The First JERK I've Met In Japan (Or, How Brett And Ken Got Bullied Out Of Line At McDonalds By A JERK).

I say the "first" jerk because up until that fateful day, I had been interacting with nothing but kind, considerate and gracious people. At the very worst shy. But then came along this douche bag.

There is some back story required to fully appreciate the whole experience.
You should know that Brett eats at McDonalds fairly often, maybe a few times a week. But he had not gone to this McD for the past three weeks. Why, you ask? I will tell you why, without asking Brett's permission, because as a journalist he knows that it's best to write first and ask questions later.

Brett hadn't eaten at this particular McD for a while because the last time he was there, a new girl had taken his order and at the very end, asked him a question which he didn't quite hear. So he said, "sumimasen, moikkai" (sorry, once more?). But the girl assumed Brett didn't understand Japanese and just sort of froze up and no matter how Brett implored her to just REPEAT THE QUESTION, I JUST DIDN'T HEAR YOU; I HAVE TERRIBLE HEARING FROM ATTENDING OVER 360 ROCK CONCERTS!, she just wouldn't repeat it again and the manager had to help out and Brett was like "Screw THIS." and didn't feel like going back again.

I for one do not experience this kind of frustration because unlike Brett's situation, everyone assumes I am Japanese. So when I say "pardon?" they repeat it again and if I still don't understand, they look at me in a strange way. So then I say, in perfect Japanese, "I'm a Canadian, so my Japanese isn't that good yet; could you just use simple Japanese, please?" and then they fall over.

Anyways, Brett told me this is why hadn't been there for a while, so we were all, "We will go to McDonalds and we will conquer it!". This was the spirit of our lunch quest.

The place was packed but we thought, "no, we are here to conquer" so we got into line and were prepared for a long wait. After a solid 5 or 6 minutes, this guy behind us starts yakking at us in angry tones. We were a bit confused as to what his problem was...I mean, we knew he was complaining that we had butted in line, but the fact was, we didn't. And if we had, why not speak up right away? Anyways, this dude -- who is maybe mid-thirties, buzz-cut, glasses, kind of solid and strong-looking, looks like he could drink and smoke really hard -- just kept going ON and ON at us. He called out one of the waitresses and complained to her. She looked at us, we looked at her and shrugged: "We didn't butt in line." So she went back to work (the place is really busy). So then this jerk-hole called out the manager and just went off on the manager! The poor manager was just meekly taking it (the customer is always right) and apologizing. Brett and I were getting kind of pissed because we felt bad for this manager; he's a nice guy. So we said sorry to the guy and offered him to go ahead of us in line but he was all, "no, no, you go ahead, it's too late now!".

Honestly, I think if we were in America, Brett would've gone off on the guy. But we were in Japan, a bunch of my students were right beside us watching.... so we decided to just leave, for the sake of the manager. We swallowed our pride and did the diplomatic thing. We left, we biked in the rain to 7-11, bought a bag of chips for lunch, and went back to Brett's place where we spent many gleeful minutes thinking of all the great things we could've said to him if we were not self-respecting citizens.

One of the students who was at McD that day approached me at school later that week and, though I didn't actually understand what he was saying, I got the general impression that he was sympathizing with me; at the end, he patted me on the arm and gave me a bracing look as if to say, "Don't let those jerks get you down. You will conquer McDonalds someday."

I think if we meet this guy again and he starts complaining that we budded in line again, I think what we'll do is just ignore him and stay in line. Maybe tread on his toe accidentally.

I Never Realized That Though Japanese Is A Phonetic Language (Basically), It Is Still Possible To Make Spelling Mistakes: Part I of I.

I know most of my readers are fluent in Japanese (Mom and Dad...well, at least Mom) but I thought I'd write my thoughts about spelling in Japan(ese).

The Japanese written language has three alphabets: Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji. Hiragana and Katakana are basically the same thing: a series of syllables (written differently, but phonetically the same). For example, the first row of Hiragana/katakana is "a" "i" "u" "e" "o". The next row follows this basic vowel pattern but puts a "k" sound at the beginning: "ka" "ki" "ku" "ke"(i.e. the first part of my name), "ko". Next is "sa" "shi" "su" "se" "so". So if you want to write　for example, my name, its very easy: O+ga+sa+wa+ra: お＋が＋さ＋わ＋ら＝おがさわら。

The KANJI alphabet is the hard part which are the insane characters that every highschooler and professional basketball player wants tattooed to their wrist. So elementary school kids (and those with beginner Japanese) would "spell out" most of our words using Hiragana or Katakana but fully matured adults can eat up to 40 kgs of bamboo shoots per day. I'm sorry - they would write the kanji instead.

Hiragana: おがさわら
Katakana: オガサワラ
Kanji: 小笠原

By now you've noticed that I've drifted far away from the original thesis of this post...

For those of you who are struggling with learning kanji (as I am. Struggling, that is. Not learning so much.) please take heart in knowing that kanji is a struggle for most Japanese people. One of the activities on the billions of variety shows on Japanese TV is to test various guests/celebrities/tv personalities on reading kanji. The problem with kanji is that there are usually two or three different ways of reading it. For example: Kuda+matsu = 下＋松。　That's the name of the town I live in.

Let's take a look at the "Kuda" part of Kudamatsu. Wow. I did not know this before I looked it up in my kanji dictionary just now, but that kanji (下）has like a million different ways of reading, depending on what other kanji it's matched up with:
下がる- reading: "SA-garu"
下関 - reading: "SHIMO-noseki"
上下 - reading: "jou-GE"
下位 - reading: "KA-i"
And the list just goes on... man.

My mind is too tired to after all this to make this post live up to such a grand title. Later.

Hokkaido: Part IV: More Random.


Natsumi and Taiki are playing the string-spider-web game thingey.

Kyoko, Natsumi, Shige.


Myu and Ken.

The view from the top of one of two giant grass pyramids at Moerenuma Park.


This is normal.

Hokkaido: Part III: Random Views.


This is Biei. One thing I noticed as soon as I stepped off the plane in Hokkaido was how similar its geography is to my part of Canada (southwestern Ontario). There are fields for miles and long stretches of NO HOUSES. This is virtually impossible to find in mainland Japan as even the most rural of areas have houses clustered eveywhere. This is also where I had the most delicious shock of (perhaps) my life: "Jaggabutta". It comes from combining the words potato ("jagaimo") and butter. Basically, it's a baked potato with butter. Big deal, you say. Let me just say that the great shock for me was that a baked potato with butter could taste this good. I asked Yasu if these were the best potatos in Hokkaido? "Yes. Wait, no. They are the best in Japan.". I concur. Honestly those potatos were unreal.



We went to Moerenuma Park, a giant work of art designed by a famous Japanese designer whose name escapes me now. It has more grass than the rest of Japan combined. There is an art gallery in this park and these two sleepy-heads decided to take a nap on a bench on the third floor.


Moerenuma Park. In the middle of the frame you can see a radio-controlled model airplane.


Moerenuma Park. Giant fountain. Fortunately were were upwind, but the poor people on the other side got soaked with spray.

Famous Hokkaido crabs.

Hokkaido: Part II: Asahiyama Zoo: The Best Zoo In Japan.

We went to visit Asahiyama Zoo which is a small-ish zoo out in the middle of nowhere. It's design is unique: instead of the usual concept of the animals being the ones on display, for certain exhibits (penguins, polar bears, seals) Asahiyama has the spectators on display for the animals.

Golden Week: HOKKAIDO!

Golden Week is a cluster of national holidays found at the beginning of May. This is a time when every Japanese person who is not serving hard time attempts to travel. I went to Hokkaido (the northernmost island of Japan) to visit my long-lost Uncle Shigehiko ("Shige") (my Mom's elder brother), Aunt Kyoko, and cousins Yasuhiko ("Yasu"), Wakana, and Natsumi. Unfortunately, Wakana couldn't make it back home for holidays as she is now working in Ibaraki-ken, but 4 out of 5 isn't bad.

Let me first say that I have not seen these people since I was in elementary school. I have vague memories of them but seeing them during Golden Week was like being "back together for the first time, again". I'm sorry. I could not resist.

To "level up" the awesomeness of the trip, my other cousin Taiki (whose mother is my Mom and Shige's youngest sister) was coming up at the same time. Taiki had also not seen these northern relatives since elementary school so it was quite a reunion.

Conveniently, Taiki and I flew into Hokkaido at the same time so we trained into Sapporo together. The first thing we thought when Shige and Yasu pulled up was: "Holy crap. Shige looks exactly like Grandpa!". This is probably exactly what our Grandpa looked like 30 years ago...it was uncanny.

Anyways, here are some pics:


The cousins: Natsumi (21), Taiki (23), Ken (24), Yasu (~27).


Delicious BBQ on the second-story balcony of the Okada's gorgeous log house. I think Shigehiko really loved Canada when he visited many years ago. Short of moving there, the next best thing is to move to Hokkaido and build a log house.


Aunt Kyoko, Natsumi, and Myu.

My Uncle Shigehiko at the underwater penguin tank at Asahiyama Zoo, the best zoo in Japan (more pictures to come).

WHITE PARTY - April 21st.

I know it's been forever since I've posted - forgiveness please. Let me now fire up some pictures very quickly before I lose my two dedicated readers.

White Party: conceived and hosted by Mr. Paul C. Cebulak, this party was awesome.

OK, it seems I didn't take any pictures during the party itself. This is the next morning where some of us stayed to help clean up and have a post-party dance. Dancing are Junko and Brett. Jealous is Mark.

Flick Boyd blowing up ballons in front of a silent black and white film whilst preparing for the White Party.


To Jackie Wilson's "Higher and Higher". The Paul is on the far left.

YABUSAME (Horseback archery) (So so awesome).


This festival takes place every year in Tsuwano, which is a town in Shimane district about an hour and a half from Kudamatsu. There is a great deal of ceremony and beautiful traditional clothing. But the real show is the archery. There is a long narrow stretch of grass about 300 meters long. Within that stretch there is a lane of sand that is roped off - the lane is only about five feet wide . There are three targets set up at the beginning, middle and end of the run and these horseback archers gallop down this strip and try to hit all three targets. It is absolutely incredible. Brett, Shoko, and I were watching right near the middle target, so we couldn't see the beginning very well (lots of spectators) but it was a thrill to hear the horse thundering into view and blasting past. One archer - who was a junior highschool girl! - was especially impressive as she let out a long yell as she was coming up on the target: "yyyyeeeeeeeaaaaaAAAHHHHHHHHHAAA *CRACK as she hits the target* AAAeeee.....".

If you've ever ridden a horse, or practiced kyuudo (Japanese archery) (as Brett and Shoko do) you might appreciate how insanely difficult it is to combine the the two.



Setting up the target.


Above is the top archer of this festival. His name, to my neverending joy, is Ogasawara Ryo. Ogasawara. Ogasawara. And he was the only person to hit all three targets - I was so proud. He was on a JET calender last year and Shoko cut out the picture and has it posted on her wall. "That's my man! He's sooo hot!". This is one of the archers preparing for battle. Please note the length of the bow. It is enormous...probably about as tall as the shooter.







There is Ogasawara. Perfect form. Perfect name.

SAKURA: This national obsession brought to you by spring.

Sakura (cherry blossoms), in the words of Wikipedia, have "always been a symbol of ephemeral beauty in Japan and closely associated with samurai or bushi. Life was considered brief and beautiful, much like a cherry blossom." Every populated riverbank and park in Japan ornamented with sakura trees and every spring millions and billions of Japanese people eat and drink under these trees with family and friends to celebrate spring, family and friends, and good beer and bbq. This is called "hanami" which is derived from the characters 花見. Flower + to see = 花見。

Unfortunately, sakura season only last about two weeks, if that, so the merry-making and relaxation is short-lived and we're back to the daily 12-hour grind and lunches are once again reduced to 5 minute speed-eating contests. Not me, of course.

Anyways, here are some pics of the Kirito River which runs beside my apartment.



Funny story about this guy. I was biking home one day and saw this grandpa throwing bread to the carp in the river. I thought to myself, what a great picture, too bad I don't have my camera with me. The next day I was biking home at the usual time and lo! and behold, the same grandpa wearing the same clothes, doing the same thing at the same time. And I had my camera with me so I took his picture.


Not very many people on this side, but on the other side of the bridge there were tons of people. I didn't take pictures because I was on this side of the road and who wants to cross a road just to take a picture?



At night, the trees were lit up. Personally I preferred to see them at night, especially if you walk underneath them and just look up and see the fullest bloom possible contrasted against the black sky above... it's really really beautiful.

Introducing K'naan

In The Beginning by K'naan

Great song by a great musician. This is just the song, no video, but the song is what I want you to hear. Check out his first full-length album Dusty Foot Philosopher.

Shout out to Rob Bickford who introduced it to Ben who introduced it to me.

English and Japanese.

Good morning. It's April now. April marks the 8-month... mark ... of my stay in Japan. After 8 months, my language skills have improved to the point where I can speak perfectly mediocre Japanese and can read and write at a grade 1 level. A corresponding development is that my English proficiency has also declined such that I can say with confidence that my Japanese is almost as good as my English. To prove this, I will re-write the above paragraph in Japanese.

おはようございます。ゆうびんきょくは　どこですか。

This is an example of how a few simple characters can express a lot of stuff.

RE: declining English skills, a short little anecdote will help illustrate this phenomenon. About a month ago, Marko, Louise and Emily (fellow aliens teaching English) came over to stay at my place for a night just to chill in Kudamatsu with me and Brett. We were on our way to rent a movie but Marko wanted to first stop in at an electronics store on the way to check out a computer. He said, and I am quoting, "Will you guys - I forget the proper word for it - be nice to me and come look at this computer with me?"

The word he was looking for was "indulge".

Please bear in mind that Marko is an Englishman. Moreover, a graduate of the hallowed halls of OXFORD UNIVERSITY, with a major in history. After a year and a half in Japan, this is what his English has deteriorated to: "Be nice to me".
------------------------
OK the original reason for this post was to list some English words that have been adopted into the non-English-speaking Japanese vocabulary. Why? Because I think it's innerestin.

Some of these words are just really random...like why adopt THIS word or THAT word? Some examples:

- VIVID
- RELAX (often combined with "time"; i.e. "relax time")
- SAFE (used KIND of in the same context as baseball; e.g. "Hey Ken, you don't have to collate that mountain of paper after all!" "ohhh! safe!". Can be used to express relief in certain contexts)
- CHALLENGE (verb form; i.e. to challenge.)
- TENSION - this is a strange one. I've heard it used most often in the context of "gathering energy" or "pumping one's self up" for something. I'm still not entirely certain of it's meaning but it doesn't really have the same meaning as I'm used to.
- HARD - i.e. "hard schedule"; difficult, hassle.
- REASONABLE - i.e. reasonable price; affordable.
- MOOD-MAKER - seriously. This is someone who is the sparkplug, the catalyst of a group of people; ususally in the context of a team sport.
- NO GUFF - not really, but it'd be sweet.

There are lots more but I can't think of any write now. I mean right now. Wow, I didn't even mean to do that.

Joe Carter and Tom Cheek

If you were a Canadian alive in 1992 and 1993, you will remember that the Toronto Blue Jays was the best team in major league baseball. The following year, to protest a Canadian team winning the World Series (twice), everyone went on strike and baseball sucked until recent years.

This was the call by Blue Jays' voice Tom Cheek when Joe Carter hit his famous walk-off homerun in the bottom of the ninth with two out, two strikes on him. I swear, I tear up every time I hear this.

Twisted.

This is a picture I should've posted a long time ago, multiple times. He is Hasegawa and works next to me at the Board of Education.

Waitin For a Train - Chris Smither

This guy is amazing. The video is crap, but you stop caring after about 30 seconds of watching and listening to him...

GRADUATION 2007
Two weeks ago my junior high 3rd years graduated (the school year in Japan ends in March and starts again in April). It's a happy occasion for the most part, but I was kind of sad. The sad part wasn't so much that I would probably never see most of them again (although that is sad), but that most of them will probably forget me shortly. This is kind of an egocentric concern, I admit, but the truth is that I really like some of these kids and I wish I could get to know them better. But these kids aren't going to drop everything and come running to me every time they see me. I've only been around for 6 months, I've only taught some of these kids maybe 2 or 3 times in class...
I read somewhere recently that we humans like to consider ourselves to be the stars of the show but the truth is that we are mere extras in relation to most people we interact with. And much as I would like to think I am a significant presence in some of these kids lives (because they are special to me), I have to accept the fact that I am only an extra, a brief walk-on presence. Having come to terms with this, I've decided that the most I can do is act my part as well as I can.

Still, I will miss them.

OK, enough emoting. Below are some pictures of graduation day at my three schools.

Kubo Jr. High had a cool arrangement where all the 1st and 2nd years lined up along the driveway and gave gifts to their "sempai" (elder/mentor) as they filed through.




Members of the Kudamatsu Jr. High Brass Band, before playing out the graduates.


The famous Mizuki two-time English speech contest champion.

Hiroshima San Fecce soccer fans. Mark, Brett, Ross (fellow JET lads) went to Hiroshima for the day on Wednesday (national holiday: Vernal Equinox Day) and took in this game. Hiroshima got their butt kicked by Osaka but it was fun to watch. There was one leather-lunged young woman (late teens? Early twenties?) beside us who, when I first heard her shouting, I thought it was one of the teenaged boys behind us. She was a real hardcore fan and didn't hesitate to cuss out a player if he messed up. All four of us kept peeking glances at her, in awe and admiration.




We went to Freshness Burger for lunch - delish! Mark ordered a mini salsa burger for dessert.


This picture was taken way back in October, I think, but I don't think I posted it. It's Hiroshima Castle. And that's me in front.


Brett drinks a lot of Coke. He is, in fact, a Pepsi man at heart but Pepsi is hard to find in Japan.

Student Art.


Amazing. I don't know who drew it, but it was on display at Suetake Jr. High in the art wing.


Also in the art wing. Wooden carvings which were painted... by students, presumably.


A poster for a candidate running for student council at Suetake.

MIYAZAKI HAYAO - genius.

For those of you who have not yet had the pleasure of watching this man's films, well, please do. My memories of Miyazaki's works of art goes back to when i was a wee child of 7 or so and I saw "My Neighbour Totoro". I think one of the first movies our family owned. Anyways, the characters are so alive, and the stories so great. I've only seen a few of them, but the ones I have see are great for kids as well as adults. Please watch them. Below is a poster for Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind.