Life of Why

Combing through my notebook, I stumbled on a piece that I wrote about interviewing at Nichibei English Service, back in my days working as a part-time sofa cover. I present it now as a look back at what a noob I was those many months ago. Let's enjoy, won't us?

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I continue to sweat through my only suit as I turn in my chair to stare out the floor-to-ceiling window that looms 26 stories above Osaka's Kita Ward. The city is usually described to Westerners as ugly, industrial, metallic, boring -- at best, these epithets are followed by a "but" and something uninspired about history or culture. I wonder: am I the only hakujin in this vast office building packed to the gills with salarymen, kimono-clad old women, jewelry stored, coffee shops? How many gaijin are there in the hundreds of squatting concrete monstrosities in my line of sight? How many of them are unemployed, too?

I turn back to face the tiny classroom I've been waiting in for nearly an hour. The whole room is done up in a monochromatic rainbow, but the effect is less Men in Black and more modernistic community college: gray carpet, gray plastic desks, whiteboard, white acoustical tile, eggshell wallpaper, black-and-white photocopied fliers stapled to gray felt message boards. The room seems set up for two dozen students, but conditions are cramped; I had to shove one of the desks forward to accommodate my modest gut, crushing the row of chairs in front of me as I did so. At 5'10, I am clearly uncomfortably big for this room.

Staring up at me from the cramped table (my legs press uncomfortably against its black metal underbelly) is my application for Nichibei English Services that I was given by the secretary who showed me in when I arrived at 1:10, a full 20 minutes before my interview was scheduled. In my ignorance, I had politely introduced myself to her and offered her a copy of my resume, grinning like a fiend to seem as genki as possible. Now, 40 minutes after my interview was due to begin, I can't stop my mind from lingering over the bursts of feminine laughter that periodically echo in under the door.

"No, no, he seriously said 'Good morning, I am English teacher, appointment interview have!"

"Ha ha, really?"

"Yes! And he wouldn't stop smiling for some reason! I think he thought I was in charge!"

"Tell us again about how sweaty his suit was!"

I sigh deeply, in the process blowing a few drops of sweat onto the application. The hideous cyclopean blank under the final unanswered question glares up at me: "Why did you come to Japan?"

I glance at the clock. 2:15.

It seemed a fair question, on the surface. No teaching certification, no work visa, little knowledge of Japanese (say, on par with David Sedaris's French), two degrees in an unusably academic discipline...why the hell did I come to Japan?

I had certainly been asked this question, this accursed, stinking, raging motherfucker of a question before: by parents, by friends, by teachers, by all the acquaintances and random strangers my mother had told for some reason. Usually I was able to pass off a joke or a bullshit answer, something ranging from "Why not?" to "I've always had a fascination with the elegance and and complexity of Japanese culture" to "Well, I like the food, ha ha!", each of which contains some kernel of truth, but is still beautifully meaningless.

Still, there always seemed to be something suspicious or evilly prying about the question (feelings only intensified when seeing it in print on a job application). I mean, hey, why the hell do you do what you do? Huh? Why do your work your job? To pay the bills, right? TO advance your career? To try to eke out a little happiness in this thoroughly fucked-up world? Boredom, maybe? Fuck you!

Then again, I had been asked the big "why" question during my interview at Pizza Hut the summer before flying to Osaka...maybe Nichibei English Service just wants a bullshit answer, too. Maybe they'll be as relieved as the Pizza Hut RM was to hear something stupid like, "Well, I've always loved eating here, ha ha!"

2:25. I keep spotting a silhouette through the narrow papered-over window in the door. Eyes glazing over, sweat painting my brand-new Hanes undershirt yellow, I can swear that someone is checking to see if I'm finished yet. The door stays closed.

OK, then, why the hell did I come to Japan? Other than "the food" and similar hoo-ha, there are two real reasons, neither of which would be interesting or even acceptable to a prospective employer.

The first reason is simple, or at least comprehensible: love. My wife and I had discussed coming to Japan for years. We gleefully filled out one application form after another for the JET Program, a Japanese governmental program that imports hundreds of smelly foreign barbarians every year -- most of them fresh out of college, with zero teaching experience or Japanese ability -- to serve as Assistant Language Teachers in public schools. Essays written, letters of recommendation forwarded, we passed our final year at Truman State University cheerfully planning our futures. JET Program to Peace Corps to MATESOL, maybe? Or JET to Fulbright to PhD?

(...Oh god, it just hit me. Truman State University? Could I have picked as worse alma mater for finding a job in Japan? I strongly consider doctoring my photocopied diplomas to something less offensive, like, say, "Al Gore State University.")

The sympathy poured in from all corners, most of all my own. "Gee, I was sure you'd be a lock!" "Oh, I'm so sorry to hear it!" "How is it that you didn't get in, even with your teaching experience and Japanese?" Like, I know. I immolated myself in self-pity for hours before bothering to congratulate Jenn, behavior for which I'm still extremely ashamed. We were married two months later, and we dropped our visa applications in the mail a week after that. I am legally a "spouse," as far as the Japanese government is concerned.

2:31. Still haven't been escorted out of the building and exposed as a fraud. The "food" answer grows ever more tempting.

I begin: "I came to Japan because"

No college-boy tricks here. No double-spacing or margin-fudging. No typographical acrobatics, no obfuscation or unfounded generalizations or meaningless jargon -- you're not in Kansas anymore.

The second reason I came to Japan, and really, the lesser of the two, was a very provable if idle interest in the country. At 9 years old, I took an after-school course that taught me to count to 99 and to appreciate mochi. At 18, I tried my damnedest to like anime. At 19, I cultivated a short-lived interest in Japanese folk tales. Hell, I took six Japanese language courses and one culture course. Can't they just read my resume instead of having me fill out this ridiculous form?

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Anticlimactic, I know, but as it happens, I never finished this piece. Now, a year and a half later, I find myself almost totally unable to recreate that mindset. I can enter strange restaurants without fear. I've applied for dozens more jobs and I've been working for 14 months. I've moved and opened two bank accounts. I have Japanese friends. All I can offer to finish this story, for now at least, is resolve the two big questions:

1. While I can't remember exactly what answer I finally gave, it was something uninspired that might as well have been copied from the first paragraph of a travel guide to Japan, something about a synthesis of traditional culture and progress. Pffffft.

2. I got the job. Go figure.

Happy New Year and all that. Here's to another year of confusion, be it awkward, joyous, drunken, or all three!

The Other Land Where Palm Trees Sway

Merry Christmas, everyone! HIT IT.

Christmas Comes to Osaka

This is what I did last night (click to play, double-click to make it bigger):



Please ignore the out-of-tune cello playing. We'll be Stateside from December 17th, so if you're around the KC or StL areas for the next few weeks, give us a shout! Oh, and Merry Christmas.

Happy Chaka Khan!

Happy Hanukkah, everyone! I trust your Hanukkah season has been going well, full of plenty of festivity, all the traditional Hanukkah songs and decorating and parties and TV specials? How was your Hanukkah shopping? Boy, the malls sure get crowded with shoppers looking for last-minute Hanukkah gifts around now, huh?

In an effort to bring multiculturalism and novel international experiences to the children of Osaka (instead of my usual grin-and-wait-out-the-clock strategy), last Wednesday I planned and executed a Hanukkah lesson plan for Free School, our two-hour after-school program for first through fourth graders. And when it comes to fostering multiculturalism, I think I can say with some confidence that it was at least as successful as Pirate Day or Water Cycle Day! Honestly, it warmed my heart in a way that I didn't think Hanukkah was capable of.

"Don't be a schmendrick," I urged Kaito when he was teasing his sister. And you know what? He stopped.

While planning this lesson, I didn't give much thought to my status as half-Jewish. I guess I never have, really. I've always considered it sort of a membership card, entitlement to bust out Yiddish words or get offended by anti-Semitism or feel entitled to cook some good old fashioned Jew Food, but only as long as there isn't anyone more actually Jewish in the room. That's about it, though; I've been the most Jewish person in the room for the bulk of the last few years mainly because of my recent choice of rooms in decidedly Goy neighborhoods (Kirksville and Japan). As I recently wrote in a story I've been working on, I was Kirksville's only Jew in the same way that Bill Clinton was called the first black president. I'm Jew enough for the food but not the god, for the dreidel but not the synagogue, for the paranoia but not the guilt, for a half-hearted Hanukkah right next to the Christmas tree. In fact, I was unaware until I happened to look it up that Free School Hanukkah Day was being held on the actual first night of Hanukkah.

And you know something? I never really liked Hanukkah that much. It could be that I'm just a bit biased since Christmas was the main winter holiday celebrated at my house, but there just didn't seem to be much to Hanukkah. No Hanukkah TV specials, only the one Hanukkah song in English, and ultimately a pretty lame miracle. Which fit well in with our minimalist celebration, actually: spin the dreidel, eat some latkes, light the menorah, then forget about it and go watch TV. I feel pretty bad for the Jewish kids for whom Hanukkah has to compete with their friends' Christmas. And I'm not the only one who feels this way, it seems.

Anyway, the reason I bring all of this up is that I didn't really give a lot of thought to planning out our Hanukkah activities. The English Team considers any Free School that ends to be a successful Free School, so I put about as much care into the Hanukkah celebration as I did Pirate Day; make a dreidel you can stick on a pencil, play Hanukkah Hangman or something, have them color pictures about the story of Hanukkah and read something aloud, maybe let them light a candle, boom, done, two hours finished and I'm on the bus home. Usually the kids are pretty rowdy, occasionally disparaging of our choice of lesson plans, but as long as they make at least a passable attempt at doing the work, it's good enough for me.

But to my amazement, something happened that I can only describe as a Hanukkah miracle. The kids quietly did their coloring and rehearsed their sentences with gusto. When we dimmed the lights and had them come up to recite the story of Hanukkah and light the menorah, they were positively spellbound, and when all 8 candles were lit, the "HAPPY HANUKKAH!" they shouted brought a tear to my eye. Then, since we can't leave candles burning all night in Star Class, we instituted the new tradition of circling the table and blowing the candles out on the count of three. All 14 students quietly sat in a big circle and played dreidel without cheating, without crying, and without punching one another. When we gave them each a doughnut ("HANUKKAH DOUGHNUT, PLEASE!"), they all clapped their hands together and shouted "Mazel tov!" before eating.

"Are you getting verklempt?" my partner asked me when I started to get a little misty. I was. I had had the best Hanukkah ever. And I walked away with a new appreciation for my people's (well, half of my people's) traditions and a brand new stereotype: Japanese people fucking love dreidel.

And now, for your enlightenment, the story of Hanukkah, uncolored but festive nonetheless. Written by Harry Althoff, illustrated by Google Image Search, performed by the Harumidai Kindergarten Wednesday Free School Program. Try to imagine a small Japanese child reading these lines (or, if possible, find a small Japanese child to read it to you).

Hanukkah is a Jewish holiday in December.

On Hanukkah, we play games and give presents.


A long time ago, a bad king took away the Jewish temple.


There was a very bad war, and the Jewish people won!


When they got back to the temple, there was no more oil for candles!


But the candles burned for 8 days! It was a miracle!


On Hanukkah, we light 8 candles. It's called the Festival of Lights.

Let's enjoy Hanukkah!

Further Adventures in Shameless Plugs

Yes, once again those wily Raku Three are performing at Raku Cafe (what are the odds?), this time for your Christmas/Hanukkah/New Year/Kwanzaa/Emperor's Birthday festivities! Anyone and everyone is welcome for good vegan food, good beer, good music, and good company! Come and deck our halls...for free, no less!

See the flier for directions to Raku Cafe. Hope to see you there!

Fight the Pawaa

I've recently become aware of a fierce activist here in Japan named Debito Arudou, an American-born university professor in Hokkaido who became a naturalized Japanese citizen in 1996. He's garnered quite a reputation here as a gaijin-defense activist: protesting Japanese-only establishments, helping foreigners know how to deal with discrimination, all that jazz. Here's his website.

I've heard some pretty conflicting stuff about this guy, which makes it pretty hard to form an opinion. In his own words (well, word), he's written "hundreds" of essays about the experience of the foreign-born or non-racially-Japanese Japanese citizen. In short, as previously mentioned, it's tough for anyone who lives in Japan who doesn't look Japanese. It's even worse for someone who wants to make their life here, who marries a Japanese citizen and wants to do seemingly simple life tasks like get a driver's license or own a home. And yes, this goes even for people of racial groups that Westerners think look Japanese -- Japanese citizens of Chinese or Korean ancestry get a ton of shit here. So on the one hand, I'm all about this Debito guy inasmuch as they take away my liberal card if I don't dig human rights activism.

On the other hand, though...well, after reading more than one of his articles, he comes off as awfully entitled, don't you think? I mean, can you believe it? A heterosexual white man being denied preferential treatment, having to undergo some frustration before getting service at a restaurant or onsen? Tragic! Additionally, one of my coworkers has given me another perspective on the "No Foreigners" bathhouses in Hokkaido: essentially, there are a lot of onsen (public baths) in the North that get visited by Russian sailors semi-frequently. Every time the sailors visit, they trash the place, break a lot of the equipment, vandalize buildings, and intimidate everyone in town. So, recently, those establishments have decided to only serve Japanese customers. My coworker believes that, while racism isn't exactly the shiniest practice in the world, in the case of these onsen it's a way to protect their business from being ruined by a group that has repeatedly proven itself untrustworthy. Not sure what I think about this one myself...

I also wanted to see what you all out there thought about this article by Debito that sprang up a few months ago. Again, seems a little harsh, but...well, honestly, I agreed with pretty much all of his points. On the commuter train in the morning, I see students drilling advanced vocabulary words for upcoming English tests, words like mandate and utility, but in my experience these same students are probably incapable of having anything but the simplest of conversations in English. Without repeating any unfounded rumors, I will say that the JET Program has been under fire in Osaka lately, largely because of the ineffectiveness of bringing over untrained twentysomethings to teach English. But this is why I'm so fond of Debito's central point that JETs aren't meant to be good classroom teachers, they're meant to give their students the experience of interacting with foreigners. I've seen that smile of relief when Japanese shopkeepers realize that I can speak a little Japanese and that I'm not going to wreck their day. I've seen that same smile on old ladies on the train when we share a few simple words of complaint about the weather. Jenn and I can regularly see the look of amazement on a student's face when they hear that we have problems with things like reading our mail or buying groceries, that expression of "Wow, I've never thought about how your life might be different from my own. Crazy!" In short, I think we're both doing something generally positive for the world by being here. Still, is it fair to write off an entire country's culture of teaching as ineffective and imbecilic? I mean, it's not like the American school system is all that great, either, right?

I'd love to hear what any of you in the Web-o-tubes have to say about this guy's article(s)! Flame on!

Calvin, Hobbes, and Jenn

More comics, these thanks to Bill Waterson. I explained to my students that I used to have the same haircut as Suzie Derkins. Not sure what they thought about that.

It's pretty common for the students to switch the order of lines to right-left since that's the way Japanese comics are formatted.




Yes, but is it serious?

Absolutely poetic, isn't it?

I'm going to start using this one in my daily life, I think. The backs of Japanese buses, it should be noted, are extremely clean and attractive by Western standards.

Teaching with Dinosaurs 2

More comics. Again, the format is taken from Ryan North of the appropriately named Dinosaur Comics.

What in damnation, indeed. Also, when will the government lower the age limit for smashing houses?


Some interesting punctuation after "I'm god" there.

And the canon of Dinosaur Comics is expanded: apparently T-Rex can do that now.



The only human who had ever fathered a Utahraptor has died today.

The Chronicle of Punch-sama and Judy-hime

Last week, as I'm sure you know, was Culture Day, during which we engaged in all the usual Culture Day activities (still waiting on some of those Culture Day cards to arrive, guys, no rush). I believe the theme of this year's Culture Day was...Culture. So, aside from the typical, run-of-the-mill Culture Day BBQ, Culture Day Flower Viewing, Culture Day Bagel Bake-Off, and Culture Day Bowling Marathon, we also attended a performance at Osaka's National Bunraku Theater for the third time.

What is bunraku? Come on, don't play that game. Fine, if you want to do it this way: bunraku is traditional Japanese puppet theater, developed in Osaka in the 17th century and closely tied to the theatrical traditions of kabuki.


No, not that kind of puppet.


No, think paler, creepier, more...y'know, Japanese-looking.


Agh! No!


There we go. It's generally a good time, though the show does require some intimate knowledge of Japanese theatrical conventions, mythology, geography, history, and domestic culture to understand. Oh yeah, and classical Japanese. Or, alternatively, you can fork over 600 yen for an earphone guide. Since we only had a week to prepare to go to this show rather than the requisite 40 years it would take to learn all of that, we paid up.

Bunraku is fun times, all said. Each puppet is worked by three puppeteers, all of whom appear on stage covered entirely in black. At first, it seems like the stage is crowded with people playing with dolls, but by the end it's easy to ignore the puppeteers entirely and see the puppets as the only figures on stage (somewhere in between it's kind of like the puppets are being attacked by ninjas). The whole thing is narrated by a single reader (swapped out with other readers between scenes) who sings every character's lines from behind a podium; the effect, though powerful, made me wistful for when I too used to play with action figures and do the voices myself. There was no showmanship like drinking glasses of water or whatnot, though at one point a puppet tossed something to another puppet across the stage to riotous applause. Also, there was a samurai duel on the beach that moved progressively closer, represented by using increasingly larger puppets. CGI, Schmee-GI.

I'm not really sure what I can tell you about the story of the plays we saw: reading the plot summary in the program, things seem pretty action-packed, with plenty of daring sword thefts, murder-suicide pacts, beheadings, samurai showdowns, and conspiracies...also, at one point a spy masquerading as an old stone mason kills a samurai by throwing a chisel across stage (sadly, this was accomplished by the performers by having the puppet being hit by an apparently invisible chisel, then falling over). As is the case with most Japanese theater, though, these deceptively simple set pieces are filled out with pausing for every character to stop and describe exactly how they're feeling at any given moment, how sad something makes them, how sad they are about what happened in the last scene, and occasionally how sad they are at the transient nature of existence or something.

I wish I could tell you a little more about the plot of the first play, if only to demonstrate just how long these damn things can be, but I'll keep it to the interesting (non-beheading) part that gave me the most pause: at the end of a lengthy duel between samurai of two rival clans and hashing out the repercussions of that duel, it turns out the protagonist and his son conspired for the son to switch places with the illegitimate son of the Emperor so the hero could kill his son and get the Emperor's son smuggled off to safety. It's never really established how any of the characters know that this young samurai is the (again, illegitimate) Prince or why some characters really care about that and others don't, but apparently it was completely necessary for our hero to sacrifice his beloved son to save the Prince even when nobody thought that was important before head-chopping-time. The Japanese teacher we saw the show with said she understood that part, even if she didn't think she could ever do such a thing. Go fig.

I'll leave you with this last little tidbit: the last play of the evening was translated as "The Red-Hot Love of the Greengrocer's Daughter." Sadly, the title proved to be the most exciting part of the story.

Teaching with Dinosaurs

This is what I do at work. Comics from Dinosaur Comics courtesy of Ryan North. It's weird, but I think my students really captured the spirit of T-Rex. Sorry if they're hard to read, click to make them bigger (maybe). More comics later.


"Oh my god" is a phrase that all my students know for some reason.

Some of these awesome expressions come out of their dictionaries.

How do you even pronounce that hand-wave emoticon?

Not Since the Deliveryman Called me Harry Bellafonte...

Yes, yes, the concert last Saturday went well. Lots of fun, even if it was a little tense because about half of our audience (5 of 11 people) were musicians, meaning they probably could catch it when I screwed up. Still, one guy was enthusiastic enough to ask for three encores, and we had a nice little session time after the show where the audience came up to play a few numbers. And we played one more, too.

Before the show, we had a rather interesting encounter with a Japanese man whose name escapes me (not an uncommon phenomenon) who seemed keen on America to the point of...well, oddity. A few of his points (as best I could understand them) are here enumerated (and no, I really didn't make any of these up):

1. Japanese people are all very short compared to foreigners.

2. Japan has way more homeless people than America does.
2a. Furthermore, Japanese homeless people are ugly and smell bad.
2b. By contrast, American homeless people are certainly all attractive.

3. Japanese people cannot grow facial hair well.
3a. Foreigners, who can grow excellent facial hair, all look like Charles Bronson.

It's really refreshing, especially after some recent nastiness, to confirm that even the people who really like America still have no idea what foreigners are actually like.

Today in Shameless Plugs

Just a last-minute plea for attention from anyone who might be in Osaka tomorrow (that would be Saturday, October 23rd): Jenn and I will be performing two sets of live jazz and blues at our home away from home away from America, Raku Cafe. Please enjoy this copy-pasted advertisement, free of charge!

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Yes, once again, Jenn, Harry, and Yutaka-san will be performing jazz and blues at New Raku Cafe in Shin-Imamiya! We've been some days in preparation; a splendid time is guaranteed for all! Bring your friends!

Yutaka-san - Guitar
Jenn - Vocals and Cello
Harry - Ukulele

From Shin-Imamiya Nankai: Take the North exit (near the Festival Gate exit), turn right and walk with the train tracks on your right and the large construction site on your left. Turn left at the end of the construction site and go straight to the first intersection (about 30 seconds). Raku is on the corner.

From Dobutsuenmae: Take Exit 1 or 2 and turn left to cross under the train tracks. Turn right, walking with the tracks on your left. Turn right on the first street after crossing the tram tracks (seriously, it's about a minute if that). Go straight to the first intersection (about 30 seconds). Raku is on the corner.

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Hope to see you there, true believers! Being on another continent is no valid excuse!

Promoting Intercultural Harmony Through Suckiness

There's this thing, we have it sometimes. It goes away for long periods, but it always comes back, usually at inconvenient times. Stop me if I get too technical here.
I'm referring, of course, to culture shock. Those of you guessing "body odor," "bedbugs," or "Foreign Accent Syndrome", better luck next time. We were warned about culture shock early and often before coming over here -- a JET alum in Kansas City drew us an intricate diagram that Jenn dutifully copied down, here reproduced for your illumination:

Ha ha, butt.

The term "shock" is really a bit of a misnomer; it captures the depth of the feeling, sure, but "shock" implies a sudden jolt that is over quickly, like jumping into a cold pond or getting an injection, while culture shock is more of a long-term recurring stress that haunts the sufferer for a long period of time, like drinking Pancake Drink.

"What brings this to mind?" you may ask. "Why now, why today, did something happen?" Quiet down and I'll tell you. Last week at work, we were tasked with a unique responsibility: removing the water from a muddy field by hand so 150 children could march on it. Yes, friends and relatives, we were given the job of cleaning mud. By "we," of course, I am referring to teachers-in-training, junior teachers, and anyone else who couldn't find something else to be busy with fast enough.

I could glorify it, I really could. I could explain how important this job was, how vital to the well-being of the kindergarten and the safety of our children it was to soak up puddle after puddle with huge sponges. I could wear my mud-soaked shoes (and pants, and shirt) like a badge of honor, knowing that I put the good of others ahead my own comfort. I would do that in a heartbeat if I had any idea why the higher-ups decided this task was at all necessary or, you know, possible.

The reasoning was straightforward if laughably impractical, provided by the shrewdest managerial minds that didn't have to do it themselves: keep the kids from getting too dirty while we're rehearsing for the Sports Festival. Never mind that the first part of the rehearsal would be performed in the Hall (which is, you know, indoors). Never mind that the actual Festival will be held on another school's grounds. Never mind that the sun was coming out or that simply walking across the field produced still more muddy springs, even after half an hour of mopping.

It was when I was carrying my third bucket full of dirt from one end of the playground to another -- a literally Sisyphean task, covering wet dirt with dry dirt that immediately became wet -- it occurred to me that my career had taken a turn for the strange, and after mentally preparing a new resume, I started to linger on the Culture Shock "W." Ankle-deep in mud, I tried to calmly put my feelings in a point on a chart, a natural byproduct of living with a culture different from my own, and not an unquenchable rage that burned inside me like a thousand suns. If a group of teachers in the U.S. had been ordered to do a task like this, the day wouldn't end without at least one resignation, firing, or lawsuit. And while I'm not exactly the most well-informed guy in the world (room), I can safely assume based on meetings with fellow expats that shit like this wouldn't really fly in the U.K., Canada, Australia, South Africa, or France.
Here, though, it's just kind of...what you do. It's the reason the Japanese teachers stay here until 8:00 or later every night, even if they don't have work to do. It's the reason we buy souvenirs for every one of our friends, neighbors, relatives, coworkers, and house plants. It's the reason we foreign teachers attend meetings even if we don't understand a word of what is being said, even if we have nothing to contribute and can't benefit in the slightest from being there. It's the reason land meant for everyone shouldn't be used by anyone. In short, it's Just What You Do, and it kind of sucks.

If we were to look for one thing about Japanese culture that makes life difficult, this would be it; even if circumstances differ in individual cases, even if no one either wants or needs to go through with it, everyone does what is expected of them. If the boss isn't leaving until 7:30, who the hell are you to decide that it's important to leave earlier? If someone decides that every school day should start with the students greeting the principal (who's not in the room at the time), then that's what we do; if it's decided that it's important to start the day with standing on one foot and quacking, you'd better believe that will be followed to the letter. If someone decides that the mud is too muddy, then we grab those sponges and get to it.

Now, I really don't want to give the impression that the Japanese are about blind loyalty or obedience or anything slanderous like that; really, I'm not trying to be racist here, and I'm not trying to claim superiority or assign negative qualities to an entire nationality. Hell, people in the States do some pretty shameful things to keep their jobs, and especially in this recession, pride is something most people can't afford in the workplace. What I'm trying to get at, however clumsily, is that the pressure to do what is best for the group rather than what an individual wants or feels is very, very strong. It's one reason Japan is so amazingly well organized: teamwork is incredible over here, and I've seen it inspire my students in downright heartwarming ways (a group of boys getting competitively involved in a worksheet to encourage a discouraged classmate). Hell, it's how Japan makes great cars. It's just a cultural force that involves a fair amount of obnoxiousness and...well, mud.

Career opportunities, the ones that never knock.

"How do you say 'mendokusai' in English?" asked Enamoto-sensei, lifting a bucket of dirt.
"This sucks," I offered. Mike thought it over and slowly enunciated, "Pain in the ass." The teacher tried it out, tasting each syllable.
Another teacher, one covered in mud, looked up and asked, "What's 'daiten ma-ma' in English?"
I looked to Mike, who laughed. "Good enough." The teachers looked impressed. I snickered; "Good Enough" is the English Team motto.
It was kind of a beautiful moment, really, and it was reassuring to know that my coworkers, the ones who had grown up following what they were expected to do, still got kind of cheerily pissed off about having to do an annoying job. Or, as Mike put it very eloquently, "Nothing brings people together like having to suck it."

Racist, Racister, Racistest

Last week, when we were strolling down Midosuji as we are wont to do (hey, karaoke isn't going to come to us), we heard music, a sort of bouncy, cheery march, floating between skyscrapers and down alleyways. We smiled at each other; it was a nice day, the first Sunday of autumn, and the music added a lightly festive air to the sunny weather. We could hear some lyrics in the vaguely Japanese-sounding tune, but hell, we can barely understand slow, perfectly enunciated Japanese, so understanding lyrics is still at least a decade of study beyond our abilities. We held hands. I wondered if I was being paranoid or if passersby really were giving us more nasty looks than usual...

Then the loudspeaker kicked in at frightening volume: the only words we understood were "Amerika," "gaijin," and "Nippon" (meaning "Japan," but with nationalistic connotations). And then we saw, rounding the corner of Shinsaibashisuji, the Crazy Racist Van, decked out in Japanese Battle Flags and illegible (to us) messages that we could only assume are jingoistic slogans.

It wasn't much of a demonstration, but then, it never is. We've seen this sort of procession before, always on a weekend or national holiday, never more than a dozen or so people, always in the same area around Midosuji, one of the biggest streets in Osaka. The most we've seen is a couple of trucks with a parade of silent, headband-wearing, flag-waving middle-aged dudes (always men); the least was the unaccompanied Racist Van.

I'm not really qualified to talk about the extent or severity of racism in Japan; I'm just a dude who happens to live in a country. So, in the spirit of journalistic circumspection, I will limit this post to stuff that has happened to me, to Jenn, or to anyone we happen to know. Or...anyone we've heard of. Plus here are some links. Information in the fifth person or less, is what I'm saying.

A couple of friends of ours just took their Japanese driving tests for the third time; the first, they failed because they failed to wear dresses and make-up (they're women, that is probably a relevant fact). This last time, it was because one of them crept out at a stop sign to look each way before proceeding (for shame!). Each time, they say, they have words with a group of cheerful gaijin who are taking the test for the fourth or ninth or eleventh time. I know, I know, it must be because white people are such terrible drivers. Even if that weren't the case, though, word is that they fail each time for a similarly made-up-sounding reason -- too far to the left, too far to the right, too slow, too fast, too close, too far, etc. The ultimate conclusion that most of them came to through laborious application of the scientific process: they don't want gaijin driving, so they find reasons to fail them.

Having exhausted my anecdote and my other anecdote, it's time for the conclusions! Once again, I'm not saying that Japan is more racist than the U.S. or anywhere else. Kirksville, MO was home to one of the biggest names in Neo-Nazism in the Midwest, and he was an extremely vocal minority indeed, but he was representative of Americans in the same way that Spider-Man is representative of New Yorkers. Japan has a reputation for dealing with race differently than the U.S. does, but shit, so does everywhere else. We share a large part of our history, culture, and language (well, pretty much) with Australia, and look what came out of there last year to riotous applause:

If you ask me, it says just as much about how easy it is to entertain Australians as it does about race relations.

I guess what I'm trying to say here is: it's interesting being put in a situation that I have heard about and read about my whole life, but never experienced in the first person (well, second person). I'm certainly glad that my first foray into discrimination is in a country where most people are far too polite to speak to strangers even of their own race...though it would do wonders for my liberal self-righteousness to be able to speak of my own struggles with conquering racism; as it is, "one time I saw a truck that was racist" is so little hardship that sociopathic white supremacists would be unimpressed by my plight.

TKO from Tokyo

Just a smattering of photos from our August trip to Tokyo. It was magical! In that it was, y'know, really, really, really big. I mean, Osaka is, according to some (Osakans) the second largest metropolitan area in Japan, but in our experience most of that is anonymous suburbs -- we live right in the heart of the Minami (southern) half of downtown, and we're only about 10 minutes' walk from three of the cooler neighborhoods and 4 km from the heart of the Northern center. I guess, if the metaphor may be excused: we were all jumpin' around Japan, bopping turtles on the head, collecting coins, goin' "Hey, this is pretty cool," and then all of a sudden wandering into a pipe and coming out in OUTER SPACE. In 3D.

I...I need to work on my metaphor skills, admittedly.

Anyway, this about does it for the photos. More on the Faces-Book-Webs, but not that much more. Brief digression: we kind of hate tourists. I know, I know, we covered this already, but it bears mentioning again: we hate tourists, we hate being mistaken for tourists (which happens constantly), and our favorite pastime is seeing obvious tourists walk by with huge suitcases and clueless stares, then rolling our eyes and patting ourselves on the back so vigorously we pull our arm muscles. Since there's no more touristy action in the world than pulling out a huge camera and taking a picture of somebody else's city, we mostly limited our activities to looking cool and blending in (in much the same way that a penguin blends in on the savannah, but hey, we tried).

The Imperial Gardens are surrounded by a somewhat impressive moat. You may notice that the moat is pretty ineffective at repelling foreign invaders.

Watching out for snakes in the Imperial Gardens.

Surely some of the 10 most important of Tokyo's estimated 100 million skyscrapers.

Harajuku, where it's all going on.

Yep. Any given house in Japan. It's just that weird over here, promise.

Sampling local Tokyo cuisine.