Jess's Japan Blog (ジエースの日本ブログ)

And So It Ends

2009-08-06T07:44:00.000-07:00

This is, failing something unforeseen, is the last post that I will write for this blog. While I do have gigabytes stacked upon gigabytes of photos taken in places like Kyoto and Hiroshima, I feel like they don't convey anything special that more generally available information about those sites cannot already.

So, if I am not going to relate my final travels, what does one write to end a a blog like this one? I decided after casting about that I will simply resort to a quotation here- Karl Marx's purported last words:

"Last words are for fools who haven't said enough."

I've seen any number of people flounder, both in writing or in conversation, while trying to get at the essential profundity of having had an experience like JET. Often times, they resort to hyperbole, or spin wearisome lists of impressions. I don't think either one is terribly helpful- I think that the full gravity of an intercultural experience is best and probably only appreciated as a narrative, which takes on its value with the sequential progression of events; and the evolution over time of both the setting and of the narrator.

And so, I'm going to take Marx's advice, and not bother to try to express what it all means, so to speak. I think the best way to feel this is to read the older posts (or even talk to me in real life!), and to try to compile a sort of cluster of ideas and images; a kind of cloudy truth that speaks to the complexity of experiences that are grounded in human relationships.

Thank you all for reading, it has been an amazing experience, and I hope that you managed to take something away from reading about Japan through my eyes. That being said:

Sayonara.

The Time Has Come...

2009-07-22T06:29:00.000-07:00

...with all due respect to Lewis Carrol, to Speak of Many Things (even if I have to get by without a walrus).

I took two hours out of my increasingly insane life to pay a dinner visit to the home of Togashi-sensei, a teacher from my (now former) middle school who can cook very, very well. She is also a gifted creator quilts, which lose some of their luster in photographs, so you'll just have to take my word for it. In addition to these things, she is afflicted with what John McCutcheon would call "terminal niceness," and I spent an agreeable two hours chatting with her and her daughter (one of my middle school students) over a delicious meal that included corn, salad, stewed meat and potatoes, and a miso soup with whale meat in it. The whale meat was sort of spongy, and ethics aside I don't think I would particularly seek it out to cook with on the basis of flavor alone.

At the same time, I've been trying to tally the value of my experience here in terms of what it's done for me personally- learning to be more independent, learning Japanese, new found teaching abilities, etc. This kind of accomplishment list-making only operates on a primitive level- helping me to feel satisfied as I cope with the pain of leaving. It's the kind of feeling that wouldn't feel out of place in an effort to coax a woman into my cave to start a bearskin-clad brood, or perhaps to go charging off into the brush with machete in hand. It is the other end of the adventure experience.

The visit, however, was a reminder of the kind of pleasure that's derived from non-adventurously rooting oneself in a place and building relationships there. My whole stay here in Japan has seemed fairly ephemeral, and I never felt like I really put down roots (perhaps one cannot in only a year). Getting together with some of my teachers for what may well be the last time has made me wish for the stabilizing comfort of a real social network.

Ruminations aside, a lot has happened since my last post (as it seems wont to do), so here's what else is new:

This last weekend some friends and I took a day trip to a small, pretty town called Yahiko. Like most places in Japan, Yahiko has a rich history dating back to who-knows-when, but unlike most places in Japan some very wise people decided to check the frenzy of modernizing development anywhere that it would destroy the town's charm. While there were some ugly Stalin's-cube-looking structures, most of the town was built traditionally of wood with ceramic tile roofs.

We spent the walking around, buying food, seeing the local shrine (which was quite impressive, and judging from the crests on the eves, connected to the Emperial family somehow), and riding the cable-car to the top of a nearby mountain. In the interest of brevity, I won't post any photos of all that. It was nice, but not spectacular. The interesting bit came later on, when we went to the local onsen, or hot-spring fed baths. The reason this onsen was so interesting wasn't that it was particularly nice (although it was just fine as far as that goes), but that it was completely empty except for me. This gave me an opportunity to actually take some pics inside the baths without capturing the hordes of naked Japanese men that are usually in there as well.

These are the wicker baskets that you deposit your effects in before you bathe. There are lockers available as well, although the odds of anyone actually stealing something from a public bath are pretty minimal. The floor is covered in traditional tatami straw mats, which apparently can hold up to all the moisture somehow. The one in my apartment got moldy after being wet for a very short time, but all the onsen have them and they appear to be just fine.

This is a view of the main bath area. The stools arrayed against the back wall are individual bathing areas, where you sit down and basically take a Western shower to make yourself clean enough to enter thee communal hot spring. The tub itself is heated to about 50 degrees Celsius, or about 125 degrees Fahrenheit, and has mineral treatments in the water. Being able to sit for a long time in one of these takes some practice and discipline, but the pay-off in terms of skin health is tremendous.

Also not pictured (mostly because I was afraid of getting caught) is an outdoor natural water pool, that is fed directly from the volcanic hot spring. This particular pool happened to have a basic pH, but acidic sulfur springs are actually more common. Usually the tiles around the natural spring are encrusted with mineral deposits, and the tiles on the bottom are stained different colors depending on their proximity to the spring-water nozzle.

I hope you found the very brief tour of Japanese baths to be interesting...interesting or not, they are one of the things I will miss the most about this country. You leave an onsen feeling completely clean (as well you might- the sulfur kills everything living on your skin), as well as revived.

The last bit of news which I've also seen spots about in the Western media is that the biggest eclipse of the century occurred today in Asia, and I was able to catch the tail end of it:

For those interested, it also made Japanese Google's icon for today.
The Sun was never totally eclipsed here- that only happened farther south. I almost didn't notice the eclipse because it was cloudy today, as it is more or less every day in Niigata, so I didn't attribute the darkening to anything other than the cloud-cover. On a related note- Niigata was actually slated as a potential target for the nuclear bomb, but was spared by the fact that the clouds were so consistent and opaque that the bombers wouldn't be able to confirm the target. Happy though this is, I find it galling that people drive around here sporting "sunny Niigata" bumper stickers without any apparent sense of irony.

That's it for tonight. Tomorrow, I say farewell to my last batch of students (which I'm sure will be a rather trying experience), which will mark the end of my linkage to the schools in Arakawa. From there on out, it's just a matter of crunching all the necessary bureaucracy to make a clean getaway. This may be the last post before I post again mid-vacation about Kyoto and Hiroshima (if I'm able to find internet, that is). Thanks for reading, and stay genki!

Post #84 (a long post in three parts)

2009-07-12T16:23:00.000-07:00

~Part 1~

Not that I've been sequentially numbering my posts up until this point, but just to provide a little reference, here is post #84! I was hoping that over the course of the stay here I would make it to the more auspicious number of 100 posts, but that looks unlikely now. I suppose we can't have everything...

This post will need to cover quite a bit of ground, as I have been doing a lot of things, and don't have much time to write them down anymore. First and foremost- Murakami had its annual taisai (another way of saying matsuri), which I attended with a friend.

The first thing anyone notices at any matsuri is the lines of colorful vendor's stalls swarming with festively-clad Japanese people, like so:(Please excuse the crummy photos taken at ISO 800...it was the only way I could take anything like snapshots at night)

Matsuri food is basically like carnival food in any culture, as far as I can tell (fatty and sugary), but with all the usual Japanese twists. This is a yakitori (roast chicken, usually on a spit) stand, complete with towel-wearing bird-roaster and a red chouchin (bamboo lantern) advertising itself:

The day after the stalls set up, the festival gets going in earnest. Before we could make it to the actual matsuri, however, I was obliged to take a picture of this car that we saw:

The Murakami Taisai is an ancient and relatively famous matsuri, as far as these things go. For one thing, it gets its own Wikipedia page like so(Japanese only), also has the unique defining characteristic of oshagiri (お囃子), which are basically massive two-wheeled carts about two stories high. It also has the privilege of getting its own special Asahi-brand beer cans around this time of year. The oshigiri are also very difficult to find information about, because (as I ultimately discovered), they are only used at the matsuri in Murakami. They are lined up before the festivities officially start like so:

Each pulling team wears their own distinct happi (each cart belongs to a certain district of Murakami), and having consumed copious amounts of booze, grabs onto a huge rope attached to the front of the oshagiri and starts to pull it forward a bit. The teams take frequent breaks, however, in order to drink more beer and sing traditional songs.

The oshagiri themselves have quite a history, dating back to the Edo Period, so anywhere from 250 to 400 years old. We could hear the old wood groaning as we pulled them around. I have also decided to post a detail from one of them; all of the oshagiri were lavishly decorated with beautiful carvings, but I thought that this bird was as interesting as any:

Here is a young girl in a yukata peering at the foreigners. Women from very young girls to Grandmothers all like to get done up in a nice yukata for festivals.

This is a close-up of one of the oshagiri in motion. The children (more girls than boys, for whatever reason) ride inside and play instruments as they lumber along.

Finally, here is a photo of me and two friends in our Kamachi (that's the name of the district whose oshagiri we helped pull) orange happi. The man is the owner and chef at a french-style restaurant called Fuji (for some reason...), and is overall just a wonderful person. The woman is Flo, whom you have met before.

Also, it's amazing who/what all you'll encounter in Murakami if you know the right people. Specifically, we briefly had a meal and a few cups of sake with none other than the supreme commander of all of Japan's military forces. He didn't stay long after we got there, but on the way out everyone got back into seiza (the proper way of sitting), and bowed almost to the floor for him. To provide some reference- you only seiza and deep bow if a) you are meeting someone very important or b) apologizing for something fairly intense...on the order of running over and then grilling your neighbor's cat, for instance. As it was, we didn't say much to each other (although he has been to Rhode Island, apparently), but I did get to sit in his "presence," which was an interesting experience. I'm not sure how to rank it on my scale of experiences (being a pacifist makes this kind of thing a little awkward), but the rarity of the opportunity made it interesting all by itself.

~end post 84, Part 1~

Part 2:

Pachinko. Pachinko is the gambling game of choice in Japan, and is especially prominent in more economically depressed rural areas (like Niigata!). Basically, you feed 1,000 yen (about $10) into a slot, and receive hundreds of little ball bearings. You then feed these balls into a machine, and attempt to drop them in a target hole. Should you succeed, this then begins the slot machine, which may or may not actually pay out. I decided that I had to try it at least one time before I left Japan, so I went to the "Balian Resort" in Shibata to give it a go. Here is the outside of the parlor:

As a rule, Pachinko parlors deck themselves out in the most blaring, vision-assaulting ornamentation that they can, and tend to make cities like New Orleans looks downright Romanesque. To cap off the effect, this one had glowing red palm trees outside that even put the ones at the Oasis on the Planes to shame (for you I-70 driving readers):

Here is the interior- row upon row of pachinko machines. What you cannot get from the photograph is the sheer noise- each machine emits a cacophony of jingling bells and anime sound bytes, with loud background music played over the top of it all. I apologize for the photo quality, but I think that photography wasn't technically allowed...so I had to be sneaky about it:

Here is a pachinko machine interface. Each machine is typically themed for a certain anime series- Neon Genesis Evangelion is far and away the most popular, but I also got to try something with some definite 70's beats and muttonchops going on, as well as the one pictured below:

That's one other thing about Japan: the total homogeneity in all aspects of life of commercial franchises. Whereas in America it would be sacrilegious to take a beloved cartoon and prostitute it out to sell gambling, food, alcohol, school supplies, clothes, and even condoms (although Disney's doing their darndest), here there the brand is splashed all over everything and it doesn't seem to bother anyone. I still find it alarming, cross-cultural-ness aside, because I think that over-commercializing everything is a destructive trend in any culture, but Japan is hardly anything if not whole-heartedly commercial...so there you go.

~end Post 84, Part 2~

Part 3:

Flo and I decided that it would be nice to go visit the Volcanic crater at Zaou for a short day trip. I always found the lack of fiery, destructive potential in the mountains that I've previously lived near to be rather disappointing, that for all their grandeur, the Rockies are just fire-less wrinkles. The Appalachians were even more disappointing, in that they were wrinkles which had passed their prime. In Japan, on the other hand, I am not even sure that it is possible to be more than 50 kilometers from a Volcano or Volcanic formation, and Zaou is one of the more spectacular ones near Arakawa.

On the way up into the mountains, the Arakawa was covered in a creeping layer of mist, which I thought was interesting enough to stop and photograph (after stumbling through a thick patch of spider-infested weeds by the river's edge):

Here is a picture of the okama, or caldera:

The landscape was still blasted and rocky, and not just due to the altitude (higher surrounding slopes had trees growing on them). I suspect that it had as much to do with the toxicity of the soil as with the rockiness- all the bands of colors in the rock (as well as the violent turquoise color of the crater lake) testified to the presence of of a number of nasty oxides of various metals.

The final photo from Zaou is of a cloud-enshrouded shrine atop a nearby ridge, which is covered with snow for about half of the year:

Finally, to end on a nice Japan-y note, here are a pair of torii lit by the sunset on top of the Castle Mountain in Murakami.

~end Post #84, Part 3~

Coda:

The madness of departure has reached a sort of fever pitch here, and my life has become something of a nightmare haze of packing, filling out forms, and talking to rather panicked-looking clerks about canceling various services. I'll try to keep posting as I can, but I'm not sure when I'll have that time. Thanks for reading, and keep checking back in case I get something up in the as-yet uncertain future!

Morning Market, and some other things in Murakami

2009-06-28T21:15:00.000-07:00

One hot June morning, Flo and I decided that we should go to the asaichi, or morning market, together. At some point between the last post and now, Summer got under way in earnest, and the air coming off of the sea of Japan feels like it was exhaled by some primeval, gargantuan dog, and we were already sweating profusely after just a few steps out her apartment door.

While she was on a hunt for good presents to send home, I was mostly taking in the sights and smells of the market, which both tended to be fishy. The market is a sort of standard farmer's market setup, with temporary booths holding a variety of things lining both sides of a narrow street:

The smell of the place, as I mentioned, is pretty fishy. The street even retains a sort of corpulent eau de poisson up to days after the market has disbanded. I'm sure that the juices dripping off the largely unrefrigerated fish onto the asphalt in 90 degree heat goes a long way towards contributing to the smell, as do things like this (please click to enlarge):

...or this. I thought that this fish looked resigned to his fate in an exhausted kind of way:

Here are various Japanese food offerings, whether to be used for cooking or simply to stuff onigiri:

These too were sitting out without any form of refrigeration that I could see. The Japanese are, as I'm sure I've mentioned before, more comfortable with letting things sit out longer than Americans are. I've never gotten over my fear that I'll be horribly food-poisoned by some flaccid, lukewarm morsel or another, but so far my luck seems to have held out. So has the luck of everyone around me, which probably speaks more to food being safer than I think than it does to anyone's luck. Food poisoning is also doubtless kept at bay by the Japanese tendency to take anything that isn't kickin' fresh and deluge it in salt and/or vinegar, thereby preserving it for future generations to enjoy.

On the way back from the market, also decided to take some pictures of the elegant kamon that decorate many of the houses in Murakami. I liked the design, and even though it's not on topic, I wanted to share it here while I still remembered:

Finally, I leave you with something Flo and I found at the local Jusco. Where someone may someday write an elegant thesis about the strange fusion of technology, mythology, and psychology that goes on in Japan (indeed there is a whole genre devoted to cataloging and explaining the idiosyncrasies of the Japanese), I have decided to present a picture that may be able to sum it up better. Behold: Dinotank (click to enlarge).

That is all for now- as I am ever more engrossed in extracting myself from my life here and packing my possessions, posts will probably be more erratic in both timing and subject matter. Thanks for bearing with me, and look for another post on something Japan in this same space sometime this week.

Nihongolalia- the direct translation

2009-06-16T19:35:00.000-07:00

I noticed something the other day, and I wanted to get it out on my blog before my hectic life and short attention span sweep it completely from my memory. The thing I noticed (or continued to notice) is this: Japan, in both language and culture, is really its own entity. We're used to thinking of multiculturalism in terms of arts, music, and food in America. If there's a cultural event event, you can bet that someone will be there in traditional dress, someone will play a traditional instrument, and everyone eats their tacos/egg-drop soup/sushi/borscht and goes home happy. While this is an oversimplification for any culture, it is moreso in Japan. I may have mentioned previously that the Japanese not only speak a different language, but actually say different things from Americans. The wires up there, for someone raised Japanese, are relaying different signals to different places than they are in people elsewhere (again, I imagine that this is true for all cultures, but the Japanese are so idiosyncratic it becomes apparent much more easily).

As an example, I will first post a conversation- two people being introduced by a third party, as you might read it in an American phrase book. Then I will translate the meanings directly from the Japanese. Some differences should be apparent.

Phrase-book translation:

Mr. Nakamura: Good Morning. Mr. Jugoarashi, this is Ms. Uchiyama.

Mr. Jugoarashi: Nice to meet you, I look forward to working with you.

Ms. Uchiyama: Nice to meet you, and likewise.

...then here's the literal translation (and just for fun, I've translated the names, too):

Mr. Middle Village: It is early. Mr. Fifty Storms, this over here is Ms. Inside-the-mountain.

Mr. Fifty Storms: It is the first time. Treat me well, please.

Ms. Inside-the-Mountain: It is the first time. Treat me well, please.

Just thought I would post that, as I find some of the differences to be amusing. I also love first names in this country- people with names like "Ryu" (Dragon) or "Emi" (Beautiful Image) are pretty much the norm- making it sound, to American ears, like every child in Japan was named either by a hippy or by a some serious LARPers. It also gives me something of a name inferiority complex: some days I just don't feel as cool as I might if I was named Dragon. Anyhow... That's all for now- I hope that some of the cross cultural strangeness is as interesting to you all as it is to me.

Sasagawanagare

2009-06-15T20:05:00.000-07:00

Sasagawanagare (笹川流- bamboo-grass flowing river, although no river is in evidence), is an absurdly picturesque destination along the coast of the Sea of Japan, which also happens to be pretty close to where I live. I have been here several times; it is near to Sanpokku which I wrote about in a by-now ancient post, and was also the home of the dramatic rock formations and salamander shrine seen in this post.

This time around the weather was gorgeous, with a blazing sun and cool sea breeze (instead of the strident Siberian blast that characterizes Winter weather hereabouts), and I also took some time to photograph the rock formations that I've so often admired from the highway, but never actually gotten out and photographed. Here are the pictures that I deemed fit to print, as well as some explanations (as ever- click the photo for an enlarged view):

Our first stop was the rocky salamander shrine, this time covered in flowers and seagulls (and therefore, seagull droppings). The gulls were incensed about having their nesting area invaded, and we snap a handful of pictures before beating a path to lower ground:

This picture is looking out from a deep divide in a cliff wall across a bay. There are several stone arches in the area, which is eroding rapidly due to the intensity of the wind, water, and harsh winters. I tried climbing a rocky prominence just outside of the frame of this photo, and turned back when child-sized chunks rotten rock dislodged at my touch.

The cliffs from a higher vantage, which was also fairly terrifying to climb to.

Depending upon one's perspective, the water at Sasagawanagare holds a brilliant pallet of marine colors. The combination of shockingly blue sea water, rocks, seaweed, and who knows what else gives every foot of the bay its own chromatic personality:

This is looking out towards Awashima (the island faintly visible to the center right), past some of the rocky crags in the bay. The sun was dazzlingly bright, so I snapped my shutter down pretty tight to take this one:

This is just another shot of the side of one of the inlets. Not much to comment, I'm just trying to give a good idea of what the place is like.

The most dramatic arch in the area, as far as I could tell. The tree framed through the center is typical of the pines that cling to the rocks in the area- scraggly and elegant. I may have once mentioned; the prints and drawings of Japan with it's cloud-draped mountains and gnarly, graceful pines always struck me as being highly stylized, that is, until I moved here. Granted, they are highly stylized, but once you've had a chance to watch nature at work for a bit here, you realize that the artists were really drawing what they saw more than one would have thought possible.

Sometimes your pictures contain more than you realize. I just wanted a shot from low down of the rocky coast, but I also accidentally managed to show how much of a trash-heap the coast of Japan has become. Enjoying the beauty of Japan increasingly requires strong selective attention skills, and despite the accords being signed in places like Kyoto, Japan still has a lot of work to do on environmental issues.

On a more light-hearted note, I love the signs warning of big waves along the coastal highway. The really scary thing is that during a good storm, this isn't exaggerating that much...

...nor is this one, which I'm seriously considering having made into a T-shirt.

This is exactly what you probably think it is. It's still fairly common for Japanese towns to have penis matsuri, and to parade the thing around while the local women ride it in hopes of boosting fertility. I've never been to one myself, but I think it's pretty amazing that a fertility rite like this is still practiced in ultra-modern, ultra-industrial Japan. In any event, they are still plentiful, and this one lives just off the highway near Sasagawanagare:

Finally, a shot from a high point on the mountain road we took towards the end of the day. The road proved, hilariously and after several kilometers, to be an abrupt rock-wall dead end, but some of the vistas along the way were worth it. I'll leave you with this- cloud shadows over the Sea of Japan.

No Strong Unifying Theme

2009-06-02T18:10:00.000-07:00

I wanted to put up some general photographs of Niigata; places or things that I've seen that don't attach to any one particular occasion, but that were good enough to warrant pulling out the camera.

This first one is taken from the slopes of Tosakayama (鳥坂山), or "bird slope mountain." The mountain was well named, as the hike up was more vertical than anything. These are the rice fields in the Kurokawa river valley, leading back towards the Tainai ski area:

On the same hike, I ran into a tamamushi (玉虫: lit. "round bug") at the summit. I don't know why it's called "round," as it's obviously not, but the term tamamushiiro, meaning "tamamushi-colored" can mean either iridescent or ambiguous (click image to enlarge):

This is a rice field just at planting time. I stopped and took the picture on my way to visit a friend in Murakami. The fields didn't have any rice growing in them just yet, so the whole coastal plain from the Sea of Japan to the mountains was a massive, watery quilt:

This picture was taken from the deck of my apartment: a storm gathering over the mountains. Most of the storms that actually amount to anything seem to form over the sea; this one petered out shortly after taking the picture.

Patches of cloud and sunshine over the rice fields just north of my house. The green speckles on the fields are the newly planted rice seedlings.

A close-up of the newly planted rice, with evening clouds reflected in the water.

This is an unremarkable photograph with a bit of interesting history- according to a sign, this feux-oil well stands on the sight of the oldest oil well in Japan, operational about 600 years ago. The next-door town takes its eponym from the actual kurokawa (黒川: "black river") next door, which in turn got its name from oil naturally leaking into the river in ancient times. Before wells were constructed, people would harvest the oil by dipping brushy branches into the river, after which the adhering oil was scraped off into a bucket.

One of numerous Christian signs that hang around the prefecture, and I think perhaps all of Japan. The signs usually carry some simple slogan, and then simply cite "Jesus," or "The Bible," leaving specific notation out of it. This one says something to the effect of "The blood of Jesus cleanses of sin. -The Bible" Christianity's long, strange relationship with Japan hasn't shown itself to me much since I've been here, although I do see the occasional church or cross. Any outward expressions of faith seem to be limited to austere, black and yellow signs such as this one:

I took some friends on a trip to Hagurosan, partly because I wanted to see it again, and partly because such things are better shared with company. On the way up, we stopped at a small salt-making shop in Sasagawanagare, the ludicrously scenic coastal strip north of Murakami. This man seemed pretty unexcited or disappointed about having customers either way, and just went about his business making salt. I did managed to get out of him that the salt takes about 10 hours over heat to crystallize out of the water. The facility was full of rusty surfaces, steam, and little bit of salt crystal clinging to the various fixtures:

Here is the main torii at the pilgrim's gate to the mountaintop shrine at Hagurosan I just included this photo because I liked it, and feel like it captures some of the mystique of the mountain. I won't go into detail because I've already been here once, and you can read that post here.

That's all for the random pictures post, I hope it was enjoyable. What's next will likely come after this weekend, when I will be attending a fighting kite festival. Until that time, yoroshiku, onegaishimasu

June 1st: International Youth Introspection Day

2009-06-01T20:14:00.000-07:00

This post is being written on a stomach full of ika (squid) from today's school lunch. They pound the surface into a texture resembling that on a meat-tenderizing hammer, and then cook it for a good long time (presumably to aid with polymerization or something). Just an anecdote, but some days are better than others, with regard to school lunches.

~

I'm starting to feel the pressures of leaving, and wavering between excitement, uncertainty, and regret (all the usual emotions for any transition, in other words). I also stumbled upon a blog entry by a friend whom I'm guessing some of you may know, which deals with all the same emotions, except coming from someone who's been in Germany for about a year. I'd also recommend the rest of her blog, if you have some time to burn- she's a good writer and has had some interesting experiences.

Anyways;

The specter of my departure is looming large, and I'm starting to take mental stock of what this past year has meant for me in general, where I succeeded, where I failed, and how I feel about moving on.

One thing that will ease my departure is something I've noticed more and more since coming here. Hillary Clinton spoke of a "glass ceiling" during her presidential bid, metaphorically blocking women from achieving positions of prominence and power equal to those of men. In Japan, there is a glass ceiling for foreigners, which prevents them from ever reaching positions on par with those of the Japanese with whom they work. Unlike with Hillary, however, there's also what I can only describe as a glass wall; a frigid gap between a foreigner and native Japanese that is very difficult to bridge- I'm honestly not sure whether I have or not, although I think I may getting there with some of my younger elementary school teachers. It is an unfortunate reality, however, that the majority of ALTs I know do not spend much, if any, time with close Japanese friends. The Japanese network of relationships runs lambent over every surface around me, but I can never actually seem to grasp it.

The official JET materials forecast this kind of Mime's-box difficulty, and have a number of recommendations for what one can do to improve one's situation. However, it seems to me like the implicit assumption in those materials is that if you aren't getting along with people, you've screwed up somehow. While it's true that making a concerted effort can massively improve one's social experience here, I don't feel like individual initiative is the whole story here: Japanese culture, as fascinating and beautiful as it is, has a long-running xenophobic streak. When I started working on this post, I thought I would put down some of the history to back up this statement in this post, but then realized that it would make for a rather ponderous read (more so than it is already becoming). Rather- here are some links to pertinent articles:

Sakoku
Kanagawa Treaty
Racial Issues in Japan
Koreans in Japan
Ainu History
Burakumin
Little Black Sambo
Gaijin

Reading things like this, as well as my a couple of my own experiences:

Being excoriated by a racist man for the better part of 30 minutes during the matsuri in Iwafune,

and

Having a 5th grader point at the picture I'd put up of a Papua New Guinean child on the slide projector and say "monkey," while the teacher did nothing about it (I didn't quite catch his face, or else I would have disciplined him pretty harshly).

Finally, being stared at all the time, and always treated either as a special novelty, or a special problem, but never a normal manifestation of either, becomes more burdensome with the passage of time. Not less. This kind of ethnic "specialness" has gotten exhausting enough that I'm ready to escape into the dark, comforting arms of anonymity back in America, where I don't stick out like a Giraffe in a rabbit warren.

That's the bad part.

________________________

I'm also very sad to leave, however, particularly my elementary schools. These schools that I so dreaded upon my arrival have proved to be the sites of some of the most fun and rewarding work I've ever done. Contrary to the dreary picture I just painted above, the staff are almost entirely wonderful people. Among the teachers at my shogakko, I now feel very comfortable and at-home, chatting about a number of things in between and after classes, and pulling them into the English lessons with their students.

It's the students, however, that I'll be more sad to leave than anything. Nothing I've seen here, however ancient or exotic, can compare to how rewarding it has been to get to know the kids that I work with, and to establish actual relationships of trust and love such as one only can with young children. It's difficult to put into words, in any meaningful way, the difference that these relationships have made for me (and I hope for the children, too). English doesn't want for negative descriptors, but trying to describe the positive gravitas that a good relationship with a child (or many children) can exert on oneself would require either great poetry or great narrative, neither of which I am capable of conjuring in the middle of this post. Suffice to say- the effects of getting to know the children with whom I work have been only as overwhelming as they have been positive.

Prior to coming here, I never quite understood people that "love children." My understanding now is that you don't really love children- children just love you with such ebullient energy that it is impossible not to reciprocate.

________________________

And so, once all the dross has run off, what remains is relationships. Some of my most stressful times in Japan, and most rewarding, have been the result of how I've interacted (or not interacted) with people here. I think that severing the old set, and moving back to a combination of an older set and a new set, is what is generating the most distress for me right now. I'll be very pleased if I managed to navigate the transition with something resembling grace. Finding a job other than something like poop shoveler or rock scrubber also wouldn't hurt.

So endeth my June 1st introspective post. Thanks for indulging me a little bit in a break from the regular program of photos and information about Japan. Such as I have the time, I will be posting some general photos of Niigata in Spring that defy event-specific categorization. I'm also doing some research for a post about Buddhism in Japan, such as I've encountered it, and hopefully that too will ripen enough to be put on the vine for you all (sometimes you have to yank a metaphor inside out to fit it onto the internet).

Thanks for reading!
otsukarasamadeshita.

More hiking, but they were Bigger mountains this time.

2009-05-17T22:51:00.000-07:00

Seeing as I've already posted twice about hiking, I'm going to guess that people don't need a blow-by-blow of either of my ascent to nor decent from the peaks of the two mountains I most recently climbed. Most mountains are a fairly up and down proposition, after all, and the plot doesn't waver much from that.

Because of this, I'm just going to post a mish-mash of captioned photographs from my trips up (and down!) two fairly large and fairly famous mountains in Japan: Mount Bandai (磐梯山), and Ninouji Peak (二王子岳; page in Japanese only). If you want the "stats," on the former, you can simply read the Wiki for it. Ninouji is about 1,400something meters tall, and that's with the trail head effectively starting at sea level.

One more thing before I roll out the photos- Mt. Bandai is high enough in elevation, as well as far enough inland, that even though it had long been green and warm in Niigata, Mt. Bandai was still in the throws of late winter. Ninouji Peak, on the other hand, is generally more Spring-like much of the way up, although it did have plenty of snow higher up. Now, here are the pictures-

This is the old cryptomerea (or Japanese cedar) forest at the base of Ninoujidake- it was dominated by the massive trees, with a dusting of ferns for an understory. It was beautiful, and smelled sharply of Spring:

A waterfall on the way up to Mount Bandai. The sign at the turn-off for the waterfall cautioned "beware of bears," Sadly no bears were around, but the waterfall was pretty:

This is another view, still within the cedar woods on Ninoujidake. A pretty little creek ran down through a series of gullies to the beginning of the trail, where a cup was provided if you wanted to drink the water (I didn't take my chances):

Not far into the journey up Mount Bandai is a set of sulfur springs, melting the snow around them and releasing a number of colorful pigments into the water, along with hydrogen sulfide and sulfur dioxide. If Hell started a restaurant, this is what the dumpster out back would smell like:

Here are the ranges of mountains marching away, looking towards Murakami. The weather for much of the hike was Niigata's trademark leaden homogeneous cloud-cover, which the sun broke only periodically:

On Bandaisan the whole journey was obscured by clouds which ran down to a few feet above the ground, muffling any sounds and giving the forest a ghostly appearance:

Dwarf flowers like these were in bloom all over the place above about 2,000 feet:

Most mountains of any noteworthy size in Japan are volcanic, as is Mount Bandai. At the trail head was a signing warning to be mindful of volcanic events (as though there's anything one could do during a full-scale eruption other than run like hell and pray in between breaths, but I guess it's nice to be warned), and there was evidence of volcanism scattered about the mountain, if you knew where to look. Aside from the sulfur springs, there was the barren spur of rock pictured below. I'm guessing that plants couldn't take hold here because the rock is relatively new, and has a high concentration of poisonous elements in it (sulfur, for one). The lake in the background is only a little over 100 years old, and was formed by the massive 1888 Bandai eruption.

Through a rare break in the clouds and mist: the excellently named Nekoma-san, or "cat magic mountain", although neither cats nor magic were in evidence (it's a ski resort, as a matter of fact).

The last photograph is of the tiny jinja at the top of Mt. Bandai; no larger than a fire hydrant (infinite cosmic power, itty bitty living space). The kami inside looked old and weathered, but the shrine itself was relatively new, for obvious reasons. I usually pitch in a couple coins at shrines when I visit them: I reason that it's worth a couple yen to help with the upkeep of cultural sights, especially if I'm benefiting taking lots of pictures. It needn't be much- my round-trip fare for Bandai was 60 yen (a yen is about 1 cent), and for Ninouji it was about 100 yen (because I didn't have any smaller change).

I've taken to hiking as a sort of hobby; it gets me outside, and boosts my vitamin D levels to boot. Because of the rain, the mountains here are always full of a variety of interesting plants and animals, which are worth the trip themselves. What I enjoy most, however, is that most of the places you go are the haunts of some demon or supernatural tale (as with Nekoma), which lends an air of antiquity and mystery to the average Japanese day hike. The mountains in America might have retained some of this if more of the Native Americans' names and legends had been better preserved in the public psyche, but as it is we wind up with a lot of places with names like "Bob's Peak." This may be interesting from a Westward expansion historical perspective, but doesn't bear the same gravitas that only a good myth can. I love the misty mountains here in Japan, and intend to keep exploring them for the remaining two months of my time here.

Briefly: Aizuwakamatsu

2009-05-17T03:35:00.000-07:00

One and a half weeks ago, I traveled to the city of Aizuwakamatsu(会津若松市-"meeting harbor young pine city"-interesting, considering the city is about equidistant from both oceans that Japan touches) , mostly to set myself up to climb Mount Bandai the next day, so I only had an afternoon and an evening to see what the city had to offer.

Aizuwakamatsu proved to be a place that was more charming for its mundane bits than the actual tourist destinations. I visited a botanical garden that was famous for having a variety of medicinal herbs, for example, but it was rather small and while nice, not any better than other gardens I've seen around Japan (such as the one in Tamagawa-ji). I also visited the local castle, which I will picture down below:

The castle was moderately interesting from the outside, featuring the Pythagoras'-layer-caked look of so many Japanese citadels. It went through the usual changes of feudal hands at various times, and also was the site of a siege in the Boshin War I would have poked around inside as well, except that it was expensive and crowded. I was also on a budget for time, so I decided to move. Japanese castles have their own distinct look, and any one would be of interest to a foreign visitor. I've seen several, on the other hand, and frankly, if you've seen one Japanese castle...

What was nice about Aizuwakamatsu was the intimacy of the setup. The was a district about 4km square that constituted the downtown/oldtown district, and it was populated by an assortment of interesting-looking little restaurants and businesses. You could tell its proximity to Tokyo by the increased population of Western-style bars and slightly trendier shops, but it also had plenty of the somewhat hinterlandish charm that you see around Tohoku. It also had this:

As much as I liked their Colonel, I wanted to make sure to try out the whatever the local cuisine was before I left, and decided to go somewhere else. A talkative guy in an urushi shop recommended a place to me that he said was both delicious and featured the local flavor. It turned out to be both, as well as being well off of the beaten path, and a little on the expensive side. The food was excellent, however, and had a slightly different mix of vegetables and meats than I was used to in Niigata:

The restaurant was also interesting unto itself- people sat on tatami (woven mats), while waitresses in more traditional dress scurried around to each table. The ceiling was about 1 foot lower than I am tall, so I had to stoop and dodge bamboo lanterns to find my table in the corner:

I certainly didn't have a chance to try as many of the businesses as I would have liked, but I got the impression that Aizuwakamatsu, even if it is a ho-hum spot for tourists, would be a nice place to live. The people seemed friendly, and everything had an intimate-feeling compactness to it.

I'll sign off on Aizuwakamatsu with something I don't usually do- posting a photo of a humorous English sign. I usually don't because 1) there are whole websites devoted to that kind of thing, 2) if one were to photograph and post all the hilarious and ill-translated English in Japan, it would be a career path unto itself. This sign was too good not to post, however:

I like to think that in fine print on the handle is a sticker that says "pull handle to release cat," but sadly, there wasn't.

Notes about Post

2009-05-14T01:23:00.000-07:00

Two quick notes about the most recent post-

1) Because I started writing it before the shorter post on the twelfth, it actually appears below the second-most recent post. Scroll down to read about Hagurosan.

2) Blogger informed me that there was an HTML error somewhere in my post just before I posted it. Nothing seems out of whack (at least all the photos posted), so I let it be. However- If anyone sees something that looks odd, and like a consequence of misplaced HTML tag, please let me know so that I can clean it up.

Thanks!

Kids say the most intriguing and entertaining things.

2009-05-12T18:30:00.000-07:00

(Because I find the expression "Kids say the darndest things" to be no end of irritating).

I'm working on a longer post about a trip to Hagurosan (explanation to follow), but here is a quick interlude about some of my elementary school students:

First, I had a young third grader that I often play with during recess tell me, as I attempted to ride a unicycle (difficult at the best of times- more difficult when your leg is longer than the unicycle is tall)- Aa, Jesu sensei- sore wa jisatsu to omoimasu.

Translation: "(Mr./teacher) Jess, that looks like suicide to me."

I was thoroughly amused, and what's more, agreed with her, and put the unicycle away for now, and moved on to the more manageable stilts.

The second episode happened while some of my 5th graders were making meishi, or name/business cards. The children were encouraged to draw things that they liked on their card- foods, animals, hobbies, and so on. I wanted to to make the activity a little more interesting, so while they were working I threw some extra ideas out, such as favorite books or comic book characters, and then at the end, half-jokingly, favorite bakemono (monster, apparition, demon). It was a classic example of kids listening when you don't know if they have been. For the most part kids stuck to the safe stuff: fruits, animals, and a smiley-faced self-portrait. However one girl opted, in light of my comments, for a mummy wielding two chainsaws. When I looked at her card in bemusement (and secretly, glee) she pointed and clarified for me- "It's a chainsaw."

As much as they take it out of me, I can't help but feel that this job would be a lot sadder without my elementary students...

Black Wing Mountain (or Houses of the Rich and Deified)

2009-05-10T21:28:00.000-07:00

羽黒山(Hagurosan), or "Black Wing Mountain," Is one of theDewa Sanzan, three sacred mountains in Yamagata prefecture, which is a hop, a skip, and a 3 hour car ride away from Arakawa. Since I had some time off due to Golden Week, I decided that it would be cool to visit this ancient Shinto Sacred site.

Hagurosan is near Tsuruoka, which also happens to have a movie theater. I stopped off at the Jusco cinema to watch Goemon, a ninja movie that those of you who are fond of ninja movies should look forward to (it had a whole bunch of ninjas), and then made my way east towards the sacred mountain.

However, before I could actually reach my intended destination, I got side-tracked by a sign for 玉川寺 Tamagakaji (lit. "round river temple"). It looked interesting enough that I veered rather suddenly off the highway in order to make the turn, and drove for about a kilometer on a wondering country road before arriving at the temple itself. Tamagawaji is located near enough to the Dewa Sanzan that you could see Gassan from the parking lot by the temple:

The temple proper was more garden than temple, with a carefully kept, traditional-style, and very visually pleasing garden wrapping around the building itself:

These stairs led to an ancient-looking graveyard out back...

...which in turn was watched over by 36 Kannon
. These Kannon were interesting, in that they retained a lot of iconographic conventions that fell out of favor later on in Japan.

After having a look around the gardens, I went into the temple's interior. There aren't any real pictures of this, because there wasn't much light to be had in the temple (and I wasn't going to use flash on a historic temple, whether or not it was allowed). From chatting with one of the women who worked in the temple, I gathered that it was a yet-functioning Zen temple, which dated back to the Muromachi Period (that's about 750 years old). This went a long way to explaining the antiquated-looking Kannon out back...

It was also nice to visit a bona fide Zen temple- most of the temples I've explored have belonged to the more "evangelical" branches of Buddhism that have been enormously influential throughout Japanese history, such as Nichiren and Jodo Shinshu.

The final picture from Tamagawaji is this bizarre fish carving, of who's function I have no clue, but it was hanging over the entrance to a room full of ancestor shrines:

The entrance to the sacred mountain was only about 15 minutes up the road from Tamagawa-ji, and that's where I went next.

The actual entrance to Hagurosan doesn't look that promising (hence the lack of a picture of the entrance)- A set of gift shops and restaurants that have sprung up around a largish stone torii, which has the name of the mountain inscribed upon it, and not much else. One thing that did catch my eye was that the jinja at the bottom of the mountain had actual tatsumaki (竜巻- more often used to mean tornado or waterspout, but also used in architecture to denote its literal meaning- "dragon scroll" or "dragon spiral."). The woodworking was beautiful, and probably quite ancient as well (although I couldn't get a detailed history out of the befuddled looking shrine attendant):

After passing the shrine with the tatsumaki and going under the stone torii, the whole place becomes swiftly more impressive. Massive sugi trees, some reaching 600 years in age, line a steep decending avenue of stone steps. The steps bottom out in a clearing with an initial 6 or 7 jinja, creating a kind of shrine village:

Immediately after the shrine clearing is is a cascading waterfall which splashes into a large clearing. Here's a picture of me in front of it that one friendly man from Aomori offered to take for me:

The waterfall itself:

At the bottom of the waterfall was a small statue of Fudo Myouou, whose statue is often placed next to waterfalls and inside caves in the mountains:

While technically a Buddhist deity, his statue was placed within this shrine complex because of his status as the patron deity of the Yamabushi (who are worth reading about if you're not all link-clicked-out by now). Hagurosan was a apparently a traditional Yamabushi sanctuary back in they day, whenever that may have been. Also, on a personal note- Fudosama is supposed to protect against temptation- so I keep an image of him in my wallet, to keep me from buying too impulsively. Time will tell whether he's doing his job or not...

Immediately after the falls, and for the rest of the trail, various ishitourou (石灯籠), or stone lanterns, dotted the sides of the trail:

Marker stones of various kinds were also pretty common. One Japanese aesthetic sensibility I've always liked is that if they're going to plunk a monument down in a landscape, it is usually made from somewhat rough-hewn stone, with a terse message scrawled down its face. Here is one such:

I'm not sure what the Kanji on this stone says- something about a palace (probably part of a person or place's name), and something about climbing and a shrine. I imagine it's a marker showing the way to one of the numerous jinja on Hagurosan. Judging by the advanced state of the lichens on it (the date is obscured by leaves), it must be fairly old.

Nearby was a massive, sacred tree- designated as such by its shimenawa, or sacred hemp rope designating the presence of Kami. I don't know anything about this particular tree, but it was very huge and probably ancient, which would draw respect in a religion that has a history of tree and nature veneration.

Also near the marker stone was the 羽黒山五重塔, or the Hagurosan five-story pagoda (sometimes names just look cooler if you leave them in Kanji), which dates back to the Heian period (794-1158 c.e.- during which time Kyoto was the capital). It is also the oldest pagoda in the Tohoku
region of Japan. While the pagoda as an architectural style was imported from Continental Asia along with Buddhism, this particular pagoda doesn't seem to have anything to do with Buddhism as far as I could find. Rather, it keeps with the Shinto tradition of its environment, serving in this case as a housing for the Kami Ookuninushi, who is responsible for all sorts of things (Wikipedia can tell you more). Here is a far-away and a detailed shot of the pagoda structure:

The pagoda was the last of the structures in a sort of initial valley just before the 1,000 stone steps up the mountain began. From that point on, it was all fairly steep, strenuous climbing. The stone steps are a traditional pilgrimage site, and are protected as a national treasure. I was also pleased to see that while the top of the mountain was available by road access, the vast majority of vacationers opted for the long, cruel climb instead-in America, the mountain would be overrun by people driving up in their SUVs and dripping soft-serve ice cream cones on the sacred stones. Here is a photo picked not so much for composition or anything like that, but because it gives a good sense of the steepness of the stairs and the scale of the sugi trees:

This was halfway up the first set of stairs- the signpost for this rock simply says "fire stone." No further explanation was provided. Curious.

Shortly after the enigmatic fire stone was this path leading off into the woods, through a torii gate. I overheard one of the tour guides say that if you went down the path a long ways, there was eventually down the shrine. I was eager to sea everything, so I blazed off into the woods. The path proved to be very long (I never found the shrine), and eventually blocked by fallen timber, so I gave up the ghost after a while. I did appreciate the torii, however:

About half-way up the mountain was another side trail to a glad with several ponds and some benches to sit down on. It was a nice place to get away from the rush on the stairs for a bit, and to relax among the trees:

Yamagata also gets plenty of rain, so the forest is always vibrant and full of quick-growing, water-loving plants. I almost managed to spare everyone a plant picture in this post, but I've always loved liverworts- when I was a child I thought they looked like the scales of slimy dragons:

The rest of the hiking was more of the similar- gorgeous, shrines, name-stones, but nothing that would look much different in a photograph. One thing I did notice was that people remarked more upon me as I passed them the farther up the mountain I got- nothing problematic, but I heard a lot of sugoi, ashi ga nagai! (Wow- long legs!). I was taking the stone steps about 3 at a stride, which was a little more than the average Japanese leg could manage. Several people that I passed on the way greeted me congenially later on- "Do you remember us? You passed us on the way up."

The top of the mountain is marked by another enormous torri, after which the mountaintop mercifully flattens out quite a bit.

Inside the grounds is the most massive Shinto shrine complex I have yet seen, with multiple structures spanning over an area the size of several football fields. Here is a view around the center of the grounds. This shrine wasn't the largest there, but the main shrine was undergoing restorations and covered in scaffolding:

Housed in the smaller structure in front of the larger shrine is a large, hanging bell. As far as I know, this is another convention imported from Buddhism.

On the Eastern side of the grounds was a long line of shrines, at each of which pilgrims would stop to pray. I can't remember all the sundry deities they were devoted to, other than the nearest one in this photo was probably devoted to Raijin:

The complex was actually more impressive on the micro scale than the macro, however. One cool thing about jinja is that they occasionally complement their structural austerity with spectacular woodcarvings, such as these:

Dragon- 'nuff said:

This carving was intriguing not only for the level of skill that must have gone into it (presumably the bird had a head once upon a time), but also because representations of human figures are very rare in shrine architecture. It could be any number of Shinto deities, possibly Izanagi
(one of the creator gods in Japanese mythology), or possibly not. Birds are slightly more common- it might be a Ran (鸞 - page in Japanese, but there is a picture)- a mythical bird which features in several far Eastern myths.

No matter how hard I look at this gargoyle-like countenance, the nearest thing I can imagine is a one-eyed chicken. There are a number of different creatures, real and fantastic (dragons included) that are placed by the entrance of jinja. Their purpose is almost always the same- to ward against evil in someway (I find elephants particularly interesting- as they are eaters of evil dreams).

Here is another tatsumaki. Sadly, I couldn't get a good picture because of the protective grate, but the woodwork was amazing.

The last of woodcarving images is this: the best piece of woodworking I have ever seen anywhere, in or outside of a museum. It left me speechless for several minutes while I looked it over:

As with so many trips I've taken here (and so many posts I've posted), the way back was basically the same as the way there, so there's not a lot of new material to share. One thing I did photograph on the way down is this "classic" Japanese wooden bridge, which I neglected to photograph the first time by the waterfall:

After departing Hagurosan, I made my way to the last destination on my trip- a temple in Tsuruoka that houses a mummified monk/Buddha (depending on how successful you believe the process was, from a supernatural standpoint). Here is the woodwork over the main door to the temple:

This photo was the only one I was able to keep from my mummy encounter- I missed both the signs saying to push the button for assistance, as well as the other one saying photography was prohibited. I snapped some photos (respectfully, of course) of the mummy, but then deleted them when I read the sign on the way out. Because I also didn't ring the doorbell, I had the unique experience of a one-on-one with a very obviously dead mummy. There weren't any of the complex wrappings we've come to expect from Egyptian mummies- this man was sitting in lotus position wearing a robe and a hat, with the outline of his skull well-defined under his preserved skin. He also held the same prayer beads that he must have been holding when he died.

This particular process of self-mummification is unique to Japan, and Yamagata in particular. I would recommend reading about it here if you have the time. I think it's fascinating.

I'll finish up this post by adding that this was probably, from a cultural standpoint, one of the most interesting and also beautiful places I've been in Japan. I may be going again with some friends later this month (many of these experiences are better shared), and I recommend it if you ever find yourself in the vicinity of the Dewa Sanzan.

Takatsuboyama (高坪山)

2009-05-06T22:04:00.000-07:00

The Wednesday before last was a national holiday: Showa Day, which commemorates the birthday of this fellow. I find the level of comfort that the Japanese sometimes (but certainly not always) show towards their totalitarian past to be a little unnerving, but the holiday does have other purposes, and moreover we got the day off.

I and some ALT friends decided to use our day of freedom to hike Takatsuboyama, which is the only mountain worth mentioning within the immediate vicinity of Arakawa (I climbed partway up this mountain in August, what I thought was the summit turned out to not be). It's not terribly tall- probably less than 1,000 meters (the height wasn't posted), but it is steep and comes straight up from sea level, so it's a good hike if you have several hours free. The weather was strikingly beautiful, as was the mountain itself, but there wasn't anything that remarkable in terms of things to write about, so I'm just going to post photos with a caption or two, and leave it at that.

Flo and Naomi, my companions on the journey:

This scene is pretty typical of what you might see anywhere in the inaka (rural Japan) in the Spring. Things are sprouting all over the mountains, and people are starting to get out and work in their fields:

The forest on Takastuboyama is mostly beech trees, which in addition to putting out pretty spring leaflets (first photo), also warped into a variety of fantastic forms (second photo). I'm not sure why this was, but we encountered a number of shapes on the way up that were more like wind-sculpted rock than still-living wood.

Some signs of spring on the trail- everything putting out leaflets and blossoms:

I could have sworn that these were violets...but they look yellow to me. Are they not violets, or is there some yellow variety I wasn't aware of?

At summit of the mountain, there was a Jizo statue, clad in the standard red cap:

Finally, this is the view looking out over Sakamachi:

That's all that's to be said about Takatsuboyama, really. Spring keeps warming up, and things keep getting greener and more beautiful. I'm hoping to take advantage of the good weather while it lasts, since the rainy season is supposed to start soon. Next time I have some time, I'll put up some photos from my day-trip to Hagurosan. Until then, またね.

PNG: The Last Hurrah.

2009-05-06T16:25:00.000-07:00

I only have 3 classes today, so I've decided to sit down and try and purge the last of the blog-able material from my pictures and notebooks. Here goes:

After about a week or so, we bade a fond farewell to Pema and its school, and went back down the Waria to Siagara, where we would spend one night before moving out. Of course, the Saigarans(?) were not content to merely host us and feed us amazing delicious food (both of which they did), but they also put on a dance for us. Just after dark, a bonfire fueled by huge, dried palm branches was ignited in the open space near the guesthouse, and the adults and children of the village did some dances for us. They started with a traditional dance to celebrate the crows that come to watch the planting of gardens, then the village children did a dance about the song-pidgeons that live near the river.

It was quite dark, so it was difficult to take any decent pictures. These were my best attempts:

After watching the dances, we went back to the guesthouse for a night of singing and playing games. The next morning, one of the villagers had brought some herbs to show us. It turned out to be none other than Cinchona, the tree responsible for the production of quinine. The tree is exotic to the island of New Guinea, but is now widespread and is used by the Zia the same way that everyone else uses it- to make malaria medicine. Here's a pic of the plant itself:

We were invited to try chewing a leaf: the taste was spectacularly bitter and very difficult to wash out afterwords. Presumably British soldiers shared this sentiment, which is why they mixed their quinine tonic water with gin.

After sampling the quinine, we left Saigara, much to our surprise, on a truck. Apparently the village had worked with others create and maintain a road between Saigara and the coast, that none of us had been aware of. We bumped along for a few hours before we stopped briefly at another school that NICO had worked on in the village of Toyare (toe-YAH-rei). Toyare was built right by the sea-side, and the winds coming in from the ocean helped to dissipate some of the brutal heat we had felt inland. Sand and palm trees were everywhere- it was a beautiful little village:

Here's Tsuneo-san playing with bubbles with the kids. He advertised himself as a sanguma, or sorcerer, and did some truly impressive magic tricks for the villagers. At any given time he had some sort of trick or novelty that he was ready to produce at a moments notice. Included was a ready supply of bubble mix, which wasn't really magical, but was in short enough supply in the jungle that the bubbles were a great source of amusement for the children:

Here's the lot of us sitting in the shade with our coconuts, after the welcoming ceremony:

I was sad to have not been able to stay in Toyare for more than a few hours, because it was really a gorgeous little town (the people were also very nice, but that was the same everywhere in the Waria Valley). However, we were scheduled to return to Bau and take a break from traveling for a bit, so we took off around lunchtime and made our way back to Bau.

The afternoon and evening in Bau were spent general recuperating from the rest of the trip, and trying to get our soggy, disgusting clothes to dry in the hot sun and sea breeze; clothesline space was at a premium:

We pulled all our clothes down off the line in the evening, as a threatening bank of clouds moved in (borne on a wind that blessedly kept the mosquitoes and sand-flies at bay), and by nightfall the baby sister of a hurricane was blasting away at the beachfront. It annihilated the sandcastle I'd built that afternoon, and brought in a fresh wave of grey, formless clouds. This, and a heavy, wet, windless heat were what greeted us the following morning. This was our last full day in the jungle, and the plan was to go on tour of two area schools, followed by a trip to Bau Island, just for fun.

The first school we visited took us through a by now familiar routine- all the children came out and smiled shy smiles at us, the schoolmaster gave a speech of gratitude for our support, and we were festooned with shell and seed necklaces. I didn't get any pictures of the school itself, but getting to the school took us a good distance along the coast through the center of Bau, which was interesting unto itself.

This picture could have been taken almost anywhere in Bau- thatched huts surrounded by gardens of select jungle plants were de rigeur:

One plant that I couldn't quite wrap my mind around were these traveler's palms- which look to me like someone took a leafy banana plant and either clove it down the sides, or perhaps squished it between their massive thumb and index finger. They were popular plants, growing in most of the gardens that we saw.

This tree house under construction was unusual (there weren't any other tree houses in all of Waria, as far as I could see), but was too cool to be ignored.

This is just a view down one of the tree-lined avenues of Bau:

This is a closer look at one of the outrigger canoes that were so ubiquitous on the river. This particular one was parked by the coast, as they work pretty well in the ocean, too.

After walking through Bau and visiting the first school, we waited at the mouth of the Bau lagoon (where we were almost eaten alive by sand flies) for the motor boats to take us down the coast to the final school we would visit.

This final school was in a very small village (whose name escapes me, sadly), and had prepared a massive welcome for us (I was later told that we may have been the first direct contact with foreigners that most of the village had). We were led up to a blue tarp draped between two buildings, and told to wait for a bit. Then, the dancers hidden on the other side of the tarp simultaneously screamed and started hammering their drums for all they were worth- which scared the living daylights out of everyone in the group (the villagers who were in on it thought it was hilarious- which it really was).

After allowing our pulses to recover, there was a welcoming procession, followed by a self-introduction to the villagers, followed by receiving gifts from the children
of our respective clans. This was the initial procession:

Here I am, covered in paint and presents:

They also fed us lunch, which included these small bananas. The size and shape were novel, as was the flavor- very sweet with a stronger than usual acid tang.

This was our first encounter with people actually using the ritual masks for which PNG is so famed- I have no idea of their significance, but they were worn during one of the dances. This was the picture that turned out alright, but each individual mask was a little different, and all were a little bit grotesque. Very cool.

Immediately before we departed, we were invited to have a look inside one of the classrooms of the school. The children were still both excited and befuddled by our arrival, and peered around curiously while someone explained the ins and outs of the school to us:

This village was an amazing experience, but honestly by the end of the whole affair I was exhausted and ready to head to Bau Island for some relaxing on the beach.

The first thing you notice upon landing on Bau Island is that the beach has no sand- it is composed entirely of the remains of corral and seashells (perhaps after a few hundred millennia there will be something here like what we now see at Dover):

This is a generic view of the beach and the adjoining reef. The surf actually broke about 100 yards away on the edge of the corral, with the waves coming in to the beach at little more than a couple inches high.

One terrifying thing about this beach (and one of the reasons I spent most of my time collecting shells on land rather than snorkeling), is that this reef contains two rather lethally venomous species: the stonefish and the cone shell snail, which can kill you either with excruciating nerve destruction, or suffocation, respectively (take your pick). Interestingly, my shell collecting guide (he knew all the good places to look) claimed to have been stung a couple times by stonefish, but that the local village healer had managed to effectively chemically patch him up. This is no mean feat, assuming that the healer didn't have access to the antivenin (which they likely did not), and that even after the antivenin the venom usually causes permanent nerve damage (not apparent in my guide). I have no idea what plant or combination thereof the healer used, but Western doctors still have a couple tricks to learn, apparently.

Another thing about these beaches was that they were crawling with masses of hermit crabs. Pick up almost any shell that looked to be in decent repair, and you would likely find it to be inhabited, as was the case with this fellow:

Another fun biological discovery by the docks were a goodly number of brittle stars. The look like spoiled seaweed, but actually have a pleasantly rough texture, and moved in some really cool ways:

We spent one last night in Bau, and then bayed farewell to the jungle once and for all (very sadly). Everyone got into larger, more powerful banana boats for the trip home. Here we are parked at an island for a short break during the 6 hour boat ride (and all that in the tropical Sun).

The same island where we stopped was also a popular play location for the local boys- they had collected an number of giant clam shells, one of which is pictured here:

I think that this shell was a pretty standard size (about 2 feet across)- but in one village I saw a shell that you could bathe a small child in. It probably would have taken three men to lift it (or one or two village men). After the boat ride we spent an uneventful night in Lae, during which the only thing I really did beside a little shopping was try PNG's local beer- South Pacific, which tasted about like any weak but not overly disagreeable lager I've had anywhere else.

The last thing we did in PNG was visit the capital of Port Moresby, which as I've mentioned holds the dubious title of World's Most Dangerous City. We never really left the bus, except to go shopping in well-guarded areas, so it didn't seem so bad from my perspective. The city definitely had a number of readily apparent problems, similar to what we saw in Lae: large population of hopeless-looking and unemployed young people, run down buildings and public works, and a general feeling of malaise pervaded everything. I tried to take a picture to capture some of it, but I think it's an immersive experience, that it would take at least a more skilled photographer than I to capture. Suffice to say, I would go back to the jungle again if I could, but I won't go to Port Moresby again unless I need to.

One thing worthy of note in the capital was the Papua New Guinea Houses of Parliament, which featured an impressive facade:

The other thing worthy of note was the native artifacts store we visited. We had also visited one in Lae, where the owner was convivial and told us all the stories behind the artifacts. She also seemed to be well-liked by her staff. The fellow in Port Moresby, by comparison, had a much more colonial air about him that I found rather disagreeable, although his shop undoubtedly had better selection- as seen in the masks below (each about 5 feet tall):

And that, as they say, is that. The width and breadth of experiencing PNG, even for just two weeks, isn't really something that can be captured in a couple blog posts. Suffice to say, the profundity of the experience was in no way proportional to the amount of time spent, although I would have liked to have spent more, and this trip is probably one of the best things I've every done, period. Short of writing a book about it, you'll just have to take my word that it was staggering, and if anyone wants I'll be happy to share more of my pictures with you (the ones in the blog are but the tip of the iceberg, even if it is the tip that turned out the best). I also took several videos that I can't embed for bandwidth reasons, but will be happy to share as well. That does it for the PNG blogging- from here on out it's all going to be Japan again. Next will be bits about my recent traveling and hiking during Golden Week.

Pema

2009-04-29T16:19:00.000-07:00

(We spent most of our time in PNG in Pema- this post will not be short)

The next day we hopped aboard banana boats for the 3 hour upriver journey to Pema, the site of the school we would be donating to and helping build. The speed of the boats and the cool river water combined to make the temperature agreeable for most of the ride, despite the blazing sun.

The banana boats require fuel to get up and down the river, and fuel is expensive. That, and the fact that the infrequently seen banana boats were carrying foreigners, piqued interest along the river bank. Any time we would see people fishing, bathing, or what-have-you along the river, they would drop everything to wave vigorously as we passed:

The Zia themselves (and, I assume, many Papua New Guineans) made use of ingenious outrigger canoes to get up and down the river. The narrow body of the canoe offers practically no resistance to current of the water, allowing 1 person to paddle up and downstream on a very fast, deep river.

We finally arrived at the school at Pema- just downriver from the village proper. This is looking uphill at the school, coming from the river. I don't know who's head is sticking up in the bottom of the picture, but it was no end of amusing for my elementary kids when I did a slide show about PNG for them (I hadn't noticed it before).

The heat is always on in PNG, especially farther inland where the stabilizing influence of the ocean isn't so strong. I was about ready to pass out by the time I'd made the short walk from the river to this bower, where there were chairs and opened coconuts waiting for us:

After the welcome assembly at the school, we got back on the boat under a threatening sky, and moved upstream towards Pema and the guesthouse. The rain and mist cast an interesting effect on the jungle, but more or less stayed in the mountains, leaving us alone.

When we got to guesthouse, there was another traditional welcome set up for us. This one was just the traditional Zia welcome song and dance, minus spears and black-painted warriors.

This man was the leader of Pema village, as far as I could tell. The head-dress and paint is mostly for ceremonial occasions, anymore the Zia fashion trends are weighted towards t-shirts and shorts.

Several of the village children came up to check out the curious newcomers. They were very shy initially...

...but seemed to get over it pretty quickly:

This boy was very friendly, and a lot of fun to play games with later on. He also evoked one of the more amusing reactions from my elementary students when I showed this image- suuugoi!! Afro hair!! (sugoi means amazing or awesome):

After our initial welcome at the guest house, we were taken across the river to Pema village itself. We mostly just looked around, and played a lot with the kids. Here are some pictures to give a general feeling of what Pema looks like:

After seeing the village, we were taken back to the guesthouse for a delicious dinner, and a slow evening of talk and card games.

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The next day, we went to start "help build" the school. I use the quotation marks because, while we provided the funds and the school supplies, the tropical heat was overwhelming. The native villagers were not only accustomed to the climate, but also many times stronger than us.

First, however, we needed to be made into members of the Zia tribe. I'm not sure what all the reasons for this are, but it has been standard practice to make every NICO group into members of the Zia tribe- each of us being divided into one of four clans:

Wapo: Responsible for farms and gardens.
Bego: Responsible for raising domestic pigs and hunting wild ones.
Sakia: Responsible for event organization, dance, and medicine.
Yewah: Responsible for fishing.

The clan's specialty doesn't necessarily designate their vocation- all the clans do all of the above, but each clan has "special knowledge" of each of those activities. I couldn't quite puzzle what that meant out, but I think that in addition to have above average expertise, there might be some beliefs of magic involved there. For example, if your taro plants are all suffering, you may have pissed off a Wapo, and may need to make restitution of some sort.

In any event, I was placed (more or less at random, I later learned), in the Wapo clan, which seemed just fine to me. We were taken to the clan lodge and given more necklaces and coconuts to drink. Here we also found out that one of the clan veterans from a previous trip would be responsible for us (whatever that meant) and that technically members of other clans couldn't talk to women in ours without asking our permission first. Yowza.

After becoming Zia, the first thing we did upon reaching the school was travel up a hot, dusty hill where pineapples grew wild amongst the brush, to the other side of a ridge near the village. Here, a nifty portable lumber mill had been set up. All the timber for the construction of the school came from the felling of just two massive trees- the saw can travel up and down the trunk, and then the blade rotates 90 degrees to plane off the board that it just demarcated. The advantages of this were many: no hauling pre-cut timber up the river in motorboats, much more cost-effective, and it didn't necessitate the cutting down of numerous trees to get to the useful ones, as is the case in traditional timber cutting in PNG.

Here are some children sitting on the log of one of the trees being used for timber. I thought it was interesting that there were no growth rings- because of the constant warmth and moisture, tropical trees grow continuously, creating a strong, ringless hardwood.

Bugs were a big part of the whole PNG experience. When they weren't drinking our blood, however, they were actually pretty interesting. This was a large beetle that one of our guides captured while the lumber mill was running:

After watching the mill operate a while, we were given our first taste of actual labor- carrying boards back down Pineapple Hill to the construction site of the new classroom. The boards were just 2X4s, which were a little heavier than usual because of the still-wet hardwood, but manageable. However, the heat and humidity were such that even sitting in the shade was a sort of trial, let alone carrying anything. Still, we carried the boards all the way back down to the village, dripping sweat profusely. I tried to pick up a shovel and help with the foundation-laying afterwords, but the heat completely defeated me. You can imagine my relief, then, when I saw:

I was as excited as anyone at the prospect of trying orange watermelon, but the flavor proved to be a bit of a let-down. Imagine a watermelon slice where the whole thing tastes like that border region between the sweet, pulpy seed tissue and the rind, and you'll have an idea of orange watermelon. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't as tasty as the less chromatically interesting red watermelon right next to it.

Even after eating the watermelon, I still felt absurdly hot. Whether I was just unused to the weather, or maybe my German phenotypical body was hard-wired to not like heat, I'm not sure. All I know is that in spite of drinking like a fish, I was feeling overheated and dizzy. I mentioned I was going down to the river to swim, and one of the school teachers recommended I head to the waterfall behind the village instead. In my near-heatstroke stupor, I asked skeptically how long it would take to get there. "Just over that hill," they said. "It's not far." This was exactly the answer I was afraid of, and was about to head for the river when an affable teacher's husband volunteered to show me the way to the waterfall. Having no choice I followed them back over what did prove to be a fairly short trail (by local standards, anyhow), and tried not to express exasperation when they would stop abruptly to talk at length about something in the environs. When we finally made it to the waterfall, I immediately dunked my head underneath, and it was glorious. Here's the trail that led there:

I've never been more refreshed by anything, ever. Here's the rest of the group cooling off:

Here's Christian again- the one person who decided it would be a good idea to climb the waterfall a bit.

Refreshed by the waterfall, and having long-since abandoned any pretense of getting any work done (none of our constitutions would hold up), we went down onto the school's sports field (pictured) and played some games with the kids. I opted for volleyball, while others played soccer. Jungle living had made the village children impressively stronger than their same-age equivalents in more industrialized countries- one of the sixth graders I played with probably could have served a volleyball through a brick wall (although he probably couldn't have hit a target painted on that same wall). I was impressed, anyhow.

Speaking of strength, the ability to climb coconut palms with relative ease still boggles me. After a good game of volleyball, we were all thirsty, so some of the teachers told one of the children to go get us some coconuts, the way a parent in America might ask their kids to take out the trash. the freaky thing was, it didn't look much harder for this guy than taking out the trash was for me...

While I was taking a break and drinking my coconut, some of the other children showed me something that was surprisingly cool: seed guns powered by air compression. A plunger is inserted into a bamboo tube, and a fruity seed is put in the other end. The fleshy fruit squishes around the seed, creating an air-tight seal, and then the plunger is depressed, using pneumatic force to blast the seed an impressive distance.

After a full day of sitting in the sun and playing with the children, we wearily returned to the guesthouse for another delicious meal, and to share the company of numerous Huntsman spiders, mostly in the latrine. This fellow, however, was hunting in our sleeping room.

While the venom of the huntsman doesn't do much harm to humans, seeing it move, suddenly, very rapidly, with all its hairy legs that could stretch across a halved volleyball moving in concert, was a very disconcerting experience. I went and tucked in my mosquito netting after snapping the shot above.

Below, Colleen is modeling with delicious Wopa, a brand of plain wheat crackers available at a PNG food store near you. In addition to the fun name and illustration, they were very satisfying in a straight-up carbs kind of way, and I snacked on them extensively.

__________________________

Sunday came around, and we were offered the chance to go to church, should we so choose. Papua New Guineans are largely Lutheran, due to the very successful efforts of German missionaries, who were also largely the first outsiders to make contact with this side of New Guinea in the 1700s. Pema was already a well-established village by the time the missionaries came around, and was for who knows how long before that. I find it a little wild that this community lacking structures made of anything more permanent than rotting wood (from the humidity) has been doing just fine for longer than my country has existed.

Ancientness aside, the villagers took to the new religion enthusiastically, and the modern Lutheran Church of Papua New Guinea seems to be well-connected to the international evangelical movement as a whole. Worship tended towards Bible readings interspersed with praise songs accompanied by guitars. The melodies and themes followed familiar themes, even if many of them were in the Zia's tribal language, or in occasionally in Tok Pisin.

We were ushered into the house being used as a worship space (they don't have a church building yet, yet another project the village is working on), and were given a special "guest of honor" seat up front. Then we sat and listened for a while, contributed to the offering, and shook hands with most of the congregation, who thanked us for visiting their village and their church. It was, as far as ecumenical experiences go, a pretty good one.

Below is pictured a page from the Tok Pisin Bible that I managed to get a glimpse at before we left. I requested that the owner open it to Matthew 5 for the benefit of all you Menno readers who might want to read familiar material in Tok Pisin. (click photo to enlarge)

Just for fun, here's a photo of a friendly praying mantis we found after church. Not too exotic perhaps, but always cool.

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Later (I don't know if it was just after church, or the next day, or what), we were given a choice: We could either spend the afternoon at the school construction site, or playing in a jungle waterfall that was a short hike up from the river. The decision was almost unanimously, and sheepishly, to go play.

We came to the waterfall after hiking a zig-zag trail up the stream for about a mile. the waterfall was really a series of cascades, each of which ended in a deep and gratifyingly cool pool, good for swimming and relaxing. This waterfall also had a sweet feature- you could sneak around behind the falling water into a tiny, air-filled chamber, before ejecting yourself into the current. Braver souls than I also slid down the falls like a waterslide, and jumping into the pools was a popular activity. The whole afternoon was deliciously refreshing and a lot of fun. Pics:

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It's hard to give a good representation, in terms of time, of what all went on at Pema, since I'm mostly using photos. I could type up my journal entries as well, if I wanted to go into business as a writer, and you all wanted to spend the next several nights and weekends pouring over notes on my trip. As it is, after about a week, and after all the things listed above happened, we reached our last day in Pema. In the humid, gray morning, we were greeted by a man and his pet tree kangaroo. I've nothing more to add about tree kangaroos here, but more pictures of fun forest friends are always good:

After getting over the novelty of the tree kangaroo (or rather, once his owner left- we never really got over it it), we all went downriver to the school. The idea was that we would teach lessons in English and math on the last day (most of us were JETs after all), and then there would be a SingSing, or a regional party, to see us off.

As it happened, however, someone had the good idea that the children should teach us instead. They pulled down an ample supply of palm leaves, and taught us how to make any number of things by braiding them. I learned how to make an arm-band from a spirited girl of about 12 named Tildabed. She was very quick about lacing the fibers together, and when my first bracelet ended prematurely because the fibers weren't quite the right length (partly her mistake and partly my bad weaving), she took it and destroyed it, putting me to work on another one. No shoddy work here. Some of the older children/young adults were pretty impressive in their weaving abilities- this boy of about 18 put together a backpack in about the same time I made a bracelet:

Here is one of our number decked out in woven things made by the schoolchildren:

After we had been weaving palm fibers for a while, an announcement went out that other members of the tribe were arriving from the village, and we should head down to the riverbank to meet them. Down at the river bank, the welcome drums and dance were going in full swing:

The boats also brought future dinner with them:

More drums a' drummin':

It has become traditional for the local village to make the group leader of the NICO charity group an honorary chief for the day of the sing-sing. I like to think that in this photo he's saying "well, then cut the baby in half and each mother can have half."

Along with chiefly power and gear come chiefly responsibilities- killing the pig with the blunt side of an axe, the traditional way. Properly done, it is as sane a method of execution as can be asked for. Nonetheless, it made a number of people in our group (especially the vegetarians) squirm.

After killing the pig came the lengthy process of butchering it:

Some of the cultural differences manifested themselves in the reactions of different people. We foreigners were all a little squeamish about the slaughter of the pig, where the Zia were standing chatting and joking, much as one might waiting for a potluck to be set up. Such is the effect, I suppose, of a whole culture never having read Charlotte's Web. This little girl was watching the butchering with purely technical interest, and turned around and flashed me a beautiful smile when I leveled my camera at her:

One likable thing about the Zia children was their willingness to be photographed. They weren't self-conscious about it at all, and would just stand and give big natural smiles whenever you had a camera pointed at them (it was understood that you would show them the picture afterwords).

Once the pig had been properly butchered, we were invited forward to carry back pieces to our respective clans so that they could each prepare the meat in their own fashion. I agreed when one member of our group noted- "you're in for a penny, you're in for a pound" with the Zia PNG experience. Carrying still-warm pieces of bloody, hairy pork over and piling them up was...an experience that doesn't have any corollary in my personal history.

After the warm pig distribution came lots and lots of dancing. This dance was performed by men, wearing these excellent hats that had apparently been imported fairly recently, style-wise (a good loooong time ago):

This next dance was performed by the single women/girls of the village, and was what could only be described as "zesty." At several points they cupped their breasts and made provocative poses. I was later told that what they were singing translated to "hold on there little girl, you're still to young to get married!"

People were chewing copious quantities of Betelnut for the duration of the SingSing. Mind, they were generally chewing a lot anyway, but it wasn't until the SingSing that I finally tried some. Betelnut is a mild stimulant and milder intoxicant, chewed much the way tobacco is in some parts of the word. It's distinctive characteristic is to react with the lime, mustard root, and saliva with which it is chewed to turn the spit of the chewer blood-red. The flavor is bitter and unpleasant- having a stringent quality not unlike sucking on a mouthful of black tea leaves, but gives a refreshing boost rather like a cup of coffee. It was interesting to try, but, like chewing tobacco can lead to mouth cancer, so let the chewer beware. Elsewhere in the world it's a little harder to come by, and chewed sparingly on special occasions. In PNG, it's everywhere, and everyone chews it all the time. Here's a picture of a betelnut: the pithy looking bit in the middle is the actual active nut, surrounded by a tough woody husk:

Here's another dance, seen from a distance this time:

The SingSing with foreigners was a big enough occasion to bust out the pricey gas and generators, and play some electric music for us. It was great.

This guy did a satirical dance, something to do with the police. I'm sure I missed all the subtleties, but it was funny as it was.

After the SingSing wound down, we went back to the guesthouse to sleep for the last time in Pema. While certain things about PNG were difficult (mostly the climate, actually, that and the mosquitoes), I was sad to leave. Here's a parting shot of the view from the guesthouse railing- the Waria river keeps going inland, and into another tribe's land shortly outside of the range of this photograph.

This is what a papaya tree looks like. I didn't know where else to stick this photo, but I thought the habit of the tree was interesting enough to warrant posting:

The last picture I took in Pema, on the way to the boats- a spider mimicking a butterfly for whatever evolutionary advantage. Very cool. (clicking to enlarge is advisable)

Thanks for hanging in there, those of you who made it this far! I hope it was interesting. The next few posts will be much shorter (for my sake as much as anyone's), and will catalog the many interesting things that transpired on the return journey.

To the Jungle! (part deaux...Welcome to the Jungle?)

2009-04-27T20:31:00.000-07:00

We departed Bau late-morning-ish. Standard time had since lost any real meaning, as we didn't bring watches to the jungle for the most part, and the locals weren't terribly bothered with it in their day to day activities.

The boats this time were the aforementioned "banana boats," which are basically, well, motor boats. This picture was taken later in the trip, but it could have been any time we were on the boats on the river (which was frequently):

The most prominent geographical feature in this photograph is what is known as Undu, the mountain that takes on a semi-sacred status in Zia culture. By controlling this little rise, they were able see all the tribal activity in the valley; and in doing so establish a strong foothold for themselves as a tribe. Tribal warfare has long since calmed down, but Undu still holds a special place for the Zia. It is also at the bottom of this mountain that the village of Saigara is located.

This is just a shot to give you an idea of what PNG looks like from a river boat- as soon as the river ends, a wall of jungle rises up on either side.

After about an hour or two on the banana boat, we reached our first destination, Saigara.

I can't upload videos here due to my slow internet, which is a pity, because our reception at the village of Saigara was definitely one of those things that makes a lasting impression. A man all caked in black (pic below) comes shrieking down the trail, hurls an uprooted palm tree at our group leader, and then plants a sharpened stick in the ground in front of another group member before tearing off again. One of the PNG vets explained that this is customary (at least in this tribe, the Zia), as a form of welcome. Given the opportunity to kill you, they didn't so you should feel safe. Apparently they've dumbed it down a bit for the benefit of us outsiders since the good old days- the same person explained that he once felt a real war club brush the top of his short hair cut during a similar ritual, and a very real, non-sharpened stick-looking spear was planted between the feet of one terrified onlooker. Oh, how times change.

Further on up the trail was the rest of the welcome party, drumming and singing the Zia welcome song. It was...awesome.

Sorry about the focus quality on this one, but I thought the content was interesting enough to still warrant sharing.

Our first glimpse of the village...

...more welcome party.

...entering the village:

Here is a good look at the Saigara village proper. The village mostly consisted of huts clustered around a wide-open grassy space a few hundred yards back from the river. The whole scene was walled in by dense jungle, with Undu looming over the whole scene.

Even though this year we were only bringing a few boxes of donations for the Saigara school (which is still a lot in PNG), NICO has a history with Saigara, as it was the site of a new school's construction last year. The schoolchildren of the village were all assembled and sang a song in Tok Pisin about Saigara for us, before adorning us with necklaces made of seeds and shells. Very cute.

After the dramatic welcome, we finally got to our guesthouse in Saigara, pictured below.

The guesthouse was hemmed in on all sides by heavy jungle foliage. As a matter of fact, the rest of my experience in PNG was largely defined by a shrinking field of view- anywhere that there was not human habitation or river, there was hilly, impenetrable rainforest. This was great, as far as I was concerned, because it meant there was a plethora of glorious new plants to photograph and cherish. Here are some pics:

I haven't the foggiest about this first one, other than I thought it was interesting and decided to snap a pic. If anyone happens to know the name, please fill me in.

This flower looks rather like a domestic variety from North America whose name escapes me, but it was pretty so I took a picture.

Quite possibly my favorite plants in the world, tree ferns, grew thick and tall all around the guest house. I may just like them because they featured prominently in the dinosaur books I read as a child, but something about their elegance and ancient lineage holds my interest.

It's not a plant, but while we're on inanimate things, I liked the look of this mushroom:

The heat and humidity being relentless, we all decided to head down to the river to have a dip. On the way down, this guys stopped me and asked me to take his picture (a common occurrence), so here it is. He was working on building the village's new church building, which was only to be unveiled at completion. In the meantime, construction took place behind a tall barrier.

Here are just some fun pictures of playing in the river. The mud was soft, gooey, and cool.

We spent a relaxing night playing games and talking, then set out the next morning for Pema. Here's our rag-tag band heading down the trail towards the river.

Taken from the boat- here are some of the teenagers of the village seeing us off.

Next: Up the river to Pema!

To the Jungle!

2009-04-27T19:30:00.000-07:00

After another night spent at the Melanesian Hotel, we and our baggage went down to Lae's dock to set out for Bau. In past years, the group rode to Bau on the aptly named banana boats (so named for their shape- more on those later), so veterans were surprised when we found this largish vessel, Rainforest I, waiting for us at the harbor:

Here's the crew all aboard Rainforest I. The trip down the coast took about 10 hours, during which time we played 20 questions, watched dolphins (no photo, sorry), and gorged ourselves on tropical fruit as much as our land-lubberly sea-sick constitutions would allow.

We arrived at Bau late at night, and couldn't make out much of the village. The only light came from scattered lamps in various houses. We got under our mosquito netting and passed out.

When we awoke the next morning, the first thing we saw the tropical sunrise coming over the Sea of Solomon:

Little ghost crabs were scurrying hither and thither along the beach, disappearing into tiny burrows when approached. The best way to catch (and then photograph) one proved to be relentlessly harassing it until it lost the energy to keep running, at which point it quietly lay down in the sand and awaited its fate. I chose not to eat it, however, and after this photo was taken it burrowed back down under the sand.

(as always- click to enlarge- it's advisable on this one)

Here is a pic of the guesthouse, and of the village thereabouts. The guesthouse is right on the beach, and sits at the Eastern extremity of Bau village. The construction you see here is pretty typical throughout Bau, and indeed a number of the villages we went to.

This is looking out the back of the guest house, towards the rainwater-fed shower. The locals had planted a number of tropical plants (native and exotic) along the avenues of the village to spruce things up:

Coconuts! In a tree! Coconut palms were universal by the coast- stretching back towards the jungle as far as the eye could see. Coconuts are nifty because you can eat the meat, as well as drink the milk, which actually became a major source of hydration for us. Wild coconut milk is rich in just about everything your body needs, and has a vaguely soda-water tang overtop of the coconut taste. It might be my favorite taste in the world.

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One of the local men noticed me wondering around taking pictures, and volunteered to show me the proper way to retrieve and eat coconuts. First you climb a coconut tree, aided by a palm-fiber band around the feet, and arms massively stronger than mine.

Then you drive a sharp stick into the soil, and gouge off the husk, like so:

This was my first experience with wild coconut milk, and like I mentioned before, it made an impression. The "meat" was good as well.

We only had one full day in Bau, much of which we spent playing in the surf with the village children. Foreigners are a huge novelty here, and the kids were a lot of fun to play frisbee and swim with.

Finally, here are some pretty flowers that I thought looked an awful lot like morning glories, but as far as I could tell from looking at the vines, weren't.

That's all for Bau, next is the trip up the river and into the jungle proper, if you will.

PNG-continued

2009-04-27T16:59:00.001-07:00

I'm increasingly realizing that the shear amount of photo and journal material I took down in PNG might ultimately be unpostable- with much still to see and record in Japan, I may simply not be able to make enough posts to cover the experience of PNG. I'll do my best, but the posts from here on out will be more terse (more pics, fewer explanations), as I try to get things posted before whatever my Golden Week activities (whatever those may wind up being...).

So- moving on.

The next day in Lae we went to a sort of rainforest sanctuary, wherein were housed various New-Guinean creatures for our perusal. Part of the idea in constructing the sanctuary was to increase tourism to the area. Whether or not it's working is questionable (probably because Lae is still just a dangerous area), but the sanctuary was well-run, and contained an impressive menagerie of Jungle creatures. I was thoroughly intrigued. Here are some pictures:

Birds of Paradise were housed in large numbers in a forest enclosure, like so:

And so...

They also had freshwater crocodiles. When most people think of crocodiles, they think of the monstrous salt water crocodiles, that can reach the size of a small boat, and probably eat one too. These fresh water crocs offer a contrast, coming in at about 2 feet long.

Then there were the Cassowarys, quite possibly the most blatantly cool bird I have ever seen. It stands about shoulder-high, and is the closest living thing to a velociraptor that yet stalks the face of the Earth. Read the Wiki for more in-depth info, but these things are scary, occasionally disemboweling hunters who have the pluck to go after them.

This tree kangaroo was one of the more photogenic animals in the preserve. Their enclosure was easily escaped, so much so that they routinely left it to explore the surrounding trees. However, the steady food supply and safety of the enclosure proved too good to pass up, and so they spent their nights and much of their days inside nonetheless.

Here we have the legendary Saltwater Crocodile, basking in the sun in its little concrete pond. I tried to get a picture of it eating the chicken on the stick (bottom pic), but the time between the wind-up and the chomp was so small that anything but a video would have been impossible. I'm grateful that I didn't see any of these outside of the jungle enclosure.

Christian befriends a snake around lunchtime. It was as friendly as might be expected from a creature with no neocortex.

Another of our number peeling what I think might be a mango. Part of our first lunch was indicative of things to come: loads of fresh and somewhat unfamiliar fruits. The most interesting was probably the passion fruit- an orange, grenade-shaped drupe whose interior had the consistency of thick tapioca. The flavor was amazing.

Finally, I love plants, and the variety of colors and shapes I encountered in the PNG plant world was marvelous. I'll be posting more plant pictures periodically, but here are some from the rainforest sanctuary:

That's all for the sanctuary. After this, it's to the jungle!

Briefly Noted

2009-04-21T05:47:00.000-07:00

2 quick things:

Thing 1:

There's no mechanism that informs me when someone has made a comment on a post, so if I don't seem to get around to in a timely fashion, that's why. I do appreciate comments, however, so don't hesitate!

Thing 2:

Deciphering katakana can always be a little tricky- in the last post I thought a lantern belonged to J-media karu (meaning of karu unknown). It's actually "J-medical" (jeimedeikaru).

Hanami Festival in Joetsu

2009-04-19T22:43:00.000-07:00

For all the PNG stuff that is (and yet shall) go up, this is still a Japan blog after all, so I thought I should post something Japanese just to shake things up.

A hanami (花見) party/festival simply means "flower viewing," and flower viewing is what you do. Early April is the time to get out and engage in the time-honored tradition of looking at sakura (cherry blossoms), which aside from the chrysanthemum, are probably the most recognizable symbol of Japan, as far as flowers go. I also appreciate that there's still a country somewhere in the world where people will turn out in droves more or less solely for the purpose of looking at flowers. In many regards, Japan's general philosophy is not one that encourages one to "stop and smell the roses," and the country's ecological record leaves much to be desired. All the same, if only for this festival, all of Japan meandered outdoors to look at the cherry blossoms. And get massively drunk (but some things just don't change from event to event in this country).

The festival also brought home the fact that we were, indeed, back in Japan. Still fresh from PNG, I'd forgotten about some of the stares and not-so-whispered "gaijin" as I passed by. I confess this tainted the experience some for me- I've tried to keep a positive outlook on things, but being a mildly reviled curiosity becomes burdensome after a while. Ah, well. The flowers were pretty anyhow. Pics:

We arrived at night after a painful afternoon of navigating poorly-managed Joetsu traffic. The sakura in the park were all heavily illuminated, and were absolutely beautiful:

Lanterns could be purchased by different companies to be placed around the park. This particular lantern belongs to the "J-media karu"-(not sure what the karu is...).

One of the more imposing features of the park was this castle, of whose history I haven't a clue. However, I did appreciate the contrast between the warmish colors used for the sakura-lighting, and the chilly Night on Bald Mountain-feeling green used for the castle.

...and from a different angle.

The eaves of the castle were decorated with yet another manifestation of the ubiquitous mitsudomoe.

The park was less crowded the next day, which also happened to be Easter Sunday (復活祭: fukkatsusai, or "living again festival"). It was a rare cloudless day, and the sunlight cast the sakura in a completely different aspect:

First off, the obligatory shallow depth-of-field photograph of the blossoms themselves-

This is something of a "classic view," or so I was told, looking over the flowering trees to the mountains bordering Joetsu.

This was the aptly named Sakura Road ("sakura rodo"). People were generally strolling up and down and enjoying the flowers. Sakura's effect on the senses is mostly visual- they have only the very slightest sweet smell, and only when gathered in the numbers that you see in these photos. The visual was good enough for me, however.

Kids loved the hanami- they were running amok wielding plastic swords and wearing power ranger masks. Some were also just checking out the flowers, like this little girl:

The hanami was, in addition to everything else, a matsuri, and had all the trappings thereof. Here the local kami is being taken for a spin.

Finally, here is just a picture of the general picnicking and hanging out that was happening. There were isolated events and vendors throughout the park, but generally people were just taking it in at a leisurely pace. Most agreeable.

Alright, there was a dose of Japan. After this it's back to more PNG.

Getting there: Lae

2009-04-19T21:13:00.000-07:00

Our arrival in Port Moresby was, in terms of bloggable material, uneventful. It was too dark to properly see anything, and the only thing that made an impression was the full-body immersion in the hot, heavy tropical air.

What followed was a short (1 hour-ish) Plane ride to Lae (for location references- see the maps in the previous post. As ever, click to enlarge!), which took us over mostly inscrutable jungle mountains- an undifferentiated mass of white clouds and green wrinkly land. One got an impression, even from the air, that PNG is covered by terrain which is generally more severe than it is forgiving.

Disembarking at Lae, we were greeted with, appropriately enough, leis. One thing that never failed to impress me about PNG was the abundance of real flowers used in everything. Since any place that's not a building is a fecund tropical flower garden, it is just makes more sense to go out and snip a few than use nasty plastic flowers.

Us upon arrival- a typical scene. My photo folder is full of pictures of other people taking pictures. I was also intrigued to learn that marigolds grow in PNG.

Here's our fearless leader, Christian! He valiantly volunteered to bring the whole trip effort together for no real reward other than a well-planned trip. This after getting malaria last time he went.

From the airport, we drove a ways to the city of Lae, where we were to spend a night (it turned into two because of a failed boat motor) at the Melanesian Hotel.

The Melanesian Hotel was pretty nice, considering the conditions of the surrounding town. The hotel featured a restaurant with a full, delicious menu, and each room had air conditioning. It was surrounded by a high security fence, and guards were stalking around the property at any given time. Much hay had been made of the fact that Port Moresby is, according to some counts, the most dangerous capital in the World (that excludes Baghdad). I don't know where Lae stands in comparison to Port Moresby, but it can't have been far off. Everything had a run-down, tired look about it, and groups of dispossessed-looking men were sulking in front of decaying buildings. Apparently a hosteler-adventurer type wondering through the town a couple years ago was also raped multiple times by a gang of local women. Lae is a showcase of the myriad problems that can afflict a poor and poorly managed tropical country in the throws of development. Here's a picture of Lae as we drove through it- this could be more or less anywhere in the area:

Lae also has the distinction of being the last place Amelia Earhart was seen alive- here's a memorial to her near our hotel:

Not the grandest memorial in the world, but hey, it's something. Near the memorial (and indeed, everywhere else in PNG) grew copious quantities of shy grass, a tropical weed that is novel in it's rapid response to being touched. Touching the leaves triggers a rapid movement response, that causes the leaves to fold up for a few minutes. To members of the group (myself included) this proved to be no end of fascinating:

The plant itself- this time with leaves open.

The hotel was our retreat from, well, the rest of Lae. Here are some pictures.

First off- here's some more Tok Pisin, in this case on the Do Not Disturb doorknob tabs.

Here's the gang at the hotel, soon after arrival. Dazed, but exited.

This is the view from the back side of the hotel (sorry for the small image size)- looking south towards where we would be traveling.

Finally- they make a mean cappuccino at the Melanesian Hotel, in case you ever head down that way.

Actual time spent in Lae, mostly involving a rainforest preserve, will be the subject of the next PNG post. Until then, I'm going to take a short break, and enjoy some of the warmth that's finally creeping back into my bones with the onset of Spring. Peace all!

Niu Guini: Intro

2009-04-06T18:16:00.000-07:00

I've delayed writing a post about Papua New Guinea for so long because A) I've had some other things to do (not least of them adjusting to not being in New Guinea anymore), and B) the sheer amount of material in photos, notes, etc. that I amassed during the trip is, in retrospect, kind of staggering.

However, a week after the fact I realized that I need to get it out before it all becomes covered in layers of Japanese cognitive goo (and that stuff gets everywhere).

That being said-

Papua New Guinea

First off, I had always wanted to visit New Guinea ever since taping and repeatedly watching a documentary about its animals, plants, and peoples run by none other than David Attenborough. Sitting on our basement couch in Denver, the Jungles inhabited by tribal peoples, fantastic plants, and impressively poisonous animals all just seemed terribly exotic. However, as go so many notions about travel, so went my plans to travel to New Guinea. I developed other interests and taped other documentaries, and, at the age of 10, actually got to go to far-away Florida to touch a real palm tree (my botanical cup ranneth-over). Skipping ahead 13 years, I was abruptly offered a chance to go to Papua New Guinea- not just the normal Papua New Guinea stuff (whatever that might mean), but actually into the jungle where tourists can't even go! All I had to do was participate in the Niigata Charity Organization's charity musical, and cough up $2,000(ish- give or take for the exchange), and I, too, could go to New Guinea. In spite of the massive investment of time and money, I jumped at the chance, and it's one of the best things I've ever done.

Before I talk about the actual particulars of the trip, however, here's a bit on New Guinea, or rather Papua New Guinea, or rather Niu Guini.

It was probably also from that documentary that I acquired the habit of referring to Papua New Guinea simply as "New Guinea." I think that this is because I'm used to thinking of the whole island in David Attenborough's ecological terms, and not used to thinking about the political situation there. However, politics they have, and every time I've referred to the trip as going to just "New Guinea" I have been immediately and violently corrected. Rather than viciously correcting the same people about politico-semantic distinctions in their own diction (you mean you returned to the United States, right, because America has many meanings), I decided to keep the peace and just try and say "PNG" instead (which is also an acronym commonly used in Papua New Guinea). Hence, hereafter, Papua New Guinea (or just Niu Guini in Tok Pisin- more on that in a bit) shall simply be known as "PNG."

One of the first things for anyone to learn about PNG is that it is home to %12 percent of the World's languages. Languages usually aren't talked about in terms of raw percentages, probably because most of the time it's not worth the trouble. Even the most eclectic of countries don't have more than a couple tens of languages (China boasts 10, if you count each iteration of Chinese as separate language, and 11 if you count Tibetan). PNG, by contrast, has no fewer than 832 mutually unintelligible tongues that are yet living and being spoken in various corners of the jungle. This staggering number has both made the place a sort of Mecca PhD Linguistics students, and has necessitated the adoption of a lingua franca as the various tribes integrated into a coherent administrative collective.

The language that came forth was Tok Pisin, or "Talk Pidgin," and as the name would suggest it is a pidgin language. I'll let those of you interested in the structure of the language linguistically just read the Wiki articles for yourselves, but I would like to post some examples of Tok Pisin here just to give you an idea of the sound (these are better read aloud, courtesy of Wikitravel):

Hello.
Gude. (goo-DAY)

I'm [very] sorry.
Mi sori [tumas]. (mee SOH-ree [too-MAHS])

I don't understand.
Mi no harim tok bilong yu. (mee noh HAH-reem tawk bee-LONG yoo)

...and so on, until you have a language. The rest of the phrases are available here. I also got a picture of Matthew 5 in a Tok Pisin Bible (a copy of which is officially going on my want list, if anyone's feeling charitable), which will be in a later post.

The climate in PNG (and probably Indonesian New Guinea, for that matter) is hot, muggy, and wet; the equator being only a stone's throw to the North. The land itself is frequently hilly and broken, and is overwhelming covered by dense jungles. There are two seasons; a dry and a wet, although I couldn't tell you in which one I visited (they have very different standards for "dry" down there).

In terms of development, PNG has a lot of work to be done. The tribal peoples live similarly to how they have in the past, but are beginning to import more and more technologies from the "developed world," a trend which, like so many places where it's playing out today, has been both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, most tribes have gotten along fine for literally thousands of years without modern niceties, but the benefits from medical and transportation technologies are simply too large to be ignored. Unfortunately, creeping modernization has also caused massive, unsustainable management of the country's plentiful natural resources.

The final bit of acquainting that needs to take place here is with our travel itinerary, which I will refer to frequently without re-posting maps or explanations every time. The first leg of the trip was obviously by air from Tokyo to Port Moresby. The second leg was from Port Moresby to Lae by air:

From Lae travel was primarily by boat- we went down the coast to a sea-side village cum town called Bau:

From Bau it gets more complicated- we went by boat up the Waria River to the village of Saigara, where we stayed a night. Then we traveled further up-river to Pema, the site of the new school building and the place where we spent the majority of our time. After departing Pema, we boated back down to Saigara, then went by truck to another coastal village called Toyare where the Niigata Charity Organization (hereafter NICO) had built another school. From Toyare, we boated back to Bau, and from Bau we went back the same way we had come.

I am hoping that between those maps and the plethora of pictures I took (not evident in this post), I hope that a complete-ish illustration of my PNG trip will emerge. This ends the introductory post- I will be adding many many photos of many many things, people, and places in future posts as time allows me to, so keep an eye out. With any luck, I'll even be able to get another post in today, but I'm not sure how that will work out with my schedule.

佐渡島 (Sado Island) - round 2 (mostly photos)

2009-03-16T22:22:00.000-07:00

I went to Sado Island again, this time for a performance of the ALT charity musical. However, due to a general shortage of time and a lack of pictures, I'll just mostly be posting pics of Sado in a general kind of way. I might do a bit on the musical when I'm able to steal some relevant photos from other cast/crew who have actually been taking them at the performances. Until that time, here's some Sado:

First off, Sado is a comparatively remote location. Back in the good old days, it was where political dissidents were sent in hopes that they would either die of the harsh winters, or generally just calm down and leave the Imperial establishment alone. Modernization has changed things a bit, but it's still a bit of a hoof-

The train to Niigata takes something like an 1.25 hours, and then the ferry ride to the island is somewhere around 3 hours.

I've mentioned this once before, but the inside of the ferry is basically a big party. You have a wide, carpeted space on which to spread yourself out. Chatting and card games consume most of the time:

There were strong winds as the ferry set out, causing it to pitch and roll quite a bit. Before almost everyone succumbed to mild seasickness, we were running along the top deck and jumping as the ship pitched down, affording a good extra foot or two of airspace.

Here are a couple shots of the land along the mouth of the Shinano River as it empties its contents (ourselves included) into the Sea of Japan. The Shinano is the longest river in Japan (for what that's worth), and flows directly through Niigata City.

Here are some images to give the general effect of Sado. It is a very remote place, with more traditional wood houses with ceramic tiles still dominating the landscape. There are two mountainous lumps that make up the island's two halves (see the map above), so that during a visit one is more or less always in an expansive valley. Rice fields abound, as does bamboo.

When we went on a walk to the beach, I saw this unusual concrete structure, higher up and farther inland than the ubiquitous tetrapods. A Japanese friend confirmed for me that it was probably built to protect against tsunami.

Finally, just for fun, here's a pic of some of the ALTs kicking a soccer ball around on the morning after the performance.

That's it for Sado! I'm going to be preparing for my upcoming trip to New Guinea for most of the rest of the week, so this may or may not be the last post for about 2 weeks. Everyone can expect a beast of a post when I get back, however. Until then...

Just a Blurb

2009-03-12T20:55:00.000-07:00

Today I was eating lunch with some of my favorite 2nd graders (elementary 2nd grade, that is)- when I overheard/participated in the following conversations (translated from Japanese):

Student 1: Your curry and rice has a carrot piece in in it! I'm envious.

Student 2: Why are you envious? The curry and rice always has carrots. It never changes.

-That, and while stacking used boxes from lunch:

Student: It's impossible to add another one!!

Me: I'm still going to give it a shot. (the box tower collapses)

Student: Well look at that, huh?

I love my second graders. Today was the last day that I would see them in their capacity as 2nd graders- starting in April they'll all be 3rd graders (who are also fun). Just thought I'd share. Cheers all.

Late Winter: Snow, Beer, and the King of Kinky

2009-03-11T18:19:00.000-07:00

I've been putting off putting up some photos of the snowstorm that hit town for several weeks now, and I thought I should post them before Spring completely sets in. The weather has been progressively more gentle here over the last couple weeks, but freakish wind and snow flurries yesterday attested that there's still a week or two left of winter.

Before I show photos of the snow, however, here is a photo of what Arakawa has looked like for most of the winter:

And people wonder why I don't get out much anymore...

This, on the other had, is a little bit of what Arakawa looks like under a real blanket of snow:

I've said before that Niigata wears its snow well, and the snow does do a lot for sprucing up the drap winter landscape. Unfortunately, it throws the ugly power lines and concrete cube buildings into sharper relief. This is much lamented by Alex Kerr, one of whose books I read not so long ago. He says that the scenic beauty of Japan is having to be increasingly cropped out of photos that contain ever-larger amounts of power lines (which Japanese bureaucrats will not bury on the grounds that Japan has "special soil"), concrete slabs, and so on. As much as I like certain aspects of Japan, this is something I've noticed too, and it puts a damper on things.

Also:

I went on another large, group trip to the Zaou ski area. In terms of Zao as a location itself, it was good or not good for more or less all the same reasons I enumerated in my previous post that dealt with the subject. What was more interesting about this visit was my interaction with my shogakko teachers with whom I went.

The trip revolved, as so many Japanese social events do, around alcohol. The skiing was a secondary consideration- many of the teachers didn't go skiing very often, or weren't particularly interested in skiing per se. To wit- after about one and-a-half hours of meandering skiing, we retired to the lodge for a lunch that consisted of a small snack plate and no fewer than 3 beers (for the record I only had one beer that I cut with a generous plate of curry). This led to some interesting social interactions on the gondola on the way up:

Youngish, married female teacher: Do you like Japanese women?
Me: Sure.
Youngish, married female teacher: Do you think I'm a pretty girl?
Me: (awkward hesitation)
Youngish, married female teacher: You should say yes!

This kind of interaction is a little more typical here (especially after drinking)- so I don't think I was being as overtly hit upon as it might seem to an outside observer, but it was a little disconcerting (what does one say when presented with that situation?).

I can only assume that the beers didn't help with the actual skiing, either, but I was generally the fastest skier and didn't see how the rest of the group fared.

The real business went down at the nomikai that followed the skiing. It started out with a yakiniku (grilled meat) party, which quickly evolved into a drinking party in one of the teacher's hotel rooms. It was here that I learned that the 40something male secretary at my elementary school was studying English by means of his fanatic devotion to Sex and the City, from which he derived a nuanced command of the verb "insert."

The younger teachers all told me right then and there that he was a bit of a henjin BUT, they hastened to add, we are all henjin, after all.
This is actually a pattern of interaction I've observed at more than one nomikai: someone pulls out a label on someone- "hentai, kinky (and its further evolution "king of kinky"), and then "nice guy" have all made the rounds. After this, he hastens to affirm that he (it's usually a male), too, is a kinky/hentai/whathaveyou. After this, it moves around the circle and everyone gets a turn being the labeled one, ending with affirming that "we are all label." Once everyone's had a chance to assume the mantle, the conversation moves on.

This is a behavioral pattern that is, as far as I can tell, unique to Japan's communitarian psychology- and while it may sound silly (and that it is), each person at the nomikai is intensely aware of subtle cues that indicate that a person is feeling overly picked on or left out, and changes are quickly made to correct the discomfort. This results in a party where, toward the end, everyone belongs and a sense of comfort and well-being is pervasive.

Another dynamic made its way to the fore during what can only be termed "manly time" in the onsen after the party. We sat naked in the hot mineral springs, and I learned that some of the teachers were frustrated at two of the teachers who had sat by talking to each other during the party. Being an American, I had thought nothing of it at the time. However, this is Japan, and not participating in the group fun is seen as a slight against the other people there- indicating that perhaps you feel special or superior to or aloof of the other participants. Not only did I learn a bit more about Japanese social interactions, but I was also touched that they included me in their manly venting session as, in every sense of the word "one of the guys." It's nice to be included.

This should (I hope) wrap up the winter-related posts. The weather is getting progressively warmer, and yellow crocuses are already starting to bloom. Future events include- New Guinea trip (expect lots of photographs), taking a look at the sakura (cherry blossoms, for which the peak time is April), and whatever else I can dredge up as Japan moves into warmer weather. With the musical ending, I will suddenly have more weekends free, so expect more information about weekend trips to various locations hereabouts.

That's it for now. Peace all.

No sir, my TV is a plant stand.

2009-02-24T01:47:00.000-08:00

Whatever sensor has been planted in my apartment to cause people to drop by at inconvenient times apparently kicked into action tonight as I was in the shower. The doorbell rings one time, and I imagine it must be a package or some such thing. I thought they would leave it by the door and leave me be. Immediately after my shower, still dripping wet, I crack the door to see what the mailman left me. Nothing. 5 minutes later, however, the collection guy from NHK comes by.

NHK, for those of you who don't keep up on Japanese TV, is basically the media company with a massive monopoly on Japanese television. It has an agreement set up wherein the owner of any TV hooked up to NHK must pay a set fee for the service they receive, in which case they may watch as much TV as they want.

However, I do not watch TV. It's sole purpose in my life is to elevate a small bromiliad above the rest of the room. I also recently borrowed a DVD player, so that gets some use as well. One thing that I never do, ever, is watch TV here.

I told the man something to this effect, and he looked puzzled (part of his puzzlement might be that I was declining to pay a mandatory fee- for a service I have never requested...but he didn't know that). He asked me, (still wet-ish and wearing a yukata) whether or not my TV was broken. I told him it was not. I made helpful gestures to indicate that the power cable was pulled out. He looked terribly bemused- I was strongly reminded of Ray Bradbury's The Pedestrian (click here to read)- I also tried to explain that I mostly just read, which didn't seem to help his bemusement any. Eventually, he got the idea that I wasn't going to pay, and bade me good evening.

I'd feel bad about not paying the mandatory fee, except that:

A) I don't watch any TV, ever, and

B) I already have nice, expensive internet, which is ridden with frequent service outages and unexplainable slow-ups. If I were paying the same amount for internet in the U.S., it the service package would probably come with a toga-clad girl to feed me grapes while I surfed, such are the fees. As it is, I'm already over-charged for my crappy internet, and I'm not going to give NHK my money- if they want to cut off my service, then I will cheerfully not notice while my TV (still!) sits dead and silent in the corner.

Surf 'N Turf

2009-02-17T16:08:00.000-08:00

Here's a nice photo-heavy post for everyone!

About two weeks ago on Sunday, I and two other ALTs went on a small quest to find a snow festival in the mountains. We started off up the coast, stopping frequently along the way, and then looped back around into the mountains, and on back to Murakami.

We started out on highway 113, or something like that (I forget exactly)- which winds along what is widely considered to be some of the most beautiful coastline around. If you'll recall a long-ago post about a place called Sanpoku, this is the coast in that same area.

Here are some shots of the coastline in a general kind of way. The mountains come more or less right down to the surf, resulting in spectacular rocky crags. This particular day also had high winds- resulting in a pleasing oceanic roar, and intermittent clouds, which are always nice for effect.

A few crepuscular rays also seldom go wrong. Also note the concrete dolosse, which are everywhere around here. Tragically, as a result of Japan's enormous socialized construction budget, the need for construction jobs has led to 60% of Japan's entire coast being encased in concrete in some way or another (according to Dogs and Demons: The Fall of Modern Japan). Dolosse are also widely employed.

Here's one of my ALT friends taking a pic of it all:

Around the same place is a shrine perched atop rocky outcropping- like so:

This shrine is unusual in that you can actually the see the kami (神-patron spirit/god/God) housed within. Most shrines have a series of progressively more pure and sacred layers on the way into the kami's abode (for you Old Testament junkies out there- the design for the Jerusalem temple is a good analogue), but in this one He/She/It is just looking out at you from He/She/It's stone house (can you spot the deity in this photograph?):

The shrine was also unusual in that it stood atop a precarious rocky footpath, subject to occasional blasts from the waves. We were only able to stay for a short time, because the tide was coming in.

I couldn't dredge up any information on salamander mythology in Japan (information is difficult to pin down for Shinto as a whole- to say nothing of its regional permutations), but I thought it was interesting that one term for salamander in Japanese is 火蜥蜴, or "fire lizard." I had previously thought that the association of salamanders with fire was primarily a Western one, but apparently they picked up on it to some extent in Japan. I want to do some more snooping about salamanders and their mythological associations in Japan- I'll get back to you all when I find something to report.

The next point of interest we encountered was a small fishing town with its fleet in-harbor, all overshadowed by a pillar of rock:

I also thought it was neat that the fishing fleet were all equipped with out-sized incandescent bulbs, presumably to attract fish at night. The whole scene, between rock pillar and boats, was fun to explore- but I get the impression that not much goes on there. I did get some human interaction in the way of two shougakkou girls looking at me in alarm as I passed them with my camera, but that was about it.

From there the highway turns inland, and we swung back around into the mountains heading south. We were becoming progressively more pessimistic about ever finding the snow festival, when suddenly we saw

Hurray!
Then there was also

Some industrious someone even made a Doraemon:

For those of you who don't want to read the whole Wiki article- America has Mickey Mouse with his big buttons as its most widely known cartoon character (although that may be more outdated now...); while Japan has a 40 kilogram blue robot cat that can pull gadgets from the future out of his front pocket- Doraemon. I think this goes a long way to demonstrate some of the cultural differences between Japan and America...

While I'm on cultural differences and snow festivals- here's another little fact- Japanese snowmen are made with one large and one small snowball, instead of a graduated sequence of three like in America (for example: see the snowman at the end of the previous post).

The streets of the town (北中町- Kitanaka-machi- north middle town), were generally lined with snowmen up until a field at the southern end, which was a complete yukidaruma colony:

The whole thing was made complete with a now chapel at the head of the village:

The ALT in the foreground on the right told me that the chapel could also serve as an actual chapel- apparently a couple got married there last year.

After leaving the snow festival, it was all just driving down through the mountains to get back to Murakami, and then getting dinner at a kaiten sushi joint (surf 'n turf 'n surf?). That's all for now- this weekend I'm going to the Tokamachi snow festival, which is supposed to be one of the better snow festivals around, so I'll see how that compares. Until then!

The Final Word

2009-02-16T02:15:00.000-08:00

Not that I follow a set agenda or anything here, but some of you may have noticed that my posts have been a bit spotty(er) recently. This has been because I've been grappling with the decision of whether to remain in this job of mine another year, or to move onto the next thing...whatever that is.

So, now that my board of education knows, I can tell anyone else who wants to know that I've decided to only remain to the end of one year, at the end of July. This is probably the hardest decision I've had to make in a long time, and I won't go into the particulars here- suffice to say that it has been a very emotionally draining two weeks, and I haven't had the gumption to blog about anything else.

However, now I have made my decision and am more or less at peace with it (which is just as well, since it's irreversible anyhow...), and I'll be able to return to all my normal life activities with much vim and vigor- blogging included.

I would also like to add that living in Japan, even if only for a year, is probably the best decision I ever made for myself, and I'm still looking forward to my remaining 5.5 months(ish) of JET. Living in Japan has affected a change upon me that I feel on a visceral level, and it's not a kind of experience I have really had before- even in the transition into college. It's a different sensation from what one might feel, upon setting down a hard-bound ponderosity from a used-book shop, and turning to one's neighbor and declaring "That was jolly well illuminating."

Whatever comes of this in the future- I'd recommend the whole teaching abroad shtick, it's pretty amazing (I'm assuming results would be similar outside of Japan as well).

In the midst of everything, I have been keeping notes and taking pictures yet- this guy can keep you company until I have the time to put up some proper posts:

Rolling Along

2009-01-27T22:22:00.000-08:00

Winter, work, and life in general seem to be rolling along at a decent clip here. I wanted to post some pictures, and maybe rant a bit about English education in Japan. First- the pics (you may recognize the coast here- most pics that I take of the coast are from a favorite lookout location I stumbled upon exploring earlier in the year)-

This is just looking out at the waves. It was pretty cold when this picture was taken- some sort of storm system was on its way in.

The wind was whipping the waves up impressively- it also courteously closed my car door behind me after I was done photographing. While I was photographing, I was periodically blasted with sea spray a good hundred feet away from the breakers.

That's that for ocean pictures. As for the education bit- I went to a mandatory conference about educational techniques at the prefectural education center. It proved to be an informative if not interesting experience, and I took a lot away from it.

The last speaker, however, managed to inadvertently answer some questions that I'd had for a while- mainly- why do they bother teaching English in Japan? He had a nifty set of Powerpoint slides to illustrate his ideas, which he explained in a voice that could have put a lightning bolt to sleep. The gist was that the reason English is taught should not be for university exams, but for ultimate cross-cultural understanding. This seemed like a nice, enlightened answer to me, except for the glaring problems that (a) all the textbooks here are geared towards the exams (he had helped to revise the curriculum before), and (b) there are no foreigners here with whom to interact. Part of this problem has been solved by "Importing Diversity" (also a book by the same title about the JET program) with ALTs like myself, but the fact of the matter is that there just aren't enough English speakers to go around here. I'm also finally coming around to the conclusion that it's not (as much as I dislike it sometimes) the Ministry of Education's fault (entirely anyhow...)- Japan simply a country that historically and presently has implemented policies ranging from conservative to xenophobic. It is a very difficult place to get a foothold as a foreigner, and a more difficult one stay and live meaningfully. I have personally had good experiences (mostly) with the Japanese, especially my wonderfully culture-clueless students, but I've also experienced the other side, and many ALTs have seen much worse of it than I. I'll go ahead and submit- until Japan lightens up on its official attitude of turning resident aliens into red-tape-mummies, Japan will not become an international country. No amount of imported JETs, teaching one lesson a week to each class (sometimes not even that), are going to cause the massive paradigmatic shift that more progressive Japanese who implemented programs like JET are looking for. Alas.

Anyhow, ranting and so on aside, I'm doing very nicely right now, and will probably be hitting the slopes this weekend. I think I'm going to try my hand at snowboarding, not because I don't love skiing- but I want to try something new out. Pics of the slopes and any good bruises I get will be forthcoming.

Everyone loves Japan in January: addendum.

2009-01-14T22:56:00.000-08:00

On a somewhat morbid whim (and before I post more- I assure you all that while I`m not always thrilled with everything here, psychologically I`m chugging along nicely- and when I get blue, I play Mariokart)- I discovered that there are now fewer than 54 words for suicide in Japanese. 54. That`s not including phrases, like "off oneself." You could write a seriously morbid haiku anthology with nothing but synonyms for suicide. Lest it slip my mind in some later post- I`ll say it now Japanese society puts a lot of pressure on people, and has for a very long time. It`s one of the things about Japan that takes getting used to- how stressed out people seem to be on any given day. It`s also comforting in a twisted kind of way- when I`m feeling stressed, I know that, if the language is any indicator, my experience is not unique.

OK, call me puerile...

2009-01-13T20:17:00.000-08:00

This is just a quick tidbit- but I thought I`d share.

One of the vocab points that my chugakko ichinensei (6th graders in America) are learning is the interogative "how many?". At the bottom of a worksheet practicing prepositions, this grammar point was reviewed- asking (in referrence to a picture of a messy room, with a soccer and tennis ball on the floor) "How many balls does Mike have?" The answer, of course, was "He has 2 balls." OK ball humor, ha ha ha, we can move past this, yes? However, the teacher decided we should practice this point several times, in a fairly excited and sing-songy voice, and had all the students repeat it after me several times as well. The complete deadpan incomprehension of both the students and the teacher compounded the hilarity of the double entendre, until I was furiously nawing on whatever nerve-endings I could find in my mouth so as to keep a straight face. Class ended, all went fine. I`m debating whether or not to advise the teacher about it (I`ll certainly not be telling the students).

Snow in earnest, misc. interactions.

2009-01-12T19:57:00.000-08:00

For those of you that managed to finish that last post- "otsukarasamadeshita" as we say in Japan (thankyou for your hard work). If you couldn't even make it 0.25 of the way through- that's just fine- but make sure and check out the pictures (if you want to see some famous places in Tokyo- if not, well, don't look)

First of all- here's a pic of what I deem to be the first "serious" snow storm here. The other one was enough of a hodge-podge of ice and hail and snow that it didn't really count, and it all melted quickly anyhow. This latest system has more of a permanent feeling- we're due for snow all week, and the temperature is staying pretty low. This pic was taken out the window of my larger shogakko- you can see some of the children's yukidaruma (snowmen) scattered about the field.

Also, midwinter is that lovely time of year when we ALTs (Assistant Language Teachers) get to contemplate culture shock, and all the fun that goes with it. Some of my fellow JET's Google chat statuses read as follows: "in hell," "(name) is not having a good day," "a little bit homesick," "also a little bit homesick." January, in a prefecture that gets more precipitation than the Pacific Northwest, is not a cheery time. I also noted that my frustration with certain Japanese cultural tendencies, which before had seemed merely curious or even endearing, has been coming more easily and dissipating more slowly. I don't think that my social interactions are getting worse, though- if anything my teachers, and certainly my students, are much more comfortable with me than before. Out of curiosity- I thought I would take some snapshots of two of my social interactions with random Nihonjin- and see what the slant was (if there was one).

Interaction the first: A random older fellow who, far from exhibiting the usual Japanese shyness, talked my ear off for the better part of a train ride back from Niigata. Among our subjects were him trying to get ahold of my contact info with impressive tenacity (I stonewalled him by saying I was "sugoi awasenpoi" - incredibly forgetful, and couldn't even recall my own address or phone number- which was half-true anyhow). He also intoned that while he wanted to travel, he thought that the world was crawling with terrorists. "What about Australia?" said I. "Surely Australia is safe." He wasn't convinced. (after this, out of curiosity- I did a Google news search on terrorism in Australia. There weren't any articles about it beyond Australian troops helping in the so-labeled "War on Terror," and the only info I've ever seen about a terrorist group operating in Australia was about
Aum Shinrikyo, Japanese terrorist doomsday cult which happened to own some land in the Australian outback.) For all his terror fears he was very nice to me, however- to the point where I had to feign a little ignorance of Japanese (not that difficult usually anyhow) in order to not give him my phone number, email, hat size, and list of favorite spelunking places, mink farms, etc.

Interaction the Second: I went to Starbucks at the Shibata mall to get away from the solitude of my apartment, and was sipping my chai late when a smallish (not older than 7) child pointed at me (considered rude) and said "gaikokujin" (a respectful term for a foreigner). On the spur of the moment, I decided to be good humored and not offended- and was rewarded by waves and smiles from both of the family's kids (very cute) and bows from both of the parents. I'm guessing he just pointed because he was a kid and didn't know any better- and seeing me seemed to be the most exciting thing that had happened all day. I chalked it up to a good if brief moment for international relations.

On the whole- these are pretty telling. People respond to me with curiosity, awkwardness, and sometimes mild fear, but are generally happy to get to know me once some of the ice has been broken. I still feel very much the outsider- but generally speaking, a welcome one. At the same time, well, I miss English, coffee shops, family, friends, the Rocky Mountains- so we shall see.

All this and much more will need to be weighed as I consider another year of employment in Japan, or not (China's pretty cool too you know...).

This Post Will Take You a Very Long Time to Read

2009-01-05T18:03:00.000-08:00

I just thought it would be fair to forewarn everyone. This will cover the entirety of my winter break, from Japanese New Year in Murakami, to skiing at Zao, to my holiday Tokyo trip (on which I took half as many pictures, measured by memory space, as I did in my entire 2.5 week stint in Italy). As I'm writing this, I don't know how long it will be, but I know it won't be short.

All that said- let's roll-

Skiing at Zaou

Zaou (pronounced "zow"- in Kanji 蔵王) is an area deep in Yamagata prefecture, famed for it's spectacular levels of snowfall. Interestingly, while trying to dig up a meaning for the Kanji, I came up with any of "wine cellar king," "king of France," "Minister to the king," or the "kings minister." I'm sure I missed some subtlety in the combination of the Kanji, but whatever it is it will continue to allude for a while, it seems.

The ski trip was organized by the younger teachers from around the Murakami area- the idea was to have a rowdy, good time skiing in Zaou and getting to know other young teachers (there was a definite undercurrent indicating that speaking with the opposite sex was encouraged as well). Given this set of conditions, I was expecting to get to see the more ribald side of some of my elementary teachers (and verily did I), but I what I was not prepared for was the announcement that the bus-ride up to Zaou would be an extended nomikai- with frosty beer handed for free to anyone who wanted one or seven or whatever. The time was 8:15 a.m.
(mercifully- we stopped at a convenience store and I was able to pick up some orange juice- it's bad form not to drink at a nomikai- but what you drink doesn't really matter)

Upon arriving at the slopes, we got all our stuff in order, rented skis, and set out for the slopes. The snow was spectacular- as was the storm that spawned it. The entirety of the weekend was marked by howling winds and blowing cloud that crystallized into hoarfrost on every available surface- including the skiers. It wasn't actually that cold, however, and the snow was so abundant and powdery that the skiing was very smooth.

The hoarfrost and snow together also create another intriguing phenomenon that Zaou is famed for, which is the juhyo (樹氷), or ice monsters
(click link for image, not mine- but a good example. I didn't want to murder my nice camera in the climate of Zaou). The most famed juhyo were further up the mountain than I ever went (owing to the storm that was physically blowing over some snowboarders on the upper slopes), but I still got to see some interesting specimens.

The other effect of the clouds was to create a surreal fantasy land (even more so) when struck by the area's tri-chromatic lights for night skiing. American resorts tend to favor incandescent bulbs, which work alright- but at Zaou additive color was employed to produce slightly higher quality light. However, not all the different colors were necessary on the same base, resulting in a psychedelic twilit forest, where people would cast freakish green and purple tinged shadows on the snow. It was, well, pretty cool. (Lest I appear to be over-lauding Japanese ski technology, however, it should be pointed out that the lifts were old-fashioned two-seaters, whose movement could probably be better measured in °K than in Km/h- Japan is contains a number of startling parallels like this- where technology that looks like it could launch a spaceship sits in the same office as a computer apparently built by homo habilus.)

The trip also a provided a good opportunity to get to know my co-workers better in an informal setting, which proved to be invaluable. There's not much to detail here in terms of a blog post, suffice to say that it's great to get to know people.

Next came the New Year- so here it is!

New Years Day

One of my fellow ALTs astutely observed that Christmas and New Years are basically reversed from their American counter-parts in terms of roll. This means that in Japan- Christmas is mostly just a fun holiday, when you might take someone out on a date or go and have a few beers at the local izakaya. New Years, on the other hand, is spent going to temples and shrines with family, and then having a few beers afterward anyway (this is Japan after all).

My new years experience was at a shrine in Murakami, on top of a hill overlooking the Oomachi (大町) neighborhood, which in turn houses part of Murakami's old town (and that's pretty old). After passing through a massive Torii gate (one thing that the Wiki won't tell you is that the Kanji for torii literally mean "bird house"- don't ask me why), I worked my way up a long series of stone (or concrete, or something- they were unyielding, anyhow) steps, festooned on either side with lanterns, this particular shrine's ablution spring (pictured).

The picture below isn't from this actual shrine, but these are more or less the same anywhere you go:

At the ablutions pool I partook of one of the immune-strengthening exercises which the Japanese seem to have a great fondness for- in this instance- washing my mouth drinking from the same dipper as everyone before me- making me ritually clean. I then proceeded up to the summit of the hill.

The shrines were gorgeous old wooden structures, and the hilltop was still covered gnarled trees, affording a stupendously beautiful view of Murakami at night. You'd be looking at it right now, if in a moment of stupendous oversight I hadn't left my camera in my apartment.

I followed the Shinto shrine prayer procedure which is as follows-

1) Wait in line for a chance to pray.
2) Huck a modest sum (50yen, or $.50) into the offering box.
3) Give the huge rope-with-bells a good yank to let the Kami (which can be roughly translated as gods, although like everything else in Japan the flavor of the meaning is a bit different) know that you'd like a word.
4) Place your hands together (as in Church), bow, and pray.
5) Clap your hands twice to indicate that your prayer is over, and stroll away.

The whole process seems very imposing and formal, but Shinto is not like religion as we Occidentals are inclined to think of it- it is a very old folk religion, which, while widely "practiced," mostly confers a set of simple daily tasks upon the worshiper to keep in harmony with the Kami. It has no set canon, nor indeed any canon at all, and regional variances set the tone at each shrine. For this and a number of other reasons, hordes of Japanese turn out at shrines each new years day, and on matsuri days, generally having a good time and assuming that the Kami feel the same way. There isn't the same kind of solemnity you'd encounter in a cathedral, for instance. I felt a little bad about snapping pictures of shrines during ceremonies until I realized that (a) Japanese were doing it too and (b) some of the worshipers were already drunk anyhow.

There'll be plenty more on Shinto later when I get to my visit to the Ueno shrine district, but we'll leave it at that for now. Suffice to say, New Year's Eve was an interesting if not somewhat confusing cross-cultural experience, with a good view.

Speaking of Ueno- it's Tokyo time. Oh yeah.

Jess's Tokyo Holiday Adventure

Jan 1st

I decided, for reasons of speed, to travel to Tokyo by Shinkansen, or bullet train. Also, Shinkansen are awesome looking, and big fun to ride. I submit the following photos.

These trains are so sleek. I can't get over it.

Oh yes Shinkansen, you love the camera.

As I set off, the weather in Niigata was more or less typical- freezing rain and snow, and a colorful gradient of meteorological conditions that come between the two.
As the train made for the mountains, the snow became more assertive:

However, moving East also pulled me away from the water-laden air that covers Niigata and Western Japan for most of the year, and upon emerging from a tunnel, the sun was shining again. (at this point, time passes, and I get into the Tokyo metro area)

Mount Fuji, known locally as Fujisan(富士山), was just visible on the southern horizon:

I arrived at Tokyo Station, without a set itinerary, nor a place to stay. The friendly woman at the information desk gave me a look over and asked whether I wanted the "cheap hotel sheet," I would've been offended, except of course this is exactly what I wanted, and with my slightly unshaven face, long hair, and only a backpack, it would have probably been more insulting to offer me a list of nicer places first. She also spoke passable English (even though I addressed her in Japanese), and wished me a nice stay- and seemed to mean it.

At this point, I'd like to put up some general Tokyo pics. These were taken throughout the trip, but this is just to give an idea of what arriving in Tokyo in general is like:

Here is a bustling train station in Tokyo. I don't know which station it was- they all bustle.

Here are some of the general types of scene that greet a visitor to Tokyo. There's plenty of gratifying busy activity, but also a lot of ugly, sterile concrete.

After getting my reservation, I still had a couple hours until check-in, as well as no real travel itinerary, so the first place I went (second really- the first was a Starbucks) was a cybercafe located on the 7th floor of a seedy building by Shinjuku Station (which, as you may have guessed, is in Shinjuku. Here is the lobby of the building.

In case it is difficult to see- there is a thin layer of grime covering everything, an effect enhanced by a hovering smell of cigarette smoke. I half-expected to here a voice behind me say "Mr. Anderson..."

The cybercafe wasn't quite like what you would think, either. In America, cybercafes (such as we have) tend to be, well, cafes, where drinks can be ordered and the like. This one had vending machines for food and drink, but a live bar for neither. Also the computers weren't lined up in some kind of public forum, but were situated before cushy chairs in isolated cubicles. I think they catered heavily to a gaming clientele (otherwise- why would anyone buy 10 hours in one of these cubicles?). The fellow who greeted me at the desk had many piercings, long black hair, and skin the color of an office printer. I privately assigned him the name "Slim." Slim somewhat sullenly got me set up at a terminal, and I set about researching my visit. I won't tell you what list I came up with, because that's basically the rest of what I visited.

At 3:00 I checked into my Hostel- a bit pricey at 3800 yen/night (about 40 bucks), but located right in the heart of Shinjuku, and a skip and a jump from most of the famous Tokyo places. I got situated in my hostel (with pretty clean bathrooms, but a sofa I didn't sit on for the duration of my stay for sanitary reasons), I set out to check out Tokyo.

The first place I went was Akihabara(秋葉原- autumn leaves field). Akihabara enjoyed a steady rise to prominence from a simple discount electrics district a decade or two ago to the heart of Tokyo electronics and gaming culture. This is saying something- considering that if the worlds gamers were to face a direction in prayer 5 times a day, Tokyo would be that direction. Within Tokyo, Akihabara, to cruelly extrude the metaphor, would be the Kaaba of geekdom- around which scrawny pilgrims swirl en mass. It's distinction has grown such that it is simply known, even on official signs, as "Electric Town."-

This is what the district looks like- more or less. To capture the noise and light and intensity might be possible in some medium, but I know not what. These just give a small idea of the neurological inundation one experiences in this place.

The interiors of the stores more or less reflected the exterior- manga and video game ads were plastered everywhere.

Now might also be a good time to highlight something about Japanese culture that takes some getting used to- and I am talking about porn. The Japanese have historically been much more comfortable with pornographic images and materials than, well, almost any country really. For obvious reasons, I didn't take pictures, but on more than one occasion The posters in the stairwell of a seemingly innocuous game store would suddenly take a turn for the less clothed, or the middle of a section of normal Anime or American import DVDs would suddenly and without warning make a drastic content change. If you were observant, you might have noticed a place called "Love Merci" located in the middle of one of the photographs above. It is, if you read the signs carefully, a sex and porn shop, plunked down right in the middle of a popular family shopping district, about a stones throw from the train station. I don't know if there's any conclusion to be drawn from this, other than to note that some things are just really different here.

Moving along into a slightly less sordid realm, I am pleased to say that Akihabara's stores have the finest assortment of video games that can probably be found anywhere in the world, all for sale, and all compressed into about 1 square mile. This is the DS game section at one of the stores I went to:

There were more games on the first floor too. There are titles here that will never see the light of day, for whatever reason, outside Japan. Resisting the urge to cast myself upon the glittering shelves in a wanton act of financial exsanguination, I limited myself to purchasing a surgery game wherein (among other things) you zap hostile germs out of a patient's stomach with a laser.

Akihabara is also famously home to a high density of game arcades (ゲームセンター :gehmu sehnta- such a phenomenon unto themselves that there is even a book about them-), usually several stories tall, and stuffed to the gills with games of dizzying complexity. In one arcade I ventured into, the games cost 300yen (U.S.$3ish, give or take a bit), and one had to seal oneself in a sort of cockpit in order to play. There were also purikura machines, and in some instances the arcade integrated directly into a pachinko parlor in its upper stories. Here's a photo I sneaked of two chaps playing a Rambo game (the machine for which was the size of a small car):

Next up was Shibuya, (渋谷- something like "astringent valley"- the first Kanji can also mean "to have diarrhea," in case you were curious) known as the Times Square of Japan. I headed to Shibuya because it offers a lot in the way of things to do after nightfall (much of Akihabara, for all its electronic grandeur, curiously shuts down around 7:00), including the busiest (and for all I know largest) Starbuck's Coffee shop in the world:

The staff at this Starubuck's are remarkably efficient (as well they might be), and my small Chai was ready before I was actually able to pay for it.

The two other features for which Shibuya is famous are-

1. The scramble, where, each time the light changes, more or less all of Japan crosses the street. Here's a pic (taken in the dead of Winter, on a Thursday night, N.B. Most of the rest of the time, it's all one can do to see 2 feet in front of oneself):

Shibuya is also famous as the (former) home of Hachiko, Japan's most famous dog. Hachiko was an exceedingly loyal creature, to the point where even after his owner, a train worker, died, Hachiko would still come to the station every day to wait for him until Hachiko expired as well. This story of canine love so moved the people of Tokyo (insert comment about Japanese loyalty and stubbornness here) that there is a train line named after the dog, as well as a relief sculpture and a famous statue- both pictured below:

I spent most of my time in Starbucks collecting my thoughts and writing notes on the day behind me, and most of my time in Shibuya at Starbucks. I felt completely nerve-melted, which, it turns out, may not just be me.

I did get out a bit after finishing my chai, however, so here are some general Shibuya photos to give you an idea:

Thoroughly exhausted, I took the Chuo line back to my hostel, and passed out.

Jan 2

(You should get a medal for making it this far)

I didn't have any set plans for the day in terms of what to see when, so when some of my fellow hostelers mentioned the Emperor's Palace, it seemed as good a place as any to start. After getting off at the wrong station, and having to ask directions at a 7-11 that smelled like food poisoning (before and after), I found my way to the Emperor's residence. The first thing I noticed was lines of cars belonging to Japan's extreme right-wing parties (known as "uyoku dantai: lit. "right wing groups") lining the road:

For those of you who don't want to follow the link- look at it this way. These fine folks want to bring back the good old days of Hirohito. Yikes.

I went to palace with the intention of just looking around, but somehow I'd managed to miss the fact that this day was the Emperor's new year's address. The woman to whom I put the question "is today a special day" was very confused, not because she didn't understand my Japanese, but because somehow the tens of thousands of people streaming into the square seemed to have not tipped me off. But, hey, sometimes you just don't know. In any event, here are some picks of the palace and the rally- I even got one (however distant) of the Emperor of Japan, which I think is pretty cool.

After the Imperial rally, I worked my way over the Museum of Contemporary Art, which I knew to be nearby. The experience proved to be disappointing in a couple ways- the art was OK, but not as spectacular as you'd expect in a museum right next to the Emperor's palace, and the museum restaurant (in fairness to whom, was terribly understaffed- it was a free day at the museum after the Emperor's speech, and 2 waiters were in evidence) took an exceptionally (about an hour) long time to get my sandwich together. It was delicious once they did, however, and I ate under the gaze of a large photograph of a girl, who was sumptuously feasting on her long red hair in a trance-like state. So progresseth the arts.

That evening I decided to go to Asakusa (浅草: "short grass"), home of one of Japan's largest and most important temples. I say one of of, because it's hard to quantify, for one thing, and also Kyoto generally beats out any competition, where temples are concerned. It is also important to note that while there is a shrine at Asakusa, the main affair is the temple (寺). A temple is a Buddhist structure, while a shrine is Shinto.

In the walk-up leading to the temple, however, I was surprised to discover some Christians doing some old fashioned- evangelizing. When I say old-fashioned, I mean a minority trying to win over a majority of Buddhist/Shinto worshipers on their way to the temple and shrine.

What's written on the sign is John 6:47- literally rendered from the Japanese- "I: believing in me people, eternal life have." Obviously it's a lot more eloquent and correct than that when said in the Japanese. It also doesn't say where the quotation of scripture is from- which I found interesting. Typically American Evangelical groups will always tack the citation onto the quotation in situations like this, but this quotation simply says "-Kirisuto," or Christ.

Anyhow, it was obvious that they weren't having earth-shattering success (or indeed, probably any at all) because the crowd pushed forward in an impressive wave onwards towards the temple, to say their new year's prayers. Asakusa is sacred to Kannon, the bodhisattva of compassion, and people typically pray for any number of things. Pics!

The crowd Headed for the entrance was quite impressive.

The front of the temple gate- leading to the temple proper.

These are pictures of the enormous Chouchin (bamboo frame lamp) that hangs in front of the temple. Around the backside of the lamp are the names of donors who contributed at the time of the lamps construction, as another way of donating to the temple:

This is one of the guardians in the wings of the gate. The particulars of the supernatural in the Buddhist mythos are widely varied from country to country and region to region, so I don't really know who we're looking at here. What I was told at one point, however, is that most Buddhist temples have two fierce guardians at the entrance to deal with demons- presumably this is one of them.

This is the front of the actual temple building. Very imposing, very graceful.

This is the activity about the front of the temple. There was another, equally impressive chouchin here, as well as some interesting calligraphy on the front columns. Part of the reason it's interesting is that it is not Japanese- Buddhism in Japan retained Chinese much as Christianity retained Latin (or Greek, depending who you ask). For my part I also haven't the foggiest what it says.

Finally here are the last two- the inside of the temple had some wonderful paintings on the ceiling- due to the push of the crowd I was only able to get one of the dragon- who are regarded as guardian creatures in Buddhism.

There was also a prominent pagoda on sight. I have no idea of it's function, but it was magnificent.

After leaving Asakusa, I went back to Akihabara for a bit (couldn't stay away), and then stumbled back to my hostel and turned in early.

Jan 3

I'd decided to spend my last day in Tokyo poking around what the area around Ueno, and it was probably the best decision I've made in a while.

For one thing, Ueno park contains the National Museum, which after the stuffy Contemporary Museum of Art, proved to be spectacular. I walked in the doors at 10:00, expecting to wonder around for about 2 hours and then leave. I exited 5 hours later, completely gratified and with enough new information about (and photographs of) ancient Japanese history to completely inundate me for a good long while. The bulk of the pictures I took were in the museum- I'll only post a few here, lest I post the entirety of the museum's contents.

The first section featured old Japanese woodworking- the Buddha is one fine example:

It's hard to photograph a sword in a case to make it look nice, but appearances aside this sword was made by none other than Masamune, who, if not the greatest swordsmith in Japanese history, is definitely in the running. Masamune is also heavily referenced in the video game world.

There was also a Taiko performance outside the museum, which I went to check out. I never weary of Taiko.

Finally, I will leave you with the best drawing of a bird I have seen anywhere:

Going to the National Museum is like going to the Ufizi- by the end you might stumble past some masterpiece, your eyes glazed with the overexposure to so much magnificence. All I can say is that if you are ever in Tokyo, ditch everything else and hit the National Museum first- it's awesome.

Next, I worked my way over to an area of Ueno that was dense with shrines (which is most of the district anyhow). This shrine (Toushougu in this case) was notable for for its rows of stone lanterns on the way in. They must be truly impressive when they're actually lit...

This is an impressive little atomic bomb memorial sight. I photographed the explanation (second pic down)- because I feel it warrants reading.

Finally- here is a picture of the shrine house itself. A fine old structure.

I also discovered that there is a winter garden kept near to the shrine grounds, so I payed the 600yen admission, and got to see a largish peony garden, flourishing in the middle of January. They kept the plants warm-ish and safe from snow with straw-hat looking structures (like so)

I also saw a profusion of other flowers (including daffodils!), which was good on the eyes in the middle of winter.

The last place I visited in Tokyo, as dusk fell (aside from Shibuya again, to get another tasty chai and collect my thoughts, and bookstore to pick up a grammar guide), was to a set of Kitsune (fox) shrines, in a almost perfect setting. They were set far back in a little wooded area, accessed through a series of torii, and were part of a larger shrine complex. All the people there (not many, granted) seemed to be going to the Kitsune shrine, however, so that's where I went as well. There were two shrines, one out in the open and one back in a sort of tunnel. I learned that the open one was for love, and the tunnel one was for health. I gave more money to the love Kitsune. Here are some pictures:

The shrine's name- "Flower Garden Shrine."

An excellent sequence of torii leading into the grounds.

This the shrine to Kitsune and love. Note the fox guardians on either side, wearing red capes.

After that, obviously, I went back to Niigata. If you made it through all that- I salute you. I barely did.

The whole Tokyo experience was wonderful (if a little expensive) and has helped to rekindle my love of Japan that brought me here in the first place. I hope you found it interesting.

Commence Winter, or Japan's Pan's Pipes

2008-12-25T16:12:00.000-08:00

Today is my last day of sitting at my local kouminkan (community center- also where my board of education happens to be posted. Curiously enough- the only languages in which the Wikipedia article is written are Japanese and Polish... so scrap linking on that one). I have a meeting with all my assorted supervisors (apparently I need a lot of supervision ;P) in about 35 minutes. I'm a little nervous because, like so many things in this work and in this country, I have no idea what it's about. On the upside, my primary supervisor was about to arbitrarily grant me vacation today until she realized that we had this meeting at all, so presumably it won't be terribly intense (at least it wasn't weighing on her mind).

Shifting subjects- I'm looking forward to the upcoming winter holiday, for which, as ever, I am woefully under-planned and unprepared. Wherever I go (more and more just looking like Tokyo), it's going to be cold. The long-tardy Niigata winter finally has finally arrived in Arakawa, along with the famous Arakawa winter-wind. This is the view out of my apartment window from this morning:

The wind is truly impressive, as was the storm that brought the snow. Thunder and lightning were on and off for about 5 hours, and the wind was very audible throughout. This morning as I sat parked under my kotatsu with my coffee, unwilling to move (kotatsu have that effect on me- especially in the mornings), I could hear the wind playing a kind of music off the topological irregularities in the roof. I'm not being poetic here- the wind really did produce a marvelous array of eldritch-flute-like sounds. I even tried to work out the range of the pitches in the car on the way to work (somewhere between a 4th and a 5th, incidentally).

This may be the last post for a bit. While cyber-cafes presumably aren't too hard to find in Tokyo, I don't know when I will have the pictures or the gumption to post again. At the latest, the next installment will be the Tuesday after next, as that is when I return to work. With any luck, I'll have some picks from my ski trip tomorrow (with young staff from one of my shogakko- should be very fun), as well as from wherever I manage to go in Japan. Until that time- stay warm, and happy New Year!

Day Tripper

2008-12-24T15:54:00.001-08:00

Last Saturday, the weather was a balmy 13C (55.4F: not bad, considering it's the lee-ward end of December in a region famous for its snow), so more or less on a lark I decided to go for a drive up the highway into the mountains.

First thing's first, here's my trusty steed-

I chose blue partly because, believe it or not, it's one of the more assertive car colors you'll see driving around Japan (or at least Niigata). It's also a Kei Car, which is nice when trying to negotiate Japan's fun-sized parking spaces. I've yet to name it (accepting submissions now- I haven't even decided on a gender yet!), but for the time being, even nameless, it gets me from A to B, and I love it much. Incidentally, talking on a cellphone while driving is universally illegal in Japan, so periodically there are "moshi-moshi pittu" scattered along the highway (it means "hello pit"). This picture was taken at one such pull-over.

The highway winds through a number of breathtaking vistas more or less right off the bat, none of which I was able to photograph for a lack of space to pull over. The severity of the mountains is such (at least initially) that several times a tunnel will connect immediately to a bridge spanning a gorge, to yet another tunnel. It was arrestingly pretty. I did manage to find one pull-over, however, that offered something like a view. This is a poor representation, but still, have at-

My initial intent was to simply take in the scenery for a while, then turn around, so I arbitrarily chose a town fairly far away on the road signs, called "Nan'yo" as my destination, and pressed onward.

After a while, I got hungry and needed to use the bathroom, so here was my first stop:

Apparently this is what rest-stops are like in Japan. I passed a few more along the way, and they looked (from the outside) pretty comparable- toilet, restaurant, kitschy gift shop, and vending machines. Sounds familiar, doesn't it? One notable difference was that this particular stop was selling a number of seedlings and bonsai of plants endemic to Yamagata, whose boundary I had just crossed. Another thing worthy of note was that this rest-stop sold manju, not unusual in Japan, but always welcome. I bought a pizzaman!

After eating my pizzaman and having a look about, I kept heading into Yamagata. The ragged, fang-like peaks gave way to a more herbivorous terrain, with wide valleys spread between ranges of mountains. the distant view was, I must say, gorgeous. However, (and it's possible December without snow isn't the best time to look), many of the small mountain towns I encountered were, frankly, rather ugly. I was hoping for an experience like many I've had in Colorado, where traveling into the mountains is a good way to avail one's self of the personality eccentricities that tend to migrate to the isolated mountains. What I had forgotten is that Japan is both A) ancient and B) crowded- people have been living in the mountains here for a looooooooong time, and the migrations of oddballs that have taken place in the U.S. don't have a good corollary here. I didn't find much evidence of interesting and unusual shops or cafes- just people living at higher altitude. I did encounter one nice corner in a town called "Shokoku," however- and here it is:

Not breath-taking, but not such a bad little town either.

I drove a good ways more, but didn't see or photograph anything worthy of reporting beyond what I've already said here, so let's jump to Nan'yo. Nan'yo is an unimposing, unimpressive little community that probably spends most of it's time in Yamagata-shi's economic and cultural orbit. Consequently, there's not much there. All the same, here are some pics-

For those of you that can read Katakana- the sign that says "ramen" was also where I had dinner. I felt like I was in a scene from a movie about the lonely every-man at Christmas time- stepping into an unremarkable ramen shop in a small, twilit, chilly town, far from home. Nostalgic Christmas music was playing over the speakers (including, unless I am mistaken, "I'll be Home for Christmas"). However, there were (it being a ramen-ya aside) some distinctly Japanese touches: the Christmas decorations looked like they had been subcontracted out to a flying squirrel with a staple gun, and immediately after "White Christmas" or some such song, seizure-inducing J-pop started playing again. Ah, Japan.

The other thing this restaurant had going for it was that every entree came with a monstrous mound of shredded cabbage. The cabbage here was particularly fresh and wholesome-tasting, and I wondered for a minute whether I had finally found a bit of "local flavor" for which I had been searching. Maybe Yamagata grew a lot of cabbage in the cooler mountain elevations! Chatting with the server on the way out, however (itself an unusual behavior- customers don't really mingle with service staff here like they can in America- a Japanese cultural convention I blithely and frequently ignore) I discovered that cabbage is heavily grown all over Japan, and that my katsu-kare (pork curry) experience here had been, in almost every regard, unremarkable. C'est la vie.

When I came out of the restaurant, I did see one more thing worth noting, which almost made the whole trip worth it-

This didn't turn out very well, because of the dim light, but if you'll look down and to the left, you'll see a largish gorilla. It was holding a strobing electric torch. The building it was advertising is a karaoke place, with architecture that's bizarre enough to easily distinguish it from the surrounding town. It looks vaguely, I don't know what. Mongolian? Anyhow, I thought it was pretty cool.

That does it for the day trip- I drove back, obviously, but past the same places and in the dark, so what's more to say?

On another note- today is Christmas Day here, so Merry Christmas everyone! I'm at work (mwa mwa) typing this up on my trusty yellow lap-top, and exchanging Christmas stories with the other ALTs (also at work) via Google chat. I hope everyone's well, and enjoying the holiday!

クリスマスしましょう! (Let's Christmas!)

2008-12-14T20:45:00.000-08:00

As I have mentioned before, things borrowed from the outside world get changed a little when they get Japan-ified. I don't know whether I've mentioned this yet specifically with regard to Christmas, or not, but in case I haven't- our favorite Western holiday is no exception to the rules.

For example- My one shogakko held it's annual "Christmas Festival." It was great fun- students were given a "free pass" to go from classroom to classroom and see what each class had set up for the event. The attractions included two haunted houses, 3 game rooms, and something else that escapes me. In any event, the whole event didn't have anything to do with what would be considered "Christmas" by religious and secular standards alike (and it was a lot of fun). The "reason for the season folks" would have a thrombosis in this country...

Also on the docket was directing hordes of children in the production of snowflakes and Christmas cards- the snowflakes turned out nicely, but let's face it- you've seen one paper snowflake...

The cards were a different matter. I taught virtually no vocabulary, and just directed the kids to make cards with some Christmas-y ideas on them. The results are (once again) better done justice with pictures:

First of all, some of the cards were almost obscenely cute (these were 5th graders, but the other grades made good ones too)- I submit the following:

There was also no shortage of cute snowmen (in Japanese- "yukidaruma").

There were also some nice, traditional types (in spite of being written on the blackboard, theories on how to spell "Merry Christmas abound)-

...and at least one non-traditional type-

The child explained that it had something to do with Santa going to jail- presumably for breaking and entering (although this was not made explicit). This card shares company with one featuring a yellow "Christmas ghost" (which looked for the life of me like a Halloween ghost- but maybe more cheerful), and a card featuring a Mario-style Bullet Bill (both regrettably not pictured).

The card making was also a good activity, because, as something easy and fun, it was tackled with enthusiasm. It also gave the creative students a chance to shine, and several of the cards that I didn't get pictures of were also quite impressive- one student even made a cut-paper poinsettia, which was quite pretty.

So that was elementary school Christmas. It was a blessed relief from the more high-intensity teaching I usually must carry out, and a lot of fun too. Hope you enjoyed the pictures.

On a random interaction note- here's one more story-
one funny student (a 5nen from one of favorite classes) drew a parallel from the Japanese paper cutter I was operating (which I was joking reminded me of an invention by a certain French doctor), and Happy Tree Friends. For the uninitiated, well, there's the link. My question, however, is this- how did an elementary student get ahold of this?? Aside from being a bit on the violent side, I had no idea that Happy Tree Friends had made their way over to Japan. Who knew?

Alright- that's all he wrote for today. Stay tuned for whatever's next- probably pics of the truly impressive snow storm that can't be far away. Failing that, I am traveling to a couple of (currently undetermined) places around Japan for my winter break, and should come back loaded with photos Kyoto, Shikoku, Tokyo, or wherever. Mada sono toki!

Smoke-filled room

2008-12-07T17:19:00.000-08:00

This weekend was spent largely in (as the post title would imply) rooms filled with smokers. The American perception of Japan is largely of a very clean, efficient country (or at least my perception)- so it came as a surprise that practically everyone in Japan smokes. Indeed- tobacco has been so taken to Japan's cultural bosom that it is often spelled on signs with Hiragana, whereas pan ("bread," from Portuguese), an everyday word in use for the last 300 years or so, is still designated as a loan-word with Katakana. They just love their smokes.

What's perhaps more surprising is that the Japanese still have the longest life expectancy of just about anywhere (shows what a good diet and health care can do for you, I imagine).

In any event, the first smoke-filled room was a nomikai (飲み会) with the staff at my local board of education. It was unremarkable as far as nomikais go- my Japanese and their English are both sufficiently limited that all we could talk about were hobbies and what America was like and whatnot. Most of what I took away from the experience (besides some leftovers) was a headache from all the smoke (not the alchohol-n.b.).

The second experience was intended to be a brief visit to the store of Tatsuro-san to pick up some Xmas-age, but turned into a 5-hour chat (mostly in broken Japanese), with a visit to an urushi (varnished wood) shop in the middle. I learned (among other things), that Murakami is a sort of center for the preservation of Japanese traditional arts- Taiko drumming, urushi woodworking, tea making, Shoudou, and sake brewing (not that that particular art is in any danger of dying out, mind). I learned a bit about the Japanese generation gap from an older generation source- which was quite engaging. Apparently (and I can confirm this) that the old etiquette of Japan that most Westerners think of is slowly dying out as the younger, more Western youth take no interest in it.

I'd write more, but I'm beat (today was shogakko). Tomorrow we're making Christmas cards! :) More on that later (I'll try to get some photos of the cute ones)

Weekend Review (mo ikai ne?)

2008-11-30T22:47:00.000-08:00

This weekend- 3 notable things happened.

1) I went to a party in honor of the Liquor-store owner whose random acquaintance I had made previously (the one with the banjo). The three of us were there almost strictly for our novelty value as gaikokujin- so lacking an outline of set duties we just had fun.

memorable moments include

-Being (without prior explanation) being handed a plastic maraca shaped like a lemon (the other two JETs got tambourines) and being asked to play along with the band for a bit (in front of some of the wealthiest people in Murakami, no less).

-Befriending a Japanese pre-school boy who was the son of some of the guests- he sort of became our mascot for the rest of the evening, and helped us out.

-Watching our host (Tatsuro-san) change suits no fewer than 5 times over the course of the thing, and variously be guitarist, MC, and host.

Also the party's invitation roughly translated said something like "wine enjoyment party"- and it was all some of the guests could do to make it out under their own locomotion (some didn't).

2) I got a car! The story has a sad beginning- arriving in Higashi Sanjo and realizing that I didn't have my license to drive my car back (that's like going from Denver to Woodland Park, then realizing you've forgotten something critical, and having to go back for it the same day). Blah. Another damper was the discovery (once I got my car) that trying to park in Japan is like being handed a watermelon, and being asked to put it in a box with about .4cm to spare on each side. The watermelon can't touch the sides, and neither can your hands. Parking here is a such an assortment of 3-point turns and minute readjustments that one wonders why there aren't even more trains than there are.

Fortunately, with my new car comes great new-found freedom from the train schedules, as well as freedom to go where the train may not. I'm thinking about going for a drive just to get out and see the autumn foliage while I can, time permitting.

3) More preparation for the winter musical- (further explanations to follow)- but that was Sunday anyhow.

That's life- I'm completely out of it from teaching 3rd grade and below all day- so I'm going to slink off and relax somewhere away from the prying of little hands.

Hashi Game

2008-11-26T22:34:00.000-08:00

I haven`t terribly much to add to my last post here- but here`s a bit about English teaching. specifically, getting overcrammed, overworked middle school students to enjoy English again. Generally speaking, well, you can`t. The kids are massively indifferent and have way to much on their plates.

One thing that I have found works, however, is an adaptation of the American card game spoons. Remember spoons? You pass cards around until you have 4 of a kind in your hand, and make a desperate grab at the spoons (or in this case hashi- chopsticks) in the middle. The person who doesn`t get a spoon is out, and the game continues. Change playing cards to vocabulary cards with English words and pictures, and hey presto! you`ve got a room of suddenly interested students. The 1nens still didn`t get into it (in America they would be 7th graders), but the 3nens liked it well enough to request to borrow the game during recess. This is a spike in interest which, if you`ll recall middle school, is pretty remarkable. I was very pleased- I`ll probably be making more decks of cards for more vocab sets as time goes by.

That`s all for now- sorry it hasn`t got more zing and sparkle, but education`s what`s on my brain. This weekend is practice for the musical, as well as a poorly-defined event I will evidently be helping to usher on Friday night. Remember the guy with the sake shop about a million posts back? He invited a few of us to come up and help with...whatever this is. All I know is to show up by 5:30 wearing a suit.
何ですかかな...

The Weekend Review

2008-11-24T18:36:00.000-08:00

This weekend was an activity blitz for me and everyone else- we had one of our once-monthly national holidays on Monday (one of the nice things about Japan), so people took off for regions afar. I would have as well, but I had a car rental to attend to, so I made the most of my time off by going to nearby Niigata and checking out the sights. Events happened as follows-

Saturday:

The doorbell interrupted my late, towel-clad breakfast. I threw on a robe and answered the door to find three Jehovah's witnesses. I can't say I was terribly pleased that I had been dragged out from under my warm kotatsu to be proselytized in a language at yet which I am hardly proficient, so I told them that I had been a Theology student in college (a generous misrepresentation, to say the least, but I only know "shingaku," or "theology," and not the words to add the proper softness such as "minor" or "dilettante"), and that I was not interested in their special English language Bible study magazine. I was pretty polite, but still couldn't help but wonder whether they couldn't find anything better to do. I also have to wonder about their success rate- Japan is a very secular country that doesn't lend itself easily to the adaptation of Christianity (the whole "upside down kingdom" bit is much more radical in a country with a rigid social hierarchy than in the chaotic West), to say nothing of the Japanese Jehovah's witnesses' take on blood.

After failing to get saved, I went down to Niigata-shi to look at the Bandaijima Museum of Contemporary Art. It was chiefly devoted to one artist, who, in terms of modeling form, well... I'm sure he tried very hard. Apparently all his models were clothed in an inky mist, pierced only by the periodic effulgent body part. It wasn't a bad museum, but it was smaller than I would have liked, and the stronger work was all by different artists towards the end. It is, however, in the Toki Messe Convention Center, so I also went up to the free observation deck to have a look. Here are the pics-

This view provides a pretty good idea of Niigata-shi in terms of size, as well as Niigata-ken's climate and general environment. The observation deck is a sweet new deal, complete with a swank coffee bar and big plushy couches. Worth a visit, if ever you are in Niigata.

Sunday-

I took a 6-hour round-trip train ride to iron out 15 minutes of negotiations and paperwork for my rental car, which I will retrieve from the same location next week. Such is life. I decided to console myself by going to another art museum, this one the Niigata-shi Bijutsukan (page in Japanese). The collection features a very small number of very big names- Picasso, Redon, and Boccioni were all represented, but only with one piece a piece. The museum would have been an interesting but brief diversion were it not for an art show by the Niigata-ken artists council, which proved to be quite interesting. It held a colorful array of styles, everything from severe but well-rendered still life to paintings with whimsical and unidentifiable subjects, if indeed subjects they had. As the only foreigner at the event, I was also something of a celebrity, with the president of the council coming over (woman with short, spiky, fluorescent red hair- aged 50) and explaining everything at length to me in rather good English. Overall, a good event.

Monday-

Spent reading The Good Earth (which I highly recommend) and cleaning my apartment. I've also managed to acquire some acrylic paints (no mean feat here), and am trying to think of painting ideas.

For now, that's about the size of it. I'm off to plan a lesson for my 3rd graders, and have some lunch.

First Winter Storm (始めの冬の嵐)

2008-11-19T23:00:00.000-08:00

The terrific storm that landed the other night remained all of yesterday, gradually moving from depositing cold rain, onward to some sort of strange frozen precipitation that wasn`t quite sleet, snow, or hail (I`d volunteer "sky poo" to fill this lexical gap- the stuff was heavy and miserable), to a heavy wet snow. People have generally said that the first snow would be sometime around the end of December, so you can imagine how well prepared I was in terms of snow boots and the like. I also tried to ride my bike to work this morning in order to stay above the slushy roads- this proved to be both comical and hazardous, and I won`t be doing it again.

Sakamachi and the surrounding land actually look quite fetching with a layer of snow on them- which is probably just as well because the stuff never melts during the long winter months. Here are some pics-

The Mid-week Shinbun

2008-11-18T15:13:00.000-08:00

It has, for whatever reason, been a draining week. I haven`t any bad days per se, but I`ve just been worn out. I think some of it may be due to the fact that my 4th graders, whom I love dearly, haven`t quite got me figured out yet and it takes a little extra activity on my part to get them to warm up.

As a consequence of this, last night was spent entirely inside of doors, parked under my kotatsu, reading a Bill Bryson book about travel in Europe. I also ate several persimons. It was one of those nights where I would have gone to the convenience store to buy a candy bar, except that this would have necessitated putting on pants (presumably, at any rate- the cultural expectations bar is pretty low, and while people would no doubt be disturbed by a pantsless candy bar purchaser, they would probably attribute it more to my foreigner status than to oscilations in my sanity).

It was just as well that I didn`t go out anyhow- halfway through the evening a storm blew in that sounded like the world was ending, and kept it up until I went to sleep. Come to that, it`s still keeping it up, and there are periodic flashes of lightning outside my middle school windows. The storm also seems to have brought winter with it- it is very cold today, and between gaps in the clouds I could see snow on some of the mountain tops.

Today and tomorrow are school-wide exam days for my middle school students, which means that there is absolutely nothing for me to do. I guess I`ll go study Japanese or something. Writing this blog was supposed to take up some time, but I`m finding myself finishing it with a discouragingly large chunk of morning still ahead of me- which I`m going to go try and fill now.

Mada tsugi bura-gu no jikan.

Guess who got his camera chord back...

2008-11-10T22:14:00.000-08:00

Life goes on here- the trees are finally turning some real autumn colors. The kanji for Autumn- 秋 -is literally composed of the roots for "tree" and "fire," which I kinda like. The weather is colder, and the kids are learning the English (hopefully).

The real news, however, is that I did in fact get my camera chord back- so here are pictures!

These first two pictures don't require any explanation- they would only be encumbered by one.

Here are some pics from the Murakami bamboo-candle Matsuri: a night of awesome candles, tea ceremonies, and live music. The former photo is at ground level (I didn't have a tripod), looking through a forest of candles into the shrine of an otera. The latter is also in a temple- the gentleman playing the flute was quite skilled. At the time that this photo was taken, he was playing an arrangement of the theme from Disney's "Beauty and the Beast." All this while Amida Buddha looked benevolently on.

This next pic attests to some things that are just different here. For one, especially in fishing villages, it is not unusual to see strings of dessicated, enormous fish carcasses dangling from the outsides of buildings. I have no idea whether they are being preserved for consumption, or what. Here's one of my co-JETs posing with one.

Next are some pics from a taiko concert I went to in Murakami. It wasn't Kodo, but the show was still very good.

Finally, today I taught my 6th graders about oomoji (capital letters) and komoji (lower case letters). I decorated the worksheet to make it less onerous for them, and was vastly entertained by some of the ways they defaced them before handing them in. It also makes me hopeful that even if they are doodling, they are doodling ideas that I started for them- so even if they aren't learning English, I am establishing a kind of rapport.

I'm going to eat some food, and play some Final Fantasy 3. No not 6- 3 (tanoshii!). Oyasumi.