Setting down roots

I had my last ever Japanese class this week, at least at my current school. It should have been a melancholy moment, but it felt so good. And now I have just one more test to do next Sunday and I am free. Please send out all your positive energy for me on December 3rd.
I have a problem with what I want to blog about today. It's not exactly that I have nothing to say. It's just that the things I have in mind are such downers that I don't want to think about them.
For example, right now in Japan the big news is a terrible trend towards junior high school kids committing suicide. Last year, 115 young Japanese killed themselves. It appears most deaths were a result of bullying or exam stress. But to be honest, the topic makes me so depressed that I can't bring myself to analyze it.
Then I thought I'd tell you about the Japanese movie I went to see on Thursday evening. It was called 手紙 - tegami - The Letters. But it was also pretty depressing.
I had been looking for a nice light story to forget my stress. From the poster, I had thought it looked like a simple romance. I was so wrong. I came out ready to jump under a train and delay some commuters.
The film was about the discrimation and social exclusion Japanese families encounter when a member of their family commits a bad crime and is sent to prison. Heavy stuff.
I must say though, I'm still now thinking about the themes brought up in the movie, so it can't have been all that bad.
I would really like to know if the same discrimination exists in other countries. Tell me what you think: In your home countries, if a member of your family was imprisoned for murder, do you think you would be driven from your home, fired from your job, and denied the chance to marry your loved one? I just don't know.
Another thing the film has done is to motivate me to look out for more books by the same writer. 'Tegami' was based on a novel written by Keigo Higashino. It won the prestigious Naokisho literary award here in Japan. I'm thinking one of his other books will be my next challenge when I finish up the exams next week.
So if all the above aren't cheery enough, what's left for me to write about. Well not much.
The one thing I did find fascinating last week came up in a discussion in my last ever Japanese class. Do you know that in Japan, if you go and visit someone in hospital, you should never bring a potted plant or anything that's alive and has roots? This is incredibly bad luck and quite bad manners. It signifies that you expect the person to be hopsitalized for a long time. The image given is of them setting down roots in their sick bed.
Just another example of the choppy social waters I have to navigate daily. Who'd have thunk a nice Christmas cactus or something would cause such offense.
The irony was that only moments previous I had given the boss of my school a very elaborate potted plant arrangement as a token of my gratitude. I wasn't brought up in a barn! But in this case, it surely didn't cause offense. She was very happy. But it looks like I'm setting down roots in the blasted school. I tell you, if I fail my finals and have to repeat next year, I am never setting foot in a florist's again.
Quick youtube update before I go. My video of the cicadas is now up to almost 12,000 views. My sister's singing... 18!

Por mi madre

Mam, this is for you. I rememeber sitting watching this together and you crying with laughter. It brought back many happy memories. Perfect comic timing. Enjoy.

My future job

There was a programme on Japanese TV the other day. It was about the Japanese boom in France. The Land of the Rising Sun is incredibly popular with the French right now.

The show featured the third annual Japanese Expo in Paris. Young Parisians go there to pick up the latest styles in food, clothes, interiors, and so on.

From a Japanese (‘We’ Japanese) perspective, the French have got some of it horribly wrong. Hello, sushi with a side of white rice? Can you say ‘constipation’?

But other ideas offered a fresh slant on Japanese living. It was cool to see these chic ladies wearing traditional workmen’s cleft boots (地下足袋 - jikatabi - as pictured above) with their couture.

Anyway, the programme confirmed what I should do for my next career. I totally need to become a trend spotter for some think tank or high-flying consultancy or something.

What do you think was the hottest item at the Expo? What do you think all the trendy Parisians wanted above all else? What do you think I’ve been talking about since the inception of this blog? That’s right, the Japanese washlet / electronic bidet toilet, that’s what!

I’m so ahead of the curve. If the consulting doesn’t work out, maybe I can start a business importing and installing these conveniences in all the smart capitals of Europe. Anyway, want to go in on the business with me?

Smoke gets in your eyes

Japan is very smoker-friendly. Cigarettes are dirt-cheap. It costs about 2 Euro for a pack of twenty. You can find 24-hour automatic vending machines on most street corners. Most restaurants and cafes offer no-smoking seats, but there’s usually no barrier or special air conditioning system.
As and aside, I remember being in a café in Ginza with my brother years ago. I was in a no-smoking seat. The dudes beside us, being in smoking, held their cigarettes practically in our faces. Rent is very expensive so shops are often small and cramped. But come on!
All the above goes towards explaining why, in Japan, 48% of men and 12% of women smoke. This compares with about 25% for both men and women in other developed countries.
The Japanese government, looking at all the European countries that are turning smoke-free, is considering adopting a similar policy here.
They hope to bring the male consumption rate down to 25% and the female to 5 % in the next five years.
I think they’ve a long way to go to shift a generally positive attitude toward tobacco.
I submit for evidence the above photo. It was taken of a cigarette vending machine near my house.
In case you can’t read it, I’ve transcribed the advertisement. I really don’t think you’d get away with this ad in any other industrialised country.
And as a bonus, it’s another prime example of the ‘what-the-heck’ English in use over here.
Smoking is a good friend of mental activities.Being free and easy, your heart makes you enjoy smoking!A figure giving off a woman’s shadow,A figure being suggestive of vitality and joysAnd sorrows in businessAnd a figure of a man working hardAre all in enjoying smoking.

Crazy Interweb

You know, I just have to say that the internet is one crazy mixed up place.
Do you remember back when I wrote my first haiku that I recorded a short video?
I just pointed my digital camera at some trees and recorded the cicadas song. That's all it was - thirty seconds of green leaves and insect noise.
Well I have just been informed by youtube that that video has now been viewed 9,146 times!!!!
I mean what is going on? And I thought I was wasting my life away online. One poor sap has even subsribed to my account, preumambly in the hopes that I will come up with another such masterpiece.
Seriously, some people out there need to get themselves a hobby.
Oh and in case you were wondering, the video of my sister singing 'Bad Day' in karaoke has been viewed a grand total of 17 times!
Locusts, not humans, are clearly where the music market is going these days.

Dodgy English

Teaching English in Japan can feel like an uphill battle. Zoom in on the picture above. It's an example of the verbal knots students sometimes tie themselves in.
This photo is of a sign outside a restaurant not far from my house. I don't know how much foreign custom they get with that sign. I shudder to think what the menu must be like.
The scary thing is that, now that I've been here so long, and now that I speak Japanese, I totally understand what they're trying to say.
In the wrong hands, a dictionary is a dangerous weapon.

Lil Bro, ya sure ya still wanna come a visitin'?

Honestly, who would live in Japan? Last week we had a tornado that killed 9 people. Then tonight, there was an 8.1 earthquake up north and now the whole country is under a tsunami warning. It's lucky I live in the mountains!

Victoria Wood and Julie Walters

Watch this sketch. It's so funny.

"I never touch prawns - do you know they hang around sewage outlet pipes treading water with their mouths open!"

Thoughts of life, love and family

This is just going to be a stream-of-consciousness post. I haven’t felt the inspiration to write a proper story in a long time. All haiku production has ground to a halt. Basically, it seems my brain has turned to jelly now that I am in the middle of exam season.
This was proven yesterday when I totally spaced out on the time of my yoga lesson. I managed to arrive just on time. I followed the teacher into the room in a grey and black flash, hoping against hope that I hadn’t put my shorts on inside out or back to front.
Time keeping is incredibly important in Japan. I’m compulsive about it, as anyone who has visited me here will tell you. As a foreigner, I feel I have to be even more punctual than the Japanese. It’s like every time I’m late I’m compounding the ‘lazy, unreliable foreigner’ stereotype. That I would fail to be early for something was a clear sign of how head-wrecked and exam-fatigued I am.
Now don’t go worrying about me. It’s not like I’ve become such a dedicated and diligent student that I’m working myself into the ground. I’ve still been finding plenty of ways to skive off.
Last Saturday, I went to the movies. I saw 涙そうそう (Nada Sousou). It’s a Japanese movie starring Tsumabuki Satoshi, a popular young actor here.
The story is simple: A brother and his stepsister are left without parents. His grandmother on a small Okinawan island raises them. The young boy has promised his dying mother that he will look after his little sister. As he becomes a man he takes on the role of father figure. But the focus of the movie is the conflicting types of love they come to feel for each other.
Don’t worry, it’s not at all salacious. It’s a pure and moving character study.
The movie has lots of interesting themes: living for yourself versus living for others, the repression and expression of emotion, accepting or running away from responsibility. Simply put, it’s all about life, love and family.
There’s a beautiful scene at the end of the movie where the grandmother and stepsister are sitting on an idyllic, tropical beach looking out at the crystal ocean. The girl is upset and the granny talks about how we are each given a life. None of us knows how long we’ll be given. Some lives are long and others are short. It’s what we do with the time we have and how we touch the people around us that count. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house.
All in all, the philosophy of the movie matched very well with my blog motto. I highly recommend it if it ever comes to an art-house cinema near you.
Because I’m an expat and because my family and many friends are far away, I always seem to be overly affected by such emotional stories. Even a week later I’m still mulling over the ideas in the film.
To make matters worse, last night I sat in and watched ‘Billy Elliot’ on video. It covered much of the same ground, with a bit of ‘always be true to yourself’ thrown in for good measure.
So along with an addled brain I now have a punch-drunk heart. I’m a wreck.
I guess I should also give a quick weather report. I’ve complained often enough in these pages about how terrible the weather has been this year. Well for the last two weeks the weather has been glorious. Late autumn slash early winter is the best time of the year in Japan.
The sky is high, blue and cloudless. The air is clear and brisk. And a pale winter sun takes the bite out of the breeze. It’s a walker’s paradise. Coupled with the reds, browns and yellows of the changing leaves, I can honestly take back all the nasty things I have said about the Japanese climate. Mother Nature is being good to us once again.
Well that’s all for this status report. I hope I’ll be able to think of interesting things to say again when all the tests are over.

What's this ad for?

This is the next installment in our guessing game 'What the heck is this train poster all about?' Can you guess what this cheery ad is for? I bet you'll be surprised to know it's for...






HIV & AIDS testing.
I'm still puzzling over what they're trying to communicate to us. The message is basically that you can get a HIV / AIDS test for free at your local clinic. It's anonymous and quick and the results are completely private.
But what all this has to do with a cuddly cow hand puppet is a bit beyond me.
None the less, I'm very happy to see such an ad up in the trains at all.
In Japan, social issues like HIV / AIDS, drug use, sexuality, and so on are almost never spoken about. In fact, their existence is largely denied. Ask a passer-by on the street, and I bet most would say there were no people in Japan living with HIV /AIDS at all. I don't know the statistics, but I'm sure that the rate of infection is no different to any other developed country.
Maybe the idea of having the person dressed in the tradtional puppeteer all-black is to show that the issue needs to come out of the shadows, out into the open.
In short, the ad is either inspired or completely rubbish. I haven't decided yet.

Ukai Chikutei Japanese restaurant

Last week I had one of the best restaurant experiences ever. I went to Ukai Chikutei Restaurant in the mountains west of Tokyo.
It's a beautiful restaurant complex set in a bamboo garden. Each private room is like it's own mini cottage. Weaving around the twenty or so cottages are little rivers, rock gardens and carp filled ponds.
It's decorated in the traditionally simple and elegant Japanese manner. Once in your room, kimono-clad staff scurry back and forth to your cottage serving dish upon amazing dish.
The chef kindly prepared an all-vegetarian banquet for us. It was a feast for all the senses. The main ingredient was matsutake - a very expensive, rare mushroom. It's succulent and juicy with a unique aroma and flavourful essence.
Each dish was like a work of art. I was taken aback by a baked chestnut in a shell made from noodles. It looked for the life of me like a real chestnut shell. I could only imagine the great skill the preparation of such a dish requires.
But I'm a simple lad at heart. For me, the piece de resistance was an assortment of vegetables in miso sauce, grilled on a magnolia leaf on a small charcoal grill brought to your table. The flavour is with me now as I type. It was that good.
Everything worked in harmony. We sat in the tatatmi room, excited at the arrival of each new creation. In between mouthfuls, we gazed at the moss covered waterwheel or artistcally backlit maple trees outside our window. And in the background delicate shamizen music accompanied our feast.
And even though it's a posh and elegant restaurant, because you have a private room, you completely relax and don't feel at all intimiated or uncomfortable.
If you ever come to Japan, I can't recommend this dining experience enough.

Always label your containers!

A quick story that might make you laugh.
I'm determined not to catch cold again this year. To this end, for the past few weeks, I have been garlgling and cleaning out my nose with salt water. Basically you make a salty, body temperature solution and snort it. This cleans away mucus and germs or pollen that have attached themselves to your nasal cavity throughout the day.
Now in my house, I have two big jars. One is for salt and one is for sugar. They have different coloured lids but are not labelled. They sit happily beside each other in the cupboard. I think you can see where this story is going.
For the last three days, instead of cleaning out my nostrils, I have in fact been snorting snorting sugar. Or should I say diluted syrup!
I'm pretty sure this therapy is not to be receommended. In fact, I'm probably on the fast track to diabetes.
The moral of the story: Always label your jars.

Ore ore sagi

The other day, I got terrible news from my student. She was caught out by a type of telephone fraud prevalent in Japan. It’s a scam that plays on three elements of Japanese life: The breakdown of the family unit, the traditional deference to authority, and the great importance of saving face and avoiding scandal.
It’s called 俺俺詐欺 (Ore ore sagi = ‘I... I...’ fraud)
The stories that the crooks use change every few months, but the underlying concepts remain the same.
A mother receives a phone call out of the blue. On the other end of the line, a young man pretends to be her son. He starts the call in a muffled voice saying, ‘I... I... I’m in big trouble.’ You can see how the crime gets its name.
The mother often panics and doesn’t question an unfamiliar voice. You have to remember that young Japanese men are renowned for being taciturn at the best of times. In any case, if she does query how he sounds, he can always put it down to emotion or to having to speak quietly and not be heard.
On top of all this, the gangsters really do their homework. They use school yearbooks and city registers to find out names, ages, residences, and so on. It’s not that hard to be tricked.
Next an authority figure will come on the line, often a supposed boss or police officer or the like. A Japanese woman of a certain age is almost pre-programmed to respect and trust superiors. It takes a strong character to show too much suspicion.
The panicked woman is now fully primed. The crooks play their trump card. They say that if she simply transfers a certain sum of money to such and such an account, the whole matter will be forgotten. Thus her son will avoid any damaging scandal and her family won’t lose face in public.
The sum of money is not to be sneezed at. Usually it comes to about 2 to 4 million yen (about 12,000 to 24,000 euro). This amount is not chosen at random. It represents the maximum ATM transfer you can make over one or two days. Once again, the gangs do their homework and target people who would have such quick funds available.
Now my poor student is no idiot. She’s an intelligent, experienced woman. But unfortunately she fits the ideal profile for such a fraud. She’s rich. She’s of an age where it’s difficult for her not to respect authority. And crucially her young son lives away from home. Like many young men he’s very lazy about keeping in touch. She wakes up every day worrying about him. And because he never calls her, she has no real idea what’s going on in his life.
They spun her a doozie of a yarn. Her ‘son’ said he’d borrowed some money from his company to buy stock. He was sure it would skyrocket and he’d make a killing. He planned to pay the company back and no one would be any the wiser. But the share price never rose, his boss found out, and now he was in deep trouble.
The supposed boss then came on the line. He said the son had always been a good and popular worker. They didn’t want to let one rash mistake ruin his whole career. The boss said that if she quickly reimbursed the company, they wouldn’t report the matter to the police and that would be that.
Now I’m sure you are all in disbelief at this stage and have lots of questions.
Like why didn’t she just call him back on his mobile or home phone? Of course the ‘son’said he had to stay at his company and that his boss wanted to listen in on all calls.
Or why didn’t the bank query such a large transfer? The thing is, they did. But my student was terrified that the story would turn out to be true. In that case, the bank would have no choice but to report the incident to the authorities, and her son’s future would be in tatters.
Or even why didn’t the police just trace the bank account and recover the money? Simply, the crooks usually buy bank account information from homeless people who no longer use it. As soon as the money is transferred, they close the account and the only trail leads to a plastic tent in some park or under some bridge.
These criminals are ingenious. If only they could use their powers for good.
So what do you think? Could this happen in your home country? Or is such a fraud only possible because of a rare combination of social conditions here in Japan.
I’d like to end on a happy note. My student has shown herself to be a positive and resilient person. Out of the shame and embarrassment, she has found some good. On hearing the terrible news, not one member of her family criticised her. In fact, her son deeply apologised for having fallen out of touch and for having contributed to the incident. My student feels that, though she lost a tonne of money, the closer bond her family now enjoys is worth every yen.

A long awaited toilet update

It has been brought to my attention that I haven’t been blogging up my usual storm. Sorry about that.
My finals start next week and run until the big test on December 3rd. So Japanese has been crazy. On top of this, I had a bunch of yoga lesson tickets that had to be used before the beginning of November. So if I haven’t been working or studying, I’ve had to be in yoga. I hope that things will go a little bit back to normal from now on.
Japanese has been going pretty poorly. While everyone else in my class has seen their grades get better, mine have been getting worse. And this with me studying harder than ever. It’s looking bleak. Bleaker still is the fact that everyone in my school has received their examinee registration except me. Do you think the gods are trying to tell me not to bother, fall back off the wagon and just get sozzled until my bro arrives in December?
Having been so busy, essentials have falling by the wayside. By essentials I mean cooking, cleaning, laundry, that kind of thing. I’ve been eating out way too often, the dirty clothes pile is now taller than I am, and my flat is so dirty that I’m considering moving just to avoid cleaning it. If my bro were to arrive now, he’d have to choose between sleeping in the shower room or the toilet: the only two places that I’ve kept in order.
During my Internet silence, I’ve neglected to fill you in on so many toilet-related advances. Now is your chance to catch up.
Toto, the Mercedes Benz of conveniences, has gone all out. New toilet bowls are fully silicone-lined. No nasty business can stick to them... ever! They’re billed as the toilets you never have to clean. More exciting still, a new optional extra analyses your waste and prints out dietary and medical advice based on what you leave behind. Furthermore, this function studies your family’s patterns and modulates the electricity and water consumption accordingly. How cool is that! And what would all this set you back? A snip at 5,000 to 10,000 Euro.
Needless to say all their new toilets are fully automated. You don’t have to lift the lid or flush or anything. It’s all done by sensors. This is true of so many devices in Japan; doors, wash basins, ticket gates. It’s actually becoming a bit of a problem. Some scientists are trying to draw a link between the increased automation of Japanese society and the sky-rocketing levels of premature senility over here. Pretty scary.
So next time you see me, if I’m standing in front of a closed door with a confused look on my face, unable to use the door handle, I hope you’ll be sympathetic and understand my plight.