It's back...

Being faced with a few days of office confinement, and having spent the entire day Thursday studying my hypothetical nards off, I am posting a blog. Oh my, desperation? No, not only that. You see, some of my dear friends from all over the damn world are quite difficult to keep in contact with on a regular basis. So, I am making an effort to update more (we'll see how long this lasts) and perhaps provide a clue as to what is happening on the shores of Nippon.

Life isn't necessarily glamorous, but it's fun as hell. My personal contemplations of late are revolving around ways to cut my nutty schedule down. The following runs through my head repeatedly: "I am really busy right now, but if I just make it through till .... (next month, next week, etc.) then I will have more time to relax, see my friends, spend with Josh..."

Perhaps I need to get rid of one of my eikaiwas? I love both of them for different reasons, but as 2kyuu comes creeping up ready to devour me in December (I know it's a LONG time away, but it's a scary test!), I desperately want more time to devote to studying. This inevitably leads to me pondering if I would actually use that time I would have opened up in my schedule to study. Honest evaluation of my slacker psyche mostly sounds like giggling. I have been doing well on my weekly quizzes, but I'm afraid it's solely due to my short-term memorization prowess. The words, you see... they leak out of my brain at night. I think that's what causes the pillows to have those creepy yellow stains on them when you take the pillowcases off to wash. Eeew... dirty kanji.

In happy domestic news, I have been on a cooking experimentation spree. Thus far, J appears to be happy with the majority of the concoctions. Either that, or he is so hungry by the time I finally finish cooking (sorry!) that he'd eat dog poo with relish. This week's crowning glory was a cooperative effort of J's secret red sauce, and my attempts at Italian cooking... calzones! Mmmm... too bad my oven is slow as molasses. Oh man, does that make me southern? I blame you for making that phrase a part of my vernacular, Dad!

Sweet lord... is it time to go home??? FREEDOM, I can taste it!

Join us tomorrow for the WHY DO I HAVE TO WORK ON SATURDAY edition.

What am I supposed to say to that?


























I was teaching my eikaiwa last night and the following two statements were made.

"I don't want Obama to become president, because I am afraid the Ku Klux Klan will murder him." (On that note, am I the only one who has noticed the striking resemblance between Obama and Malcolm X?)

I blame FOX News.

and

"The Chinese do not rinse their dishes, they wash them with dish soap and leave the bubbles on."

Ok. So, a few things can be assumed from these statements. First, a lot of Japanese folks believe nearly ALL of what is written in their papers, or put on the evening news. Second, unless they have traveled, or happen to be particularly awesome, quite a few people don't have any concept of what life is like outside of their own country. This holds true for Americans as well, and probably just about any other ethnocentric person chilling in their homeland with blinders on and a dislike for BBC news. I mean absolutely no offense, I just call them like I see them.

Let's dissect the first statement, shall we? We were discussing politics, which is always an interesting, as well as a volatile topic. I stated my approval of Obama, and my distaste for Hilary's methods. In swoops the aforementioned comment, followed quickly with "justification". This is not directly quoted, but the best translation I could muster. "In America, there was a school where some white students killed a black student for sitting under a tree that only white students were allowed to sit under."

I have seen stories of the Jena 6 in the news, but purposely stuck my head in a hole and tried to hide from the story, which CNN seemed to be hyping far too much. This is my excuse for not knowing the details enough to say her whole condensed explanation was assbackwards. Seems, my student had somehow concocted a very different story, making the white students into murders as well as racists. I am not in any way denying the fact that racism still exists in America, but it's not like I am gonna get threatened for marrying a black man these days.

I tried to explain how the KKK and other groups are looked down upon severely, and only exist in small pockets of the US still. Also, that the US is not really as simple and stark as it is portrayed in film and television. They went on to compare the KKK to the Yakuza. The Yakuza has over 84,000 estimated members, however, while the KKK has more like 8,000. I tried to explain that a national crime syndicate isn't really comparable to a racist hate group. Who knows if I made a dent in that mentality, though?



Now, about the bubbles. My initial reaction was to laugh. Many of my friends and co-workers are anti-China in subtle ways. Slagging on them now and again. Here are a few choice quotes:

"Chinese food is dangerous! Did you hear about the 500 Japanese getting sick from gyoza?"
(more like 10, but whatever)
"The Chinese are too proud."
"The Chinese government kicked people out of their homes to build new stadiums for the Olympics, and those displaced were given no money."
Do you want to go to China?
"I want to see all the famous sites..." (but not dealing with the native population was heavily implied)

I can't seem to find anything online about the soap speculation. If anyone knows where that particular gem came from, please help me shed some light on it!

after the storm



Its been a hellacious past few days here in Takaoka. The weather has been insane and spiteful. The moment you walk outside, the downpour begins. You are teased out again by the sunlight piercing your curtains, just to see the dark clouds looming in the north, ready to descend. But this sunset makes it all worthwhile.


In other news, I had to buy a new electronic dictionary last month. Should have gotten the Canon wordtank in the first place. The thing is a frigin dream. So, I had to unload my other jisho I bought last year for discount prices. I still spent a decent chunk of change on it, but didn't feel right charging anyone for it, cause it was just sitting around my apt. gathering dust. So, one of my eikaiwa students has a son who is studying English, and needed a dictionary. I brought it in, and gave it to her. She was in shock, and didn't want to accept it, but I made her. This evening, she picked me up for class, and surprised me with a gift from Kyoto (where she went last weekend). Its a beautiful green silk embroidered shawl, and a picture frame. Completely unexpected, and really sweet! Thanx Shoko!

A new rating scale


We decided today that the awesomeness of a house/apt will from henceforth be judged by the number of didgeridoos present. Today's total was 5, 4 of which were handmade. where you can get your very own!!

My Tokyo eikaiwa folks invited me to a flowing somen party. A what? A flowing somen party is basically built around the idea of creating the most nonsensical way to serve food to your guests.

It involves constructing a 10-12 food long slide out of halved bamboo stalks, and putting a hose at the top. You have a catch-all at the end of the slide (the one today was a bucket with two river fish swimming around in it, topped with oven cooling racks), and a somen master at the top. People line up with chopsticks in hand to catch the somen as it flows down the chute in the cold water. You then dip the captured somen into your sauce bowl and slurp away. There is a lot of missed noodles, laughter, photos, and of course LOUD slurpy noises.


On top of the somen, there was smoked river fish, smoked eggs, smoked cheese, sesame balls, edamame, potatoes, mountain vegetables, cactus sashimi, chocolate cake, pumpkin cake, and mass quantities of beer and tea. It was a feast, and the company was better than I could have ever hoped for.

The host family, the Okadas, live in Tonami, in an old-fashioned Japanese farmhouse. The father is a craftsman/artist who has two Harley Davidsons, and makes things out of wood above his garage in his spare time. The wife is a sweet beer drinking woman, who is incredibly humble about her cooking. Their son made his appearance after lunch... Dreadlocks, Rasta t-shirt, and didgeridoo in hand. We sat in the living room playing his massive purple and green didge, and two of his father's handmade wooden ones for about an hour or so. He busted out the bongo and a mouth-harp as well, while I jammed on guitar for a bit. Their daughter has recently passed away, but they display her psychadelic paintings all over the house, and proudly show the pictures of her traveling in India.

Put all this together with wacky obaachans who continuously hug and giggle and you have a nearly perfect day. I was sent home with a tissue holder (fabric pocket to hold tissues) that one of the obaachans made for me out of gorgeous brown kimono silk, and a bungload of smoked eggs and pumpkin cake! Omiyage! They have these parties once a month or so, and I was invited to next month's, where one of my new grandmas is going to perform tea ceremony, and we will probably help harvest some rice.