A hug from Miyavi

Today is Miyavi's 29th birthday. Happy birthday, Miyavi!

To celebrate, he had his 2nd fanclub only live. I had to take off a day from work (which is a story on its own, but one I will resist telling), but there was no way I was going to miss this live.

Arriving at the venue, I went up to do the ID check. As this was a special event, everyone got a free fanclub hand towel as a gift at check in:

Miyavi Fanclub: C.W.I.F.

Co-Miyavi Worldwide International Family

My ticket was rather unfortunate. It was one of those rare concerts where the there are actually seats instead of standing room. My luck clearly having run out starting with the X Japan concert, my seat ended up being on the 2nd floor... in the back. I was pretty depressed about this until I got into the venue, Mt.Rainier Shibuya Pleasure Pleasure (no, that is not a typo) and saw that it was actually pretty small. The view from the 2nd floor turned out to be pretty good, even from the back. However, the saddest part about being on the 2nd floor is that the band on stage can't see you at all... Naturally, I want to be seen as much as I want to see. For Miyavi, this is especially true, as I am always hoping that maybe, just maybe, this time he will remember me.

As I sat waiting for the show to start, two girls approached me from the left and leaned over to talk to me. From what I gathered, they were there together but had seats apart, so they wanted to know if I would trade seats. I couldn't quite believe it when she offered me her 1st floor seat for my 2nd floor one. I grabbed my stuff and jumped at the chance before the magical opportunity disappeared, then practically floated down the steps to the 1st floor. For a brief second I worried that maybe it wasn't a good seat, but it turned out alright, about in the middle of room, and not too far to the side.

I was quite pleased as I looked around at my new settings. I noticed that one of the foreigners I had been talking with before the show (let's call her Laura) was sitting right in front of me. To my left was a guy wearing plaid pants, sunglasses, a black shoulderless punk top with D-rings and black leather (pleather?) boots. On my right was a tall, skinny wisp of a woman in red high heels, a trendy brown tench-coat style pencil dress, hair carefully pulled back, with a Louis Vuitton bag in her lap. Staring between them, I was suddenly reminded of the time I was talking with a man on the Shinkansen, and he said that I didn't seem like a visual music fan because I was too "clean" looking. Looking around at the fanclub members that night, it was clear how off a statement that was.

All the sudden as I was sitting there, I had a really good feeling about the concert. I knew realistically, it was likely just my general excitement and happiness over the new seat. Still... my usual reticence toward hope was strangely silent. I had a REALLY good feeling about the blind box questionnaire session I knew would take place in the middle of the show...

The beginning of the concert was a surprise for me. The stage was dark, no intro, and a shadowy figure walked onto it and waved to everyone before sitting down, but it wasn't actually apparent until the lights came up that it was Miyavi. I had at first thought it was just stage hand doing a sound check. Only a small cheer went up. The unusually inconspicuous opening set the atmosphere for the whole concert: relaxed, laid back, casual. As he began playing, I was really shocked that everyone stayed in their seats, not even attempting to stand. This was another first for me, but one I welcomed readily, as it gave me a far better view of the stage. In general I was quite surprised at the reactions of the audience. Everyone was very subdued, and even the moments designated for cheering were far shorter and quieter than normal.

Miyavi was dressed in a dark outfit, his usual elegance in simplicity, the only items of which I can remember being a black jacket (likely with a t-shirt underneath) and expensive-looking shoes that shined in the spot lights. I was more interested in his hair, which was hat free for once. Wonderfully free of extensions, it was slicked back on his head either with water or gel, and was nearly shoulder length. It was definitely another look that very few people could pull off, but one that made him look serious and professional. I was surprised, but pleased. He didn't play any new songs that night, but he did play in a rather unique, blues-house fashion that made the songs seem revamped, if not new. The whole evening he sat at his little one man setup to the side of the stage with an amped acoustic guitar. His current drummer BOBO and keyboardist Coba84 played in the background.

After a few songs and what seemed like far too little time, Miyavi took a rest and started talking to us. BOBO went offstage, but Coba84 started playing some quiet background music on his keyboard. It was pretty amusing, actually, because every once and a while, Miyavi would get annoyed at having to speak over the BG music, so he would wave him impatiently off or say "Cut the BG!".... then, a few minutes later, he would get tired of the silence and ask for "a little BG, please". They weren't exactly subtle cues, and soon we were all laughing at him, and I think he made some comment about it that I didn't catch. While he was talking, he was looking around at the audience (sucks to be on the 2nd floor!). He paused and said "There are a lot of foreigners/foreigners(Eng)/on the first floor." He look around and pointed at someone near him, "Where are you from?" She answered (we were all girls) and then he went around one by one and asked all the foreigners where they were from. Everyone was from either America or France. When he got to me, he didn't ask but just said, "America?" I am not so sure if that meant he had a vague recollection of me or, more likely, he was just tipped off by the huge freakin' grin on my face: nobody does enthusiasm like Americans!

After that, he played a couple more songs, then paused again. This time, the staff handed him the blind box full of questionnaires. I tried not to get too excited, but I was at least happy that he was going to read the notes himself this time instead of having one of his staff do it. To give you an idea of the suspense, there were somewhere between 200-300 people in attendance, and he only ever pulls out about 4-5 names. He went through the first two questionnaires: no dice. It would have been interesting anyway except unfortunately (as per usual), I couldn't understand almost anything of what was said. I did catch one of the questions though. One of the girls asked (something like), "What does your daughter call you?" He said she called him "Papa" but had also learned to say "Daddy" (sounding like more like "dodi"). Then he said, he's been trying to teach her some English words for animals, using a picture book. He points at a picture and says, "Monkey", "Dog", etc. However, instead of repeating the word, she just point at each animals and says, "Daddy, daddy, daddy." It was a cute story and everybody laughed.

He pulled out the next name and made a sound of surprise,

Myv: (Jap) "Oh! it's in English!"

The crowd "Ahh~!"ed appreciatively.

A frission of hopeful excitement shot through me. I always write my answers on the questionnaires in English first (with a little note at the top that says, "Please speak English!"), then have a friend translate it into Japanese. "That could be mine!" I thought. My heartbeat shot up as he read my name from the bottom of the paper. It was surreal! Without waiting for him to ask, my hand shot up into the air, ready to be acknowledged (though he couldn't see me yet with the lights down). After he saw who and where I was, he turned to the first question on the questionnaire, which was something like "What do you want from the fanclub?" I had written "I go back to America in July of next year... I'd love to have another fanclub trip in Japan before then." He read this aloud in English, then he actually sat back on his stool and seemed to think about it, which, no matter his answer, made me so happy, so appreciative.

Myv: *stares off at the ceiling and mumbles quietly as he translates 'July' into Japanese and then counts off the months*

Myv: *still thoughtful, he looks over at me* (first in Jap, then in Eng) "You are going back to America next year?"

I replied in the affirmative.

Myv: *stares at the ceiling some more, thinking* "Hmm"

Myv: "I want to take a trip to Hawaii, America, etc... but you want to go in Japan, right?"

Another enthusiastic affirmative reply from my corner of cloud 9.

Myv: "Do you like onsen?"

I don't know what I said, something like, "I love it!" but he had translated into Japanese and everyone was cheering, so it was mostly lost in the general uproar.

Myv: *Still considering (Gods, I love him!), "Maybe in Aomori, Nagano..."

His voice was lost as everyone cheered heartily. The idea seemed pretty popular.

He looked at me again and nodded his promise,

Myv: "I'll try to make it happen."

Me: "Thank you!" a fervent reply, my heart full to bursting.

It's hard for me to even remember all of what was said, even immediately following the concert; I was too excited for the focus of memory. Still, although it is hard for me to communicate it here, it seemed like he spent a long time on my question, pausing as he really seemed to be thinking about it, working the possibilities over in his mind. I really believed him when he said he would work on it.

Finally he turned to the next question on the paper, which was something like "What do you want from me right now?" or "What do you want to ask me right now?" I never have anything I can think to ask, so instead I wrote, "In Okinawa, I wanted to ask for a hug, but I was too nervous... Can I have a hug now?" When my friend had translated this into Japanese, she laughed and rolled her eyes at me, but I figured, why not? The chances of being chosen were so small, and the likelihood of it ever happening twice were even smaller, so you might as well ask for what you really want!

Miyavi laughed as he tried to read the paper, clearly finding it difficult to read the small squished letters and equally squished Kanji (the paper was not exactly designed for multi-lingual translations). Aloud, he mumbled his way through the English version, and laughed out loud, saying (Jap), "Huh? What?" probably thinking he had read my request for a hug wrong. I suddenly felt bad about my sloppy handwriting - and more than a little silly for what I had written. He read through it again, slowly, sounding out the words. After finally distinguishing my scrawled word "hug", he read the whole thing aloud in confident English. There wasn't much of a reaction at first due to the language barrier, except from Laura, who turned around and gave me and incredulous "Really? REALLY?!" clearly not approving. I just smiled and laughed, "Why not!"

Meanwhile, Miyavi began reading the Jap. translation. My heart swelled again when everyone cheered and clapped for my cute and heartfelt request. I was really happy to have their support, feeling as self-conscience as I was. Miyavi let them clap and then said something like, "Yeah, OK, come on up" except my excitement in that moment totally obliterated my recall, and I have no idea what he really said. Everyone let out sounds of surprise and envy, giving a little cheer. Laura was looking back at me, and even as I slowly stood, I looked down at her with wide eyes, asking, "Really? Really?" I knew when I wrote the request that Miyavi was not the sort of person that would say no, but still, until that moment, I had been unable to hope for quite that much.

I should have been staring at Miyavi as I walked down the middle isle toward the stage; now, as I write this, I can't believe I didn't! At the time, however, my attention was wholly centered on the stage, looking for stairs, very focused on how I was going to get onto the stage. A female staffer practically crawled halfway across the stage to point me toward a door with a hidden staircase. As I walked toward it, I heard Miyavi getting to his feet and taking loud, clomping steps to get out from behind his setup, the bells attached to one of his ankles (part of his one-man setup) ringing with every step. Behind me, I heard everyone laughing, but I was too distracted to look above his feet and as I moved toward the door. From the corner of my eye, I saw him fixing his hair.

Two steps up and a male staffer ushered me around the corner to the right. Suddenly Miyavi stood before me. Still halfway across the stage from me, he looked straight at me and smiled. He rolled his shoulders, then smoothed his thumb and forefinger over the front of his jacket and flicked out edge of the lapels, puffing out imaginary wrinkles. Suddenly I had this thought in my head of Miyavi as my prom date (LOL). he smiled radiantly as I approached him, a smile I full-heartedly returned. Then he threw his arms out in a welcoming gesture, and I walked into them. It felt so good, so... normal, to wrap my arms around him, to let his bigger size engulf me (like a praying mantis hugging a lady bug). Until that moment, none of it had felt read: him calling me to come up on stage, the walk to the front, the sound of the crowd, the anticipation... it was like watching a movie inside my head. I couldn't feel it. Just that moment, as he hugged me, and the one that followed after as he pulled away, were the only ones when everything didn't feel surreal. Just then, in those moments, there was no crowd, no staff, no stage. Just us. As he pulled away, still smiling, he repeated his promise about the fanclub trip, "I'll try to make it happen." He was so sincere. I knew he meant what he said. I thanked him and turned to walk back off the stage. Before reaching the door, I laughed my excitement and disbelief into my hand, and the crowd, still watching, laughed. Everyone clapped as I returned to my seat.

For the rest of the concert, I tried to burn the memory of that moment into my head. I thought about him going home that night and laughing as he told his wife about his crazy American fan's request, and it made me smile with happiness.

As I stood up to leave at the end of the concert, I smiled my happiness at Laura. She shook her head at me, "That was so American... that was SO American." Her intonation made it clear that 'American' in this case, was a synonym for 'foolish and selfish'. maybe hearing her own words, she quickly followed this with an enthusiastic but insincere, "but I love you anyway." ... I just smiled and laughed: Let her be jealous! I just got a hug from Miyavi!!

As we were all filing out of the venue, a few people in the crowd gave me knowing looks, recognizing me (Jap), "Wow, you gave Miyavi a hug, didn't you? Amazing. What was he like?" How to find a word to describe the stars? I just said "Really cool!" ("すご~い　かっこいい！") Soon after that, my friend Wako burst through the crowd at me (Jap), "I heard him say 'Lindsay' and I was so surprised!" I hung out and spoke with Wako for about an hour while she met up with other friends, the most recognizable being Hikaru. I recognized many of the others, but couldn't say much. She told them all about my interaction with Miyavi and they all stared at me with huge eyes.

Afterward, we all walked to the train station together. I told Wako my concern/suspicion (in bad Japanese) that when I had gone on stage, the other fans had been thinking "I hate that girl a little bit." She told Hikaru what I'd said (yeah, my Japanese is pretty bad) and they both emphatically assured me that it wasn't true. "We were really happy for you! We're all family, after all." I glowed when I heard that. Before we said our goodbyes, Wako and I made a promise to each other, again, that we would have to meet up. I took a picture before slipping off to my train.

Wako, Me, Hikaru, Wako's friend

What an amazing night. I don't think I'll stop glowing for days.

Cheers!!

382 Baer

Demonstration

Ahh... すかれた。。

I am worn out. Emotionally, if not physically.

Today at the JHS, I (along with the JTE, Japanese Teacher of English) had to teach a lesson to the 1st year students (a.k.a 7th grade) in front of all the local ALTs. In the past, I had done several demonstration lessons, but they were always for either the Board of Education (BoE) or parents. Of course I was always nervous preparing for these lessons; it is difficult not to be nervous when your boss and twenty other people are essentially staring over your shoulder while you work (except, actually, they are staring you in the face). Nonetheless, a certain amount of distance always remains between myself and these groups.

However, this was the first time I had to perform before my fellow ALTs. I discovered that the anticipation of being judged by my peers was far more stressful and frightening. As I was eating my lunch today, my hands were shaking. I knew my poor JTE wasn't any better off. She is a brand new teacher, just out of college, and this would be the first time she did any sort of demonstration lesson. I did my best to give her some idea of what to expect, but I am sure she had to have felt worse than I did. It was for my own benefit, however, that I insisted we go over the lesson plan, point by point, so we would know exactly what to say, who would do what when, which cues to follow, right down to which students we would call on. I simply couldn't tolerate being unprepared in any way. Fortunately my JTE felt similar or, at least, was happy to indulge me.

An hour before the lesson was supposed to start, we went up to start getting the room ready. When I had originally been told that they were planning on having the demo lesson in a regular classroom, I had balked. Those classrooms are already filled end to end with 30 students and their desks. To add an additional 20 people to that would mean they would practically have to sit in the isles and stand right in the doorway. It would be pretty difficult to pretend that they weren't there (my coping strategy) when they were standing right next to me! Not for the first time, I was a little shocked at how unprepared my superiors were for the demonstration, and it was once again left up to me to come up with a solution. Fortunately, it turned out there was a huge empty room right down the hall that would be perfect for our purposes. Again, why no one had even considered this previously...

The only downside of using the room, I discovered as we were getting ready and hour before, was that it was stifling hot from disuse. However, as the entire school building is unairconditioned, this was something I was pretty used to. We opened all the windows and hoped for the best. About twenty minutes before the start of the lesson, the students had to carry their desks and chairs in from their regular classroom. It was pretty funny to watch as every single student was fanning their face with their notebooks, trying desperately to cool off; the JTE warned them they would have to suffer in stillness as soon as the ALTs arrived.

I was pleasantly surprised to discover that, once the lesson began, my nerves mostly dissolved. I followed an old professor's advice and focused on the kids, pretending, as I said before, that the ALTs weren't even there. This worked for the most part, let me get through what I needed to, while I was certainly more on my toes than usual. In the end, I felt like the lesson went really well, and the kids were so well behaved I wanted to hug every one of them (okay, maybe not... How about stickers instead?). The ALTs filed out, and I helped clean up the room until my supervisor told me the stop procrastinating and go join the after-lesson meeting.

In truth, I had been dreading the meeting far more than the lesson. As nerve-racking as it is having people watch me work, a lesson is still just a lesson. The sole purpose of the meeting was for everyone to get together and pick apart the lesson piece by piece, critiquing our every word and action. I was overwhelmed with eagerness.

Quiet to my delirious surprise, the meeting wasn't painful at all. Everyone was even more silent than usual, and I didn't receive a single significant critique, let alone criticism. Everyone seemed very impressed with the lesson, both in planning and execution. At least one of the ALTs told me that he was even planning on stealing the lesson plan for his own class. I was a little nervous when it was my immediate supervisor's, Mr. Sakazume, turn to speak. However, even he had only praise, and even made an emphatic comment that all the ALTs aught to follow my example and memorize students' names. In the silence that followed, I had to confess to relying on seating charts, for the moment was just too embarrassing to take. One the ALTs suggested that I could also try to be even more "genki"/sickeningly cheerful. "Sorry," I said, "that's as happy as I get."

Even after the meeting, it took a long time for the nerves to wear off. I felt a little shaky from all the stress, even after it was over. Just plain emotionally tuckered out.

So glad to have that experience behind me. Way, way behind me.

Cheers,

sensei Baer

Feeding Frenzy

Was in Ota today. There was a bit of a wait for my train home, so I did the usual thing and went over to Don Quixote.

Not really intending to buy anything, I meandered until I noticed an anomaly of Japanese behavior taking place right there between the milk and the packaged meat: people were being rude! Cutthroat, even. Pushing and shoving, reaching over and each other, children crying... I stood for a moment with my mouth hanging open. I had to know what this was about. A moment later I heard the authoritative and slightly nasal novice of a store employee announcing a sale, and for the first time I noticed a pair of "STAFF ONLY" doors just as they swung open. The crowd descended on him so swiftly, I never saw what it was he had. Whatever it was, he barely had time to drop it (actually, I think people were grabbing the items right out of his hands) before the crowd forced him backward. As he stumbled back behind the doors, I noticed a look on his face somewhere between amusement and fear. They were ravenous!

I finally saw what it was they were selling: cartons of fried snack-food! I finally understood: It was a feeding frenzy! This revelation was actually more bewildering than anything. Why would you kill yourself over a 50 yen discount on junk food?

The doors swung open again, and I watched carefully to see what the prize was: cartons of cold coffee. This employee was made of stronger stuff and held out as people rushed him. He held a sale sign above his head and called out the price in a loud voice, which seemed so unnecessary as to be comical; it was not as though anything would be left in the next 10 seconds. Nobody was in need of persuasion. People were grabbing 2-4 cartons of the stuff, tucking it under their arms protectively and hunching over as they made their escape, like a milkman turned quarterback. Looking around to another pair of opening STAFF doors, I saw a woman throwing bags of chips over her shoulder, one after another, into a cart directly behind her, clearly a seasoned professional.

After everything was gone, a few people escaped with their prizes of crap food, but the rest remained where they were. They stood posed, right in front of the doors, ready to jump the next person who walked through them. Some of the ladies were pressed right up against the doors, peaking through any available crevice. It was so ridiculously mercenary, I had to take a photo:

Stalking.

Sales are serious business.

Cheers,

full-price Baer

Chef Savant

During the summer time, it is nearly impossible to escape the fact that I do indeed live in an inaka, countryside, area. The bugs double to the size of mice, the rice fields grow thick and plentiful, and the vegetable gardens on every block are in full bloom. Periodically over the summer, one or two of the school staff would bring in bags vegetables grown in their own garden, primarily potatoes, cucumbers, [the occasional] baby tomatoes, and eggplants. They'd set them up in a little blue box on the table in the back of the teachers' room and leave an empty tin can so the teachers could buy a bag for 100 yen. I almost always buy something.

However, recently, perhaps because they might have come from the school garden, the bags of vegetables have been free. I snatched one immediately when I saw this, and by the end of the day, all the bags were gone. A single bag of eggplants is enough for a week of snacking for me, so the next day, when another free bag was pressed on me, I suddenly found myself with two bags of quickly expiring vegetables.

As my thoughts are want to do when looking for solutions, I thought of Yuki. It would be easy enough to simply give her the extra bag of vegetables, as I usually did. However, I wanted to do something a little more special. Every once and I while she would invite me in for a drink that would turn into dinner. This time I wanted to return the favor and cook for her, as I have a couple of times in the past.

That evening I sent her a text message warning her not to eat, and started cooking. I had gathered some culinary advice

from my teachers on what to cook and took that advice with me to the farmer's market where I bought the rest of my vegetables. I was going to endeavor to make a Japanese style dinner. First I made a sort of stir fry, with small brown mushrooms they are so fond of, as well as tofu, green onion, and, of course, eggplant, with plenty of soy sauce and mirin. Then I peeled the rest of the eggplant, chopped them up with some carrots, chives, and more green onions, and made miso soup. For Yuki, I made sure to also make a bowl of rice for, as I have so often been reminded, no Japanese person can stand to eat any meal without bread or rice. To complete the feast, I made some banana bread, although the only thing Japanese about it was that it was molded in the shape of Rilakkuma.

By the time I was hurriedly shoveling rice into a bowl, Yuki had already arrived. I arranged everything out on the table with chopsticks and even some chopstick rests I had found buried in my kitchen cabinet. She endured with good humor my usual requirement of pre-dinner pictures:

The meal was an unqualified success. Yuki expressed much pleasure and surprise at how well I had prepared an authentic Japanese meal. I blushed and preened and lent my success mostly to the good advice of my teachers and the magic that is soy sauce and mirin. Although it is the Japanese custom (and just general good manners) to call any gift of food "delicious," she seemed quite sincere, if evident only because of her surprise.

Of course after all this praise, I gave her most of the left-overs to take home for Masa, so he could enjoy it too. However, this had less to do with altruism than my desire to spread the news of my culinary success... so that maybe they would remember it next time I failed horribly.

Cheers,

chef Baer

A Sad Day for Gunma

It's a sad day for Gunma day. Or actually, Friday is, but for me, it's today. Kingsley is going home to Nigeria. It's quite sudden, but his mother is really sick and his family needs him. He said he may come back to Japan, but when and if he does, he has no desire to return to Gunma (but maybe Tokyo).

I'm so sad. Of course I feel badly for him and his family. I wish him hope and luck with his mother... but I am sad myself to lose him. He has been a really good friend to me over the last year, really kind and always ridiculously generous. Most of all though is that we understand each other, you know? There's no BS. We can laugh together, bitch about our jobs together, work together, play together, and it's just... easy to get along. Natural. I think that is pretty rare. Especially for me, I have trouble connecting with people. So. He will be missed.

However!

I did tell him, if they stick me with all his classes at the elementary, I WILL hunt him down and kill him.

...

And that's all I have to say about that.

No 'Cheers' tonight.

Baer