Thursday, August 31, 2006
Monday, August 21, 2006
You would never know that an enormous festival happened here just a week ago. There are a few tell-tale remnants; uchiwa fans with beer ads on them moldering in the bushes, a few red and yellow lanterns still strung up near the beginning of the night district. Otherwise, Tokushima has recovered from the surge of humanity, and once again become the lazy backwater of a city that I know and love.
They are filming a movie in town; a love story called 'Bizan'. (The name of my favorite landmark of a mountain). The crew had set up a little stretch of street to look as though the Awa Odori was still going on, so it was nice to walk downtown and hear the familiar sounds of the awa music. Leading up to the festival, that was all you heard everywhere; biking through Tokushima park, every 15 meters, you'd come across another group practicing. I miss the sense of expectancy that filled the air... If I'm still here next year, I really would like to join an awa dance team (and for those of you familiar with my dance skills, keep the sniggering to a minimum!).
Work is still good; new students join up, and old students slowly stop coming-- every day as I'm pulling files to plan my lessons, I'll see the name of a student that I used to see almost every week, and now not at all. There used to be this one girl we nicknamed 'The Shark', since she was always prowling about with her business cards all ready to hand out to the first foreign person she came in contact with-- school policy dictates that we can't befriend the students, so avoiding her got to be quite challenging. She once followed me around the mall, until I finally lost her by hiding behind a rack of ball caps. She doesn't come anymore... I don't mind so much. But then there are those that I really miss. There was this one college student with anime hair and an infectious giggle-- I remember him well, because he came to my special presentation on Canada, and kept the Canadian flag sticker I gave to him stuck on his electronic dictionary from that point onward. We once did a lesson together on planning a day at a theme park-- it was fun imagining that we could actually be friends, organizing our day together at Tokyo Disneyland. Not being able to befriend the students sometimes makes brilliant good sense, and at other times infuriates me. I'll just play it safe, and stick to policy.
I went to my first beer garden the other night with the Japanese staff and Bani, Neil and Alex... it was a none-to-covert operation to try and talk Bani into staying in Tokushima. But what could we really say or do to change his mind? When someone feels that the challenge and adventure has gone out of a position or situation in life, what sense is there in staying on? I have to respect that. At any rate, the beer garden was nothing like the ones tossed together at festivals back home; it's a semi-permanent summer fixture on the roof of the Clement (Tokushima Station) building. For 2900 yen, it's all you can eat, all you can drink, self-serve fun. The beer machines are hilarious-- you put your glass down, and a little robotic table swings the glass into the correct pouring position, fills it seven-eighths full with beer, then squirts a disgusting topper of prefabricated head on top. Luckily Tomomi showed me the 'stop' button so I could avoid the icky foam. I made friends with a parcel of kids running around the garden (yes, kids in the beer garden) and they took me to the ice cream machine, and showed me how to work it-- with pedals, like a car. I then freaked them out by putting popcorn on my ice cream (they were out of rainbow sprinkles) and played with them as best our language barriers could allow. That meant: making funny faces, playing junken (rock-paper-scissors), and impressing them with my ability to read the Engrish on their t-Shirts. Tomomi repeatedly came to 'rescue' me so that I could come back to the table and drink more beer... but really, when it comes to having fun, the kids know what they're doing! My manager, Ayumi, wanted to make sure that I let the kids know that I was a Nova teacher. Always looking for the pitch...
They are filming a movie in town; a love story called 'Bizan'. (The name of my favorite landmark of a mountain). The crew had set up a little stretch of street to look as though the Awa Odori was still going on, so it was nice to walk downtown and hear the familiar sounds of the awa music. Leading up to the festival, that was all you heard everywhere; biking through Tokushima park, every 15 meters, you'd come across another group practicing. I miss the sense of expectancy that filled the air... If I'm still here next year, I really would like to join an awa dance team (and for those of you familiar with my dance skills, keep the sniggering to a minimum!).
Work is still good; new students join up, and old students slowly stop coming-- every day as I'm pulling files to plan my lessons, I'll see the name of a student that I used to see almost every week, and now not at all. There used to be this one girl we nicknamed 'The Shark', since she was always prowling about with her business cards all ready to hand out to the first foreign person she came in contact with-- school policy dictates that we can't befriend the students, so avoiding her got to be quite challenging. She once followed me around the mall, until I finally lost her by hiding behind a rack of ball caps. She doesn't come anymore... I don't mind so much. But then there are those that I really miss. There was this one college student with anime hair and an infectious giggle-- I remember him well, because he came to my special presentation on Canada, and kept the Canadian flag sticker I gave to him stuck on his electronic dictionary from that point onward. We once did a lesson together on planning a day at a theme park-- it was fun imagining that we could actually be friends, organizing our day together at Tokyo Disneyland. Not being able to befriend the students sometimes makes brilliant good sense, and at other times infuriates me. I'll just play it safe, and stick to policy.
I went to my first beer garden the other night with the Japanese staff and Bani, Neil and Alex... it was a none-to-covert operation to try and talk Bani into staying in Tokushima. But what could we really say or do to change his mind? When someone feels that the challenge and adventure has gone out of a position or situation in life, what sense is there in staying on? I have to respect that. At any rate, the beer garden was nothing like the ones tossed together at festivals back home; it's a semi-permanent summer fixture on the roof of the Clement (Tokushima Station) building. For 2900 yen, it's all you can eat, all you can drink, self-serve fun. The beer machines are hilarious-- you put your glass down, and a little robotic table swings the glass into the correct pouring position, fills it seven-eighths full with beer, then squirts a disgusting topper of prefabricated head on top. Luckily Tomomi showed me the 'stop' button so I could avoid the icky foam. I made friends with a parcel of kids running around the garden (yes, kids in the beer garden) and they took me to the ice cream machine, and showed me how to work it-- with pedals, like a car. I then freaked them out by putting popcorn on my ice cream (they were out of rainbow sprinkles) and played with them as best our language barriers could allow. That meant: making funny faces, playing junken (rock-paper-scissors), and impressing them with my ability to read the Engrish on their t-Shirts. Tomomi repeatedly came to 'rescue' me so that I could come back to the table and drink more beer... but really, when it comes to having fun, the kids know what they're doing! My manager, Ayumi, wanted to make sure that I let the kids know that I was a Nova teacher. Always looking for the pitch...
Tuesday, August 15, 2006
Well, last night marked the end of Awa Odori. The past week (or has it been two?) has zipped by with such a speedy intensity that, looking back, I feel as though I am reviewing a short film documenting someone else's life. It has been nothing but exciting highlights and adventures, and meaningful mistakes, triumphs, and disappointments. Small acquaintances have become allies and incredible good friends, and some older relationships (if you can call anything only six months old 'old') have shifted, dried, and peeled away. My Japanese ability has scaled up one imperceptible (to most people) notch-- my proudest moment was when I was able to say that I couldn't buy shoes to go with my yukata because my feet are too big: "Getta nai; watashi no ashi tottemo nagai desu!". A whole sentence! Probably not 100% correct, but hey, one step at a time. I'm aware of how much learning a new language prompts a thirst for knowledge. If you're to learn anything at all from the people talking around you, you have to be sharply tuned in, like a child making the first connections between a word and an object, or a sentence and a feeling. Everything around you becomes subject to your wondering scrutiny: Can I read that sign before we've passed it? What did it mean? What's this fruit called? What did he say to me? Was it nice? What should I say to him?
Last night my friend Miho and I closed the last evening of the Awa Odori at the usual gaijin karoke haunt. It was Miho's first time there, and I was disappointed for her, as the proprietess has been brittle and tense lately. She stalked about like a discontented circus panther, and at one point came over and asked me in forced genial tones about how things were going. I said "You know, not bad.. I've been busy... you know how it is..." and she was very obviously not listening, so I remarked that she seemed fed up. Whereupon her face remembered that it was meant to smile and be full of kindness for every desperately lonely foreigner that comes in, and she brushed my remark aside with a no, no, no. I can't imagine having her job, or her world as my own. It must be very difficult to always be curious and charming, the perfect hostess. Especially when so many of the people that come in are clones of those that came before them; those who are lost and searching, those who want to prolong their demented youth, dreamers, hiders and seekers, and a whole lotta complainers. I really can't stand to go there more than once every couple of weeks now. Miho suggested that the next time we go out, we do a group-dating-thing common in Japan; four single gals and four single guys get together for an evening of dinner and getting to know one another. It's no secret that I find Japanese guys to be gorgeous creatures, so it sounds great to me; perhaps I will have another sentence or two up my sleeve by then!
Miho and I started the evening at a wicked Asian restaurant called KEN BAN-- I've passed it several times, wanting to go in, as it has great big windows looking out on to a narrow little night-district street, and as far as I'm concerned, there's a distinct lack of making the most of a good view around here. We got to sit right at the big window, and to our unbelievable good fortune, a really professional men's Awa dance team set up right outside. The music was 95% throbbing drums, so elemental and stirring that I was unable to even look at the food that came to the table. All the men were in white jimbes with yellow fans. Watching them move and flutter and crouch was unlike any other experience I have had with performance art-- if you can imagine a flock of monarch butterflies, all maniacally possessed with perfect intelligence and synchronicity and creativity, you might be getting close to what I saw and felt. The drums pounded; the men were encapsulated energy, perfect dancing representatives of delicious control and ferocious potential... I felt myself teeter on the knife's edge of that which is human and that which is animal.
The show from the air-conditioned interior of KEN BAN was by far the most stunning I have witnessed during the four-day run of Awa Odori. Not to say that there weren't other great moments; I made three evenings out of four, and happily got in on the 'free dances' whenever I came across them. On the first night I attended with Miho, Bubu and Mr. Mori-- Miho and I in yukata, and Mr. Mori equipped with his camera so as to capture the leaping graceless gaijin flap about in her pink and baby-blue summer kimono. I was pretty embarrassed that first night, and so had to have another go on my own the next night, riding my bike downtown in my navy yukata, and then slipping into the sweaty pounding anonymity of the crowd. I quickly located a free-dance circle. Instead of the usual cries of "Yatto sa, yatto sa... Yatto, yatto, yatto, YATTOooooo!", there was a Japanese rastafarian on the mic, hollering out lyrics to Bob Marley's 'Jammin' to the rhythm of the Awa music. This seemed like a good circle, so I hopped in, flapping my wrists and my uchiwa fan, and went around about three times before Battur, in his dance teams garb, located me. I joined him and his other Mongolian friend, and spent the next three hours going from free dance to free dance, all over the blocks and blocks of people-thronged streets. (Imagine the whole core of Vancouver shut down for a dance event). We stopped for chicken-on-a-stick (There must have been hundreds of yaki-tori stands set up in every available nook and cranny) and some tea, and then kept dancing. I left early, so as to get a good sleep and keep a fishing date for the next day with Bubu's family.
Which is another long story; and a fabulous one. One that involves boating out to an unoccupied island near Anan and setting up a camp with a party of eight, having a barbeque, swimming, and seeing the foreign girl (me) win the title of most successful fisherman. On one cast, I caught 3 fish on my line! "Oh! It's family!" remarked my fishing teacher/boat operator/friend. In the past two weeks, I've been into the Iya Valley and on the vine bridges with Travis and Yoshino, and into the city of Kochi to see their own Matsuri (festival) which, apparently rivals the Awa Odori; lost my glasses in a cement sewer, and magically recovered them the next day with a strand of wire; lost and found my plane tickets for my vacation to Sendai next month; met multitudes of people who want to practice their English on me (so I practice my Japanese on them); had long talks with Battur about his experiences in pre-and-post Communist Mongolia...
This season is one of fireworks and watermelon, cicadas and yukata. Colour, change, and celebration. I think about those butterflies of men, those perfect dancing animals, and realize how much I've changed myself. How I'm emerging from one life cycle and into the next, stretching my new wings in this season of heat and magic.
Last night my friend Miho and I closed the last evening of the Awa Odori at the usual gaijin karoke haunt. It was Miho's first time there, and I was disappointed for her, as the proprietess has been brittle and tense lately. She stalked about like a discontented circus panther, and at one point came over and asked me in forced genial tones about how things were going. I said "You know, not bad.. I've been busy... you know how it is..." and she was very obviously not listening, so I remarked that she seemed fed up. Whereupon her face remembered that it was meant to smile and be full of kindness for every desperately lonely foreigner that comes in, and she brushed my remark aside with a no, no, no. I can't imagine having her job, or her world as my own. It must be very difficult to always be curious and charming, the perfect hostess. Especially when so many of the people that come in are clones of those that came before them; those who are lost and searching, those who want to prolong their demented youth, dreamers, hiders and seekers, and a whole lotta complainers. I really can't stand to go there more than once every couple of weeks now. Miho suggested that the next time we go out, we do a group-dating-thing common in Japan; four single gals and four single guys get together for an evening of dinner and getting to know one another. It's no secret that I find Japanese guys to be gorgeous creatures, so it sounds great to me; perhaps I will have another sentence or two up my sleeve by then!
Miho and I started the evening at a wicked Asian restaurant called KEN BAN-- I've passed it several times, wanting to go in, as it has great big windows looking out on to a narrow little night-district street, and as far as I'm concerned, there's a distinct lack of making the most of a good view around here. We got to sit right at the big window, and to our unbelievable good fortune, a really professional men's Awa dance team set up right outside. The music was 95% throbbing drums, so elemental and stirring that I was unable to even look at the food that came to the table. All the men were in white jimbes with yellow fans. Watching them move and flutter and crouch was unlike any other experience I have had with performance art-- if you can imagine a flock of monarch butterflies, all maniacally possessed with perfect intelligence and synchronicity and creativity, you might be getting close to what I saw and felt. The drums pounded; the men were encapsulated energy, perfect dancing representatives of delicious control and ferocious potential... I felt myself teeter on the knife's edge of that which is human and that which is animal.
The show from the air-conditioned interior of KEN BAN was by far the most stunning I have witnessed during the four-day run of Awa Odori. Not to say that there weren't other great moments; I made three evenings out of four, and happily got in on the 'free dances' whenever I came across them. On the first night I attended with Miho, Bubu and Mr. Mori-- Miho and I in yukata, and Mr. Mori equipped with his camera so as to capture the leaping graceless gaijin flap about in her pink and baby-blue summer kimono. I was pretty embarrassed that first night, and so had to have another go on my own the next night, riding my bike downtown in my navy yukata, and then slipping into the sweaty pounding anonymity of the crowd. I quickly located a free-dance circle. Instead of the usual cries of "Yatto sa, yatto sa... Yatto, yatto, yatto, YATTOooooo!", there was a Japanese rastafarian on the mic, hollering out lyrics to Bob Marley's 'Jammin' to the rhythm of the Awa music. This seemed like a good circle, so I hopped in, flapping my wrists and my uchiwa fan, and went around about three times before Battur, in his dance teams garb, located me. I joined him and his other Mongolian friend, and spent the next three hours going from free dance to free dance, all over the blocks and blocks of people-thronged streets. (Imagine the whole core of Vancouver shut down for a dance event). We stopped for chicken-on-a-stick (There must have been hundreds of yaki-tori stands set up in every available nook and cranny) and some tea, and then kept dancing. I left early, so as to get a good sleep and keep a fishing date for the next day with Bubu's family.
Which is another long story; and a fabulous one. One that involves boating out to an unoccupied island near Anan and setting up a camp with a party of eight, having a barbeque, swimming, and seeing the foreign girl (me) win the title of most successful fisherman. On one cast, I caught 3 fish on my line! "Oh! It's family!" remarked my fishing teacher/boat operator/friend. In the past two weeks, I've been into the Iya Valley and on the vine bridges with Travis and Yoshino, and into the city of Kochi to see their own Matsuri (festival) which, apparently rivals the Awa Odori; lost my glasses in a cement sewer, and magically recovered them the next day with a strand of wire; lost and found my plane tickets for my vacation to Sendai next month; met multitudes of people who want to practice their English on me (so I practice my Japanese on them); had long talks with Battur about his experiences in pre-and-post Communist Mongolia...
This season is one of fireworks and watermelon, cicadas and yukata. Colour, change, and celebration. I think about those butterflies of men, those perfect dancing animals, and realize how much I've changed myself. How I'm emerging from one life cycle and into the next, stretching my new wings in this season of heat and magic.
Monday, August 07, 2006
Another hot hot hot day. I take back what I said earlier about people not being allowed to complain... when it's 38 degrees C and humid and your company's dress code states that you must be in a business suit with a jacket at all times, I think you've earned a little complaining leeway. Luckily, as a woman, I can get away with wearing skirts and pantyhose, which are infinitely cooler than slacks, shoes, socks. Thank God. Or thank Nova. I've been here long enough now that there doesn't seem to be much difference between the two. Especially if we're talking an Old-Testament, vengeful, all-powerful, all-knowing & seeing God.
Ahem. Are you reading this, Nova? Of course you are.
Anyway, the city is getting scrubbed up for Awa Odori, and it's looking about as good as I suppose it ever will. Women in head-to-toe sun-protective gardening garb have been wading through the shrubberies, plucking out weeds and vending machine coffee cans and abandoned bicycles. Workers have been building grandstands and hanging yellow and red lanterns from every available streetlight and palm tree. There's a palapable hum in the air as people discuss what they're looking forward to (drinking and dancing on the street! the best yaki-tori and tako-yaki! rowing a boat in the Shin-Machi river!) and what they're going to wear; Maz has already painted her toenails to match the yukata she'll don. My head is spinning a little... I really don't have a clue about what it will be like... but from what I hear, it gets crazy. Apparently, this is one of THE Best Festivals in Japan. (Many people have assured me of this; even Japanese people who don't live here, and have never attended). I've got a day off, a new yukata, and some money. I'm sure it will be fun, no matter what happens.
Ahem. Are you reading this, Nova? Of course you are.
Anyway, the city is getting scrubbed up for Awa Odori, and it's looking about as good as I suppose it ever will. Women in head-to-toe sun-protective gardening garb have been wading through the shrubberies, plucking out weeds and vending machine coffee cans and abandoned bicycles. Workers have been building grandstands and hanging yellow and red lanterns from every available streetlight and palm tree. There's a palapable hum in the air as people discuss what they're looking forward to (drinking and dancing on the street! the best yaki-tori and tako-yaki! rowing a boat in the Shin-Machi river!) and what they're going to wear; Maz has already painted her toenails to match the yukata she'll don. My head is spinning a little... I really don't have a clue about what it will be like... but from what I hear, it gets crazy. Apparently, this is one of THE Best Festivals in Japan. (Many people have assured me of this; even Japanese people who don't live here, and have never attended). I've got a day off, a new yukata, and some money. I'm sure it will be fun, no matter what happens.
Sunday, August 06, 2006
Get this: Beach season ENDS next week. They'll take down all the lovely beach shacks with their change rooms and hot-dogs and ice-cold beers, and people won't come to the beach anymore. Because it's over. Really. No matter that it'll be 30 degrees Celsius plus well into September... because BEACH SEASON IS OVER. And we Follow the Rules. Unless you're a surf-nut, or a crazy gaijin, like me. And I have been enjoying the beach, veryvery much, and will be sad to see all those lovely Japanese guys take their Hello Kitty beach umbrellas and their inflatable, water-craft-towable bananas (which they bounce upon joyfully as they are towed repeatedly by the beach), and their purple shorts and pink sandals, and get back into their business suits and their air-conditioned offices. Metero-sexuality is alive and well, in Japan, folks. In case you were wondering.
I've been having a blast lately; I went to a Yaki-Nikku (BBQ) party with my friend Miho and her classmates to celebrate the beginning of their summer vacation. I ate piece after piece of hot lovely beef, peeled straight off the grill and deposited directly into my personal bowl of sauce, corn, eggplant, onion, onigiri (rice balls), skipped rocks on the beach, learned a few new Japanese comedy routines (I can now make the kanji for 'life' with my body, which is apparently hilarious) and took photo after photo. The evening culminated with tossing the drunkest guy into the sea, and an especially careless and dangerous fireworks display, which was exhiliratingly, stupidly fun. I myself was a bit of a party favour-- kind of like when someone brings their new puppy to a party. I'd get played with until one person's English supply was exhausted (or they were exhausted by my poor Japanese), and then I'd get passed on. Kind of fun. It left me just outside of things enough that I could really enjoy and appreciate the dynamics of the group-- the way they helped each other in every situation, especially when things needed to be cleaned up or work needed to be done.
I've also recently gone bowling with a Mongolian (truth) and been over to Bubu's a few times for dinner. He told me recently that he is my father while I am in Japan, and his house is my house too. I was very deeply touched... I took my Mongolian friend, Battur (or Mong-Chan as Bubu is now calling him) over to Bubu's the other night when Miho was making curry, and we all traded animal noises... surprise, surprise. Everyone loves animal noises! Mong-Chan didn't understand at first that we wanted to hear the 'children's' animals sounds-- the simple ones for kids, like Oink or Quack or Moo. So he was making some quite realistic noises! Eventually he understood-- all I remember is that cows go "Mmm-bu" in Mongolian. Battur is here in Tokushima studying medicine at Tokushima University. The university has quite a high international student population, and we English teachers occaisionally cross paths them at TOPIA- the international center, or at the real international center, Ingrid's karaoke bar.
At any rate, Neil has just phoned me with the promise of adult beverages and English conversation. No animal noises for me tonight! Until next time...
Namaste
Endrene
I've been having a blast lately; I went to a Yaki-Nikku (BBQ) party with my friend Miho and her classmates to celebrate the beginning of their summer vacation. I ate piece after piece of hot lovely beef, peeled straight off the grill and deposited directly into my personal bowl of sauce, corn, eggplant, onion, onigiri (rice balls), skipped rocks on the beach, learned a few new Japanese comedy routines (I can now make the kanji for 'life' with my body, which is apparently hilarious) and took photo after photo. The evening culminated with tossing the drunkest guy into the sea, and an especially careless and dangerous fireworks display, which was exhiliratingly, stupidly fun. I myself was a bit of a party favour-- kind of like when someone brings their new puppy to a party. I'd get played with until one person's English supply was exhausted (or they were exhausted by my poor Japanese), and then I'd get passed on. Kind of fun. It left me just outside of things enough that I could really enjoy and appreciate the dynamics of the group-- the way they helped each other in every situation, especially when things needed to be cleaned up or work needed to be done.
I've also recently gone bowling with a Mongolian (truth) and been over to Bubu's a few times for dinner. He told me recently that he is my father while I am in Japan, and his house is my house too. I was very deeply touched... I took my Mongolian friend, Battur (or Mong-Chan as Bubu is now calling him) over to Bubu's the other night when Miho was making curry, and we all traded animal noises... surprise, surprise. Everyone loves animal noises! Mong-Chan didn't understand at first that we wanted to hear the 'children's' animals sounds-- the simple ones for kids, like Oink or Quack or Moo. So he was making some quite realistic noises! Eventually he understood-- all I remember is that cows go "Mmm-bu" in Mongolian. Battur is here in Tokushima studying medicine at Tokushima University. The university has quite a high international student population, and we English teachers occaisionally cross paths them at TOPIA- the international center, or at the real international center, Ingrid's karaoke bar.
At any rate, Neil has just phoned me with the promise of adult beverages and English conversation. No animal noises for me tonight! Until next time...
Namaste
Endrene
Wednesday, August 02, 2006
I was perusing Shonas blog and found this! A picture of BuBu's shop window, with Mr. Yakuza looking out! http://shonaoconnell.blogspot.com/2005_08_01_shonaoconnell_archive.html
An average day:
Wake up. Roll around on the futon for a while. Sniff the futon. Wonder if the weather is clear enough so that the futon can hang out and air on the balcony for a while.
Get up. Open the sliding door that connects my air-conditioned bedroom/living/dining room to my sticky-hot hallyway-bathroom-kitchen-foyer-closet. Sniff the shower-bath-toilet. Wonder why it never smells clean, even though I scrub it every other day. Shower; look at the waterproof hiragana chart stuck to the shower-bath-toilet wall. Hope that a new letter sticks permanantly in my brain. Dry off. Use a sparing amount of sunscreen from home, and then coat up the rest of my body in the suspicious 'Whitening UV' formula from Japan. There's no UV number on the bottle, and I've heard that some of the whitening products have bleach in them...
Dress. Look in fridge: tofu, natto, soggy cucumbers, condiments. Consider options briefly. Decide to get an onigiri and an iced coffee from a combini (convienience store). Step out of apartment into the wall of wet heat and insect noise. Carefully look about for the landlady who berated me in Japanese for 5 minutes about leaving through the side door before leaving through the side door. Make sure the side door is properly closed, just in case she's hiding in the bushes across the street.
Ride my famous blue Crispy downtown. Pretend not to notice the old guys who stare as though a large purple rabbit is similtaneously burping flames and doing a handstand as it rides past them. Go to the bank. The bank staff yell a cheery 'Irashaimasen!' as the ATM says the same. Work as quickly as possible, as the ATM beeps maniacally if I pause for more than 2 seconds to scratch your nose or think about budgets. Go to Big Brothers, eat the mini-special (soupsandwichsaladfriesdessertcoffee) and gossip with Norm, Keith or Brad. Or chit-chat with whoever is sitting next to me. If the person is Japanese, the chit-chat will amount to: where are you from, how long have you been in Japan, how long will you stay in Japan, do you like Japan, and if we're feeling really friendly, we might progress to animal noises. "Cows say Moo. Cats say Meow. Dogs say Woof. How about here?" "Cows say Mo. Cats say Niao. Dogs say Wan." (And my recent discovery-- I knew rabbits go 'Pion-Pion-Pion' when they bounce in Japan, but when I told my friends they go 'Boing-Boing-Boing' in English, they cracked up. Why? Because 'Boing-Boing' is the sound for large breasts in Japan. Yes. Breasts have sound effects here...) If the person is English speaking, the conversation will be exactly the same, except we might compare the policies of our Eiken schools instead of 'Cock-a-doodle-do' and 'Ko-ki-ko-kou'. Pay. Leave.
Check email and post a blog and/or go to work. Meet the student who was thrilled by the public trash system in Canada-- garbage bins on the STREET? What an amazing concept! Teach the kindergartners who hug your legs and pet your hair and then spit on your hand instead of giving you a high-five. Become enthralled by people, sights, sounds, food, experience. Discover a new path, or a secret alleyway. Realize over and over that there is no such thing as an average day.
This took me long enough, but here is my former co-workers blog address: http://shonaoconnell.blogspot.com/ Shona has since been to Europe, and is now back in Australia... but if you go to her archives, and look at February, there are some hopelessly outdated pictures of me and some of the people I mention in this blog.
Wake up. Roll around on the futon for a while. Sniff the futon. Wonder if the weather is clear enough so that the futon can hang out and air on the balcony for a while.
Get up. Open the sliding door that connects my air-conditioned bedroom/living/dining room to my sticky-hot hallyway-bathroom-kitchen-foyer-closet. Sniff the shower-bath-toilet. Wonder why it never smells clean, even though I scrub it every other day. Shower; look at the waterproof hiragana chart stuck to the shower-bath-toilet wall. Hope that a new letter sticks permanantly in my brain. Dry off. Use a sparing amount of sunscreen from home, and then coat up the rest of my body in the suspicious 'Whitening UV' formula from Japan. There's no UV number on the bottle, and I've heard that some of the whitening products have bleach in them...
Dress. Look in fridge: tofu, natto, soggy cucumbers, condiments. Consider options briefly. Decide to get an onigiri and an iced coffee from a combini (convienience store). Step out of apartment into the wall of wet heat and insect noise. Carefully look about for the landlady who berated me in Japanese for 5 minutes about leaving through the side door before leaving through the side door. Make sure the side door is properly closed, just in case she's hiding in the bushes across the street.
Ride my famous blue Crispy downtown. Pretend not to notice the old guys who stare as though a large purple rabbit is similtaneously burping flames and doing a handstand as it rides past them. Go to the bank. The bank staff yell a cheery 'Irashaimasen!' as the ATM says the same. Work as quickly as possible, as the ATM beeps maniacally if I pause for more than 2 seconds to scratch your nose or think about budgets. Go to Big Brothers, eat the mini-special (soupsandwichsaladfriesdessertcoffee) and gossip with Norm, Keith or Brad. Or chit-chat with whoever is sitting next to me. If the person is Japanese, the chit-chat will amount to: where are you from, how long have you been in Japan, how long will you stay in Japan, do you like Japan, and if we're feeling really friendly, we might progress to animal noises. "Cows say Moo. Cats say Meow. Dogs say Woof. How about here?" "Cows say Mo. Cats say Niao. Dogs say Wan." (And my recent discovery-- I knew rabbits go 'Pion-Pion-Pion' when they bounce in Japan, but when I told my friends they go 'Boing-Boing-Boing' in English, they cracked up. Why? Because 'Boing-Boing' is the sound for large breasts in Japan. Yes. Breasts have sound effects here...) If the person is English speaking, the conversation will be exactly the same, except we might compare the policies of our Eiken schools instead of 'Cock-a-doodle-do' and 'Ko-ki-ko-kou'. Pay. Leave.
Check email and post a blog and/or go to work. Meet the student who was thrilled by the public trash system in Canada-- garbage bins on the STREET? What an amazing concept! Teach the kindergartners who hug your legs and pet your hair and then spit on your hand instead of giving you a high-five. Become enthralled by people, sights, sounds, food, experience. Discover a new path, or a secret alleyway. Realize over and over that there is no such thing as an average day.
This took me long enough, but here is my former co-workers blog address: http://shonaoconnell.blogspot.com/ Shona has since been to Europe, and is now back in Australia... but if you go to her archives, and look at February, there are some hopelessly outdated pictures of me and some of the people I mention in this blog.
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