I was upset that I missed my xanga anniversary; 1461 days- that's four years.

As someone who still feels like a student, four years is a significant block of time. Its enough to be an entire phase in your life, enough time to be a different person going out than the one who came in.

I started this journal because I knew I was going to be spending a year in Japan. I wanted a way to keep in touch with friends, and a reminder to record what I was experiencing since I knew it would go by fast. Due to its public nature, my xanga didn't end up being as personal or as detailed as the things I wrote just for myself, but it did end up containing some of my favourite insights and thoughts, as well as becoming an excellent outlet for the frustration I was feeling at that time. 

After a year at Doshisha I was so pleased to be back in Berkeley, back to a diverse city and real, intense study. All the upper division classes I was taking were filling my head with new ways of thinking and perceiving things, and my job as a writing tutor was forcing me to think critically about not only the way I write but the way I teach and the way I learn. This coupled with the fact that I was getting out more and exploring the city made for some of my best entries, at least to me.

Coming to Japan again was a decision I never thought I would make, but one that seemed all too obvious given my major and all my choices up to that point. Luckily for me, things turned out much better the second time around. Speaking Japanese all day at work meant that my learning curve was steep and satisfying, and once I moved into my own apartment in central Tokyo I could finally get out and explore the city.

Of course, one of the problems with moving to another country by yourself is that you tend to be... by yourself. My friends all lived in other cities and there was no one my age at work so I ended up solo quite a bit of the time. I learned a lot then. I learned how to walk long distances without my ipod, and how to go to restaurants and movies alone. I learned how to use Japanese guidebooks and maps to find interesting places to go, and then go. The internet and my cell phone were my closest companions... next to the trains...The Ginza and Hibiya subway lines, which could always take me somewhere interesting and then back relatively close to home, and my Yamanote line. The hub of the city, the ring around the imperial palace. I felt I was lying down in the middle of it, my head resting in Shibuya and my legs kicked up in Kanda. But my eyes were on Ueno, my go-to place for wandering and sakura sighting, a place that held all my boredom and my loneliness and my sorrows. And I kept going back.

Then someone found me, and reintroduced me to the outside world. The city looked suddenly different, and its hidden corners opened up to me. Coincidences lead me to more people, and now I am busier than I know how to deal with. I learned to trust and enjoy people again, a delight after having subsisted without them for what seemed like long.  

Japan itself is getting easier too. My learning curve has leveled off some (due in part to my own laziness and complacency; I won't lie), but I can read and understand and speak more than I ever could before, and each day I learn something new. I have been lucky enough to go deeper into the culture than I should have been allowed and I find myself in a position where I might actually have something real to offer in the way of insight about the city and country in which I live.

I feel fairly loyal to xanga, which has supported me and given me free server space for 4 years without ever turning pro. However, its perception as a venue for emo kids to write their emo songs and for aZn kids to write long unintelligible diatribes in hALf caPiTOlz doesn't make it ideal for participating in the community of fellow gaijin and expats who blog about things that interest me, things I can learn from.

That is why I'm starting up a new blog at blogspot, or google blogs or whatever it is (and before you call me a ship jumper; my blogspot blog actually predates the xanga; you can check it out.). Actually, I'm starting two; one is a more serious blog for Japan news, events, and cultural insight. ( http://fiveminutesoba.blogspot.com/ )  The second is for me to post my wacky photoshop action. (http://photoshopyourpics.blogspot.com/ )

The Japan blog as yet has no posts, but the photoshop blog has what will probably become the most awesome post I ever do.

The long and short of it is; I'm getting to the point where, if I want to write, I should write.

I'm also hoping that moving all of my more serious writing to another venue will allow me to be a bit more vulnerable and personal here, therefore making the entries more interesting for me to write. And when the time comes for me to apply for a job, most of the entries will probably be protected.

So, fear not xanga, I shall not abandon you. But please do connect your tickertape machines to my new creations (or RSS feeds, whatever you kids are doing these days). And thanks for four fascinating years .

I spent the entire day tottering on the edge of sincerity, on the cusp of feeling. I had a knot in my throat that made me feel like I wanted to cry; not because of sadness or weakness but because of the cathartic release that comes with it. Of all the simple emotional expressions I can think of, crying is the only one that satisfies, that brings an end to itself.

I've got scraps of half-felt emotions piling up inside me, shavings off the larger, fuller experiences I for some reason am incapable of feeling. Loss, joy, wonder, sadness, excitement, friendship, fear, and love. And the general contentment, the genuine contentment, with my life at the moment, covers over all of these so completely that I have no idea to what or whom I should ascribe each feeling, nor do I remember why I should bother myself about it. It is the vague stomach ache after a wonderful meal that dissipates in memory, but exists nonetheless.

Today I killed a bug. I saw it moving across my room, and as summer, the season of cockroaches, is nigh upon us, I panicked and squashed it with my slipper. Upon inspection I saw that it was not a cockroach. I'm not sure what kind of bug it was, but it seemed harmless enough. I could have swept it out of my room with little trouble. But I killed it, and that's a fact. The worst part is though, is that I know there was that second before I killed it when I knew I didn't have to, but I did anyway...

The two girls I roomed with for two years in college came to visit me this past week. They just left this morning, and I've been sifting through the memories (not to mention the pictures) of our brief, but very full, time together.

I can't help but think about how different the Japan they saw is from the Japan I live in. Part of it, of course is that they were on vacation and I was still working; I'm sure if I spent a year here doing nothing but traveling I'd feel quite differently too. But sometimes when we were walking around we'd see the exact same thing and while I was rolling my eyes they were going gaga and snapping pictures. They noticed things I never bother to look at anymore, and yet they were also deaf to so much of what was going on around them. I tried to explain as best as I could everything around me that was of interest, but there's only so much one can do. At the end of our first weekend together I had nearly lost my voice.

Really its speaking the language that changes everything. It allows you to penetrate so much farther into a country; from asking directions to reading advertisements to overhearing conversations on the subway. It lets you know how kind people can be, and how cruel. How silly, or how insightful.

Today I decided to be brave and walk into a soba shop near my work that I've only been to once. It's a tricky place, 7 tables served by only one older lady and a chef who never emerges from the kitchen; after 7 or so it becomes suffocatingly smoky and full of drunken, rowdy salarymen. So I walked in a little before 6 figuring it would be okay. It was, but the lady was none too friendly when she sat me or took my order.

I've learned not to take this too personally. I don't know if she's just not a friendly person or if she doesn't like gaijin or she doesn't like solo customers because they take up a whole table. No matter what the reason, I think its important to go beyond your comfort zone a little bit. And I also think its important for a foreigner to go out and mingle in places that are not there specifically for foreigners to mingle. I've had some wonderful conversations in restaurants and bars with people who've told me that they've never even spoken to an American before, and they asked me all sorts of bizarre questions. This is more than just a quest to find great soba in Tokyo's hidden nooks and crannies. This is part of my mission to force internationalism on people who don't think they need it. Not an internationalism that consolidates and homogenizes, but an internationalism that understands and accepts. I want Russians to drink boba, and I want people in France to long to try udon in Shikoku. I want Americans to feel the lure of Damascus and for Japanese people to dream of lazy roadtrips through the Deep South. There are people like that in the world. Maybe if there were more of them we wouldn't find it so easy to kill each other. It's a far-reaching mission, I know that. But I think its important, even if it happens little by little.

I ordered something I'd never ordered before and sat listening to four salarymen teasing the lady. They kept telling her how pretty she was and how young she looked, all while placing long complicated orders which they asked for again before she'd even got back to the kitchen.

 "Hey, hey, onesama, we need a round of beers. And later we'd like some Shochu and Soba-yu."

 "Shochu and Soba-yu?"

 "Yes, and also satsuma age, and edamame and also... karage"

 "Okay, so four Shochu and Soba-yu's, satsuma age, edamame, and karage. I'll go place the orders."

 "Hey, hey, Onesama, hey, pretty lady."

 "Huh? What? What?"

 "Don't forget our beers, hm?"

 I had the rare pleasure of seeing her smile, and she rushed back to the kitchen.

 When she left, one of the men said "Such a pretty lady, and its like she's never gotten a compliment before."

 Every day is a lesson. Every day I see or hear something I have never seen or heard before. I learn a new word and repeat it to myself. It resonates within me and even if I forget it, it changes me somehow.

My soba was quite good, and when I was done, I waited for my soba-yu. Soba yu is the water that the noodles were boiled in, and when the soba is high quality, it is supposed to be very good for your health. I sat with my head resting on my interlocked fingers, reading the various signs and menu items on the wall, wondering if I should ask her to bring it, if she would forget me, or if I should just forget it and leave. I watched her bustling around, daring her to forget me, because I would certainly not leave with out it.

She didn't forget me though; she brought the soba-yu in a thermos and I poured it into the leftover tsuyu from my noodles. When I left I told her it was really good, and she said thank you in a kind of patronizing way. I kept expecting her to "switch" on me but she never did. I've said this before, but usually the second Japanese people realize that I can speak Japanese and in general behave myself in an un-gaijin way, they "switch" their nervous or standoffish attitude and replace it with a nicer one. Maybe it would take more to win this one over, or maybe it was impossible. I left with the taste of soba-yu and tsuyu still lingering in my mouth.  It was very good, although I personally have my doubts about the health benefits. But it was comforting and warm and worth it.

This Japan is a little different than the one my dear ex-roommates saw. The woman at a soba shop in Nara spoke a little English and allowed my friends to drag her outside and point to the dish they wanted. They gushed about how sweet she was, and they weren't wrong. And I can't say which is better, to glide through the best parts of a place and to be amused at all the things that would eventually annoy, and to be oblivious to all the hidden tensions, problems and issues that would make themselves painfully clear before too long, or to have all those things, but then to be occasionally rewarded with something very genuine. In any case, I loved that they loved what they loved, even if I could not, would not love everything anymore. I was excited when something excited them, and I remembered what it felt like when things were newer. And when they left, I remembered that I too must leave, and that just like them I should try to capure the magic in my everyday life. Maybe not all in pictures (ahem), but nevertheless.

I arrived in smoky, dusty Shanghai, by myself, at night.

The thing about traveling on business is that you never really feel that you're by yourself. Business cities like Tokyo or Shanghai have a well-placed network of English-speaking people ready to guide you to the well-traveled attractions. From the airport to the hotel, the hotel to the meeting, the meeting to the fancy dinner, and the fancy dinner back to the hotel, taxis spirit the business traveler from well kempt place to well kempt place, without troubling them at all with the local language, culture, or customs. A $100/night business hotel looks much the same in Shanghai as it does in San Francisco, as it does in Fukuoka; a nice restaurant takes the same credit cards, and if you stay in the nice districts, you can always find someone who speaks English if you need help. This well constructed network, the pretty face put on for international clients, is something I always try to avoid in Tokyo, where I have the ability to. However, since the only Mandarin I know is "Shie Shie", and I can't even pronounce that right, I was ready and willing to slide right in to the well worn paths and right back out again.

The Show

I was in town for Semicon China, a tradeshow for companies in the Semiconductor Industry. Since I work for a distribution company, and not a manufacturer, I spent a lot of time just hanging out or walking around. There were a lot of different reps at the booth of the company who hosted me, and there formed the sort of weird summer camp friendships characteristic of people forced to hang out all day in an unfamiliar environment. Adult friendships always puzzle me, and business friendships even more so. As someone clearly too young to expect much from, I just tried to be as pleasant as I could and to pay attention to what was going on.

My favorite part of the show was meeting all the young, female salespeople at the different booths. Last summer I did kind of a tour of three major Japanese companies in the industry, and out of all that time I met one girl who wasn't pouring me something. In Japan, beyond the overt sexism that blatantly just happens, there is a lot of business - especially sales- that is done in ways girls cannot comfortably take part in: staying out late drinking, going to sketchy clubs, playing golf (debatable), or even going to onsen. But in Shanghai, a saleswoman doesn't just seem to be acceptable, it seems to be the standard. At every booth I went to I saw hoards of young women in nice suits and heavy makeup rushing around, chatting, and in general running the show. The girls at the company hosting me were particularly tenacious, very smart, and very hardworking. It was very refreshing to see.

The Huangpu River

My first business dinner in Shanghai actually turned out to be German food at a chain restaurant in an upscale neighborhood downtown. It was the kind of place Id've like to go to if I lived there- it was lively with an international crowd of disparate ages, and after dinner a band started playing. After their second set a few people got up and started dancing between the tables, including an older Chinese guy who must have been at least seventy. He was dancing with a different girl every song, young pretty girls with wild perms who seemed to be having a great time. By the time the third set got going the place was jumping; people were milling around outside waiting to get in and the hostesses had to fight their way through clumps of dancers in order to seat people.

As much fun as that was, I was glad to learn that dinner the next night was going to be Chinese food. Not only that, but Chinese food in a boat on the Huangpu river, which has this on one side,

 

and this on the other




Out the window:

What can I say? The food was great, the view was amazing, and since it was the end of the show, everyone relaxed and let their hair down a bit. That was Friday night and I had Saturday free. Some of the other people from the booth invited me to go purse shopping with them, but I was sort of anxious to get out and actually see the city, not barter over fake coach wallets. But I wasn't brave/stupid enough to go wandering around alone. That's where Susan comes in.

Susan

I met Susan at Semicon, at one of our vendor's Taiwanese distributor's booth (complicated, right?).  We figured out pretty quickly that it was way easier to communicate in Japanese than English, and off we went. When we realized that we were born in the same year, she offered to show me around town "if I had time".

I don't know if she really expected me to take her up on it, but at about 10am Saturday I called her (and woke her up!), and within an hour we met in front of Peace Hotel by the river.

For a first tour of the city I think it was pretty excellent. She took me to Nanjing road, which was blessedly less crowded thanks to the absolutely dreary weather (see top picture). We went to a restaurant famous for their buns, which were filled with "soup and the digestive glands of a crab". Although, when Susan described it in Japanese she made it sound more like crab eggs. I was a little apprehensive at first, but then I remembered how many weird things I've eaten and enjoyed in Japan, and if it was their specialty dish it was probably worth getting.

The buns looked like fake breast implants; since they were filled with soup they sloshed around at the slightest prodding. In case you're wondering, the proper way to eat them is to poke a hole in the top with a toothpick, suck the soup out, and then eat the bun. Susan demonstrates for me above

After Nanjing road she took me to an old district with traditional buildings. it was kind of touristy, but of pretty nonetheless.

It didn't take us long to get away from the stuff thats been prettied up for guests, to the backstreets where the cement buildings are so old they look like moldy sponges. We walked down "Old Shanghai Street" and got some watermelon and good street food.

Susan invited me over to her house, so we took the barge across the river. This has to be the cheapest way across the river besides swimming across. I think it was 1 RMB for the two of us. We waited behind a gate for the boat to come along with other pedestrians and motorcyclists, and then once the boat had docked we all herded ourselves on. We snagged a good position by the edge so that we could see the far bank of the river blanketed in smog and mist, while the old lady next to us kept spitting in the water, her phlegm joining the wood chips, garbage, and shoes already bobbing along in the current. Gross.

We disembarked on the other side of the river, and no sooner had the moped riders, having never abandoned their transport, zoomed past us than we were in Skyscraper country. There was nothing whatsoever on street level besides a few well manicured but pathetic attempts at lawns, but gigantic buildings already a recognizable part of the skyline were all around us. Some were already in use, and had that "lived in" look; others were clearly brand spanking new and totally empty, and still others were still under construction. Shanghai, by the way, is a city under construction- and coming from a  Tokyoite, that means something. Hoards of workers from the surrounding countryside are imported at rock bottom wages to tear up roads and repave them, to create buildings and destroy old ones- with jackhammers, not wrecking balls, so that they can reuse the brick. In every corner of the city, something is changing and reforming itself.

Anyway, once clear of the small thicket of skyscrapers, we were transported decades back in time. The buildings were suddenly low and very old. Laundry was hanging outside windows, children's toys littered the sidewalk, and vendors were selling things out of wheelbarrows on the street. Susan lead me through an iron gate into a housing complex and up a flight of cement stairs to her apartment. The kitchen and bathroom were clearly ancient, but her room itself was very clean and surprisingly cozy. I looked out the window at the neighborhood in complete disbelief that it existed within walking distance of the tallest tower in Asia. Within 10 years I'm sure the whole area will be razed and replaced with business parks or condos, but for now I enjoyed the juxtaposition.

The highlight of the evening? Susan cooked me dinner! She and her friend chopped meat and veggies in their kitchen while I sat on my lazy ass and watched some Chinese period drama starring a man in monkey makeup. Susan said that it was the most popular program in China because monkeys were "clever". That made absolutely no sense to me.

Dinner was great though; much better than restaurant food. It tasted less greasy for one, and she used more vegetables.

After dinner we walked back to the skyscraper district and then to the river. We stopped at pearl tower, but decided not to go up because the night was so foggy.

To say thanks to the two of them I dragged them to the lobby of the Shangri-la hotel to have cocktails in the lounge. Prices were high, but the chairs were comfortable and there was live music; two Chinese girls and a white guy accompanying them on the keyboard. I almost died laughing towards the end of the set when he sang "What a Wonderful World" in a fairly accurate Louis Armstrong impression. Susan didn't get it.

I was really overwhelmed by Susan's kindness in offering to show me the city and to even take me to her home and cook for me. It feels like such a waste to go to a new city on business and not get to see anything that hasn't been specifically designed for foreigners. Of course, I still feel like I barely, barely saw a fraction of what Shanghai has to offer, but I certainly feel like I saw a lot more than I would have had I not befriended someone who lives there. More than just seeing a new city though, I got to be reminded of how nice people can be to each other- sometimes for no reason at all.

We took a cab home at nearly midnight and watched the city lights scroll gently my window. In the distance a welder's flame burned on a top floor of a new skyscraper, the lightning flash of a new economy being forged. I imagined the welder sitting in the windowless floor of a great tower, chilled by the ocean wind, a small part of a big idea.

If you ever read this, Susan, thanks

I don't know how to write, or how not to write, about losing my purse.

Of course the moment is terrible, when you realize that you left it downstairs in a cafe, and the subsequent moment when you realize that it's gone. It gets worse as your last hopes are exhausted- the store doesn't have it, and there's no security camera. Then there is the usual spiral into sorrow, regret, and self- flagellation. But then, all of a sudden, everything becomes pragmatic. Credit cards must be canceled, police reports filed, and IDs replaced. I found myself having to list everything that was stolen, and to estimate its monetary value. Of course, I didn't list all the things I was really thinking about- my ID card from university, the sticker pics I took in HK with carol, and the dozens of old receipts, the backs of which were covered in semi-inspired scribbles. In the days that followed I found myself having alternate flashes of regret- sometimes for the things that were "valuable", and sometimes for the things that were of value only to me.

It is nearly April, and people are leaving. The beginning of the Japanese fiscal and academic years start at the same time, and everything is in upheaval. Jessica told me that in government offices people change jobs every 3-7 years, sometimes moving to completely different departments. So every year she loses half of her friends. That sort of waste seems less random when its caused by government policy; sometimes life can be just as needlessly cruel. Sometimes I feel like living abroad is just like living in an office where you know all your coworkers are going to be transferred eventually. Of course you get close to them anyway, because you need to to survive, but you still never take your future with them for granted; you get cynically used to the idea that no one will be around for very long. The world seems cold then, but then you seem cold too- you could get a job that's a little more stable, but you don't.

If you study Buddhism you learn that all attachment to material things brings pain when they pass away, as they inevitably will. The solution, then is to care for nothing, and to rid yourself of all emotional ties to this world. I learned this at a time when Buddhism was very popular as a more "free" alternative to organized religion, which- especially after 9-11, seemed to be little more than a source of violence. But to me, nothing seemed more cruel or more depressing than having to train yourself to be indifferent to all worldly things, to your family and friends, to the city where you live and the food that you eat.

I have a passionate longing for this world, and for every moment of my life. It's the reason I obsessively save every scrap of the past and catalogue every event in the present. I mourn for the times that have passed, the times I never had, and things I have never seen. When I suddenly lose a stash of the memories I have collected, or a friend I was just starting to get to know, my mind is filled with the sadness of losing something I may never know that I lost, something that may not even have happened yet.

To the person who stole my purse: if you ever read this, could you just take the money and drop the other stuff off at a koban? I promise not to look for you if you do.

It must be election season, because people in white vans with huge megaphones have been roaming the streets near my apartment introducing candidates to me, while simultaneously reminding me of how thin the walls of this building really are.

I live in a fairly quiet neighborhood actually. My room doesn't face the street or train tracks, and I'm not living above a curry shop or karaoke bar, as is the fate of some other gaijin-apartment dwellers. But to ever expect total silence would be foolish; as there is always some noise from cars, construction, or people. But nothing is more annoying than those damn vans, screaming at me to make the country better by everyone putting in their strength or some crap like that. This sort of blatant noise pollution pisses me off- mainly because it must be somewhat effective if people continue to do it. If I lived here I would start some mass movement not to vote for any candidate who utilizes the vans- the voting rate is so low that might actually make some impact. Either that or I would start a movement to throw eggs at them as they pass by.

By the by, just within the span of writing those two paragraphs there have been 4 vans within earshot; two of them simultaneously. Update: in the span of writing that sentence there have been 2 more.

Sometimes the inside of my head feels like I'm four feet away from one of those vans. I can be completely exhausted from 9:30, and can't wait to go to bed. But for some reason as soon as my head hits the pillow some switch goes on in my brain. All the conversations from the day, all the things I'm worried about, all the things I have to do tomorrow: they all come at me all at once when I'm trying to sleep. Especially if someone said something that annoyed or angered me, I start arguing with them in my head, thinking about how wrong they are, coming up with all these comebacks and talking points. But unfortunately, just as I can't say anything to the idiots in the vans, I can't respond properly to all the voices. I just come up with all these problems and, lying in bed, there are no solutions at hand. So as my body fatigues my mind works itself into a complete frenzy, worsening still once I realize how late it is and what time I have to get up the next day.

I get so jealous of people who can sleep well. It always takes me at least a half hour to go to sleep, no matter how tired I am. And if any little thing is on my mind it can take twice that long. And I'm fussy about my environment too; any crack of light from the door or window will torment me for at least 45 minutes, and if someone is snoring or if the room is hot I can probably forget about getting to sleep for the next 2 or 3 hours.

First of all, what is kamameshi?

According to wikipedia, it is a traditional Japanese rice dish cooked in an iron pot with various kinds of meat, seafood, and vegetables. According to me, it was food, and I was hungry.

I was wandering around in Ueno wondering what I wanted to eat, and I passed a place I'd seen before with pictures of food that looked good. The storefront was, shockingly, all windowed and fairly welcoming.
You have to understand, Japanese restaurants can be pretty intimidating. Some of the best places are hidden behind windowless sliding doors down dark sidestreets, and to the untrained eye don't even look like restaurants at all. You have no idea what the place looks like inside, or what kind of people are eating there. Worse still, at night these places tend to become smoky dens of raucous, drunken salarymen. The point is, you never know how welcoming a place like that is going to be. Both as a foreigner and also simply as someone who's not a "regular", I like to be a little careful.

Then again, if you never take a chance you'll just end up eating fast food all the time (some gaijin do).

So, on a total whim I walked into this kamameshi place. I forced myself inside without thinking about it, pushing the button on the automatic door and only to suddenly find myself in a room with a bunch of old Japanese people, who were all staring at me like I was a fly in their miso soup. If there had been a record scratch and then total silence it would have been perfect. When a waitress didn't immediately yell "irasshaimase" at me and seat me, I nearly turned right around and left. It's actually happened to me once before where I walked into a small soba shop and was completely ignored for about 5 minutes. This may have been because the dude was busy, because he didn't speak English and was afraid to talk to me, or because he didn't like white people in his restaurant. I don't know, but I ended up seating myself once a table opened up and I ordered some damn soba. And it was good.

Anyway, after a minute a waitress came up to me with a frightened look on her face and I tried to calm her down by saying "table for one" in Japanese, rather than just holding up my index finger, which is what people usually do. Despite my previous entries, I really don't think most Japanese "hate" foreigners. But most of them do tend to assume we can't speak their language, and when approached they may panick as they try and recall their long-forgotten English vocabulary. Once you say anything in convincing enough nihongo, they usually become 100% friendlier instantly and treat you like a normal person (unless you're in Kyoto. They suck.).

Anyway, it didn't quite work this time, as the hostess led me towards the back of the restaurant. Not to the tables by the window, and not to the tatami seating on the right. (A lot of more traditional restaurants have floor seating around short tables on woven mats.) There was plenty of space in that section, but another common belief about foreigners is that we are unable to sit on the floor. So, the lady sat me on a short counter on the other side of the restaurant. By myself. Facing the wall.

I didn't care so much about that, but I protested immediately when she tried to give me an English menu. I never use English menus. Half the time I won't even touch them. "Japanese is fine.", I told her. Upon hearing a full sentence come out of my mouth she finally believed I could speak Japanese, and I watched her face switch to "friendly mode". "Ah! Sou desuka! Shitsurei itashimashita!" She switched the English menu for a Japanese one and went away bowing in apology.

I ordered from the menu, and was served my own pot of tea, chopsticks, two pieces of pickled daikon, and a small bowl. While I waited for my food, I left my seat to use the bathroom. I had a feeling I knew what it would be like, but I was still disappointed to find that the toilets were Japanese style. Japanese style toilets are basically flushing holes in the ground, and I really hate them. So, when I managed to use this one without major incident, I felt great. I walked back to my chair feeling like a complete master of all things Japanese. I'd walked into a scary restaurant, ordered with a Japanese menu, and used a Japanese toilet. I was king of the world.

My kamameshi came in the pot it was cooked in, with a flat red spoon sitting on the lid. I tend to use the utensils I'm handed, so I started eating with that.

Kamameshi is pretty good. The rice is cooked with whatever topping you ordered (I had crab), and also some kind of sauce, so its very flavorful. I was having a little trouble eating the crab legs with the flat spoon, but I was getting the food in my mouth so I didn't think twice about it.

After a while the waitress came over to me and offered me a tiny spoon, like a kid's spoon. I told her no thanks, and sat steaming for a few minutes. Why the hell did she feel the need to give me a kid's spoon? Was I taking too long to eat? Did I look like I was having trouble? Are foreigners known for their inability to use flat spoons? I took the opportunity to look around the restaurant (having been facing the wall all that time) and see how other people were eating. As soon as I did I saw my mistake; they were using the flat spoon to serve themselves small portions of the kamameshi into the tiny bowl and then eating it with chopsticks.

I was pretty damn embarrassed, especially since I was crashing down from my Japanese-toilet high. I was kind of surprised too- I usually don't make stupid mistakes like that. I've been here for a while, and its getting to the point where most of the things I do or eat I've already done or eaten before. When I do find myself in a new situation, I'm usually with my coworkers who help me out, or I have the sense to look around and do what everyone else is doing.

I sort of expected to get really depressed, like, "great, I've been here for two years and I still can't eat my lunch the right way". But my attitude ended up being more to the tune of "well, now I know". Its kind of comforting in a way to think that even after being here a while there are still things to learn and still things to figure out.

I realized today that when I approach a sink in a restroom my first instinct is to stick my hand under the faucet and wait for the water to come on, not to reach for knob.

If, for some reason the water does not magically appear, my second instinct is still not to reach for a knob, but to move my hand up and down to activate the sensor.

I think I'm in for a lot of rude shocks when I leave this country.

I'm feeling better now, much better.

In Japan you have to get over things quickly.

They have a saying that means "there's no way around it"- shou ga nai.

They say it often, too often. They use it as a blanket to cover all kinds of sins, corruption, and laziness. But the culture of shou ga nai is infectious, a carte blanche for every inaction.

But, take my example. When I was searching for apartments I got rejected from four different places, sight unseen, because I was a foreigner. The first time, I was really hurt and stunned. The second time, I was angry. The third time I was annoyed, and the fourth time, I was numb to it. Shou ga nai.

This is how it happened. I was sitting in a sunny realtor's office, flipping through a gigantic binder of apartments in an area I wanted to live in. When I found one of a decent size for a good price, I would tell the kid who was helping me, and he would call the other realtor's office. They would say if the apartment was still available, why it was so cheap, and when it would be available for a viewing. If everything seemed OK, my agent would go into his speech:

"Now there is just one thing, my client is a foreigner. She's a girl, she's American, she works for a Japanese company, she has two guarantors, the president of her company, and another friend, who is Japanese. Is that OK?"

Then there would be a pause, and sometimes he would say "yes, she speaks Japanese...Thats OK? Alright thank you."

I got so used to the eventual OK that I was beginning to think that the whole process was just a formality. It wasn't.

Eventually I asked about a place in the area and the guy went through his lines. Then the pause.

"Oh. Oh. Oh I see. Well, thanks anyway."

I watched his face as he put down the phone, and I could see the poor kid was trying to work out how to break the news to me. "Well, apparently they don't rent to foreigners. They've asked the landlord before, and they've always said no"

He watched my face as I took the news. I didn't say anything, I just smiled and blinked. What could I say? I wasn't surprised, and although I was angry, who could I be angry with? It wasn't the fault of this kid in front of me, nor the decision of his manager. I couldn't blame the voice on the other end of the phone, and the landlord, three degrees of separation away from me, was probably some crotchety old lady who didn't like anybody and was afraid of everything.

After a few minutes, he said. "daijoubu desuka?" I looked at him and smiled too big. "Hai."

The next day my coworker tried to explain it to me, "Well, you know, the landlords, they don't like renting to gaijin because they don't know their habits."

I threw down my chopsticks and gave him the most dangerous look I've given anyone in a while. I was sitting in a basement restaurant, eating raw egg and grated yam over rice. No one had any right to say anything to me about my "habits". He didn't notice my look though. He continued, "What? They don't know what they will do to the room? Desho?"

No. Not "desho". This is what I wanted to say, but what I couldn't say:

"Don't justify their RACISM to me!!"

 That's right people, I said RACISM.. about JAPAN!!! Not xenophobia, or protectionism, or isolationism, or any of the politer words that Japan, as a world power, seems to be entitled to. 

I can't go into all the reasons why Japan systematically and unrepentingly gets away with racism. It has to do with their massive foreign PR mechanisms, their houdini-like ability to pretend problems aren't there when they are, and  the magical timing of the MOJ, which swoops in with symbolic reforms just as people were starting to make a big to-do about some injustice.

But mostly, mostly, it has to do with the fact that foreigners like myself, white, privileged, educated foreigners, are generally treated very, very well here. They love my English, they love my skin, and they love me when I can use their chopsticks and eat my food. Sure they may never accept me, they may never offer me a real job and they may get huffy when I refuse to leave after three years or so, but when I complain about those things, people just scoff and tell me to get over it. Of course, every once in a while, the deep seated racism that lives in this country blindsides me in a way that ruins my week and makes me angry. But because I can't complain about the general way my life is going, I forget about it that too. In a few days I feel better, and I let it go.

The people who lose in this situation are the Chinese, Korean, Southeast Asian, and Middle Eastern residents, immigrants, and temporary workers. They don't get well compensated for their jobs; nearly no one finds them "cute" or "kakkoi". They don't have time to write letters to their prefectural government, or write blogs about racial equality in a supposedly homogeneous and traditionally isolated country.

The racism, the widespread, institutionalized, and accepted racism in this country needs to stop. And not because Japan will need to open its borders as their workforce decreases, and not because they signed some pact with the UN. Just because its wrong, and because its wrong anywhere.

Yeah, I know my life isn't in danger, and in other places there are genocides and riots and violence over race. And I know America has far more race- related problems than Japan. But at least in America we can talk about it. We have shows like Chappelle's show, which actually brought some complicated racial dynamics to the forefront. We can major in Ethnic studies, and we can talk about the psychological impact of transracial adoption. (right lisa?). But because everyone thinks that Japan is a magical land of cherry blossoms and lollipops, where the trains run on time and everyone is polite, nothing ever gets discussed. And therefore nothing ever changes.

For anyone needing some final proof about the extent of the problem, check out the review of a magazine that was released and sold in Family Mart, a huge convenience store chain. It is a sensationalistic, fear mongering chronical of evil foreigners and the crime wave they are inflicting on Japan. Check out the evil, slanty-eyed Chinese, whose inferior DNA makes them predisposed to be violent. And how about that terrorist in the background? This magazine was published with cooperation from the national police force, making it in part a government concoction. Imagine if a magazine like this was sold in a 7-11 in America. Just imagine it.

Something bad happened to me recently, and I intend to write about it, but not until I've sifted through it well enough to write coherently about it.

This is a post for the interim, because I shouldn't get out of the habit of writing.

Ever since the bad thing happened, my neck has been killing me, and my body aches like I've been working out, even though I haven't. I probably just caught some kind of bug from being out in the cold, but I'm not congested or anything like that- I feel fine.

It's more like my body is filled with poison I can't sweat out, and I'm being slowly contaminated as a result.

In other news, if any one knows of any apartments on the yamanote for less than 7 man, let me know.