2008 Check-in



Life is busy, but I am gonna bust out a few things today. Sannensei kiddies don't have to come to school anymore, because they are "preparing for college" or working at the local conbini already, based upon their level of pineappularism. So, I am left with only my ichis, which is great, except I only have 6 classes a week! Note, I am not complaining. This actually gives me time to catch up on my Japanese studies, which my sensei is about ready to beat my skull in about.

Yeah, I should be studying now, shush. Everyone deserves a little procrastination time.

Let's see what I can pull out of my magical blogging hat. Ahh... lists. I do so love them. To begin, things I need to do still in Japan. *the koala yummies I just ate are making my tummy feel weird.

Things I still need to do in Japan

1. see the snow monkeys in Nagano.

2. Hiroshima and Miyajima

3. Yakushima

4. get better at Japanese, damnit

5. dive in Okinawa

6. northern Honshu roadtrip

7. Ise

8. Nikko

9. eat fugu (blowfish)

10. go surfing on the east coast

11. ??? suggestions?

From the previous suggestions I have had, I have managed to get my picture taken with the Prime Minister (his poster at least!)



have been on Japanese TV not once but twice, and have won an award for something stupid (most likely to get naked). I am definitely up for more exciting suggestions, since my list looks more like a "places I still need to go" list.

The past month has been a blur of snowboarding, making up filler lessons on the fly, speaking garbled Japanese, and sento tattoo secret maneuvers. I went to Thailand and Malaysia over the holidays. Thailand was to see J, and to do some more diving. I will get a post up here next with photos from the dive. I think I have one on hand...



Yup, clownfish. These did NOT bite my finger. I still haven't forgiven Sydney for that. I did, however, injure myself, because really, it's not a true vacation if I don't vom and least once, and damage myself somehow. This was caused by my slow sealegs on our first day off of Aonang.



I couldn't have chosen a more aethetically located toe to break! Look at that purple. Please beware, for those of you wishing to emulate my awesomitude, dive fins hurt quite badly when you are powering them with a mangled foot. I did get to see leopard sharks, though, so it was a million times worthwhile. I also became an... ahem Advanced Open Water Diver.

This is right before I vommed, on beautiful Koh something something (Bunny!?) near Railay. I think that yoghurt at breakfast was of the bad variety.



Even better than that (the diving, not the being ill), I got to see J after another long 4 month gap and we headed to Kachanaburi for a few days of nature, stairs, waterfalls, baby elephants, history, peace, and more stairs. I will provide photographic documentation of these events soon.

Rachel and I also spent a few days in Malaysia learning about chocolate, defending our beds against cockroach invasion in Howl's Malay Moving Castle, chasing whales, jumping off of things that hurt my ass, and being overwhelmed by sea turtles. I will post separately about this, for it merits it's own entry. Think that is enough of a teaser to make you come back?

(rocking out to Eve6 right now... what a throwback to high school!)

Also, I think I am gonna get around to posting all my scar photos on a separate page in the next week or so. If I can find the time and the patience to do so. To the text books...

Maybe I should show them Free Willy...




Every week, I teach two eikaiwa. One is with 5 lovely ladies, all married, all moms, all local for at least the past 20 years. We mostly chat about their lives, their kids, my life, and where Tomoko is going golfing next. The other is 3 ladies and a gentleman (who I might add, is very LOUD during yoga), where we talk about sake, local goings on, and world issues.

Last night, Kiyoto-san (the male version) and I were conversing before the ladies arrived. He looks at me meaningfully and says, "What do you think about 鯨 (whales)?" I told him that I suppose I quite like whales. They are intelligent and graceful, and I used to study marine biology, blah blah. He pushed again, and I realized he wanted to know if I liked whale meat. Living in Japan, one becomes accustomed to interpreting questions such as these. It's not, "Do you think octopus are endearing?" It's "Do you think octopus are delicious?" This goes for an array of animals. I sometimes like to imagine a Japanese child watching the little mermaid. Particularly the scene where Sebastian the crab is singing about all the ocean animals playing various instruments. Is the child pondering over woodwinds in an underwater environment, amazed at the bright colors, or thinking mmm, everything looks tasty! I am not trying to be racist here. My childhood was spent in the midwest, where cow, pork, chicken, and Mrs. Paul's fish sticks were what I was accustomed to. Fish just wasn't much of an option, and let's face it, when a child is not raised on a particular food, it takes a while to develop a taste for it. Palates are strange things.

It might also be the Japanese lack of disguising their food, at least in sushi restaurants. There is no question what you are eating. Hell several kinds come out with their heads still on. Kids in kaiten restaurants reach over the conveyor belt, touching things as they go by. I am starting to wonder if they think it will start moving again.



Anyways, back to whale. Kiyoto-san enlightened me quite a bit, so I thought I would share. He is a good source of typical Nihonjin experience and knowledge, and also has a great sense of humor to deliver it. He said, when he was a little boy, whale meat was all the rage. Japan was a very poor country when he was young, because of the economic downfall after the war. Whale was easy to come by and a single whale could feed many people. Whale meat was also the only red meat that Japan had at the time, because cows were so rare, that beef was exorbitantly expensive. Whale steaks, whale on a stick, whale everywhere. He said, he quite enjoyed whale meat as a child because it was different. The rest of the time it was fish, rice, and vegetables, so whale was special. I asked him what he thought of whale now, and he said "Japan does not hunt whale because the world says it is bad." Umm... yeah they do, they say it's for science. "Oh, we must kill whales for science, but we do not eat them." Umm... whale is served in middle-school lunches at least once a month right here in Toyama. "No it is not." Yes, it is. My friends have eaten it. It is in the store. "No, we do not eat whale."

I knew this wasn't going to go down well, but I told him the truth of the whale still being eaten in Toyama and around Japan. I also gentley volleyed the original question back to him. What do you think about whale? "Oh, I do not eat whale now. Only when I was a child. Now, I like pork and beef." I asked why he doesn't eat whale anymore, since he used to like it quite a bit in his youth. His only answer, "Japan is not a poor nation." So, I am assuming from this, that eating whale meat has a psychological connection to the economic hardships in Japan's past, and that is part of why it has fallen to the wayside. I am sure international pressure has done it's fair share as well.

We moved on to the subject of whaling for "research". No one knew the details of the research (the ladies had joined us by this point), but said that the whale meat in Japan came from the whales who had been "researched on"(this was a switch from "we do not eat whales"). They defended themselves by saying that the Japanese use all parts of the whale, unlike the Americans who killed all the buffalo *low blow, I might add.



Ahh.. the buffalo attack. I was expecting this all along. Just to clarify, I had not been rude, accusatory, or snarky for the entire previous convo because I like these folks, and we learn a lot from each other. Sometimes it takes a while to break through cultural ways of thinking to the truth, on both our parts. We debated endangered animals, for a bit, and I swallowed the US guilt of whaling in the past, only using the animals for oil, killing the buffalos, I took it all in stride. Face it, our history is pretty bloody and shitty. I am a vegetarian, though, so I don't worry too much about the association (hell, later he asked me how I survive eating only salads all day every day). I think Kiyoto-san was just trying to unburden himself from pressure that I didn't mean to put on him. Let's call it whale guilt.

I was disturbed by the idea of feeding middle schoolers on "researched" whale meat to save a few bucks. We all were. So, our final question was:
Why does the Japanese governmet insist on whaling still, if the majority of the Japanese populous don't really care for whale meat at all?

Mysterious. Here's more info if you are interested in the political hub-bub.

why whale?

greenpeace vs. sea shepherd

Note: Sea Shepherd has damaged their name to the point in Japan, that after choosing them as recipient of our international charity show funds this year, we were chastised by the Japanese sponsors and asked to change charities.