese dentist instantly fills my head full of images from 'The Little Shop of Horrors'. I might be mistaken, but I think it might just be best if I sit on this one.

God bless America

2006-02-17T20:48:00.000+09:00

If you haven't already heard of Dennis Madalone, then you have been sorely deprived. His song 'America we stand as one' has recently achieved the lofty accolade of being the “most downloaded song on the Internet”. Indeed, I'm such a fan that I have actually posted a link to his song before in an earlier blog, but for those of you who missed out, just click on the word patriot.

Now Dennis' song represents a new genre in American music commonly referred to as “Patriot Rock”, which largely sprung about as a response to the tragedies of September 11th. I myself was instantly a fan of both Dennis' song and the new genre from the moment I first heard 'America we stand as one'. Indeed, so moved was I, that I decided to email Dennis personally, just to let him know just how much I appreciated his music video and song, and to inquire if there was a chance I might get to see the man himself!

- Dear Dennis

I thoroughly enjoyed listening to you patriotic rock anthem. I'm actually Scottish, but for some reason that song made me too feel proud for America, and just for a second a bit like an American too. I am currently teaching English at a a Japanese Junior High school. My school is near Misawa, America's northernmost base in Japan. I was wondering if you have any plans to play your mega rock smash hit to the troops anytime soon? I would love to get a chance to see it performed live. I look forward to your response, and many thanks for all the work you are doing for charity.

Ewen Wyness

Now Dennis Madalone is a busy man, not only is he now a semi-professional musician thanks to his song, but he is also kept occupied by his day job working as a stunt coordinator on the Star Trek TV series. Incredibly, Dennis managed to find some spare time in amongst his busy schedule to respond to my email.

- Dear Ewin / thank you for youir kind and Beautiful words about our song / please send me your mailing address and I will send your the cd and dvd of our song. p s what size t- shirt do you want / of cource there is no charge it is truly a gift. love to you and allll.dennis madalone and my family.

Good old Dennis is a man who keeps his word, for only a week later a parcel absolutely brimming with patriotic goodies had arrived all the way from the US of A. In amongst this bountiful feast of Americana I received a patriotic T-shirt, a CD of the single, 2 signed DVDs, 2 signed Photos, and two signed business cards! What touched me most, however, were the messages Dennis hand wrote, they were true words of kindness:

“Ewen, your kindness is touching the world”
“Ewen, Keep on being you”
“Always believe”

And it wasn't just me who Dennis addressed his kind words to, there was a special photo enclosed for my students with the gentle message “For the kids. God bless you all”, and one of the DVDs was marked “For the world”. So I just wanted to write a little thank you blog to Dennis, both for his highly entertaining, and in ways inspirational music video, and also for just being a ruddy good bloke. If you should die Dennis, I'm sure we'll all remember that you're with us in a different way.

2006-02-16T23:32:00.000+09:00

Absolute Gold

Imagining Japan

2006-02-14T18:11:00.000+09:00

I can remember when I first arrived in Japan being rather surprised by some of the things the Japanese seemed to think that their country was famous for abroad. People I spoke to would regularly ask me whether I had been lured to Japan's shores by the promise of it's world famous cherry blossoms, their high speed bullet trains and the unusual delights of a country with four seasons – having four seasons being something which the Japanese tend to boast about rather incessantly. Yet the Japan that was being described to me was very different to the one of popular imagination in Scotland. My mental image of Japan before I arrived here was of a nation populated by fanatically hard workers, who watched very bizarre game shows on TV, enjoyed luxuriously high tech toilets and had a rather unpleasant tendency to kill themselves. I hadn't ever given any thought to how many seasons Japan had, but coming from a continent where every country has four seasons, it struck me as a rather pedestrian thing to boast about. Equally, I don't ever remember cherry blossoms featuring in my pre-Gonohe image of Japan, yet the Japanese are utterly convinced that it is one of the first things that comes to mind when a foreigner thinks of Japan. And as for the Shinkansen (bullet train), I think I did watch a programme about it on the Discovery channel once, but it would have featured very low down on my list of famous things from Japan.

It has been very interesting, however, discovering how a country's people believe their homeland is perceived abroad. I was rudely shocked myself when I discovered that Scotland's relatively high profile in Europe, Canada, America, Australia and New Zealand is not matched in Asia. I could just as well come from Burkina Faso for all people here care. In Asia most people's image of Scotland doesn't advance much further than whisky, and bagpipes if you're very lucky.

Today I did a class at school where I asked all the kids to take a minute to think of some of the things they believed would feature in a foreigner's mental image of Japan. After the minute was up I then asked each individual student to name one of the things which they thought of. The responses were quite interesting, for while many of the kids did manage to select the kind of things which would likely spring to mind if a foreigner were asked to think of Japan, such as Sushi, Samurai, Kimono and Mt Fuji, far more students chose things which the Japanese people tend to believe their country is famous for, such as Natto, a foul Japanese food composed of fermented soya beans which it is believed only Japanese people can stomach; Onsen, the volcanic hot springs frequently exploited as public baths which dot the country; and the Tokyo Tower, a marginally famous structure in the capital purposefully built to be larger than the Eiffel Tower. Conspicuous by their absence were Karate, Oragami, Karaoke, Bonzai trees, Fugu (Blowfish), Godzilla, Haiku, flower arranging and a whole host of other staples which traditionally make up the classic clichéd image of Japan as seen from abroad.

Quite a few kids did guess correctly that Hara Kiri, the custom of committing suicide by ritual disembowelment, was indeed famous abroad, yet many were surprised to discover that Ninja are well known. No students volunteered Kamikaze as an answer, and I decided that it was probably best that I didn't mention it. On a similar note, when asked to name internationally famous places in Japan, none of the kids chose Hiroshima or Nagaski, despite them both being infamous for the tragedies visited upon them during the Second World War.

I guess gaging how your country is perceived abroad is essentially very difficult unless you actually visit foreign countries. Although the Japanese do a good job of scattering themselves throughout the globe in their infamous flag totting tour groups, the style of Japanese tours often means they have little interaction with the local people, and as such miss out on potential opportunities to learn about their international profile. Subsequently the Japanese, like people in many countries, generally rely on their own media to inform them about how about they are viewed from afar. So it is perhaps understandable that there is a considerable discrepancy in how people here believe Japan is viewed and the actual reality. I wonder if I could help by showing them a copy of Karate Kid.

Winter Break

2006-02-01T17:38:00.000+09:00

I suspect that there are many people who would agree with me if I said that in Northern Japan it often feels that you don't so much experience Winter as endure it. Sure there is a lot of fun to be had entertaining yourself with Winter sports on the weekend, but even the hardiest of souls can find the long dark nights and biting cold a bit of a chore after a while. Unlike in Scotland where a generally rainy and windy Autumn gradually slips into an similarly rainy and windy Winter, in Japan the gentle chill of Autumn, with it's fantastic display of reds and gold, snaps rudely around mid-December, when the skies darken rapidly and the menacing grey clouds which blanket the sky begin to cough up continuously heavy snowfalls upon those unfortunate enough to be living below. It's at this time of the year that you begin to wonder how Japan ever got the name 'Land of the Rising Sun' , because the sun at most times appears to be very well hidden indeed. The start of the snowfalls is accompanied by a dramatic plummeting in temperatures. It is a testament to just how far the temperature can drop that, come around mid-December, most ALTs begin to keep their olive oil in the fridge so it won't freeze on their shelves.

Were Japanese houses not built out of plastic and paper mache the winters here might not be regarded with such trepidation by foreigners. In sensible countries like Canada, Norway or Iceland people can escape the intense winter chill by seeking refuge in their insulated, generally centrally heated, homes. In Japan by contrast, land of the automated arse polishing toilet seat and robotic football-playing dogs, central heating and insulation remain inventions yet to be imagined. Instead here single rooms are heated using dangerous kerosene stoves, which are best kept running otherwise the heat quickly escapes through the house's inch thick walls. As these stoves take a while to kick-in, people traditionally take refuge underneath a kotatsu, a curious piece of Japanese furniture which is basically a low lying table with an electric heater built into it – I slept underneath mine last year as my bedroom was too cold to set foot in, never mind sleep in.

I have been told that the slow up-take of modern heating methods by the Japanese is related to the customary Japanese view that it is more sensible to heat your body directly than wasting energy on heating an entire room/house - hence the popularity of the kotatsu. Frankly I have to disagree with the my host nation on this one: when it reaches the stage when you're too afraid to even go to the toilet because of the cold (although I am fortunate enough to have a heated toilet seat) you know there is an issue in need of addressing.

So as you can probaby guess, all this darkness and cold can get a bit depressing after a while, a feeling which is often augmented by the isolation felt when living in Japan as a foreigner. As the end of December approached I could feel myself in desperate need of a respite. Remembering well how my visit to Australia the year before had really helped me recharge my batteries – as well as my supply of vitamin D – I decided that a long winter break to some hot destination was a must. It was a little difficult choosing just where to visit; China and Korea were both out because their winters are reputedly even fiercer than Japan's; I had visited south-east Asia just last summer and wasn't keen on revisiting the region so soon; I did have one friend who was going to Jordan (somewhat incredibly his route took him from Japan via Amsterdam) but traversing such a long distance didn't appeal. So finally I settled upon India as my destination of choice. I knew it would be hot there, the culture interested me, and, unlike in Japan, I knew there was a good chance that I would actually be able to eat the food. And so it was that I departed to India for my 3 week winter vacation.

I have decided that this is not the place to recount my tales from India, I did think about it, but Fog-on-the-Wyn/Shirami has always been intended as a blog about my life here in Japan – and besides, I need to save some stories to tell people about when I get home. Needless to say I had a very nice time, saw some very nice things and met some very nice people. Most importantly the weather there was fantastic, so for 21 glorious days I reveled in the baking Indian sun without even once giving a thought to snow. Unfortunately my winter sojourn meant that my dear blog has been neglected for quite some time. But fear not, I have returned and so have my musings. Expect plenty of exciting tales involving snow, ice and tubes of Raljex in the coming months.

Keep Safe

2005-11-30T18:16:00.000+09:00

I was sitting at my desk vegetating yesterday, having spent a very unproductive day without any classes as the students are studying for their forthcoming exams. My mind was becoming so numb that I decided a cup of thick strong coffee was necessary, just to make sure that my brain continued to instruct my body to perform at least the most basic tasks essential for survival. As I rose from the seat I had been embedded in for the past seven hours, and hazily shuffled across the staff room to the coffee machine, I noticed row upon row of small blue boxes had been lain out on the cluster of desks that take up much of the centre of the staff room. Several teachers were peering inquisitively at the boxes, which had been numbered 1 – 201 in black marker, and my own curiosity drew me to join them. It turned out that the small boxes contained Personal Safety Alarms, one for each girl in the school. I must say I was a little surprised by this, as Gonohe is hardly a cesspool of crime. I wondered if the move to equip the students with the alarms was a response to the recent murder of a young school girl in Hiroshima. However, after asking around I discovered that the decision had actually been made several months ago, intended as a measure to protect female students against the perceived growing crime rate in Japan.

It is true that security in Japanese schools is perhaps not as tight as in some other countries. None of the schools I have visited in my time here have been fitted with video cameras, certainly not that I have noticed, and people can usually enter and leave school buildings unchecked with relative ease. Gonohe junior high school does have an intercom which visitors are meant to call on to gain approval to enter the school, but you don't have to be a meandering psychopath to work out how to circumnavigate that security feature. One of the most interesting security measures I have heard of in Japan is the giant prong that some schools are equipped with. The idea is that if some random Johnny Nutcase decides that he wants to pay a special visit to a school classroom, the kids can stop the intruder dead in his tracks by pinning him against the wall using the two pronged pitch forkesque instrument. Although Gonohe junior High school doesn't have any of the Paedoforks, I have heard that they are relatively common throughout the country.

It is obvious that girls have been deemed to be most at risk, as none of the boys were fortunate enough to be give one of the alarms Gonohe Junior High has just purchased. According to one of the teachers, it was agreed that the male students are able to fend for themselves, although I'm not exactly sure why the staff think that a 12 year old boy would be any better placed to fend off and adult attacker than a girl of the same age.

Of course the necessity of tight security measures in schools is highly debatable, and one unavoidable fact remains: it is not always random strangers from outwith schools who are a danger to students. In one high profile case down south two years ago, an unruly student, who had been fooling around in class, was forced by his teacher to write a hand written apology using his own blood. When the head teacher of the school where this took place found out, he invited the student's parents in to make a desperate apology. Somewhat incredibly, no criminal prosecution resulted from this incident, as both the parents and the student apparently deemed that the punishment had been fitting.

In another worrying incident, I recently heard from a fellow ALT how she went to a Bon Enkai (an important end of year office party) along with the staff of her town's Board of Education, only to discover that they would be enjoying the evening in the company of some young women who had been brought in especially, all of whom were dressed in sexy novelty costumes, one of which was a school girl's uniform. This was perhaps not the most fitting conduct for people whose job directly concerns the welfare of children.

Whether or not the new Personal Safety Alarms are really necessary for the students of Gonohe I'm not so certain, but having them certainly won't do any harm. On one hand the Japanese seem to have managed to avoid the hysteria that has caused some European and American schools to resemble prisons; on the other hand they have put pitch forks in their classrooms. Obviously the schools need to take reasonable precautionary measures to protect the kids (the boys as well as the girls presumably), but it isn't in anyone's interest to frighten the children thinking that the streets are too dangerous to walk. I guess striking the balance between taking an overly relaxed position and overreacting to imaged threats is a difficult one. However, I'm not so sure if Paedoforks are the way forward.

Hospitalised

2005-11-16T23:33:00.000+09:00

I was in hospital today, after almost a week spent feeling rather poorly. The doctor I had my consultation with wasn't exactly sure what was wrong with me, so he had my chest X-rayed followed by a cardiograph scan. This was to make sure that I didn't have either a heart condition or some disease of the lung, which had an exotic name I can't recall. The whole procedure took a couple of hours and cost me around 3000 yen. Yet, thankfully, the diagnosis was good, and after the doctor scanned over the results of the tests he able to deduce that I in fact had a common cold or mild Bronchitis. Such a series of procedures may sound strange for what are essentially trivial ailments, but Japanese hospitals can often be weird places to visit.

You see here in Japan there isn't the same system of local family clinics as we have in the UK; if you're sick in Japan, it's off to hospital with you, like it or not. My first visit to a Japanese hospital wasn't actually intended. Having caught a rather nasty cold, I had visited my office to ask if someone was available who could come along with me to the local Pharmacy and help me buy some medicine. Given that I can't read Japanese, I didn't want to chance buying medication on my own, as there was a very real danger that I could be confused by the labeling and end up purchasing a tube of Anusol to try and combat my sore throat. The minute I entered the room, the entire staff of the office began circling me, each individual offering his or her own personal diagnoses of my condition. After about 15 unnecessary minutes of poking, prodding and incessant questioning, my co-workers decided that my cold was bad enough to warrant a visit to hospital. Needless to say I protested, I was after all only really after a pack of Lemsips or some other over-the-counter medication. However, my reluctance was ignored and I was whisked off to the nearest hospital, a decrepit and mangy old building that looked about the last place on earth that you would want to enter in order to improve your health.

Once inside the hospital, the first thing the staff wanted to do with me was to take a blood sample. I told my supervisor I wasn't keen, and anyway was it really that necessary for a common cold. She had a word with the nurses and I was thankfully spared having the needle stuck in my vein. Next came the consultation with the doctor, who concluded, after I exhaustively listed all my symptoms, that I did indeed have a cold. He prescribed me 10 different types of medicine to cure me of my ills, a goody bag of lotions and potions which resembled the contents of a beginner's chemistry set more closely than anything I had ever been prescribed back in Scotland. The little white paper bag I received contained pills of various colours and sizes, including a pack of little white grain shaped pills that looked just like cake decorations, a small bottle of brown ooze that had the consistency of glue which I was supposed to gargle on the hour, and, somewhat curiously, there was a blister pack of capsules named “Twat”. I decided to give my Japanese medicine a try, and so each day for about a week I closed my eyes and braved swallowing the fist full of drugs. However, a week on, when my cold had completely failed to improve whatsoever, I decided to see the illness out without the assistance of any medication.

Today's hospital visit was essentially a replay of that first visit I made last year. For the past week I have been suffering from a bad cold and have generally felt a bit run down. I had planned on just weathering the storm, but the prospect of a terminally boring day spent at school without any classes to teach made the possibility of a hospital visit seem rather attractive. As Japanese people appear to never die, the waiting room was jam packed with nonagenarians waiting for their daily injection of blood. However, after a relatively short wait I got to see my regular doctor who told me that he wanted to do the X-rays so that he could rule out lung disease straight away. Once I had the all clear, and my cold was diagnosed, I was sent home with 4 new medicines intended to usher me back to good health. But I think I'll probably just pop them in the cupboard alongside the “Twat”.

2005-10-29T16:09:00.000+09:00

Never believe Japanese road signs

The Town Gaijin

2005-10-26T23:11:00.000+09:00

It's probably not that surprising for you to hear that there aren't a lot of foreigners living here in Gonohe. Out of a total population of 25,000 I think the town's non-Japanese population can't number much more than 50. There's me, of course, then there are two other ALTs, both of whom are American. There is also rumoured to be one other American, a man married to a local Japanese girl, who lives in town but works on the nearby American military base. In my year and a half living in Gonohe I have never bumped into the fellow, but his picture occasionally crops up in the local newsletter we all get delivered to our homes, so he must exist somewhere. And that is pretty much it as far as English speakers go in town; one Scot, one Norwegian American, one Chinese American, and one Elusive American. The rest of Gonohe's foreign population is largely made of Filipinos and Mongolians, most of whom are females working in the local snack bars.

The snack bar girls are even more elusive than Gonohe's mysterious 3^rd American. I assume that as the girls spend most evenings working late into the night entertaining the local menfolk, they are likely to use the daytime to catch up on much needed sleep. Once or twice a year I do spot the Filipinos out and about town, when they tend to head out in large, luminescentlly dressed, groups. Needless to say they stick out a little as they walk the streets, not so much because of their ethnicity, but more because it's so unusual to see people in their early twenties anywhere in Gonohe (although the bright clothes don't help things). The Mongolians, who are fewer in number, aren't as instantly recognisable as being non-Japanese, and as such are less conspicuous when out and about town. As I live just down the road from 'Mongol' (the name of the Mongolian snack bar) I am sure I must have walked past at least some them without noticing.

Several former snack bar girls from Gonohe's Filipino bar have gone on to marry local Japanese men, and I occasionally meet them when they're picking up their kids from school. There are also some Chinese women living in town married to local men, many of whom work in the Chinese restaurants dotted about town. Just last weekend I was at a school festival, and I got the shock of my life when a first grader I was eating lunch with casually sparked up a conversation with me by saying in perfect English “I'm Chinese....(silent pause as Ewen looks shocked that a first grader is using English without physical coercion)........yeah, my mum is from north of Peking”. I had no idea the kid was Chinese. On top of that there are also a number of families in Gonohe who have recently arrived from Manchuria in China, ethnic Japanese decedents of settlers in what was once a Japanese colonial possession exercising their legal right to return to the land of their ethnic kindred.

The final addition to the melting pot that isn't Gonohe is our local Mexican, a lovely woman who moved to Gonohe many years ago after marrying her Japanese husband that she met in Mexico. Being Mexican she must, like me, be somewhat of an unknown quantity to the Japanese. Amongst the nations of the world, the Japanese and the Scots haven't exactly had the greatest deal of interaction. Sure, there are a few examples of cultural exchange; like most Asians, the Japanese can be fond of the odd drop of whiskey and an occasional round of golf - for those who can afford it. Tartan, or 'check' as it's known here, is fairly popular too, although skirts are strictly for women in the land of the rising sun. Probably the only famous Scot that a Japanese person is likely to be able to name is Nessie, and perhaps at a push, Sean Connery. Saying that, I guess we're not a lot better back home; ask someone in Glasgow to name a famous Japanese person, and more likely than not the response will be 'Mr Miyagi' or 'that pure mad wee guy oot a' Goonies wi aw the gadgets'.

It doesn't really matter anyway, Japanese people almost always tend to assume when they see white foreigners, that they are American. This is fueled in part by the fairly widespread worldview held in Japan, which separates the outside world into five geographical categories; 'China', 'Korea', 'The Philippines', 'America', and 'Assorted Others' (a category which is often simply labeled 'America' for convenience sake) . Although recently a sixth category, 'Iraq' has been added thanks to the ongoing war there. Technically I fall into the 'Assorted Others' category, but given my ethnicity, I am usually placed in the 'America' category whether I like it or not.

Occasionally I do protest, and point out that not only am I not American, but I have also never even visited there. Japanese people often seem to think you're being petty if you protest at being called American, but I try my hardest to point out that Scotland and America really are quite different. If I'm lucky this may extract a concession, usually this is that they will accept that I come from England (the Japanese have a word for Scotland but not one exclusively for the UK, the whole of which, much to my despair, is simply called England), and if I ask extra politely they will possibly concede to my being Scottish. Trying to point out that I am not actually English can also be regarded as petty.

Of course, I appreciate that more often than not Western foreigners in Japan are indeed American, so I never let it bother me too much. The assumption that your American also has the benefit that if I ever make some sort of gaffe regarding etiquette, or get really drunk and embarrass myself publicly, it won't do anything to damage to Scotland's image. However, it is a bit annoying when a kid that you have taught for a year and a half (and given various talks about Scotland to during this time) continues say “ah, American joke” when you tell a gag. It also makes me wonder where exactly the legions of camera totting Japanese tourists, who I saw regularly back home, come from. I guess living in a very poor and rural part of Japan there are likely to be fewer people who have the means to travel abroad.

Being one of the town gaijin can bring it's benefits; at any town event I attend I will almost inevitably have 15-20 beers/glasses of sake shoved into my hand whether I like it or not, also people are sometimes extra friendly to me as I'm somewhat of a local celebrity, and occasionally people even give me little gifts. It can also be quite funny sometimes being one of the lone foreigners. Because Japan is primarily a cash economy, I often find my pockets rapidly bulging with spare change. Keen to lighten myself of this burden, whenever I visit shops I like to use my small change to pay part of the bill. In Japanese culture this practice is not common, most probably because you can simply dump your loose change into Japanese ATMs and they will sort and deposit the money straight into your bank account there and then. However, I was never too bothered about ditching the odd fistful of coppers when at the counter, until last week when I noticed that every checkout in the local supermarket now has a small sign in Japanese and English stating “Sorry we cannot accept large amounts of small change”. As there are only 3 other English speaking gaijin in town, I have a feeling that sign was directed at me. Not to worry, if anyone asks I can always tell them it's the American way.

2005-10-18T21:50:00.000+09:00

Japanese Gods

Ewen's Guide To Learning Japanese

2005-10-17T19:30:00.000+09:00

Following on from my latest blog where I looked at some of the difficulties faced when studying Japanese, I would like to offer my guide to learning Japanese, for those who are new to the language or simply have an interest in it. Now I'm no expert, but nearly a year and a half spent in the land of the rising sun has taught me a thing or two about learning Japanese, and the potential pitfalls you can face. So here are my 5 top tips to becoming 'pera pera' (fluent):

Tip 1. Don't be afraid to make an arse of yourself: I remember my mate Gordon took a one hour Spanish class when we went on holiday to Cuba a few years ago. Keen to employ his newly acquired vocabulary, Gordon managed to land us in a rather awkward and confusing situation when he told a bemused Cuban peasant in Spanish, that he had “a thousand arses” (he was actually trying to tell poor fellow that we didn't want to pay
an exorbitant 20 dollars to stay in his mangy shack). Needless to say he embarrassed himself a bit there, but those kind of slip-ups are inevitable when you don't have a full mastery of a language. When learning a new tongue it is always necessary to be a bit game and just try your best to communicate. The occasional, or even frequent, mistake is inevitable. Only a few months ago I accidentally asked a little boy if he was a girl, when I actually meant to ask him if he was a good football player. Mistakes can be embarrassing but usually they are simply amusing.

Tip 2: Never talk to small children: It's not only Michael Jackson who thinks that chatting with little kids is a good idea. For the Japanese learner it seems like a great opportunity to practice a little bit of the language with someone who is likely to speak in a very basic manner. However, while this might seem like a good idea, in practice talking with young children can often result in tangled and confusing mess. The first problem comes from the fact that young kids can't really grasp the concept that you are not fully proficient in their language; as a result kids, unlike adults, rarely make any adjustment to simplify their spoken Japanese. It's true that children are unlikely to be talking about anything particularly complex, yet neither are they prone to following a particularly logical train of though. Following what young kids are on about can be hard enough without a language barrier, throw in the fact that you are constantly trying to translate everything in your head, and suddenly it becomes very difficult to work out how the conversation just jumped from little Shota telling you that he got a new puppy last week to him now telling you that he has a particularly large bogey wedged up his nostril.

Tip 3: Make up your own words: New words are being created all the time in languages all over the world, as old ones succumb to the fashions of the era. When I visited Australia last winter, I was amazed to discover that the Ozzies have nearly invented a whole new language by simply abbreviating every single word in the English language. New words might be adopted because they are shorter to say, easier to pronounce, or because they express something with more accuracy than existing words could have. It's always good when staying in a country to have a stab at making some new words of your own, be it solely for your own entertainment. Since coming to Japan I have adopted three new words as staple parts of my vocabulary: 'diajobes', 'muzakashers' and 'domers', which have all inadvertently crept into the everyday Japanese used by me and some of my mates. These three words are mutations of the Japanese words diajobu (ok) , muzukashii (difficult), and domo (thanks). Quite why we have come to use these terms I 'm not sure, especially as we use them in exactly the same way as their Japanese counterparts; maybe it's simply because they seem to roll off the tongue more easily. Making your own words won't necessary help you communicate – especially if you forget that they're not actually a real words and start using them in everyday encounters – but it will provide some marginal level of personal entertainment.

Tip 4. Just pronounce English in a stupid way: One of the fantastic features of the Japanese language is that many of the words are simply English loanwords which have had been tweaked to make them pronounceable by a Japanese person. Indeed there are around 20,000 English loanwords in use in everyday spoken Japanese. While some words do deviate quite considerably from the original source, such as 'puroresu' or 'eakon' which come from the English words 'Professional Wrestling' and 'air conditioning' respectively, many others still closely resemble the original English word, such as 'mineraru-wota' (mineral water), 'painappuri' (pineapple) or 'takushi'(taxi). Whenever you're stuck for a word in Japanese it's always worth just having a stab at pronouncing the English word in a Japanesey way. If your lucky you will hit gold and be understood, and if not you will look a bit of an idiot. But the success rate is high enough to make it worth trying.

Tip 5. Learn pointless vocabulary: Stupid words have incredible mileage in any language and slipping them into conversation can act as an ice-breaker when you first meet people, entertain the kids when you are teaching in school, and sometimes even prove useful in conversation. It's always fun when at the counter in a supermarket to shock the Japanese till attendant by telling them that you're a 'peasant' while your counting your small change. I have found that the Japanese words for 'aristocrat', 'peasant', 'barbarian', 'nouveau riche', and 'head lice' are particularly amusing. You might not be able to tell someone how many sisters you have, but mention that your an aristocrat and they will be most impressed that you have somehow learned such a random Japanese word.

Note: It's probably best to ignore Tip 3

Nihon Woe

2005-10-11T17:16:00.000+09:00

For most English speakers Japanese is an intimidating tongue to learn. With it's complex and unfamiliar written script, and a grammatical structure wholly unfamiliar to the English speaker, Japanese places along with Chinese, Arabic and the click languages of Southern Africa in the CIA's ranking of languages most difficult for a native English speaker to learn. Obviously I have little choice as to whether I want to use Japanese or not; I need to use it in school, at the office, when at the shops, and in nearly every other aspect of my daily life here in Gonohe. Of course, it's always impressive how far you can get by without using spoken language; the odd gesture here and there can communicate a surprising amount. Just take for example one time I visited the local car dealership where I rented my car from. As I walked into the reception area I noticed that the owner was dressed completely in black garb, looked a little flustered and was evidently in a bit of a hurry. I politely inquired in Japanese where she was going, but, as is often the case, I couldn't understand the response that she gave. However, we persevered, and although it took some seriously animated gestures, and the repeated use of the word 'fire', I finally managed to work out that she was about to depart for a cremation. This, and many other incidents like it, are just part and parcel of the difficult experience of picking up a new language, and learning Japanese is certainly not a breeze.

Pronouncing spoken Japanese is not really a problem for the English speaker, as nearly all the sounds that exist in Japanese are also found in English, but the unfamiliar grammar of Japanese can really throw people. Where English sentences are structured SVO (Subject, Verb, Object), Japanese uses a SOV (Subject, Object, Verb) structure – and often drops the subject altogether. So where in English you would say 'I read a book', in Japanese you would say 'Watashi wa hon o yonda' (lit. 'I book read'). This in itself is difficult enough, but throw into the bargain that verbs conjugate differently depending on the degree of politeness that is intended, and you start to see why many would be students of Japanese end up contemplating harakiri.

The second great hurdle for the student of Japanese is mastering the written scripts; all three of them. Japanese is written using two phonetic syllabic scripts of Japanese origin, Hiragana and Katakana, both with 48 characters each, and also kanji, an ideographic script borrowed from the Chinese in the 6^th century (although the two languages are entirely unrelated). Some words are written entirely in kana, others entirely in kanji, and others in a combination of the two. Picking up Hiragana and Katakana doesn't take too long with a bit of study, but kanji, with it's thousands of characters, can take years to master. It is a testimony to the difficulty of kanji that whenever you tell a Japanese person that you are struggling in your study of it, they almost always retort that Japanese people find kanji very difficult too. You could hardly imagine an English speaker going “aww yeah, the alphabet is really tricky for me too”.

The Japanese really aren't always the most sporting bunch when it comes to making things easy for learners. For a start they can't seem to settle on the best way to write down their language. Usually Japanese is written right to left vertically, but occasionally they write it horizontally from left to right like English, and until it fell from fashion it used to be common to write from right to left when writing horizontally. Confused? It's understandable if you are. This is perhaps compensated for my the generosity of spirit that is show by nearly all Japanese people when you display even the slightest effort to speak their language. Japanese people tend to think that it is impossible for them to fully master English, and as such they also don't expect foreigners to be able to master Japanese. While it does sometimes occur that certain individuals are so overcome with disbelief that a gaijin (foreigner) has just spoken Japanese to them, that they simply freeze up and are unable to muster a response, most normal Japanese people will greet even the feeblest stab at Japanese by a foreigner with an exclamation of “Nihon go joozu!” (your Japanese is great!).

This commonplace compliment has actually become a bit of a joke amongst the foreign community living in Japan, as it appears that no amount of Japanese is too small to be rewarded by it's utterance. My friends and I have set ourselves a bit of a challenge to see what the smallest amount of Japanese you can say is to provoke the “nihon go joozu!” response. My record so far is the time I walked into a Korean food restaurant and greeted the owners by simply saying “kombanwa” (good evening). That was all it took, straight away I was being complemented on my impressive mastery of Japanese, despite the fact I couldn't even order an orange juice.

Twice a week I have classes where I study Japanese, and in December I will be traveling south to Sendai to have my abilities tested. It hasn't been easy trying to learn the language, for all the reasons described above, but I have come a long way given that I came to the country with no Japanese whatsoever. They say you know that you have really got good at Japanese when people stop complimenting your speaking and actually start to criticise your mistakes. I think I have a long while to enjoy being praised yet.

2005-10-11T17:15:00.000+09:00

Not the easiest language to learn

Why am I here?

2005-10-04T17:05:00.000+09:00

When I originally applied for the JET programme last year, there was a section of the application form where you could select your preferred location for placement within Japan. The options meant could pick if you wanted and rural or an urban placement, asked if you would rather a town instead of a city, you could select which prefecture most captured your fancy, and indeed you could even request to be put in a specific town, city or village. Making a selection wasn't actually mandatory, but was rather just a measure to accommodate those applicants who had preferences.

I never did write down a request. Truth be told I didn't really know enough about the country to make a proper decision about where I would have wanted to be, but I thought to myself that I would have an interesting time wherever I was placed. So when I discovered that I was going to be sent to Aomori, I really didn't know quite what to expect. As a rule of thumb, those people most likely to make a specific request for placement are the ones who have visited Japan before. Those individuals are much more likely to have a feel for what different prefectures within the country are like, and occasionally people chose to return to areas that they have previously lived in. Although some of those who are undertaking their first outing to Japan do write down places like Hokkaido, Sapporo, Tokyo or some other well know location as their preferred placements, by and large this category of applicants tend to submit themselves to the luck of the draw and don't make any specific request for placement - perhaps, the main exception to this is that a lot of people might not request a specific location within Japan, but they do ask to be placed within a city or town (this is especially common amongst people who don't drive).

Many of the placements on JET are rural. As the vast majority of JET applicants are usually city or town dwellers, and given that adjusting to rural living can be difficult, the interview process for JET presses hard when questioning applicants about whether they really think they could handle a year living in the Japanese countryside. Although this wasn't a concern of the interviewing panel when I applied for JET; coming from a small village on the least densely populated inhabited island in Scotland, I must have been amongst the few applicants who the panel actually contemplated warning “Ewen, you are aware that there may actually be more than 1000 people in your town?”.

Very very few people actually make a specific request to be placed in Aomori ken, and those who do are usually condemned to endure countless inquiries of “Why the hell did you CHOOSE Aomori?” from their fellow JETs for the duration of their stay. Aomori is the very embodiment
of the Japanese word 'inaka' (countryside), a land where a fading generation of farmers are engaged in a a dying way of life; most of whom are subsidised by the government to tend their assorted crops. Famous only for Apples, a funny dialect that resembles a French person trying to speak Welsh, and the ominous shared title of being the poorest prefecture in Japan (with a GDP of around 7000 pounds a year) Aomori is hardly a Mecca for a youth of Japan. These factors have no doubt contributed to creating a demographic where the average age appears to be somewhere between 87 and dead. To be honest I'm amazed there are kids to teach at all in the ken given the deficit of youth.

It seems that the JET programme appears to take the approach that if they can't put you in the exact location you selected, then you will be quite content to be simply placed relatively near to it. That too often is the sad tale of the Aomori ALT. Seduced by the prospect of year round outdoor pursuits, enticed by the vast open sprawls of near pristine wilderness, the Aomori ALT all too often is in fact a failed Hokkaido requester. While Aomori might be sitting right by Hokkaido, I don't think there can be two parts of Japan next to each other that could possibly be more different. Hokkaido is generally perceived as the vibrant frontier of Japan, widely coated in pristine wilderness, with a wealth of outdoor pursuits available, and at it's centre, Sapporo it's glimmering metropolis, which draws young people for around the country. Aomori on the other hand is perhaps better suited to those with more rustic tastes. With it's heavily concreted landscape and frequently shack-like housing, the prefecture has a somewhat Soviet air about it. The only people Aomori is likely to attract are doctors looking to profit from it's abundance of pensioners. All a far cry from Sapporo.

Exactly how the powers that be decided to put me in Aomori I can't be certain. Most probably it was a fairly random process, whereby those who haven't specifically requested to be put in a city are farmed out to fill the many posts in the nether-regions. However, and it's just a theory, an awful lot of Canadians and Scottish JETs seem to get to get sent north into the inaka. This has raised suspicions amongst some of us that the Japanese, who have a tendency to work off stereotypes, seem to think that we will fare better in the colder less densely populated parts of the country. Perhaps they're right, the Ozzies and Jamaicans take the harsh winters pretty badly apparently, unaccustomed as they are to low temperatures of the season – never mind the neck high snowfalls.

So there are many different reasons why people end up in Aomori; some of us simple offered our fates to fortune, whilst other unfortunate souls were sent here as some sort of perverted compensation conjured up by some evil genius, so that they could stare longingly out to sea trying to catch a glimpse of not so distant Hokkaido, and there are even a few masochists who actually chose to come here. We're a motley crew, but I think we've all grown to love it......well some of us.

2005-09-30T17:12:00.000+09:00

The rumour about Japanese houses being small is completely true, just look at the size of my apartment.

Ewen and The Chocolate Factory

2005-09-26T22:53:00.000+09:00

If Willy Wonka was actually real he would surely have to be Japanese. The science of buggering about with food is a national pastime here, which has pretty well been perfected to a fine art. In Japan you can find miniature pumpkins the size of your fist, rice fields planted to look like works of art, square melons that will cost you an arm and a leg, and entire orchards where each individual apple has been hand wrapped whilst still hanging on the tree. Honestly, sometimes living here can feel a bit like a visit to the fictional chocolate factory from Roald Dahl's book - minus the fat Germans. Last week I made my first ever visit to a real life Japanese chocolate factory, during a weekend break to Sapporo in Hokkaido. Experience has taught me that Japanese museums tend to have a rather nationalistic bent to them, and the Ishiya chocolate factory proved no exception.

The Japanese have long liked to think of themselves as being on a par with America and Europe, be it in terms of cultural sophistication, technological development or military power. However, where the long history of chocolate is concerned the Japanese were unquestionably latecomers. During the period when Europeans were rapidly developing a taste for the newly discovered confection, the Japanese were busy keeping the outside world, and all it's undesirable influences, firmly shut out.

The people at the Sapporo chocolate factory evidentially aren't particularly satisfied with the way Japan has historically trailed it's European counterparts in the take up of chocolate. To correct this inconvenient imbalance, a little creative interpretation of history has been applied in the factory's museum. As a result, the claim that “Japanese people have been enjoying chocolate for just as long as the Europeans” is backed up with no more evidence than the fact that in the 1500s one Japanese merchant was recorded as having tasted Chocolate given as a gift to him (the next Japanese person on record eating chocolate was not until the 1830s). It's a bit like saying that Scottish people have been enjoying Star Fruit for as long as the Melanesians, because Jimmy MacDonald and the South Uist Ceilidh Band ate one when they got got shipwrecked on Papua New Guinea in the 1600s (although in fairness, I did just make that up).

The highlight of the chocolate factory for me had to be the section of the museum which made a passionate defence of chocolate against all it's detractors, from dentists, to parents concerned about their podgy children:

Do chocolates cause pimples?

“Pimples are a symbol of youth”. As this phrase indicates, Junior and Senior high school students are prone to pimples. Coincidentally, the teens are usually ardent chocophiles. But chocolates are not the direct cause of pimples. Adolescence is a period when fat gland secretions are notably high, which leads to many pimples. However, pimples disappear as people age.

Do chocolates cause nosebleeds?

Have you ever heard anyone say “Too much chocolate causes nosebleeds”. Actually, this is not true. Parents in the old days fashioned the myth to prevent their children from taking to chocolates, for they were still very expensive for the general public in those days. Eating chocolates in excess is not good for the health, to be for sure, but chocolates themselves do not directly cause nosebleeds.

Do chocolates make you fat?

It depends on the individual and the reason he or she gains weight. Lack of exercise is believed to be the leading cause of excessive weight gain; chocolates alone are not responsible for it. Indeed, any food will cause obesity or 'adult diseases' if eaten in excess or taken out of balance. Therefor, it is important to eat well balanced meals and to exercise moderately to stay in shape.

Do chocolates cause tooth decay?

Chocolates are blamed for tooth decay. However, now that the causes and prevention are known, no mother attributes it to chocolate alone. In any case, you cannot prevent your teeth from decaying unless you brush them after every meal.

I'm really not sure exactly what the term 'adult diseases' is meant to imply, but I'm fairly certain that at least one person must have left that museum vowing that they would never again eat 2 Mars Bar in a row, for fear that it might cause the onset of advanced Syphilis. I also can't say I've ever heard the nosebleed myth before, but I suspect that just like in Willy Wonka's chocolate factory, everything inside the walls of that building was fiction.

2005-09-26T22:29:00.000+09:00

I accidentally ate my Golden Ticket, but they still let me in

2005-09-26T22:26:00.000+09:00

Individually wrapped apples

2005-09-26T22:24:00.000+09:00

Whole orchards full of them

2005-09-26T22:20:00.000+09:00

What a rice picture

2005-09-26T22:19:00.000+09:00

Life imitating art

2005-09-26T22:16:00.000+09:00

Square Melons

2005-09-26T22:14:00.000+09:00

Giant Eggs

2005-09-15T20:24:00.000+09:00

Nothing to do with Japan, but sadly missed by all.

Shoe talking to me?

2005-09-13T16:33:00.000+09:00

What's one of the first things you would expect to learn if you were studying a new language? Most people would probably hope to be able to muster a basic introduction, competent enough to say their name, age, and other essential details. From there you might want to move onto basic survival vocabulary such as food names or simple directions. Probably one of the last things you'd be thinking of learning at this point, amongst the infinity of possible words and phrases, would be how to ask for a pair of brown brogue shoes, with a bit of give and take. Yet, bizarrely, it is that very inquiry that I was expected to teach when on a recent visit to my local high school.

Up until recently, English education in Japan had largely struck me as a fairly logical affair - certainly as far as the curriculum was concerned. Kids start out by learning the alphabet and then progress from simple self-introductions to a mastery of short phrases. In fact, what I teach in class here is very similar in terms of structure to the French I studied when I was at high school myself. But while Japanese English education seems to start out strongly in the junior high schools, Gonohe's local authorities seems to have a much looser grasp of what might be appropriate English to teach at the senior high school level.

Despite the best efforts of the JET programme to inject a bit of excitement into learning English by placing native-speakers directly into the classroom, many Japanese school children show little interest whatsoever in learning a foreign tongue. In this they are hardly unique. All across the world right now there must surely be millions of high school students studying one foreign language or another, sitting bored at their classroom desks, utterly disengaged from the class they are being taught, only on occasion finding some deep buried speck of energy, just enough to motivate them into looking up in the dictionary some obscenity that they can mark with a highlighter pen. I can recall myself deeply disliking studying French at school, which, like so many difficult teens, all seemed rather pointless to me at the time. Day, after monotonous day, of learning how to ask for a baguette avec fromage, or which way it was to the Louvre, never captured my imagination. Which is ironic really, as having French family, I was more likely than most to get an opportunity to use French on occasion.

Not many Japanese people at all have English speaking family, and when Japanese people do travel abroad it tends to be as part of a tour group, where Japanese translation will be provided at all times. As a result, the practical use of English is a rather abstract concept to your average Japanese student. That's where I'm meant to come in: as an ALT the kids are supposed to get an opportunity to use the English they have learnt in the classroom to converse with me. That's all very well when it comes to simple small talk and introductions, but I'm left a little lost as to how the specialised vocabulary of the shoe trade is meant to fit into the grand scheme of things.

This is where the big problem with what is being taught at my local high school comes into play. Ever since I first arrived here in Gonohe, I've found high school visits a little strange. For a start I can't quite get my head round why students in the senior high school have worse English than the kids in my junior highs. Perhaps undergoing some sort of full-frontal lobotomy is a requisite for entry for the school, I don't know, but it can be hard work getting some of the 18 year old students just to say “my name is....(their name)”. All these kids have already been taught the essential basics at the junior high level, but clearly by the time they reach high school many have begun to forget what they once learned. However, instead of reviewing and consolidating vocabulary, my local high school appears to have brought in an executive from Clarkes to plan out their curriculum.

Recent lessons have included learning such useful phrases as “Can we share this half potion each?” or “I'm looking for a brown brogue shoe, in a size 10, with a bit and give and take”. Sure such phrases might well prove useful in time, but you would hope that it was made certain that the kids knew how to respond to the question “How old are you?” first. It's quite surreal really, I have students who know how to say 'shallow pan-fried', 'vinegared' and 'it's 70% nylon with 30% cotton', yet can't say the words 'white', 'walking' or 'sea'.

Needless to say the kids don't always get much mileage out of their newly acquired vocab. I really do try my best, but there is only so far that a conversation about what shoes my students want to buy, or what good value their new sweater was, can go. This only serves to reinforce the existing assertion amongst many of my students that learning English is pointless. In this instance I think they might be right.

The Speechy Contesto

2005-09-07T16:19:00.000+09:00

Speaking English is really quite remarkably difficult for Japanese people, comparable, perhaps, to the task of learning Welsh if attempted by a normal person. First of all there are those immediate challenges faced by anyone who is trying to learn a new language, such as accumulating vocabulary and attaining a command of the grammar. But the Japanese also face the added task of mastering English pronunciation, something which is far from easy for them. Trying to navigate their tongues round 'th', 'r' and 'v' are a particular nightmare for the Japanese, and vowels have a regular tendency to mutilate into unexpected sounds. We ALTs (Assistant Language Teachers) try our best to coach those students under our charge to master these tricky sounds, but I would be willing to bet that a majority of classrooms around the country still have rows upon rows of students chanting in unison “I like lice. I eat lice everyday”. Usually, this linguistic hurdle doesn't prove too much of a barrier to basic communication, although a familiarity with Japanese-style English (or 'Engrish' as it is often referred to) definitely helps.

Having an appreciation of the level of difficulty English poses to Japanese kids, I find it particularly admirable that young 14-15 year old Junior High School students are prepared to volunteer themselves to participate in the annual speech contests that take place throughout the country each year. The job of coaching the competing students often falls to ALTs, who try their best to teach the students correct pronunciation, and, in speech contests with an 'original story' category, will also help edit and correct speeches written by the students themselves. Obviously there are not enough ALTs to go round all of Japan's 11,191 Junior high schools, so some speech contest entrants will have worked solely with their Japanese English teacher.

This year I spent 2 weeks coaching four of my students, and yesterday we attended the 37^th Sannohe-gun speech contest, which was actually held in my home town of Gonohe. In true Japanese workaholic style, I had been working with the kids each day after school, often until 6:30pm, and the standard they had reached was exceptionally high.

I am constantly being surprised by the kids I teach here in Japan. Surprised at how well some of them can speak English. Surprised how shy kids can come alive outside the classroom. And surprised by how powerful some of the stories written for the speech contest can be. Usual contest fare consists of students coming up one after another giving dreary accounts of their hobbies, why they enjoy eating bread so much, the time they found a pencil on the floor, and a litany of other such inane chat. This year the two topics my students talked about were obviously very personal to them; one talked about her grandmother's suffering as she succumbed to brain cancer, while the other told an especially harrowing tale of domestic abuse within her own family. Both were true stories. It was difficult in particular coaching the student giving the speech about domestic abuse. Often, I felt awkwardly reluctant to interrupt her rehearsing when I needed to pick her up on errors in pronunciation, especially when she was recounting how her father had thrashed her mother in front of the family. I think everyone in the audience had a lump in their throat yesterday when the girl, describing one incident in her house, simply said “It was like a storm”. How a kid gets up and manages to talk about something as personal as that in front of a hundred strangers, even if she is speaking in a foreign language, I'll never understand.

Heavy though that sounds, I do really enjoy the speech contest season, as it's the one time of the year that I am truly busy. Each day, after work, I get to get to spend a couple of hours really getting to know a few of my students. We're meant to spend the whole time practicing for the contest, but inevitably the chat usually turns to boyfriends, girlfriends, movies, and other things that young teenagers are interested in. I also enjoy the actual contest itself too, with some student's giving impressive, and sometimes moving, speeches, while others giving rather more amusing performances. Highlights this year included, the kid who gave a 5 minute speech on Australian Blue Tongue lizards and Vegemite, yet concluded her tale with the line “And the moral of the story is....World Peace”; then there was the boy whose oratorical style when giving a speech about Martin Luther King Jr closely resembled that of Hitler; and finally was the girl who talked about the dangers of war - especially as “then more people fight, revenging their lovers” - then ended her performance with the somewhat gloomy conclusion “I feel I am helpless, so the only thing I can do is pray”. The girl then prayed on stage.

Today this year's speech contest season has finally come to a close, and nearly four weeks of slog for the students were amply rewarded. Although we never resorted to praying, we still managed to win 2^nd prize in both of the competition categories. So needless to say, I am rather pleased.

And the moral of the story is......Vegemite

2005-09-05T20:50:00.000+09:00

A typical busy day for a JET

2005-09-01T19:09:00.000+09:00

Perhaps not the best illustration for a school dictionary.

Japan is Rubbish

2005-08-25T20:19:00.000+09:00

I remember as a young boy how much I used to love swimming in the wide open expanse of sea that spilled out for miles around to form Broadford bay on Skye. The temperature of the water was reliably always somewhere between freezing and liquid nitrogen, but that never deterred. Even the stomach-churningly saline waters, and the wholesale deficit of any sand, never bothered us in the slightest. We just loved to swim. There was one problem with Broadford bay however, that no-one could ignore, and that was the bountiful selection of human waste that lurked in the water. On most days the vast blue carpet just soaked it all up and dispersed it to such an extent that it was hardly noticeable. But with the wrong tide, and a particularly heavy influx of visitors, the waters nearest the coast could turn so fetid that not even the most intrepid of us would dare venture into its waters. Two weeks ago a was given a little reminder of those boyhood swims.

For the past couple of months I have been reveling in my recent discovery of a magnificent sprawl of sand know as Shirahama beach. About an hour south of Gonohe, Shirahama, with it's pleasantly warm Pacific waters, has been seducing me each day after work, offering a temporary respite from the crippling humidity of the Japanese summer. Despite the fact there is a fully operational industrial port only a few miles up the coast in Hachinohe, the waters that lap the sands here are surprisingly free of solid waste, save the odd plastic bottle or two, and the same goes for the actual beach itself. Shirahama really gave me an appetite for swimming, and as I have been in Gonohe most weekends recently, I have been a regular visitor. However, on a recent visit to Tsugaru, on the Japan Sea side of the country, I discovered that not all beaches in Japan are quite as idyllic as my favourite retreat. Some of them, in fact, are pretty frightening.

The other week, I was in my girlfriend's house on the west side of the prefecture, freshly returned from a hectic few days of giving presentations at an orientation conference for new arrivals on the JET programme. We were both wondering what we could do on this beautiful, but painfully hot, day, and decided that a trip to the beach would be a nice way to unwind. Neither of us had ever been to any of the beaches in the area, but we knew that there was a fairly popular one about an hour's drive away, near the town of Ajigasawa. So we set off, excited by the prospect of a wee dip and an opportunity to lounge on the beach.

I'm not really sure if what we found at Ajigasawa really constituted a beach. When people say the word 'beach' to me it really conjures images of long stretches of sand, people frolicking in the waters, and families enjoying picnics together. In certain respects Ajigasawa filled these criteria; there were people frolicking in the water, and families were enjoying picnics, but any sand there was had been buried under mounds a mounds of rubbish. I'd never seen pollution like it in my life, outwith a primary school trip we made to the local dump (and, of course, the time I actually had a spell working at the local dump myself, during my council days - but anyway I digress). Seriously, there couldn't have been a square metre of sand that didn't contain at least one used oil barrel, 15-20 scrunched up plastic bottles, an old tyre, 6 soiled condoms, and one heavily weathered human bone. It was so filthy that it reminded me of the piss-poor 80's flick 'Defcon-4' which chartered the experiences of an astronaut who had returned to a planet earth that had been devastated by the twin disasters of nuclear war and eighties fashion.

The problem with the Japan Sea is that it is that it serves as a dumping ground for numerous countries. Some are industrialised polluters, such as South Korea or Japan, others are twat nations, like North Korea, who will actually accept money in return for acting as a repository for other countries' nuclear waste. The irony is, of course, that all the stuff that these people throw into the sea, just ends up washing straight back up onto their once beautiful beaches.

That industrialised countries pollute, and are polluted, isn't exactly a revelation (although the beach at Ajigasawa certainly opened my eyes to the scale of the pollution in this area). What did surprise me was that such an evidently filthy beach continued to be used for recreation by the local inhabitants. As my girlfriend said to me, you would think that they would at least do the occasional beach clean. My jaw dropped as I watched children bobbing in the water, alongside all manners of other bobbing matter. There were even families sitting in the middle of the tip having picnics, which, given the surroundings, I was half inclined to think was Stig of the Dump having his family round for tea. I think I can safely say that I gave about a microsecond of thought to the possibility of popping in for a dip myself. I concluded that if all the waste I could see around me was simply the solid waste, I didn't fancy trying my luck with the other assorted goodness that might have been in the waters, which, like in Broadford bay all those years ago, might not have been quite as easy to spot.

2005-08-25T20:18:00.001+09:00

The natural beauty of Japan

2005-08-25T20:18:00.000+09:00

This place is a pile of rubbish

2005-08-25T20:16:00.000+09:00

Gun Fun: Not sure what this guy was at

The End of the Beginning

2005-08-23T23:40:00.000+09:00

The first of August was a bit of a special anniversary for me; it marked the end of my first full year living here in Japan. Biblical though this sounds, I couldn’t help but take a moment to reflect on the past year, wondering about just what affect it has had on me. A year on, the novelty has worn off. Living here has become a bit like living anywhere; you have your daily routine of working, eating, and socialising. The food might be quite different, the setting a little unfamiliar, but nevertheless you quickly find yourself find doing what humans do best: adapting.

Of course it has taken me 12 months to reach this stage; the talking meat counter at my local supermarket was still freaking me out until only recently, and I have to confess that I still don't quite get why Japanese people sit through all the end credits when watching films at the cinema. But I no longer cringe at the thought of eating raw horse meat (it's really quite nice actually), the bank ATMs closing at 9pm doesn't faze me much now, and I'm quite pleased that if I go to the petrol station on any date with a '7' in it, I get a free gift (can of juice, biscuits, and once, curiously, a box of eggs). All those quirky little things that made Japan strange when I first arrived have, over the course of a year, become surprisingly normal.

All this has been helped, undoubtedly, by learning a little bit of the lingo. Someone forcing half a dozen eggs into your hands at a petrol pump can seem exceptionally bizarre if you have no way of asking them why they are doing it. Over the past year I have gradually picked up, little by little, a basic grasp of Japanese. I don't always know what people are saying exactly, and sometimes I get hideously mistaken (two weeks ago I was in one of the schools, and instead of asking this little boy if he was a good soccer player, I accidentally asked him if he was a girl), but at least now I almost always get the gist of what people are talking about. I can even read a bit of Japanese now, something I though would have been nearly impossible a year ago; back then it felt like you were witnessing magic when you saw a Westerner reading a Japanese menu, or even just chatting with a waiter.

However, a year here has not only changed my perspective on Japan; it's also made me think about home differently too. In this sense I have become a somewhat inadvertently Japanafied. These days whenever I think about countries outwith Japan, I can’t help but think that they all seem really quite dangerous (to most Japanese the outside world is an intimidating place – hence the ubiquitous tour groups). Living in a country where I never even give a second thought to crime – even in the shittiest districts of the biggest cities – it seems kind of crazy that back home you can’t even walk into certain municipal parks at night for fear that a gang of teenagers, clad in obscenely luminescent tracksuits (although I guess that helps you see them coming), will throw bottles at you out of boredom. And that's just one example of the anti-social behaviour that the Japanese so fear.

When driving here I sometimes get really pissed off, especially when I have some Japanese guy driving right up the rear of my car - despite the fact the road is single track, so there is no way I can let him by. But if I get road rage, and the said driver and I had a showdown, I would never expect the other driver to produce a baseball bat from the back of his car. Back home a rapid escalation of such a situation is, unfortunately, not as unusual as it should be (I remember trying to explain to my American friend, that although we don’t play baseball in Scotland, you can buy the bats in most sports shops, although the balls seem to be rather more tricky to procure). A year in a country where orderliness and politeness are so fundamental to the culture, and I can appreciate why so many Japanese people perceive other countries as frighteningly chaotic places.

So, I guess if there has been a big change in me, it has been a change in my perspectives. I haven't 'found myself' here, or anything silly like that, but I definitely feel I've learned a lot. Slightly over one year ago I remember sitting in my bedroom, Lonely Planet guide in hand, thinking about the futuristic bustling Asian metropolis I would soon be living in. Now I'm here in the living room of my decidedly low-tech apartment, in the middle of the Japanese inaka (countryside), with a slightly less fantastical image of Japan in my head. But the past year has been without a doubt the best of my life, and has served as a steep learning curve. Hopefully the next one will be as exciting. And just maybe, I might yet work out what the meat counter is saying to me.

2005-08-23T23:39:00.000+09:00

My slow transformation into a Japanese has begun

Let There Be Muse

2005-08-21T12:45:00.000+09:00

Apologies all for the serious deficit of blog entries lately. No, I'm not dead, I've just been in hiding since my dad visited me recently, wearing a pair of trousers that the Japanese authorities suspected were a North Korean WMD. But I shall be returning from my underground hovel later this week to continue in my Japan orientated musings.

2005-08-21T12:44:00.000+09:00

The Incriminating Article

Give me a break

2005-07-14T16:25:00.000+09:00

Holidays are a great thing, who wouldn't want to go on a holiday? By the amount of time that Japanese people take off work you'd think their were allergic to the odd vacation. But, as I've discovered in my time here, the Japanese are as fond of a bit of time off as anyone else. As foreigners in Japan we are thankfully spared the demanding strictures that govern the lives of most Japanese workers. The most significant act of leniency towards participants on the JET programme is that ALTs are more than welcome to take their full 20 days of allocated holiday leave. At first this may strike people back home as a rather feeble concession, it's hardly the greatest act of munificence to allow someone to take their allocated holiday allowance off. But if you take into consideration the fact that the average Japanese worker is expected to take no more than half his/her annual allowance, then you can begin to see how we are privy to special treatment.

Take for example my winter sojourn to Australia, for which I took over two weeks off work. To most people in the West two weeks would seem a sensible amount of time for visiting such a far-off destination, especially when you take into consideration the cost of flights. Japanese people are rather fond of the odd antipodean expedition themselves, especially to the popular resorts in Cairns that cater especially to Japanese tastes. My supervisor and her friends actually visited Australia just a couple of years ago. In order to sample the very best Down Under has to offer, as well as having a well deserved break from work, my supervisor took a whopping four days off work! That's right, for no less than 120,000 yen (around 600 quid), my supervisor visited Cairns for a whole four days. She must barely have unpacked her toothbrush by the time she had to leave again. And this wasn't some crazy one-off mini-break, for her next bi-annual holiday she's away to India, this time for five days, and those flights are costing upwards of 140,000 yen.

You see, Japanese workers are often encouraged to feel guilty for taking time off. Holidays here are not a right, they are a privilege. The western habit of saving holiday time and then taking it off in large blocks of, say, two weeks, is unknown here. A teacher I work with is going on her Honeymoon to Hawaii for one week later in the year, and she has been lucky. The only reason she was allowed to desert the team for a whole seven days was because a Honeymoon is a “special holiday”.

This niggardly approach to leisure time has always struck me as quite harsh given the famously long hours that the Japanese people have to work. It seems only fair that after 50 weeks of working 7.00am to 7.00pm that the average teacher should be able to have a couple of weeks off. Stereotypes of Japanese people often portray them as super disciplined robot-like workers, but the Japanese need their breaks like anyone else. Everyone I have met here complains about how little time they get off, and I haven't met one person yet who has boasted about the strong Japanese work ethic, or that they are proud that they need so little holidays. Whenever I tell work mates that I am away on holiday they usually sigh and say that they wish they could have such a long break off too.

So I am thankful that the Japanese government doesn't treat ALTs the same way it does it's own workers. I guess the powers that be in the JET programme know that they would find recruitment much more difficult if participants were expected to take their time off in accordance with Japanese customs - ie. only take half of it off. So in the spirit of 'internationalisation' I want to demonstrate to the Japanese how people in Scotland take their vacations. That's why for the next two weeks I will be traveling in Thailand, Laos and Vietnam with my girlfriend. So no more posts until August I'm afraid. But be rest assured, as I am sitting on the beach, sipping on my Pina Colada, I will be thinking of my co-workers stuck in the office, who I'm sure all wish they could join me.

2005-07-14T16:24:00.000+09:00

Wish you were here

Random Encounters - Part 2

2005-07-12T16:39:00.000+09:00

As I have said earlier, once you've lived in Japan a while you kind of become a little inured to its occasional fits of spontaneous weirdness. However, when I first arrived here, the Japanese national habit of random bizarreness really did catch me off guard a few times. One of my most interesting encounters in Japan occurred when I was visiting my friend Owen down in Akita prefecture, just a few weeks after I had first arrived in the country. Understandably a bit confused in my new environment, I had stupidly forgotten to get off at the correct train station as planned, and so found myself in a Starbucks further along the line, burning time until Owen came to collect me. I was just sitting quietly by myself, sipping my latte and having a flick through my guidebook, when I spotted out of the corner of my eye an extremely anxious looking Japanese girl slowly shuffling her way towards me. The girl looked like she was in her mid-twenties, and apart from the handbag which she had tightly pressed against her chest in a firm maternal embrace, she looked fairly normal in appearance. This, however, did not prevent me from being a little concerned about the stranger who was gradually approaching me.

For a start the girl was inexplicably shaking all over, and not just a subtle bit of flailing, this girl was wobbling like a pensioner on methadone. Even more unsettling was the wide-eyed zombie stare that she had firmly homed in on me. My mind was split over the explanation for the girl's curious manner, the more sympathetic side of me guessing that, perhaps, the shaking was because of the girl's nervousness at approaching a foreigner, but the possibility that she might in fact be a crack whore was always lingering in the back of my mind. Regardless, she continued her slow shuffling until she was at my side, and once there she then attempted to communicate with me in English that was so severely battered that I first of all thought it was Sealandish, Majikistani, or some other little-known tongue.

After about five minutes of having this vibrating maniac warble gibberish at me from the side of my table, I decided that it was probably best to offer her a seat. After all, I thought, something really bad might have happened to her, hence the curious shaking. It took a tortuously protracted half hour - which seemed to consist entirely of the looped mantra “excuse me, Dave iz you know...excuse me...he iz, excuse me, you friend...Inglish iz, excuse me, maybe to Dave” - but eventually I managed to piece together the jigsaw of chewed phrases and half-pronounced words, finally elucidating that she was talking to me about some black guy called Dave, who played music, used to live in Akita, and came from Missouri. What any of this had to do with me, I hadn't a clue, and I was starting scan the streets outside the cafe in the desperate hope that Owen would miraculously arrive and provide me with the perfect excuse to escape my new found tormentor....I mean friend. But I had no such luck, I was stuck.

Eventually my curious acquaintance must have twigged, owing to my clear expression of mass-confusion, that I really was unsure why she was talking to me, because she suddenly pushed a small green envelope across the table towards me. The letter looked unassuming, yet I still decided to open it cautiously, aware that such an unstable character might in fact be handing me an envelope of anthrax. Fortunately for me it was just a card inside, which had some blurb in Japanese written in it, and the name 'Dave' marked at the top. Initially I wasn't really sure what the girl expected me to do with the card. This uncertainty was rewarded with another barrage of nonsense from the phantom wobbler, which I was left to translate. She explained that, as a foreigner, she hoped that I could give the mysterious 'Dave' this birthday card she had just presented to me. I tried to explain to her that, firstly I wasn't from America, and indeed had never even been there, and secondly, even if I DID go to America, I was extremely unlikely to be able to track down somebody with the information:

(1) Dave, (2) black, (3) likes music, (4) from Missouri. However, she insisted, and by this point the girl was starting to vibrate more than she had been previously, and the scene was beginning to look like I had taken a Weeble out for a coffee. Fearing for my life, I decided to take the nutcase's card. I made my excuses and we, thankfully, said our goodbyes.

That meeting has always stuck in my head because of the curious mixture of comedy and fear it invoked. I'm pretty sure that my experiences haven't been isolated encounters, and that many other JETs could recount other, equally curious, tales. Japan is so often a fantastically strange place to live, I'm sure I have a whole load of random encounters lined up for me in my second year.

2005-07-12T16:35:00.000+09:00

The Card

2005-07-12T16:30:00.000+09:00

An artist's impression of the girl

Random Encounters - Part 1

2005-06-30T22:34:00.000+09:00

It is not at all strange, as a foreigner living in Japan, to have some completely random Japanese stranger come up to you as you walk along a street, to ask if they can be photographed with you. Indeed, it is quite a common occurrence, as many Japanese people have only on very rare occasions, if at all, encountered that strange creature known as the 'gaijin' (as foreigners are usually referred to here). Simply being in Japan as a foreigner often means the instant awarding of celebrity presence, and some people really revel in their unearned mini-fame. The rest, however, find fairly quickly that they become relatively inured to being a pseudo-celebrity, and it begins to seem almost quite normal. But I guess if we really think about it, it is quite strange.

Just yesterday, for example, my friends and I had three separate occasions where we were asked to pose for photos with random Japanese people whilst on a visit to Yamagata prefecture. One of these encounters involved a cool Japanese youth - fully draped in the fashionable hip-hop dress that is established uniform of the Japanese trendocracy - who decided to take a break from his loitering in the town's local train station to approach some foreigners and ask them if he could have a photo taken with them. I couldn't even begin to envision a similar occurrence taking place in Scotland. If a youth approaches you back home, you expect him to either ask you for spare change or knock the shit out of you. In Japan there is nothing threatening about such incidents, and they are in no way uncommon. That's not to say, however, that all encounters in Japan are normal affairs.

Two weeks ago I went to see the latest Batman film at the cinema with a few of my mates. The cinema was in a large entertainment complex, and as we had finished eating our sushi ahead of the starting time for the film, I decided to go to some nearby vending machines. The vending machines sold plastic figures of a curious Japanese icon, Gloomy 'the adult bear' (adult because despite his cute pink colouring, Gloomy has long razor sharp claws, blood dripping down his chin, and is famous for kicking the hell of a small boy who, I think, is his sidekick). But anyway, I diverge, I was at one of these vending machines, having just bought myself a 300 yen Gloomy keyring, when I felt a tap on my shoulder. I swiftly turned round, expecting to be met with the face of one of the friends, but was instead confronted by a short, trendocratic looking, Japanese guy, probably in his mid-twenties, his face utterly consumed by a wide beaming Bruce Forsyth grin. He had his hand stretched out towards me, and in his palm was a pair of novelty plastic glasses. He then began saying “please, please” to me.

The stranger had his mobile phone in his hand, and I could see by the way that he was lining up the phone's camera to my face, that he wanted to take a picture of me with the glasses on. It was all a bit random, but I decided to oblige. However, when I put the novelty glasses on (the cardboard surround made me look like I had Asian eyes) his all encompassing grin began to wane. He then shot his hands into his trouser pocket and had a frantic rummage about. Out of his pocket he then produced a second, even more ridiculous, pair of glasses, which he gestured for to me to put on. Again, I obliged, and this time his smile held fast as he took a picture. Afterwards, he simply said “thanks”, and when I tried to return his glasses he pushed my hand gently away and said “present”. And that was it, we hardly spoke five words to each other. I guess he had simply been on a mission to find a foreigner to photograph wearing novelty glasses. I never did find out why.

I walked away from that encounter rather bemused, but only couple of minutes later I witnessed another equally strange incident. My friend Charlie and I had just popped to the toilet before we went in to see the film. As we were standing at the sinks washing our hands and having a natter, a random waiter appeared in the toilet with a tray generously laden with an assortment of food and drink balanced on the palm of his hand in the style of a French waiter (or at least the style you would imagine a French waiter would carry a tray). The man casually swanned right past us both, towards a locked toilet cubicle. Understandably, Charlie and I were a little bemused. The mystery waiter then proceeded to give the cubicle door a gentle knock, which was responded to by a greeting from its occupier. There then ensued an exchange in Japanese, which neither me or Charlie could follow, between the waiter and the man engaged in defecating. It was a wholly surreal spectacle to watch, yet unfortunately me and Charlie never did get to witness its conclusion as we had to go and catch our film. It makes you wonder though. I know Japanese service culture is good, but who would really want their food delivered to a toilet cubicle? And surely Japan has to be the only country in the world where cinemas have waiters employed to deliver their stodgy treats.

(to be continued)

2005-06-30T22:32:00.000+09:00

How's about a fotie wi us Big Man?

2005-06-30T22:31:00.000+09:00

Would Sir like toilet roll with his meal?

Drive Me Crazy

2005-06-28T14:20:00.000+09:00

Growing up in Mull I think you develop a unique attitude to other drivers. A life spent watching tourists parking in passing places, congesting roads by driving at 20mph, and far too many experiences of being trapped on narrow roads blocked by pensioners who have neither the energy or the mental faculties to perform a reverse maneuver. I think you could say that this experience fermented within me a deep hatred of most other drivers. Without a doubt the most common words to pass my lips up to this point in my life must be “you are the worst driver in the entire world!”, usually screamed out of a foaming mouth on some road in the sticks. And so it was that I came to Japan, with perhaps not the best attitude for taking to the roads.

Japanese drivers really have to be seen to be believed. When I first arrived I was amazed by how slow all traffic moved. That's because the speed limit here is set to make sure nobody ever has any need to shift out of second gear. In most towns the limit is 40kph, on main roads drivers are allowed to travel up to 50kph, but toll roads allow you to really race ahead at an incredible 80kph. Japan has to be one of the few first-world countries where a 70 year old pushing a wheelbarrow full of pumpkins can overtake you. Yet, in all honesty, these ridiculously low speed limits are, in a way, a godsend when you observe some of the driving antics on Japanese roads.

Japanese people are more than happy to reverse onto main roads, as long as the nearest car is at least five metres away – of course, otherwise such a maneuver would be incredibly dangerous. Indicators are switched on as a car turns, not before the turning itself, so it's always best to leave a good bit of distance between you and the car in front, unless you want to make a flying trip via your windscreen into the passenger seat of the car you're behind. In fact, you probably want to leave even more distance than you might initially think, as Japanese drivers take turnings at junctions as though they were trying to negotiate a rampaging elephant across a ridge on Everest, crawling in a manner that would suggest that the car they are driving operates by pedal power. Overtaking on corners is the norm, but the risky business of overtaking on long open straights is wisely avoided.

And it's not just the Japanese drivers themselves which can cause headaches for the foreign driver. As a rule of thumb, there are three types of signs for directions in Japan; the first is miles before the turnoff, the next slightly closer but still ridiculously far off, and third is the sign placed after the turnoff. Unfortunately the Japanese have not quite twigged that placing a signpost actually at the turnoff could possibly be a more sensible arrangement. Most signposts in Japan are, thankfully, bi-lingual, which obviously makes a huge difference for non-Japanese driving in the country. However, not all signs are bilingual, and it is irritatingly common for you to follow bi-lingual signs to a destination, only to get with 5km and then the signs all of a sudden become kanji, leaving those unable to read Japanese suddenly lost. Last, but certainly by no means least, is that phenomenon which surely has to be the bane of all drivers in Japan, native and foreigner alike: the disappearing Japanese signpost.

Imagine, if you will, that you have been driving for six hours to find, say, some small town where your friend lives. You have been following the frequent bi-lingual sings (thankfully none have reverted to kanji only), and you have had only a few incidents of people suddenly hammering on the brakes in front of you to make a half-hour turn. Then, just as your nearing your destination, all signs disappear, and you are left hopelessly clueless of which turn to take next. You drive on for another 15-20mins but still no sign. This is the phenomenon of the Japanese disappearing signpost. Sometimes you drive along following signposts for the best part of your journey, only for them to disappear for 20km or so, during which time you encounter numerous junctions which you are left guessing to where they lead. If you're lucky, you will take a few chance turns, but somehow manage to stay on the right path, and eventually the signposts leading the way will reappear. However, often people are not so lucky, and end up spending their day trip to the beach in the car park of some shopping centre looking at their map to find out exactly where it all went wrong.

One thing I must say is that my experiences here in Japan have made me a much more patient and laid back driver. It has also gone some way towards explaining why Asian tourists in Scotland always crawl along big wide open roads. I used to think it was that they were just obsessing about the scenery, but now I realise they're simply driving as they would at home. If I'm not back in a years' time, expect to find me on some lonely Japanese road in the country sobbing in frustration with my head against the dashboard.

2005-06-28T14:19:00.000+09:00

You're probably best not to follow Japanese road signs.

Return to Tokyo

2005-06-20T22:33:00.000+09:00

I returned to Tokyo two weeks ago, for my first visit since my arrival in Japan last August. My previous stay in this vast metropolis had been a bit of brief fling, as most of my time was spent at conferences inside the Keio Plaza Hotel, being told about what to expect to find in my new life in Japan. I can remember vividly how exciting that first visit was, going from sleepy Tobermory, with a population of less than a thousand people, to finding myself in one of the world’s largest cities. Unlike some, I didn’t find Tokyo surprisingly strange when I first arrived. That’s not to say it wasn’t strange, but I think that because I had an expectation before I arrived that everything would be quirky and weird, I wasn’t caught off guard by how different things were. But, even if I wasn’t so surprised, I was still totally in awe.

The first thing that struck me about Tokyo was its density. Whereas European cities tend to sprawl, with historic prestige buildings often constituting the core, accompanied by wide open streets threading themselves throughout much of city centre, Tokyo initially seemed to me to be a rather chaotic mess; a Jackson Pollock in concrete and steel. Everything also appeared to be very new; there were virtually no buildings that looked like they could have been much older than my grandparents. This was especially striking in Shinjuku, where I had my first encounter with a skyscraper. For a city founded in the 12th century, you could almost believe that Tokyo was a recent creation. In fact, much of it indeed is: a large earthquake in 1923 destroyed vast areas of the city, and during the war the Americans laid waste to much of what had been rebuilt.

What surprised me the most, then, on my second time round visiting Japan’s premier city, was that this sense of awe didn’t return. Or at least not as strongly. When I had first visited everything was new; the food, the language, the people, the climate, the surroundings, I hadn’t encountered any of it before. This time around things were very different. I had spent nearly a year eating the food, learning the language, meeting the people, adapting to the climate, and living in the surroundings. Last August just going to the toilet in Japan was novel, this time round it was all really quite familiar, few things struck me as especially bizarre. As such, I decided I would have to make it my mission to search out some new oddities to entertain myself.

Ever since I first saw a Japanese capsule hotel on TV back in Scotland, I have always wanted to stay one. The capsule hotel phenomenon is the curious offspring of the Japanese workaholic culture. For 4000yen（20 quid), busy salarymen can secure themselves a coffin sized box to sleep in for the night, allowing them to keep close to the office, so they waste no time getting back sharp the next morning to resume the daily slog. I was quite surprised by my capsule hotel stay. The facilities at the Shinjuku-Kuyakusho-Mae Capsule Hotel were really quite good for a start, and I enjoyed a long soak in the Jacuzzi before I made for my sleeping pod. The actual sleeping area itself resembled a bee’s hive, with a honeycomb of surprisingly large capsules, which for some reason really reminded me of the film ‘The Matrix’. I didn’t find the capsules themselves especially claustrophobic, and for first timers who are feeling anxious, they can always take their minds off their surroundings by listening to the radio or watching the TV which each capsule has individually installed.

The following morning we decided to visit a couple of strange museums we had read about in the guidebook. First of all we hit the Tokyo Salt & Tobacco museum. Salt and tobacco have never really struck me as natural bedfellows, but if you have an interest in either then the Salt & Tobacco museum is the number one place to go in Japan. Over five floors you can chart the important and changing roles of these two commodities in Japanese life. It's riveting stuff, I can assure you. At the moment the 6th floor, somewhat randomly, has a special exhibition on about Nicaragua - although this exhibition is completely unrelated to either tobacco or salt, so may be disappointing for some. Next we went to the Meguro Parasitological Museum where we learned all about the "important parasites of man". Exhibits included photos of people who had had the mispleasure of playing host to these tiny parasites. This resulted in such maladies as individuals having their noses fall off, or their testicles swelling to the size of a small child. The centerpiece exhibit at the museum is an 8 metre long diphyllobothorium nihonkaiense. This is some sort of giant tapeworm, which some poor bugger obviously had to try and coax out of his arse many years ago.

Finally, we made for the Harajuku district of the city, where every Sunday large groups of Japanese youths congregate to dress stupidly together. Apparently many of these kids have been bullied, and have chosen to communicate their anger at the world by dressing up as anime characters. The area is lined with boutique stores which sell clothes that you would be lucky to find anywhere else in the world. As a rule of thumb, most of the crazy outfits have a slightly Gothic edge to them, such as the popular jet black cobweb parasols that I saw many people with, although some of the costumes are a bit more cheerfully cute. Not wanting to stand out, my friend Charlie and I decided to purchase ourselves some new outfits. Within half an hour we had transformed ourselves from your run-of-the-mill foreigners, to two complete idiots dressed in rainbow colours, wearing lots of silly badges. Surprisingly, our new Timmy Mallet-esque guises didn’t actually result in our seamless assimilation into the Harakjuku crew, and instead invited lots of bewildered stares from both the Japanese and foreigners alike. Perhaps I’m still not as Japanified as I thought.

2005-06-20T22:17:00.000+09:00

The twin wonders of nature, finally under one roof

2005-06-20T22:15:00.000+09:00

The Capsule Hotel

2005-06-20T22:14:00.000+09:00

Claustrophobic Alex cries like a girl

2005-06-20T22:13:00.000+09:00

Snug as a cadaver

2005-06-20T22:11:00.000+09:00

The Important Parasites of Alex

2005-06-20T22:07:00.000+09:00

Harajuku Headcases

2005-06-20T22:05:00.000+09:00

When in Rome...

My Castle

2005-06-15T19:04:00.000+09:00

Lying to children comes naturally to most adults. If you don't believe me, then just think back to your childhood and how many times a doctor told you “this won't hurt”, or when your mother warned you that your “face will stay like that if the wind changes direction” when you were pulling silly faces. Nearly everyone's childhood was liberally peppered with the odd fib from the grown-ups around them. I'm not trying to promote lying to kids, but sometimes the odd circumnavigation of truth can have its uses. Especially for us teachers.

When you arrive in the Japanese school you have been placed in, nobody knows anything about you, except, perhaps, your name. On top of that, if you come from anywhere outside of the USA, there is a fair chance that nobody will know anything about your country, except, perhaps, its name. For most of the people I have encountered here, their knowledge of Scotland rarely expands beyond the fact that they know it exists, that it has some sort of connection with England, that Nessie comes from there, and, curiously, that most of the houses are made of stone or brick. Other than that, to them, I could just as well have came from Mars. Literally, I could tell the kids that it's a Scottish custom to have a badger stapled to your face during the daytime, and I would be believed (most Japanese think that a foreigners are a bit strange anyway).

I haven't gone as far as the badger lie personally, but I did hear of one English JET in Aomori that told all his students that he was friends with David Beckham. For the kids this seemed quite plausible, as they were both from the same country. Apparently the guy spent much of his time here entertaining the kids with tales of his adventures with Bekamu (as the Japanese like to call him). I have been fairly upfront with the kids, and have never seen the need to concoct a story about an incredible roller-coaster adventure of a life that I never had in Scotland. That, however, is apart from my little fib about 'the castle'.

When I first arrived in Japan I used to do all my self-introductions to students at the junior high school using simple postcards, maps and photographs. The kids enjoyed this, but it wasn't exactly riveting stuff for them. However, last month, when the new first graders arrived, I had the benefit of finally owning a laptop, which I decided I could use to make a short video about Scotland, using photos pilfered from the web, and a soundtrack borrowed off one of my CDs. The video I made ran for about five minutes, and was rather good I thought. But it was still only photos set to music, so I had to make a short skit to explain to the kids about some of the things they were seeing. I tried to throw in a few humorous remarks to make it funny for the students, such as saying “delicious” when the photo of a Highland Cow came up. In the first class I used the video for I had remarked “my house” when the photo of Duart Castle on the Isle of Mull came up. Needless to say, this invited a large gasp of surprise from all the students, but afterwards I started laughing and said “uso”, the Japanese word for 'lie'.

It seemed, however, that the teacher I was doing the class with, missed out on the comic intention of my statement. And despite me making it clear – I thought - that I was joking, she went on to surprise me by jumping in before me when were watching the video in the next class, telling all the kids that I lived in a castle. I would have reiterated that I was just kidding, and that I , in fact, really only lived in a 3 bedroom attached house, but I was now confronted by a sea of excited faces, with 36 kids desperate to quiz me about my wonderful castle home. So I found myself just going along with it, and for the next half hour I was a one man panel being frantically questioned about how many rooms I had in my castle, how many stairs did it have, was it difficult to heat my castle, was it really all made of stone, how much money did I have (I must have been rich to have lived in a castle), and so forth. One joke had now snowballed into and avalanche of lies, and not even very good ones at that, I just came out with random answers such as “the castle is a thousand years old” and “it has 150 rooms”.

I now get regularly questioned by both teachers and student alike about 'my' castle. It's a bit of a pain at times, and just makes me glad I never lied that I was friends with Sean Connery.

2005-06-15T18:56:00.000+09:00

Not actually my house.

Hisashiburi Desu

2005-06-13T22:39:00.000+09:00

Well, it's been a bit of a period of neglect for the blog lately. Yahoo decided that after 4 months of me not getting round to paying my bills, that they would finally disconnect me. Thankfully, the bill is now paid, and I am again able to grace you with my Japan influenced musings. I have done quite a lot actually since I last reported; a trip to the Kansai region of Southern Japan, a tour of Iwate prefecture, to the south of Aomori, and numerous other odds and sods.

Kansai was a nice opportunity for me to visit some of the historical and cultural landmarks of Japan. It was also a bit of a revelation for me, as it was the first time I had ever really explored anywhere in Japan outside of Aomori. As happens with all travel, it gave where a live a bit of context, which perhaps wasn't a great thing. As Aomori ken is one of the two poorest areas of Japan, it's hardly the most exciting place to live in the country. Up here is a land of rice fields, pot holed roads, mangy dogs, and housing that looks decidedly decrepit. If your image of Japan is the super high tech world of soaring skyscrapers and blinding neon, then Aomori will sorely disappoint. Arguably it is the part of Japan which most resembles what you would expect to find in other, less developed, Asian countries. The economy is primarily agricultural, and as such the opportunities for youngsters are few. Seeing that not many Japanese youths here fancy being shackled to the fields that their families have tilled for numerous generations, each year there is a mass exodus as all the year’s high school leavers make for the bright lights of down south, and Tokyo in particular. As a result, the demographic in Aomori can probably best be surmised in the description often made about Gonohe's population: 'just wed, or nearly dead'.

So it was really strange being in Kansai, mingling amongst the throngs of humanity, in a place that actually has a normal demographic balance. Honestly, it was really weird just seeing crowds of twenty-somethings. Temples and shrines aside, the highlights of Kansai included eating sparrow, visiting Osaka, where we visited the world’s biggest fish tank (complete with resident whale shark) and hiking in Nara. Now I've eaten some pretty god awful things in Japan (raw horse meat, squid ink sausage, horse and pig intestines, sea urchin, to name just a few) but the sparrow that I was treated to, impaled whole on a stick, was without a doubt the most rank delicacy I have ever inflicted upon myself yet. As far as I am aware, the phenomenon of sparrow munching is primarily localised to a small area of Kyoto – the rest of Japan, presumably, realises the pointlessness of feasting on a bird the same size as your fist (that probably tastes as good as your fist).

The Iwate road trip was a bit more pedestrian on the gastronomic front, but was an adventure of mass stupidity nonetheless. Iwate is the prefecture directly south of Eastern Aomori, a beautiful area of sharp peaks coated in lush forests. We did the usual touristy things, such as visiting the local shrines, as well as giant limestone caves that had large internal lakes holding the world’s (Guinness Book certified) clearest water. We weren’t exactly on our best behavior during the trip, as can only be expected when you put eight guys together in a people carrier with lots of booze. The worst I can confess to, was getting shit faced and ending up spending the night asleep on the boiler room floor of a Love Hotel. The other guys were a bit worse. We all hired a swan shaped pedallos at this little beach we visited, the other guys first of all decided to do some Greek warship style ramming at sea of our dainty vessel, before deciding to land their pedallo on a craggy island so they could scale the cliffs. This resulted in the irate owner coming out on his speedboat to tell them to come back in. Oh, the things JETs will do to entertain themselves. I plead innocence to any charges of involvement.

On our journey home we decided to take a detour near a small village which we had read about in the guidebook. The village has a deep gorge running through its centre, carved over the centuries by the enticing deep blue river that runs along its floor. One canny restaurateur in this town has come up with the ingenious idea of building a special restaurant spanning the gorge. The kitchen is located on one side of the divide, while the dining area is located on the other. Diners place their money in a basket at the dining area and then give a loud knock on a special bit of wood. This knock alerts the chef that customers are waiting, and he hauls the basket across the divide along metal wire that spans the gorge. The food is then promptly cooked, placed in the basket, and then sent whizzing back along the wire to the waiting customer, piping hot, and with a pot of tea thrown into the bargain.

While there, we encountered a couple of American JETs from the neighbouring prefecture. One of whom was jumping naked into the gorge’s river from one of the many bridges that spanned it. We walked over to talk to them, as my traveling companions were from the same prefecture as the guys and knew them. The nude jumper introduced himself, and then, to my surprise said “I have your name tattooed on my butt”. He then turned round to reveal that he had ‘anata no namae’ tattooed on his arse (Japanese for ‘your name’). Apparently he had got the tattoo done to use as an ice breaker when meeting Japanese people in bars. Exactly how the notoriously shy Japanese people have greeted this curious joke, I’m not sure. It’s a lot less mundane than ‘how are you?’ certainly.

2005-06-13T22:37:00.001+09:00

Temple in Nara

2005-06-13T22:37:00.000+09:00

Old and New

2005-06-13T22:36:00.000+09:00

Kobe

2005-06-13T22:35:00.000+09:00

Nihon no Bunka

2005-06-13T22:33:00.000+09:00

Torii Gate Alley

2005-06-13T22:31:00.000+09:00

Kyoto Pagoda

2005-06-13T22:26:00.000+09:00

S.S.Gaijin

2005-06-13T22:24:00.000+09:00

The Gorge Restaurant

2005-06-13T22:22:00.000+09:00

The rewards for truancy in Japan include discount entrance fees.

Team Marijuana

2005-04-20T17:37:00.000+09:00

Yesterday I was playing a game with my class of Third Graders which involved the students dividing into several teams. The team names the pupils chose for themselves were: 1. Johnson's Mouse 2. Mustard and Onions 3. David 4. Marijuana. In all honesty the stupid names didn't really surprise me; the kid's pretty much get their textbooks out and scan frantically to find the most pointless words that they can use. I don't know how many times I've seen kids choosing team names like 'Sausage' or ' water spigot'. I think they just find the sounds of certain words funny. My Chugakko (middle school) kids find the terms 'pardon?', 'me too' and 'really?' especially hilarious, and it gives them great satisfaction when they get a chance to use them. A favourite, and utterly hilarious, joke amongst my first graders is to respond to the question “How are you?” with the answer “oh, oh, me too!, me too!”. It has the little blighters absolutely rolling around in stitches.

The name of the last team did stick out a bit though, it's not like the word 'marijuana' features in the school textbook. It turned out that the name had been inspired by one team member's pencil case, which had the catchy phrase 'Let's all get arrested on a marijuana possession charge. I'm from Jamaica' printed in English on it. You wouldn't have believed the student's surprise when I explained to her that marijuana was a drug. That a 14 year old would be allowed to have that pencil case in school may seem a little strange, but quite simply she had know idea what it said on it. It's a bit like someone in the UK wearing a trendy t-shirt with kanji printed on it: looks cool, but nobody knows what it means. The same is the case here in Japan; English is regarded as really cool, and clothes sporting a slogan in English are very popular.

As is the case with t-shirts decorated with kanji in the UK, here in Japan there is no need to actually print something that makes sense, just as long as it looks cool. Some feature fairly intelligible English, such as 'On a beach, lets live', but they progress right through to the thoroughly ridiculous such as 'Freedom. Since 1556' and 'I got more fucked up than Digit. And I got shot'. All the JETs have a good laugh when we see trendy J-boys wearing such ridiculous garments, but in all honesty I'm sure just as many people have incomprehensible Chinese/Japanese/Korean written on some of their clothes back home - and thats not to mention the worrying number of people who have put their faith in the Asiatic language skills of their local tattooists , and as a result permanently scarred themselves with the kanji for 'Chicken Fried Rice' or 'Banana Fritter'.

The reason behind the (fairly common) marijuana theme, is probably the drug's association with the hip-hop-reggae scene, which is very trendy in Japan at the moment. Actual cannabis use levels are apparently very low in Japan. This is not just because the Japanese are a very disciplined people, and penalties for drug use especially harsh, but also because marijuana is less well suited to Japan's fast paced hard-working culture than stimulants such as amphetamines. Perhaps this explains why it's possible for a teacher to walk into a classroom in one of my mate's schools, sporting a jumper with the exclamation 'I'm only happy when I'm high on dope' written across it.

2005-04-20T17:35:00.000+09:00

A t-shirt I spotted while out shopping. Lovely.

Lost in Translation

2005-04-18T00:57:00.000+09:00

One of the hardest things about living in Japan probably has to be the communication barrier. When I first arrived in Gonohe, I was more than a little nervous about how I was going to be able to function in my day to day life, given that my Japanese didn't extend far beyond 'konnichiwa' 'sayonara' and 'domo arigoto Mr Roboto'. I was certainly more fortunate than others in that my town's two other ALTs (assistant language teachers) were both conversational in Japanese, but I couldn't expect to rely on them all the time. Thankfully, each JET is appointed a supervisor in the town they are allocated to. The job of the supervisor is to help navigate the new JET through the unfamiliar environment they have just entered; this can include everything from initial trips to the supermarket through to opening a bank account.

Obviously as the first couple of months pass by, it's no longer as necessary to have someone beside to you at all times explaining which carton of milk is semi-skimmed, or where in town you need to visit to buy a spatula. But this does not mean that the importance of your supervisor diminishes. The job of the supervisor is also to liaise between the JET and the schools that he/she visits, as well as being the person in the office whose job it is to communicate all relative information to the JET. I guess they are kind of like your guardian angel: in theory, always there to look after you.

Unfortunately, supervisors are not chosen because they have the best English out of everyone in the office. Instead they tend to be picked because they are the most junior person working there. Some JETs are lucky, and are allocated supervisors who have good English - either through study, or simply because they have picked up a lot of the language through years of looking after previous JETs. However, this hasn't been the case for me in Gonohe.

My supervisor is a lovely woman, and she does a fine job at mothering me, but her English ability is low, and in tandem with my piss poor Japanese, we sometimes have a little difficulty communicating with one another. My supervisor tries to overcome some of the problems posed by the language barrier by using a 'translation' programme, which she uses to print off little notes to me communicating important information. Unfortunately, these programmes sometimes appear to understand English about as well as I do Japanese:

To Ewen

Hello. You were tomorrow the day to go to Gonohe elementary school but the class became cancellation.

However, because the school lunch could not be stopped, in among the morning, study it in Gonohe elementary school from 8:15 and eat a school lunch.

Then in the afternoon, be mobilized to the Gonohe board of education.

See you tomorrow

That time the programme did a reasonable enough job and I was able to elucidate the message that it was trying to communicate to me - and thankfully managed to mobilize myself to the office in time. But sometimes the messages can be even stranger:

This is the timetable of the bus and the train which goes to Aomori on the 18^th. Not to be, be careful with Michelle and to be behind the time go. Also, there is request. Today (the 15^th), always go to five guildhalls (Gonohe Town Office) by 4:45. Because it pays the money of the bus with part of going to the school in 9 minute for Ewen and Michelle, go without forgetting. (The place is the place where there is a window of the setting-up of the 1^st floor at five guildhalls most and the left sides by glass.)

I think things could sometimes be a little easier for me if my supervisor could speak better English (or I could speak better Japanese). But in all honesty I love the anticipation of waiting to see what little gem the translation programme is going to throw at me. I'm sure there will be many more to come.

2005-04-18T00:56:00.000+09:00

Even my magic glasses couldn't help me understand it....

2005-04-18T00:54:00.000+09:00

...and neither could Charlie

The Giant Buddha

2005-04-17T22:09:00.000+09:00

One of the thing I things I like best about Japan is the way the people manage to blend traditional elements of their culture seamlessly with more modern influences. Last weekend I was at a friend's birthday party at a nearby Buddhist shrine. The shrine actually had the 2nd largest Buddha in the entire of Japan, and the largest outdoor Buddha in the whole country. Cool as it was being confronted with a deity in all his 80ft copper glory, I couldn't help my excitement being tempered given my knowledge that he was in fact a mere 25 years old (the statue that is, not Buddha himself). I always find the Japanese take on religion a bit strange actually; I remember at one enkai (office party) my, then retiring, boss casually remarking to me how everyone in Japan used to think the Emperor was a god, until they lost the war, and then they thought “ oh, he mustn't be a god after all then”, But in all seriousness, the Japanese are very inconspicuous about their religious convictions. Here it is very much a matter of private concern, and I suspect, sometimes, an opportunity to make some cash. Bit like home.

2005-04-15T08:29:00.000+09:00

Lend Buddha a Quid

2005-04-15T08:28:00.000+09:00

East Meets Italy

2005-04-15T08:27:00.000+09:00

The Largest (outdoor) Buddha in Japan

All Change

2005-04-07T11:09:00.000+09:00

Well its all change in my school today; the new term has begun. In the Japanese education system teachers frequently change schools. Unlike in Scotland, this is often not at their own discretion: teachers can apply for transfers, but they are also forced to transfer if the board of education decides to move them to another school. In some ways this can be a good thing for the staff, as they can always look forward to new faces to work with. The down side is the possibility of there being extended commuting times (it's completely the norm to be shifted to a school in a entirely different town), and an understandable reluctance to leave a school where you are comfortably settled. Yet there is no way for the teachers to escape their fate: the maximum number of consecutive years any teacher can spend in one school is ten - although I'm told that 4 years serves as the average time spent in a school.

So, needless to say the atmosphere is a bit strange at work today, almost a little melancholy. We have experienced a staff turnover of about a third. Some of these teachers may have worked together in previous schools, but many haven't. For the new arrivals they face the challenge of fitting into the tight group that has been created by the incumbent teachers. I think most of the staff at Gonohe Chugakko are really friendly, so I doubt it will take to long for a superficial bond to take hold. However, I suspect it will be many months, as well as enkais (Japanese office parties), before people really begin to settle in.

I only actually work at Gonohe Chugakko three days a week, Monday through to Wednesday, and as such wasn't at the school on the Thursday when all the teachers discovered whether they were to be moved or not. Since I haven't been to the school for the past fortnight - as it’s been spring vacation - I only discovered today which teachers have changed. For me personally the changes have been really quite profound. Two of the three English teachers I worked with have left. One has headed for the nearby city of Hachinohe, and will be dearly missed; I have many fond memories of teaching a very genki (energetic) first grade together. The other is the teacher who I accidentally influenced into taking early retirement; she now plans to blow her life savings traveling the world - whoops. So as far as I am concerned, the next year should be rather intriguing.

For some reason I seem to be the Grand-Master of buggering up introductions. It just seems to be some innate ability I have to either shock, offend or annoy those who I meet for the first time. I like to think that shocking is probably the best of the three, as it’s the easiest to repair. This morning one of my new English teachers introduced herself to me. It was all ticking over rather amicably until she mentioned that we would be teaching the third grade class together. You see, the old second grade classes were the most difficult students I have ever had to teach. The little bastards displayed a poisonous mix of apathy, ignorance, and sheer disrespect every time I visited them. I don’t think that this phenomenon was restricted to my experiences; talk to any Chugakko ALT, and they too will tell you that second grade is always the most difficult class to teach. I've heard a few people speculate that the first graders behave well because they're still young and excited at being at a new school, the third graders behave well-ish because they know that its their final year and that they have important exams coming up, and the second graders are little shits because they are 14, the age where all kids, regardless of gender or ethnicity, undergo a curious physical metamorphosis, causing their body to limit the signals to the brain to the simple command: 'be a little bastard'. I am inclined to agree with this theory.

So anyway, I digress; this teacher was obviously fairly keen and excited at the prospect of working with her new students. This is where I managed to deflate her spirits with one giant pin prick. The moment she mentioned that it would be third grade (the old second graders), I immediately inadvertently switched my chat from small talk to a looped mantra of "hmmmm.....second grade....hmmm....challenge....very difficult students..hmmm....could be difficult..". I could quickly see by the drawn expression creeping over her face, that I had managed to put the fear of God into this poor woman. The greeting was then very quickly terminated. Fingers crossed things will work out well; the real problem last year was that there was no discipline, so perhaps it won't be as bad this term. I just felt I had to warn the woman.

On a lighter note, we also got a new principal today. I never really spoke to the old one - he didn't have any English - so there was no real relationship there. Although, I must say that it was very novel watching him wander into the teacher's room each day after one of his 'secret snoozes', with big bags under his eyes and hair like Wurzel Gummage. I was once told by one of the teachers that it was always best to give a few loud knocks on his door before you entered, that way it gave him time to wake up. The new principal, it appears, will not continue this comedy tradition. He's actually a former English teacher, which is good for me. I even got invited into his office for a chat - a first with any principal. Only one thing worries me: he really does smell like an old person's ward in an NHS hospital. Can't have it all I guess.

2005-03-31T01:37:00.000+09:00

Scots + Karaoke = Disgrace

Snow an Easy Walk

2005-03-28T20:41:00.000+09:00

The winter has been pretty brutal up here in Aomori ken this year. I must say that I really wasn't prepared for the sheer quantity of snow that fell. Every day a fresh blanket would appear, and very quickly it mounted up, creating huge snow embankments all over town. This winter has apparently been particularly harsh; a cruel price exacted for a swelteringly hot summer. Some towns have seen such heavy snow that they have exhausted their snow clearing budgets before the winter's end (budgets which can run to five grand a day for a smallish town). Despite the fact that the epic quantities of snow have meant that my apartment has been cold enough to compete in the Which magazine 'Best New Fridge 2005' competition, and that driving has been absolute murder (literally if your not careful), it hasn't all been bad news.

The Japanese don't seem to share that venerable British tradition of complaining about the weather (although perhaps if it rained here every day, like it does back home, they'd quickly learn). No, the Japanese just deal with what the elements throw at them, and try to use it to their advantage as best as possible. In the case of winter, the most obvious example would be the popularity of skiing. However, this weekend I sampled a slightly more unusual way the Japanese have thought up to enjoy the snow: The Hakkoda Snow Walk.

Hakkoda is a tall mountain in the heart of the ken, famous as a rather dangerous ski resort. During summer there is a road which winds round the mountain down to Towada lake, a popular tourist destination up here. But obviously come the winter freeze, the mass of snow that falls renders the road impassable. Every winter, for one weekend only, tours are available where you can be bussed from Aomori city to Hakkoda, where upon arrival you have an opportunity to walk the freshly cleared road. Obviously the sound of paying (25 quid) to walk along a road doesn't exactly sound like the most thrilling experience in the world. But what makes this outing so cool – apart from the sub zero temperatures – is that the cleared road still has 6 metre tall walls of compacted snow either side of it.

For your money you are bussed to the freshly cleared road, where you walk in the company of several hundred others, 8km along the road. The journey takes in some pretty spectacular views of the surrounding mountain range, and signs every 1km allow you to chart your progress. They even have guys in cars who occasionally drive by and congratulate you on reaching however far you have gotten (5.2km when we saw them). At the end you cross a finishing line where loud music is played across speakers; we were treated to 'Born to be Wild' but my other friends were rewarded with such classics as 'Eye of the Tiger', and, bizarrely, 'Rocking around the Christmas Tree'. The are even two men with megaphones who congratulate you on your remarkable achievement of walking along a road for 4 miles. You also get a bite to eat thrown into the bargain.

Actually it was a lot of fun, and it was definitely the best road through cleared snow that I have ever walked – in Japan. If only we could think of something decent we could do to make the weather bearable back home in Scotland. I wonder if 'Rain Walks' would catch on?

2005-03-28T20:40:00.000+09:00

About to embark.

2005-03-28T20:39:00.000+09:00

Charlie, my Russian pal

2005-03-28T20:37:00.000+09:00

Mt Hakkoda

2005-03-28T20:35:00.000+09:00

The Path

2005-03-28T20:30:00.000+09:00

Slightly larger than a T-Rex

2005-03-28T20:29:00.000+09:00

Mission Complete

J-Christ

2005-03-25T01:34:00.000+09:00

I can't say that I had ever heard of Gonohe before I came to Japan. In all honesty, I hadn't even heard of Aomori ken. When we were being given Japanese language lessons at our orientation in Edinburgh, I asked the teacher, who was Japanese, if she could tell me anything about my future home. All that she said was that it was a very agricultural region. I was left with the impression that I was being sent to the arse-end of Japan. I mean, Gonohe wasn't even on the map I had, never mind in the Lonely Planet guide.

So I found it a little strange when I arrived here, that all the locals kept boasting about how famous Gonohe is for soccer and horse meat. All the man-hole covers here have horses on them, and there are also billboards around town displaying soccer players, as well as galloping horses (and one rather strange one that has a horse playing soccer). Given how endless the string of boasts were, I found it hard to believe that so few of the Japanese people I had met in Tokyo could tell me anything about Aomori, never mind Gonohe.

Only after a couple of months of living in Japan did I slowly start to discover every Japanese town shares a craving for fame, no matter how little. I think this phenomenon is uniquely Japanese, and is a little strange for Westerners at first. Basically this is the sketch: in Japan, every town has something which it claims to famous for (best apples, beautiful scenery, strange dialect, soccer, etc), often this fame does not extend far beyond the surrounding area, but it is hoped that by making such claims that the town will receive a slice of the Japanese tourism industry. Generally, the towns choose something that is genuinely predominant or distinctive about that area. However, some towns seem to be prepared to make particularly bold claims in their attempt to steal a little of the limelight.

Without a doubt, the award for the most fantastic of these claims must surely go to Shingo, Gonohe's neighbouring town. Shingo, unfortunately, is a rather pathetic place; a small run-down little town of ramshackle houses surrounded by a belt of rice fields. This is a very poor town, in the country's second poorest region. But for what they lack in finances, the people of Shingo more than make up in ingenuity. While most Japanese towns are content to restrict their boasts to their sporting prowess, or exceptional cuisine, Shingo refused to settle for such pedestrian claims. No, the people of Shingo claim that no less a figure than Sir Jesus Christ himself is buried in this town.

When you visit Shingo, you can actually see the grave, not only of Jesus himself, but also of his younger brother Isukiri. The story runs that Jesus came to Japan via Alaska and Siberia, having escaped both the Romans and the cross (his kind brother Isukiri had “causally” (?!) decided to help him out, by volunteering to be crucified in his place). Jesus then proceeded to spend the rest of his days chilling in Shingo, until he died at the ripe old age of 106. Both graves are marked by crucifixes, which seems at little inappropriate in Jesus' case seeing he supposedly escaped that fate.

At Shingo you can not only visit the graves but also enter a small museum which tells the full tale of Jesus' escapades. There is also a short film shown. I watched this when I visited, but my translator - my friend Mark, who is a devout Christian - was too enraged to translate all its content (which is a shame, because Shingo also claims to have Pyramids and I was curious to find out what this, no less bombastic, claim was based on). At the end of your visit there are even souvenirs for sale, ranging from postcards through to crockery.

Few people outside of Shingo actually believe the tale of Jesus' burial to be true. In Gonohe the town is widely mocked. Indeed, it is questionable how many people in Shingo itself even believe the tale to be true. One thing for sure though, its one of the best claims to fame I have ever heard of..

2005-03-25T01:33:00.000+09:00

Salvation this way

2005-03-25T01:28:00.000+09:00

Christ! Surely its not true.

2005-03-25T01:26:00.000+09:00

Visiting Shingo

2005-03-25T01:25:00.000+09:00

It's already sacreligious