Sanpo

For the first time since the ruthless, cold hurricane of winter came to my small bit of nowhere, I went out for a sanpo. I say 'stroll', but of course I was on my bike. If one can stroll on a bike, then that's surely what I did. The air was cool but mercifully still. The sun was already half way to twilight, the sky feeling more blue than usual. It felt like I crime to stay inside.

I made up my mind to go over to the shrine I'd found ages ago. It's not really a destination, just an idea; one that is pleasant enough to get me out and moving. After so many weeks of huddling inside my jacket, bearing against the wind with only thought for destinations, I was happy to at last be free to wander.

I saw many people walking their dogs. I thought I saw a man with two dogs. As I came closer, I realized that while the two animals were of nearly the same size, the larger of the two was not on a leash, and in fact was not a dog at all, but a large cat. I was shocked and so was the dog, who got scared away by the large feline. I looked up and met eyes with the dog's owner, and we shared a look of amusement. A perfect moment of nonverbal connection.

Only a few blocks from home, I continue my meandering bike-stroll with a smile tucked in the corner of my mouth. Some days are meant to be.

Cheers,

blissful Baer

きりつ! [key-ree-ts]

Every once and a while at work, after classes and cleaning are finished for the day and the students have been ushered off to their club activities, all of the teachers will gather in the teacher's room for a meeting. These meetings are very long and very dull, covering every possible aspect of students and school life, including students behavior, injuries, and activities. I never pay any attention during these meetings since it's all quite over my head. Usually I sneak out about half way through to go home for the day.

I'm not the only one who finds them dull though; quite often I see teachers fighting the battle to stay vertical as they continually drift to sleep.

Today's meeting, however, took a rather interesting turn. The main topic for discussion was "aisatsu", the greetings that take place before every class begins. Greetings always go as follows: the "student of the day" tells everyone to stand up and then he or she looks around to make sure everyone is standing, facing forward, and silent. Once everyone is standing, they say "Attention!" (きりつ！) and finally "Bow". Everyone bows together and says "onegaishimasu", as in "yoroshiku onegaishimasu". Personally I think this is one of the most difficult phrases to translate in Japanese, but I think, in this particular situation, it is essentially, "thank you for teaching us". After bowing, the students must remain standing until the teacher tells them to sit down.

The sheer formality of such a greeting before the start of every single class, even in elementary school, has always amused me. It seems very bizarre and unnecessary to me, though I am fascinated by innate Japanese-ness of it. The teachers obviously take it very seriously, as evident by the extensive discussion they had today.

I was shocked into attention of this discourse by the sudden, recognizable call to "stand up!", nearly leaping to my feet myself. Instead, I looked up to see a few of the teachers, the principal, and the vice-principal acting as students in an impromptu role-play. They went through a round of greetings, and one of the teachers took on the role of a belligerent student. She alternated between refusing to give a full bow and refusing to say "onegaishimasu" as she bowed. The model teacher gave a model reprimand the the "class" continued to go through greetings until she "behaved".

Those of us that weren't participating were enjoying the little play. During the second round of greetings, after being given the command to stand, the vice-principal was a little slow on picking up the fact that they were still role-playing, and the model teacher, true to his role, was quick to respond, "Vice Principal, please stand up more quickly!" He blushed, and everyone laughed.

Afterwards, the teachers discussed the role-play, including exactly how quickly a person should bow, how deep a bow should be, and whether or not they were allowed to sit down afterward. It was a rather fascinating display, from my point of view. I felt like an anthropologist. I asked my teacher why they were discussing this. She seemed almost offended that I even had to ask, "It's part of student discipline. They aren't being polite enough!"

It's junior high school. Go figure.

Cheers,

anthropologist Baer

-Update- New Posts!

Hello, my eager readers.

A short post to let you know I've updated with a few new backdated entries.

Please refer to the right-hand links under "Blog Archive".

New entries for 2010!

April - Accidental Acquaintances

September - Chef Savant

August - X Japan Yokohama

November - Punk Kaya

December - Questionable Medicine

Enjoy!

belated Baer

Miyavi! You did it!!

Amazing.

A-MAZE-ING!

AMAZING.

AMAZING!

...

Did I mention amazing? No?

AMAZING!!!!!

Remember my post last September about how, at his concert, I asked Miyavi to do a fanclub trip inside Japan before July? How he suggested an onsen trip and said he'd try?

He did it!! He's really making it happen! In April~!

I can't even think of anything coherent to write.

Amid the chaos of his world tour, he came through for me...

Wow! I am so impressed, and happy, and gleeful, and thankful, and... really impressed.

How can I not love such a man?

Amazing.

382(!!!!!!)* BAER!

P.S. On top of this, I found in the mail today that I won a Miyavi contest! Free poster and DVD! Whoohoo!!

Footnote:

*Some people were wondering why I always sign my Miyavi posts with "382". In Japanese, this can be read as mi-ya-bi(vi). He has it tattooed on his fingers and often uses it to refer to himself. Mystery solved!

Not-So-Happy Bag

The New Year arrives in Japan, and with it... bunnies!

...no, I'm just kidding.

The highly advertised mascot of 2011 may be a rabbit, but sales are the real god in January.

In my opinion, sales in Japan usually leave a lot to be desired. Despite investing in enough banners and poster to make me think a place is going out of business, I usually find that the one lonely little rack marked 50-10% OFF (yes, they write it backwards, isn't that sneaky?) MAY have, at one point, had a single item that was 50% off, but all the remaining items are heavy on the 10% side. Now I have a tendency to look at sale racks like the last inch of milk at the bottom of the carton.

However, come the end of December and the beginning of January, along with a few other times of year centered around the end of a season, stores in Japan have "Lucky Bag" or "Happy Bag" sales. They cram a variety of unsold items into an opaque shopping bag, tape it closed, and sell it for a discounted price. You have no idea what you'll get... but it's on sale!

Seems kind of crazy, right? Who would pay any amount of money, let alone $60 to $160 for a glorified crapshoot? Well, the answer is, a lot of people. More specifically,

Me.

and Chingyi, of course, my partner in consumer-insanity.

Although initially overcome with uncertainty, we finally settled on buying matching bags at Arrow, a store we both love in the local AEON mall. We decided that for our one and only "happy bag" indulgence, we would go all out and get large size bags. While neither of us set our expectations too high for the results of this experience, neither could we quite contain our excitement at the prospect of our own little mystery adventure, for which we had the privilege of paying $120 each.

After putting in our orders at the end of December, we returned yesterday to pick up our "Happy Bags". On the way to the mall, I noticed others that had also indulged in the yearly consumer tradition, primarily one girl who had a very large Hello Kitty shopping bag hanging from her shoulder. Inside the mall, many of the stores had signs advertising "Happy Bag" sales and pick-ups. We raced to Arrow with matching excitement and trepidation.

The bag itself was a nice satin zip-up affair, big and hefty, which we wore proudly on our shoulders. We immediately went to the food court to settle in for dinner and our own Christmas in January. One by one we took turns blindly taking one item at a time out of our respective bags, until the bags were empty.

The result? As sad as it was predictable:

A spectacular failure!!!

Almost musingly so. Almost, if so much (albeit misguided) anticipation hadn't been wrapped up in it. Still, it was hard not to find amusement in the extreme level of failure. Each item carefully unwrapped was like a Christmas present from a distant aunt - an embroidered-cat-pillows kind of aunt - and all you can do is smile ruefully and shake your head, oohing and ahhing over the smallest details in dictionary-style depiction of "make the best of it". When we were finished and still peering into the bottom of our bags hopefully, the bag itself became a sort of consolation prize. Seventy-two inches of nylon gold.

Two points to Chingyi and Lindsay. Just a couple o' girls with bags full of cat pillow.

Cheers,

consumed-consumer Baer

Ms.Stump Star

This year, Christmas at the JHS was pretty low-key (though I suppose it probably always is), and my Christmas lesson turned out to be a bit of flop. However, at the elementary school, we had lots of fun.

My new supporter, Akemi's replacement, is a very nice young woman named Rie. Her English is almost perfect, as she went to college in Hawaii. She is a very motivated individual. The ALT who handles the 1st, 2nd, and 5th grade classes dumped the planning of his Christmas lesson completely on her... and she did such a great job I stole most of her lesson for my own 3rd, 4th, and 6th grade classes. To her credit, she actually did work in an English school previously, so she already has the experience. Honestly, she makes me feel quite unnecessary...

Rie really went all out for the lesson. She arranged for the use of hula hoops and made big pieces of fake candy for the "Keyword Game", illustrated a Christmas story, obtained permission to hang balloons from the ceiling to create a "party" atmosphere, somehow convinced all the teachers to chip in for ~32 Santa hats, as well as convincing the homeroom teachers to dress up as Santa (to hand out the hats). I feel like that is more communication than I have accomplished in over a year.

Although months ago we were finally, at Akemi's

urging, given leave to convert a free classroom into an "English Room", this month we were told we could move to the recently refurbished section of the school. Everything is shiny and new, the wood is bright, clean, and un-warped, the walls are freshly painted, the shelves unlittered... it is very refreshing! I don't even mind having to move all of the decorations!

After we had bi-lingual Christmas story time, we took some questions from the students, most of which I could not answer, but did my best: Is Santa real today? (Of course!) Why does he wear red? (So you can see him coming) Why does he/do we wear [Santa] hats? (Because it's cold) Where is Santa from? (OH! I know that one! Turkey)

They also wanted to know what we usually get in our stockings. I told them "toys, money, and an orange". They all went "eeeehhhhh??" and asked why an orange (notice no one protest to free toys and money!), and though I have no idea why "Santa" always gives my brother and I oranges, I told them sternly, "Santa wants you to be healthy!". Everyone, I might add, found this hilarious.

After we finally finished with the last Christmas lesson, I moved all the decorations to create a "Christmas Corner". One of students had made tiny little cut-outs of crayon-colored trees, so I decided to incorporate these into my Corner. As I was moving them, I noticed that some of the trees were yellow.

Me: "Rie, why are these trees yellow?"

Rie: "Trees? I think those are stars."

Me: "Stars? ... but they have stumps."

Tie: "... it's a stump star."

Maybe it was because she was totally serious when she said it, but I thought this was so hilarious, I nearly fell off the cabinet I standing on. It still makes me laugh near to tears. Rie was equally affected and all one of us had to do was mutter "stump star" before we both erupted again in laughter as we were cleaning.

Today when Rie dropped off her Christmas present to me, she managed to incorporate all our little jokes; inside I found two oranges, a card with a drawing of an orange that said "Santa wants you to be healthy"...and the card was signed, "Ms. Stump Star".

Merry Christmas,

stump star Baer

Questionable Medicine

Ah, another Christmas in Japan.

I'm posting about this later rather than at the time it happened, because I didn't want anyone else to worry about me.
My track record for Japanese Christmas is pretty terrible. Last Xmas I was sick on Xmas day and several days after. Although it is not technically Xmas yet, it is close enough to say that this year was worse; I was sick for the last two week with some unidentifiable, unfamiliar, unyielding abdominal pain, ended up going to 3 doctors and wondering if I was going to have to fly home to the States.

None of the doctors did me a whit of good, and I ended up healing (whatever it was that needed healing...) on my own, so I think I'm OK now... However, it was certainly an interesting look into the medical profession in Japan. The first doctor I went to, they wanted to take an x-ray of my abdomen. I walked into the x-ray room, and they had these picture posters on the wall demonstrating how to pose for various x-rays; the woman used in the photos was a stunner... from 1940. I eyed the equipment a little more critically after that, my confidence not exactly full to bursting.

When we went to speak to the doctor, he pointed at some white lines on the film and asked me if I'd ever had surgery. It took me a moment (as I was surprised you could see such a thing on an x-ray) but I told him I had an appendectomy in kindergarden (talk about abdominal pain!). He was really fascinated by this for some reason and asked if he could see my scars. I showed him the three small scars I have from the endoscopic surgery scattered over my stomach, hardly visible anymore, and he got REALLY animated. From what I understood, he said that they (STILL!!) don't use endoscopy in Japan; just cut a big ol' hole in the person and take it out the old fashion way. Eck! And mine was done almost 20 years ago!! Really scary. Note to self: do not stay in Japan for major medical procedures.

While I was still looking for doctors to visit in Tokyo, with the hope of finding someone who spoke English, my father sent me some links on medical information. I was really shocked to find out that in Japan, once you have your medical license, you are set to practice medicine FOR LIFE, without any monitoring, continuing education, or re-licensing necessary. The example was that a doctor could decide to stop practicing medicine and then, 20 or 30 years later, pick it up again and open a clinic without ever having to do a thing to brush up on his (or her, though you wont find many female doctors in practice) skills. In addition to that horrifying thought, doctors can advertise themselves as "specialists" of any field of medicine without any particular qualification; quite literally, all they need to do a print of business card! I couldn't believe it... Of course, in Tokyo there are plenty of very qualified doctors in hospitals who ARE certified specialists, so it is important to do your homework and go to the right hospital. As usual, the answer is: go to Tokyo.

Honestly, it explained a lot for me. In my little town you can find a clinic almost on every street corner, sometimes more than one. Part of that is because Japanese people go to the doctor for absolutely everything, including the common cold. Now I can't help wondering if the other part of it is that opening a practice is an incredibly easy way to lead a profitable semi-retirement for old fogey doctors who don't have to be inconvenience with pesky things like actually being qualified to practice medicine in the 21st century.

Scary.

Cheers,

Baer

Punk Kaya

Went to another Kaya/Kaleidescrope live tonight. His lives are always interesting. For one, you never know which "Kaya" you're going to see. Will it be "boy Kaya" or "girl Kaya"? I have seen him as a boy so seldom, I always secretly hope for it, at least for a few songs (he often changes clothes in the middle of the concert).

However, I absolutely didn't expect what DID happen. The band members came out one-by-one and there was a half-hearted response, fans calling out their names in greeting. When the drummer, bassist, guitarist, and keyboardist were in place, someone else came out, and I was like "who the hell is that?". Much to my surprise, the fangirls next to me started calling out "Kaya!" My eyes about fell out of my head. As a "girl", Kaya wears lolita-style, super elegant, lacy, elaborate dresses with matching hair accessories and usually a rose somewhere on his person. Even when Kaya dresses as a boy, he is very cutsie and sticks to cute clothing, like flowy poet shirts or silly school uniforms... THIS Kaya was one I had never seen before. He was dressed head to toe in Algonquins!! (a Japanese punk brand). He had on a long sleeve tan-ish t-shirt with writing scrawled on it, a really hideous, open, loose black zip hoody with a pho-leopard fur hood and pockets (doesn't sound punk until you see it), SUPER tight red pants complete with studded patches and fashionably shredded holes (thus solving the mystery of wether boy Kaya shaves his legs - NO), and grungy hightop sneakers with the tops folded over to reveal the plaid red inside. The only thing that wasn't awful was his hair, which was slightly red in color, permed, and flipped to one side of his head, where it had been pinned, sprayed, and braided into submission until it hung in nice frizzy curls over the right half of his face. Seeing Kaya dressed like that -in PUNK!- was like...Obama showing up to give a national address in a 1980s bubblegum, puff sleeve prom dress. Let's just take a minute to picture that, shall we?

...

...Anyway, it was still adorable because Kaya made it extremely obvious that he felt no more at home than he looked, wearing such clothes on stage. He kept asking if he looked alright. When his adoring fans told him he looked cool ("かこいいですよ〜！"), he didn't believe them because he kept saying, "Really? Really?" He sighed, "It's so hard being a boy," and we all laughed because, for him, it was so true. He was trying to figure out how to stand and look "manly" with the microphone, and finally just sort of slung his arm over the microphone stand and slumped like a bum, saying "Like this, right?" to the general hilarity of all (apparently the key to being a boy --> look like a slob). For a split second he did his usual girly, twinkle-toes microphone posture, and the contrast was so vast is was painfully funny (I think there were tears in my eyes). Of course, he might have just be fishing for compliments, because one of the fans said, "You're so cute!" and he gave that amazing million-dollar smile of his and said, "I know!" (Ah, there's the Kaya we know and love)

It wasn't until he actually pointed it out and said this was an "Algonquins live" that I noticed the other members were also all wearing the same brand. It looked normal on everyone else!

The performance was different from any other of the lives I went to, with no real soft or particularly jazzy stuff, but he had redone some of his old songs in the Kaleidescope style. Honestly, I wasn't super into the music, but I enjoyed watching the members. I noticed that Kaya never seemed to actually look at anyone in the audience. He looked off to the side, or up at the ceiling, or at a point at the back of the room... But I was standing in the first row, three feet in front of him, and he never once looked at me. It was bizarre. Is he shy? He doesn't usually look at the crowd when he talks either, but usually looks behind him to the other members. I always thought that was really odd. I got a lot of looks from Shingo, the bassist though. He is such a pleasure to watch because he is always smiling and honestly looking like he is enjoying himself.

The members were all pretty cute, personality wise. The leader of the band was clearly the drummer, but he was way awkward too and usually began his talks with a grunt, and [the Japanese equivalent of a] "umm...", "yeah..." or "so..." which was just generally adorable to all, including the other band members who were all too shy to say anything at all (except for Shingo, of course, who revels in the spotlight). There were two guest artists as well, a guitarist who looked about 17, and a keyboardist playing a hand held synthesizer that could have been stolen from A Flock of Seagulls. I don't think anyone there was old enough to have seen one in action before, so everyone was impressed. After they played one song, he admitted it was his first time playing it! Even Kaya seemed shocked.

The whole concert was very laid back and kind of funny. They kept poking fun at each other and having these little discussions between songs that were clearly unrehearsed (or, that they had talked about saying something... but never decided WHAT to say). Considering the minuscule venue and small number of us there, the easy atmosphere made sense; more like two dorms rooms shoved together than Tokyo Dome.

The stage was really tiny and didn't really fit the five members comfortably, yet with the guest artist, they sometimes had up to seven people on stage! Kaya almost smacked straight into the bassist when he turned around (the girl next to me gasped and reached out her arm, as if she could somehow throw herself across the stage to save him). When Kaya went offstage, the other members would take turns standing center stage. Most of them didn't really like the limelight, so Shingo was more than happy to soak it up on their behalf (lol, I adore that man).

It was a strange and unexpected experience. I hope I get to see him and Kaleidoscope play together a few more times before I go home. Since they seem more like a group of friends than a real band, I doubt they will ever make the journey together overseas.

Cheers,

'Addict' Baer

The End

I suppose you are wondering why I haven't posted a blog is over a month. My apologies. However, for a while now I have come to realize that I've lapsed into a sort of "Stage 2", highly critical mentality: suddenly a lot of things just seem "wrong". I recognize this delayed culture shock (from my experience living in Russia) as being a result of staying in Japan for too long an uninterrupted period of time. Quite simply, I need a break.

However, rather than spend time and money giving myself that break, I decided that the time has come to go home. Permanently. I officially declined re-contracting for another year and will be returning home at the end of July 2011.

It's not as rash as it sounds. I've thought about this for months. Technically, I've thought about it since even the moment I first arrived, always testing, asking myself "Am I still OK?" It's not as though the answer to that question has suddenly switch to "No!" It's more of a slow sighing "... yeah, I'm OK..." like a reluctant seven year old that doesn't want to talk about a fight on the playground.

Definitely it's been a wonderful experience that I would highly recommend to anyone who has time and even the smallest inclination. I thought it was particularly wonderful for me because, like many JETs, I got into it immediately following graduation, with no job prospects, significant other, or property (beside a car that my father happily babysits) to tie me down. Real interest in Japan has, of course, also been crucial; without my searing love for Jrock music, my time here would never have been so colorful.

Still, anymore than 2 years and I find myself wondering how exactly I'm going to explain this on my already multifarious resume. Just generally, I feel very nervous and eager to hurry up and move on to the next, more permanent, stage of my life. I have some idea of what I want to do, and I'd like to get started on doing it.

Cheers,

better already Baer