Artist's Impression of my flat when (not if) the Big One hits

I couldn't upload a blog entry without mentioning my lack of sleep over the last three nights.
We've had more than seven little earthquakes (hands up who's singing Tori Amos in their head right now) mostly between the hours of 2am and 7am.
This is the yuckiest time to get a quaker - you're all dozy and disoriented, and feel particularly vulnerable.
They were nothing serious and they didn't do any damage. It's just a horrible reminder of the fact that I live on a fault line. It's so easy to forget when you go through a nice undisturbed period.
Oh well,　仕方がない (shikata ga nai) as they say over here. It's a phrase that's used all the time in various situtaions. It means'there's nothing you can do about it' (and the nuance is 'there's no point in worrying').
In fact I can't believe I'm using the phrase. I usually hate it - I think it's defeatist and just an excuse for inaction (something we Japanese love).
But hey I guess it's just another sign I am assimilating. You will know I am truly one with the borg the day I stop worrying about earthquakes - half of my bleeding students didn't even notice them, while I was at home sleeping with one eye open waiting for the next tremor.
Big sis, are you sure you still want to come? Don't worry, you'll be graaaand!

Artist's Impression of my yoga teacher

So today I attended a free trial lesson of Bikram Yoga. This is otherwise known as 'Hot Yoga' or, more troublingly, 'Hollywood Yoga', which I refuse to call it.
Up until now I've been learning Ashtanga Yoga, and thankfully they turned out to be fairly similar. The major point of difference is that in Bikram the studio is heated to 40 degrees. It's like doing yoga in a sauna. The idea is that the heat makes your body more supple (thanks for the English lesson, Dad) so the poses are easier to achieve. Plus you sweat buckets, so it acts as a detox cleaning all the impurities out of your system at the same time.
I am very glad I had done yoga for a bit before trying this version out. It was hardcore (hope I'm not breaching copyright... li'l bro). The artist's impression above is not that far from the truth. If it had been my first experience ever, I think I'd have been overwhlemed and maybe even put off.
Because the one-and-a-half-hour lesson was all in Japanese, it was like an extra challenge for me. I learned some interesting new vocabulary. I also realised that if I can follow a conversation with my head stuck somewhere in the vicinity of my ankles and sweat dripping into my earholes, then my end-of-year listening test should be a piece of cake.
I was actually quite nervous about going. Not only do I get anxious meeting new people, I'm also not wild about stirpping down to shorts and t-shirt at any time. I was concerned, too, that the other (mainly female) classmates would be put off by having a lanky, white, Mister Bean-like character present when they swivelled their bits into places the sun don't often shine. I worried for nothing. As the poses were so tricky, everyone was just focused on themselves and keeping in their own space. They weren't bothered by little old me. In fact, it was a great advantage to be male after the class as I didn't have to compete for a shower at all, whereas a lot of the women had to wait in line for ages to get a cubicle.
As the school has just opened, it was all modern and clean and perfect. They provide you with all you need - mats and towels and soap and shampoo and the like. Very good service. There's also a healthy juice bar attached for socialising afterward, and all manner of therapies offered I have no intention of trying.
The location was very 'Tokyo' aswell. It was on the third floor of a relatively large building. The first two floors were taken up by a massive pachinko parlour. As those of you who have been here before know, these gambling-machine venues are the noisiest, smokiest, most decadent places in the city. And yet no-one bats an eye at having an oasis of health and calm and zen sitting atop one. I guess with real estate the way it is here, ya takes what ya can get. I imagine Dublin is no longer that far behind.
The staff of the yoga school were good - they didn't push the big sell on me. I think they were too busy chuckling at how long I took to read through the contract - I mean legalese is difficult enough in English but in all those squiggly characters...well... I am my mother's father's grandson and will not sign something until I'm pretty sure I know what I'm putting my name to. It was funny some of the things they checked out. Apart from the regular health and liabilty wiavers, I also had to swear that I was not a member of the yakuza (Japanese gangsters), that I wasn't tatooed, and that I wasn't pregnant. I'm pretty sure I was good to go on all three.
The whole school system is very convenient and flexible. they have three branches dotted around the city, all of which are close to somehwere I usually need to be. You just buy lesson tickets and can use them for any scheduled lesson over a period of two months. It's great that I don't have a fixed lesson time - my schedule can get a bit dicy so it's nice to have that freedom. And I really don't think it was expensive at all - it worked out as about 20 euro a lesson - God bless deflation. On top of all this, I can book everything over the internet, playing nicely into my continued phobia of telephones.
Overall, a great experience. I even ran into an old friend I haven't seen in months...maybe years. I barely recognized her without her makeup (thank god she doesn't read this blog - I'd be murdered) But I mean it was quite a shock - she didn't have any eyebrows - who knew they were painted on.
Anyway, now I'm feeling all bendy and relaxed. My cirulcation is pretty good too - though I'm sure I'll be back to my icy norm before nightfall.
Until then I'll take my positive yoga energy and bid you namaste.

A few notes on my notes

As I said in the last post, my creative drought has led to an upswing in dedication to study. I've been reading a lot and getting some good review done of my old notes.
An interesting thing occured to me as I was making a list of words I find difficult to remember: Almost all these words were negative and, more worryingly, violent. For example, I have a mental block about the Japanese translations of 'attack', 'strike against', 'abandon', 'fight', 'make a disturbance', 'plot', 'hunt' & 'violate'.
Now I know we humans love to find patterns where none should exist. And I know it probably all means nothing. But psychologically doesn't it seem just a little interesting. Does it mean I am an incredibly positive person who focuses only on remembering the good? Am I someone who refuses to allow thoughts of darkness into my life? Or am I just a troubled soul living in fear of violation and abandonment, who seeks to deny the existence of the dangers and threats around him? Your thoughts please on a postacrd to....
On a less navel-gazing theme, I have attached a picture above of my new baby - the gorgeous dictionary I spent a fortune on, which is winging its way to me as I type.
It can do everything short of launch a small rocket, but will totally be worth it when I pass my end-of-year exams with flying colours (hah!).
In any case, my old dicitonary was getting so banjaxed that for the frequently-used letter keys, I had to bang my fingers down hard to the point of repetitive stress injury.
One last language-scholar-snoozeathon observation.
A few days ago I was preparing a lesson about pronunciation. Specifically I wanted to teache my students some of the differences between standard 'received' British-English and what I found out we call Hiberno-English.
'T' definitely seemed to be one of the key points of difference.
The archetypal example was, of course, the whole 'tirty-tree and a tird' thing. I found that a bit boring and prejudiced.
More interesting was the way that when 't' isn't at the start of a word it is said almost as an 'sh' sound... think of 'water' or 'mute'. This is unique to the English speaking world.
Rich too is the double t 'tt' sound in little or battle or kettle.... Or butter or better, which are a little different again...Or gotten and rotten... need I go on. In boring old standard English they're all only the one sound.
My students actually really got the lesson and seemed to enjoy it. I think I'll hold off a bit before I try to teach them
gawayaauradachyabigeejitcha

Belated Happy Easter to my Reader... (s?)

Happy Easter!
I'm sorry I haven't posted anything for a while. I haven't been in the least bit creatively inspired. I have no nice photos or quirky stories.
I did promise big sis I'd upload this Easter pic, though. It's too cute. But I regret that it's not a pic of my niece (Miss Ben) and nephew (Master Ella).
The upside of having no motivation to write anything for the blog is that I have been getting some good study done - always a relief.

Can we talk toilets?

Twice in the last two days I have walked into a public toilet only to overhear someone talking on their mobile phone as they sat in the stalls. Is this only a Japanese thing? I've never come across this anywhere else. Anyone else think it's a gross breach of etiquette (emphasis on the gross)? Anyway, next time you call me, if it sounds like there's a bit of an echo, you'll know why.

Browned off with bleedin' blossoms

I went to see a wonderful exhibition this morning. It was called 風俗画にみる日本の暮らし (Fuzokuga ni miru nihon no kurashi - Life of Japanese people portrayed in 'genre' paintings).
In 'genre' painting, artists try to express the truth and essence of life through the depiction of ordinary, daily scenes. (Ed. note - I'm not clever enough to have come up with this myself - I'm merely paraphrasing the gallery's handout.)
The paintings were diverse, stretching from the Heian Period (starting in 794AD) to the Edo Period (ending in 1867AD).
As a lazy Irishman with no Protestant work ethic, I thought there were far too many pictures of people working to be a fair representation of the essence of life. But Japanese people tend to think that contributing to society and the joy of accomplishment are the true roads to happiness and fulfillment.
More fundamentally, they have a proverb that is much quoted here, 'you don't work, you don't eat.' I teach in a wealthy area and am still stunned at how many sons and daughters of rich families still are bound to take on low-paying part-time jobs once they turn 16 or 17.
There were some really interesting pictures of foreign traders and missionaries. I'm not sure how solid they are as a historical reference - did we Europeans really dress like MC Hammer in the 1800s? The 'white man' noses, too, were seriously Pinnochio-esque (my own personal sore point, I guess). But with the drawings of the missionaries, the artist captured the patrician bearing and imperious stare just right, I think.
I guess I was most impressed by how much of daily life has remained unchanged after all these years. We're still sitting on tatami, drinking from the same teapots, and singing and dancing under the cherry blossom trees.
The picture I have posted of the top of this entry is probably the most famous of the exhibition. Entitled 桜下弾弦図屏風　（Painted creen of strings being plucked under the cherry blossom) it really came in two folding screens. Only one is depcited here. I've scoured the net for an image of the other, but to no avail.
It's brilliant. The one you can see above is all happy and wistful and full of joy. It's what you'd excpect because it shows the people sitting enjoying the music. What you can't see is the face of the musician as she plays for the others. Her expression is priceless. She is clearly browned off and totally fed up of playing for these scroungers. Surrounded by all this beauty, she looks to be thinking 'When will these bleeding blossoms wither and die so I can go back to me Hello magazine and a nice cup of tea!'
This sentiment is clearly timeless. Only yesterday my student was saying that she'd spit if her husband suggested bringing another picnic to the park. He doesn't have to make it.
Usually the cherry blossom season is about four or five day long. But this year, as it's been cold, the trees have been in bloom for more than two weeks.
In a way I know what the artist and my student meant. Familiarity breeds contempt and all that. Maybe it IS just as well that the flowers usually do the samurai thing and pop their clogs before we all get fed up with them.

The crane and the turtle

This is the sight that was before me as I sat in on a bench in Hibiya park (H. - you may remember this from your visit here).
I was very well prepared today - knowing the museum I was visiting was near this lovely park, and knowing too that the day was going to be fine, I brought a packed lunch with me and made the most of the sunshine.
If you look carefully at the picture you can some some very classical Japanese images. There's an orange carp (鯉 - koi), a white heron (鷺 - sagi) and a little turtle (亀 - kame).
I know that there's also a big turtle - it's clearly fake. The smaller one on the rock, though, is up for debate. I've been fooled before - when those little suckers sun themselves by the waterside they do take on a certain statue-like quality.
I say again though, I'm not an authority. For months now, I have been taking care of and watering a house plant that I'm starting to think could in fact be plastic!
If I were a truly cultured Japanese man, I would have written an elegant poem about this beautiful and fortuitous scence. But I'm not, so a blog entry will have to suffice.
I am cultured enough, however, to know that this scene pretty much respresents (and hopefully predicts for me) long life and happiness.
In Japanese, there is an expression 鶴亀 (tsurukame - crane and turtle). The purists among you will be shouting, 'But it was a heron not a crane!' Well, in answer I say, 'Same family - cut me some poetic slack.' As both creatures are said to enjoy particular longevity, the expression has come to mean ' I hope you have a long and happy life.' You'll often see the two depicted togther on folding creens, jewellery boxes, lacquer dishes... I guess really anything that would traditionally have been given as a gift at some celebration, especially at a wedding.
So to you , gentle reader, I say 'tsurukame' from the bottom of Tokyo's heart.

Tokyo is greener than you think

I visited a museum right in the centre of Tokyo today. It's called the Idemitsu Museum, and it's located on the ninth floor of a building just opposite the Imperial Palace.
I took a photo of the view to show you what the centre of Tokyo looks like - much greener than you imagined, I should think. As I said before, it's not at all the type of cityscape I expected to find before I moved here
I really love this part of Tokyo. It reminds me of New York or Paris or the other great cities of the world. Wide boulevards. Tall skyscapers. Lush gardens hiding a little cafe or a quiet corner to read in.
However, walk twenty minutes in one direction and you're in the neon and concrete heart of the city. Twenty minutes more, and you can be in a tightly packed, maze of backstreets, home to old restaurants, shops and houses. Twenty minutes more, and you hit some old, Buddhist temple.
This town has so many different sides to it - I can't wait for you to get here and see it, Big Sis.

Teaching English

I'm reading a book by an American author and linguist who has lived in Japan since the early nineties. It's really good. The fluent way he writes in Japanese is a real inspiration, though I get a bit annoyed when I have to look up these really academic words and expressions he tends to use: I think he's just showing off.
The papers often print articles over here about how 'we' Japanese seem to come last or thereablouts in league tables of the countries that speak English as a second language. It's a bit of a national complex.
This author had a really interesting theory about where the weakness lies.
In Japanese schools, when you start to learn English, you start with a very basic sentence structure like, 'This is a pen.' or 'John is a boy.' Sounds logical, right?
But it's not much bloody use to you as a communication tool if you have zero vocabulary.
When I started studying Japanese (or French, for that matter), one of the first things I learned to say was 'What is this?' or 'How do you say this in Japanese / French?'
It seems so obvious. I mean look at how a kid of two or three learns - a thousand and one questions.
I hope I can use this simple shift in mindset to help future students...
{Cut to me dressed in Mother Theresa-like robes curing the poor, huddled masses of their verbal constipation, intransitive objects and ill-defined articles.}

Sanitized Freak Show

This is a picture of the Yoyogi Elvis Dancers. They're these guys who meet up every Sunday at Yoyogi park in Tokyo and dance around to 'Jail House Rock' or other kinds of Rock-a-billy music. They go the whole hog with their leather outfits, winkle-picker shoes and gelled up quifs.
They're not alone. In the same small area you can see aspiring rock bands, young girls (and some men) dressed as Gothic Lolitas, punks, baby dolls and other characters right out of a Japanese animation.
It's a rare chance for great bursts of self-expression in a conformist society, and has turned into a major tourist attraction. In the picture you can see stalls selling hotdogs, takoyaki (たこ焼き - calamari fried in a sort of batter), okonomiyaki (お好み焼き　- a mixture between a pizza and a pancake or omlette) and even candyfloss! It has a real carnival atmosphere.
But I think the fact that it's restricted to one area, that these people all group together rather than go it alone and that it's even scheduled to the same day every week shows that it's still not quite a social revolution - rather a very polite and sanitized Japanese-style bit of teenage rebellion.

Assertiveness Course

My sis and I were talking about assertiveness courses a while ago. It got me to thinking that I really need to take one.
Three days ago I was posting a parcel by registered mail. I had filled in all the necessary details except the date.
The lady at the counter kindly told me I'd forgotten this inormation. I replied, 'Oh! What date is it today?'
She slowly sounded out (in Japanese of course) two...thousand...and...FOUR...april...third...
Now even as she was saying it I knew she was wrong. But at first I still didn't have enough self-confidence to stop and correct her.
A few seconds later I wised up said, 'Didn't you mean 2006?' and changed the date but I was really angry with myself. Rather than face the discomfort of going against someone in a position of power, I wanted to just accept her mistake.
I'd make a great cult follower!

Blossom Watch 2006 - Final Entry

This is the last peep you'll hear out of me this year about cherry blossoms. The season is nearly over. It's been great but there are some downsides to enjoying these beautiful petals.
The other day was beautiful, warm and sunny, with a very strong wind. This is the perfect sort of weather to enjoy some 花吹雪 (Hanafubuki - a blizzard of petals).
As the petals wither and fall from the tree, they are caught up in the breeze and come falling down around you ina torrent like a blizzard of snow.
It really was a great pleasure but a foolish thing to do for someone who suffers from allergies. The experience was like a shot of pollen to the veins. I've spent the last couple of days 'riding the pink dragon' - the exquisite pain of some serious cherry-petal-induced hay fever.
I should be right in a few more days.

Right-wing ice-cream vans

Last week I visited Nogi shrine in the centre of Tokyo. This is where a Meiji-era general, Nogi, is revered by quite a few Japanese.
General Nogi and his wife committed 殉死　(junshi - the act of a subject commiting ritual suicide when his master dies) upon the death of Emperor Meiji in 1912.
Nowadays this is difficult for Japanese people to understand. However, in feudal times it would have been natural, the retainer seeing the lord as near God-like.
The general’s house is austere but picturesque. I guess the cherry blossoms helped to soften it up a bit. But overall it had a very sad atmosphere. Black and white portraits of the dead couple stare out at you through the house’s windows, and you can’t help but wonder what sort of bonds of loyalty or honour or sacrifice they believed in.
The actual Shinto shrine is adjacent to the house. It’s small and pretty and quite what you’d expect a shrine to look like.
Usually such shrines are to honour nature or animals, with Shinto-ists believing that everything in the environment has some sort of spirit.
However, over time many such places have come to enshrine human beings - some good, some bad and some very, very bad. This issue raises its ugly head every year when Prime Minister Koizumi chooses to pay his respects at Yasukuni shrine. Yasukuni entombs the spirits of many millions of war dead, including convicted war criminals.
I have no idea what this guy Nogi was like. But I got a very uncomfortable feeling entering the shrine.
Outside they had a big poster which read ‘If a woman is ever made Empress of Japan, this shrine will shut its doors!’
The whole topic of the possibility of female succession is a real hot potato over here right now. It looked like the constitution was going to have to be changed to allow Princess Aiko to become Empress on the death of her father (the now Crown Prince Naruhito). But her aunt, Kiko, had the fortune (or misfortune) to go and fall pregnant in her mid-forties, bringing about the possibility of a male heir being born.
I stand square behind the idea of letting Princess Aiko ascend to the throne regardless, though I fear she’ll have a really sad and crappy life, despite all the wealth and palaces, and so on.
Many of the people who oppose the idea are right-wingers, not unlike European Neo-Nazis.
To illustrate my point, and heighten my discomfort, a skinhead man dressed in black was worshipping at the shrine as I entered. Bent at the waist an almost ninety degree angle, I knew he meant business and saw this as a very important place. Most right-wingers are not too keen on foreigners living in their country, so I didn’t exactly feel I should hang around too long.
Right-wingers haven’t always made me nervous though.
When I first moved to Japan, gangs would occasionally drive around a nearby neighbourhood, blasting out patriotic music at ear-splitting volume. I could only see them from afar and remember thinking the first time I saw such a vehicle, ‘Wow! That’s a bit loud for an ice-cream van! They’ll scare all the kiddies away.’ Little did I know I was the one who was supposed to be doing the running. They’ll have to try harder than that.