Photoblogs are for People with Not a Lot to Say

Hiking Trip to Nokogiriyama

The 31.05m Buddha and the 100 Shaku (roughly 100ft) Cannon.

I love this little guy.

Exposed Roots

Abandoned Office and Snack Shop  (they really oughta clean up)

Girls are Stupid

One thing I've learned in my life is that even smart girls are suckers for songs written in the second person. Seriously. Lyrics don't have to be sweet, smart, funny or even nice as long as they're directed at "you" and are punctuated with a chorus containing any of the following words: angel, love, girl, all, or -the ultimate-, beautiful.

An excellent example is the recent James Blunt song which has been torturing me in Japan and, I noticed, has hit #2 in America. Please scroll down to read the lyrics.

This is pretty much the stupidest song I've ever heard in my life. If you like it, you're stupid. If you find it romantic, you're stupid.

The plot: The narrator smokes a bowl. Narrator finds his way to the subway. Narrator sees a pretty girl long enough to see her smile. She notices how high he is. First of all, he says "she could see by my face I was fucking high". Meaning, his eyes were so bloodshot, dialated and unfocused that even a cursory glance betrayed him. Real attractive. Over the next few minutes he imagines a future with her, and subsequently realizes that the chances of that are close to nil.

Maybe I'm old fashioned, but for me, any song that contains the phrase "fucking high" by default loses any of its romantic appeal. Period.

James Blunt - You're Beautiful Lyrics

My life is brilliant.

My love is pure.

I saw an angel.

Of that I'm sure.

She smiled at me on the subway.

She was with another man.

But I won't lose no sleep on that,

'Cause I've got a plan.

You're beautiful. You're beautiful.

You're beautiful, it's true.

I saw you face in a crowded place,

And I don't know what to do,

'Cause I'll never be with you.
Yeah, she caught my eye,

As we walked on by.

She could see from my face that I was,

Fucking high,

And I don't think that I'll see her again,

But we shared a moment that will last till the end.
You're beautiful. You're beautiful.

You're beautiful, it's true.

I saw you face in a crowded place,

And I don't know what to do,

'Cause I'll never be with you.

You're beautiful. You're beautiful.

You're beautiful, it's true.

There must be an angel with a smile on her face,

When she thought up that I should be with you.

But it's time to face the truth,

I will never be with you.

I have only time for one half-formed piece of insight that came to me as I was walking out of my train station in chiba and contemplated exploring the town a bit rather than walking straight home.

Tourists always talk about wanting to see the "real" country, the place where the locals actually live their lives. But I realized, as I looked from the supermarket to the apartment complexes, the places where everyday people live their lives is of absolutely no interest to a tourist unless he is in a position to be incredibly condescending.

SAD or VD or whatever the kids are calling it

People, it's way too cliched to be depressed by valentines day. Come on now.

I Went to Yasukuni Jinja and All I Got Was Lousy Guilt Complex
                                          -or-
                   Hanging Out With Friends in Tokyo
(Yoshi, when its about you, you have to read it)

   Today was tightly and comfortably enfolded in normalcy despite it being only the second day of its kind since July 2004. Normalcy like that startles, like a foot slipping from sidewalk to street, but it doesn't trip you up.  I can't complain about my job, and I feel more than grateful to be staying with a family at the moment, but bumming around in Japan with friends felt crisply refreshing in a way nothing else has since Shinjuku with Jess two weeks ago.

  Me and the three tallest Japanese guys I've ever seen assembled in one place made a circle around Tokyo, starting with the gaijin-ridden crowds in Asakusa, taking a tourist boat up and a train over to the highly controversial Yasukuni Shrine, and ending up eating monja-yaki in tsukijima, where we parted.

 Tokyo is different in winter, when the cold when makes you feel how close it is to the water, when the wind blows and whips the city into motion. In summer, between the crowds, the steel gray lid of the sky, and the humidity, Tokyo seems to squeeze you in a hot, uncomfortable, stifling embrace. But today the sky was blue, and though the crowds were intense in Asakusa they relented in Yasukuni. Moreover, out on the water I was finally given cause to regret my relentless lambasting of Tokyo architecture, as I was treated to a view of uniquely crafted glass buildings with pristine concrete used only as an accent instead of the dark unbroken cement monstrosities that I had been used to. I had enough time to appreciate this, and the 8 or so bridges we passed under with dutiful oohing and ahhhing before I found myself on my way to Yasukuni shrine, which pained me in a similar way as going into Wallmart, or the Gap.

Yasukuni Jinja has achieved notoriety because one day a year Prime Minister Koizumi comes to visit it.

What kind of wonderfulness is it, when what is probably a twenty minute span of time once a year, involving nothing but bowing and clapping one's hands smartly twice can be of such significance that it turns a location into a buzzword for an entire phenomenon?

Anyway, Yasukuni shrine happens to house the remains of WWII war criminals, in particular, those responsible for the military 'successes' in China and Taiwan. This is understandably a sore point with the rest of Asia, especially considering that Japanese textbooks notoriously still do not do justice to what happened there. (Frankly, ours don't either) Koizumi's insistence on going is seen as a gigantic 'fuck you' to the entire problem, and so it was natural that as we were walking there today, we conjectured that Yasukuni shrine might be "hot with controversy" despite the freezing wind.

In fact, it was no such thing. The shrine was free of protesters (it wasn't even crowded), and rather peaceful. Truth be told, except for the gigantic gate out in front of it (above), it was rather unremarkable.

Dinner followed rapidly; we went to tukijima, an area famous for Monja-Yaki.(Everywhere in Japan is famous for something; sometimes I think they just make shit up) We passed about 15 Monja-Yaki restaurants before alighting upon the 'famous' one. Monja, for those familiar with the lingo, is kin to Okonomiyaki, only its more liquidy. For those who don't know the lingo, basically it's batter, cabbage, and other toppings chopped up and grilled on your table that you eat with tiny spatulas. Its pretty good, and very 'Tokyo-poi".

On the way home, after the goodbyes, I twitched around in my seat like someone was about to snatch it out from under me, so ill-used am I to being able to sit on the train back to Chiba. I listened to my ipod and frowned in concentration, deliberately affixing 'desu' and 'masu' to the ends of all my sentences; I had dropped them today like a sarong at the beach and was now, for modesty's sake, recovering them. I can only hope that type of freedom with words, actions, and time- which I realize now that I, so nearly a college student, deem normalcy- will come visit me again soon. 

Strange English

Encounters with a "strange new culture" can often make you see the absurdities in your own behavior.

For example, anyone who's ever even known a Japanese person might have noticed them mutter 'yussho' when lifting something, sitting down heavily, or getting to their feet. I've known about that word for a while, but recently I've been noticing it more. And, of course, once I started noticing it it began to drive me crazy... until I realized that I have a tendancy to mutter 'ooof' on exactly the same occasions. And I can't stop. It's like a reflex!

One feature of English I totally ignored until a non-native speaker pointed it out to me, was the excessive use of directional prepositions. These are used sometimes just for emphasis, but sometimes they completely change the meaning of the word. Take, for example, the metamorphasis of the word "throw".

Throw up.... vomit
Throw down... fight
Throw in.... join, hang out with (as in, "you don't want to throw in with that lot")
Throw out... toss
Throw away... get rid of

This, to me, is really fascinating, and it seems to be an easy way to make up new slang words (like throw down). I'm thinking of making a huge comprehensive list of these for non-native speakers.

Call out... identify
Call up... telephone
Call on... order or request
Call off... cancel
Call down... reprimand

Ring up... telephone
Ring in... celebrate

Lay out... tan
Lie in... sleep late
Lie around... be lazy; do nothing
Lie down... rest

Anybody else got any particularly interesting ones? Any words that can be used with all the prepositions?

(ps: Nouns don't count. Thats why I didn't include 'lay-up')

I have been reading Virginia Woolfe's Orlando (which I love as much as I hated "To the Lighthouse") in great spurts on the train home from work when I can manage to tear myself away from my video ipod. Prose so exquisite ties me firmly to my native tounge even as daily interactions in Japanese tear me away from it.

Japan this time around seems palpably different. Living in a house, being forced to hold conversations, forcing myself to speak Japanese even when it doesn't come readily... it makes all the difference in the world. Moreover, having anticipated all the little annoyances in being here makes them much more palatable. Today, when our train was cancelled, hiro and I, along with about fifty other people, had to rush onto another train car nearest the stairs. I was pressed up against a high school student so closely that I could feel vibrations in my own chest through his back when he coughed. When still more people shoved their way into the car and I was moved back and squished in, I merely winced and laughed, and made eye contact with an good-natured old woman who was squinched up against the door. To my great surprise, it brought up rather fond memories of my first summer in tokyo, when I rode the Keihin Tohoku and Saikyo lines every day in similar conditions, an experience I wasn't too fond of at the time.

Sometimes in the dark as the train speeds back toward chiba, I find myself confronted with my own reflection, unflatteringly lit by overhead flourescents. I can't help but to tilt my head up and to the side a bit, to make the circles under my eyes dissapear and soften the shadows under my cheeks and to wonder at my own appearence. I feel well- dressed for the first time in my life, due to the magnificant amount of shopping I did in America before I left. This whole time I had no idea being well- dressed was simply a matter of buying nice clothes and then wearing them. Go figure.

I doubt I would have done it though. Still in the morning as I am buttoning slacks, pulling on trouser socks, or zipping up boots, I don't feel as though I am putting on my own clothes, but rather as though I am donning a costume. As I sit at my desk rooting through my jewlery (which I do promptly every morning at 7:36), I find my most conservative pieces of all the same metal, matching colors and styles with all the care and respect for authenticity with which I painted devil makeup on my face as a 10 year old, or braided my hair as princess leiah as a 15 year old. When I am pinching extra folds in my pantyhose or walking down nihonbashi allys in uncomfortable shoes, I do so with all the perserverance of a 7 year old strutting her room in plastic purple high heels that she loves too much to outgrow.

My Top 5 Most Spoken Japanese Words

1) Hai  (yes/ok)
2)Suki (like)
3)Oishii (delicious)
4)sou desu/desuka (that's right/ is that right?)
5)___shita koto arimasu (I've done ___ before)

Your nihongo has to be damn near fluent to steer Japanese people away from their favorite forigner- conversation topics. And the Japanese themselves have to be pretty damn kokusaiteki (internationally minded) in order to steer them clear of their favorite forigner misconceptions.

The classic gaijin annoyance is having people be shocked that you can use chopsticks. Only slightly less known is having to explain to people who know how long you've been in Japan that yes, you do know what udon is.

It's worse for californians, I would imagine, especially people from the bay area. Chopsticks and ramen were as much a part of my college life as homework and filtered water. When I lived with Diana and Stephanie, we pretty much used chopsticks for everything except for what we needed spoons for, and since most of our eating out happened at the asian ghetto, we probably went for days without even touching a fork. Japanese people don't want to hear things like that.

The key to holding a conversation with someone with limited language skills is sticking to familiar ground. Food is pretty much the favorite topic, hence my extensive use of the word oishii. Asian people who haven't traveled much tend to ask difficult questions about food. "What do you usually eat in America" is particularly hard for white people to answer. Dave Chappelle does a great routine about how no one knows what white people eat. Well, we don't know either! Japanese people always expect you to answer things like "steak", as though we eat it for every meal. My mom happens to make a lot of stir fry, which, again, Japanese people don't want to hear. Another awkward question is "What do Americans eat instead of rice?" The problem is, there is absolutely no parallel to rice. Bread is the closest, I guess, which is what they expect you to say, but really, its hardly the same thing at all. The underlying problem, really, is that Americans are very hesitant to make any generalizations about Americans. There's just too many kinds of people and too many races to describe in one fell swoop the dinner tables of all of them.

Its raining in Tokyo.

Commutes make for long days. Those of you who know me might as well just skip the next sentence because you won't believe it anyway. I get up at 6:10, eat breakfast at about 7:15, leave the house at 7:40, get on the train at about 7:50, get to our stop at about 8:45, and to work at about 8:50. I work until 12, eat lunch, start work again at 1 and finish at 5:30. Of course, we don't leave at 5:30. We leave whenever we're through. Then we get back on the train for 55 minutes (maybe we'll get to sit down this time), then get on a bus for about 8 minutes, then arrive home and eat dinner. Once again, those of you who know me should skip the following sentence. I start getting ready for bed at about 10 and have the lights about by 11. I actually want to start sleeping earlier because today I was completely exhausted.

It's hard to start a routine, like carving your way through quartz. Things need to be tweaked; you need a couple minutes to let the bathwater heat up, you decide to wait for the express train, you figure out which train car is least crowded. There's something fun about this, like cheating with a chose your own adventure book to find the best ending. Of course, even the best arrangement may not bear repeating, when by repeating you mean every day for the rest of your life. I have experienced for three days pretty much the exact routine Hiro has been living for the past thirty years.

I work in a tiny office in nihonbashi on the fifth floor of a tiny building overlooking a maze of sidestreets filled with other tiny offices, eateries, and the pitter patter of countless salarymen. When I have something to do, its usually sending an email in English. When I don't, I research semiconductor processing or practice semiconductor-related kanji.

Its amazing to me how much is needed to fill such a small gap. My first day we receive some packages from one of our american suppliers. We tore open the boxes, untaped all the bubble wrap, and wrested the product from its Styrofoam bed only to place Japanese 'this way up' and 'caution' stickers over the English ones. It seemed ludicrous to me that an entire enterprise was needed to do a task like that; that Americans and Japanese were so inept at dealing with one another that they needed to pay commission to a third party just to buy a product with warning labels in the proper language.

But this office is in constant motion with phone calls, emails, and faxes. Constant changing and checking of specifications, pleasantries, requests, and damage control. Constant giving and receiving of information, information that is filtered and translated. Constant receiving of packages, unpacking and repacking of packages, and sending of packages. All this for a company that makes nothing and buys nothing. They are merely the lubricant between Japan and California, which seem to be scraping angrily against each other despite having the pacific to cool them off.

Makes me wonder about esperanto.

Thoughts before leaving...

Any minute now
       my ship is coming in
                  
I'll keep checking the horizon
       I'll stand on the bow
    And feel the waves come crashing

Come crashing down, down,
                                           
down
                                                   
on me.

And you said,"Be still, my love
      Open up your heart
          Let the light shine in"
      Don't you understand?
  I already have a plan

I'm waiting for my real life to begin

When I awoke today suddenly nothing happened
                            
But in my dreams I slew the dragon
                   And down this beaten path
        And up this cobbled lane

I'm walking in my own footsteps once again

I'm waiting for my real life to begin

Any minute now  my ship is coming in
                   
I'll keep checking the horizon
It's gonna happen soon, soon, oh so very soon

And you say,"Be still, my love
       Open up your heart
               Let the light shine in"
        Don't you understand?
   I already have a plan
         I'm waiting for my real life to begin

On a clear day...
                I can see

See a very long way...