Monthly Archives: July 2014

Getting Back in the Future

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When it comes to technology, Japan typically has the reputation of being several minutes into the future compared to the rest of the world. Tokyo has a modern, almost space age look. Everything is bright and polished. The trains run on time–much to the shock of people from England and anyone who’s ever suffered a ride on Amtrack–and the bullet trains look really cool. Everyone has a cellphone and is too cool to actually use it for making calls. Japan has the second (or third depending on the survey) fastest internet in the world.

For while, the several minutes into the future reputation may have been true, more or less, in a way, if you only stayed in Tokyo.

I arrived in Japan with that expectation but when I got to my first school, I immediately noticed the lack of computers. Hell, even in tiny Hayden, Colorado we’d been using computers at school in the early 80s and I’d written programs on my high school’s computers in Kansas. In Japan, though, only one teacher had a laptop computer–his personal one–and everyone else was using large word processors that looked like computers but were basically large typewriters with monitors and floppy drives. There was a room full of computers upstairs, but to my knowledge no one ever used them.

Eventually I got a computer and an ISP and started surfing the growing web. The problem was, Japan was my first encounter with paying for local calls. At the time a call across town in the daytime cost 10 yen (about a dime) a minute. That made using a dial up connection for an hour cost six dollars. It was a little cheaper at night, but not much. Also, at the time, to get a land line installed from Nippon Telephone and Telegraph (NTT) cost around a $1,000 per line. (If you were a business and needed five lines, you had to pay $5,000 dollars for them.) Then there was the wait as it is a universal rule that all servicemen can only arrive on Tuesday at 2:00 p.m. which actually means sometime on Friday.

As a result, the Japanese gravitated toward cellphones because you could get one for only a penny and it was working within an hour. When writers came to Japan, they saw high school girls with cellphones and were convinced the future had arrived in Japan.

One consequence of the spread of cellphones was that when the Japanese government began pushing for faster and faster broadband, including installing fiber-optic connections, not many Japanese were impressed. They didn’t need computers as they already had internet on their phones. They could even watch television on them. Protected industries such as banking and insurance were also slow to adopt computers–She Who Must Be Obeyed worked for one of the largest insurance companies in Japan and did most of her data entry and paperwork by hand. Teachers were too busy teaching other mandates to be interested in having a “teach this computer stuff” mandate added on.

The second consequence of Japan’s early cellphone adoption was an initial lack of interest in smart phones. The iPhone arrived in late 2008 but didn’t really catch on until 2010. After that, you slowly began to see more and more smartphones.

The final consequence has been a complete lack of interest in wifi leaving Japan with some of the worst wifi coverage in the developed world. More than one intrepid traveler has arrived in Japan and discovered they could only use their computers’ wifi in the hotel lobby, Starbucks or the parking lot of 7-11. If they had smartphones, they discovered the joys and expenses of global roaming.

Recently, though, Japan has begun to arrive back in the future as more and more stores and restaurants have begun to add free wifi as they discovered they can use it to pump advertising. Some of the cellphone companies have subscription wifi services that can be used all over the country. Also, the price of fiber optic broadband has fallen and is now competitive with ordinary ADSL. (This may mean an upgrade is in my future.)

Just One Just One More Just One More Little Bit Won’t Hurt

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I’ve mentioned a few times that we (the teachers at the school where I work) recently moved from our old office to a new office in a new building. During the move I jettisoned 14 years of crap that, at the time I started assembling it, seemed like a good thing to have on hand.

One of the odd things I’ve noticed about being in a new office with a shiny new desk is how uncomfortable and sterile the new desk feels without the dangerous overhang of crap–not all of it mine; they had encyclopedias from 1967–that used to occupy the shelves above the old desk. The new desk doesn’t have that “lived in” look.

(No complaints about the new chairs, though. The new chairs are awesome and I’m happy to sleep, er, live, er WORK in them.)

That said, I’ve been doing my best to keep the new desk organized. This is partly because the new shelves actually sit on the desk and steal a lot space and because the desk itself is smaller. A few scattered pieces of paper quickly make the desk look messy.

In the past, as a form of “cleaning” and “decluttering” I would merely fill up the drawers with the crap–the adult equivalent of pushing everything under the bed before mom comes to check on the room–and call the desk clean. Today, however, I actually spent time cleaning the drawers and tossing scrap paper in the recycling bin rather than telling myself I’d eventually reuse it. (I wouldn’t, of course. I’d inevitably acquire new paper before I could use up the old.)

Part of the problem I have is that one of the full time teachers in the office has a desk that’s so messy that when you first see it you’re convinced his bookshelves must have collapsed onto his desk. His desk looks like the kind of thing you see on the occasional Japanese versions of Hoarders. I’ve always been tempted to send a picture in and see if one of the TV shows would send a pair of comedians (the shows always send young, up-and-coming comedians) to clean the desk.

What’s interesting about this teacher’s desk, is his old desk in the old office was just as messy, albeit a bit more precariously balanced. He moved the clutter to the new office. (I kind of wish I’d taken a picture to see if he’s put it all back in the same place, which would likely mean he has a system.

With that as a comparison just across the room, it’s easy to say, “well, at least my desk doesn’t look that bad”. It’s a bit like hanging out with fat people to make yourself look thinner. Then you tell yourself you’re actually thin and think “oh, this one little thing won’t hurt. Nor this one neither. Nor this one.” and pretty soon people are hanging out next to you. Or are sending comedians to clean up your desk.

Lightning and Thunder and Floods but Few Holidays

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Note: To my friends who’ve lost power in the recent hurricane and are able to read this; take care of yourselves. We all hope things get cleaned up and back to normal soon. I will now make light of hurricanes and typhoons.

Although I’m from Kansas, I basically grew up in Colorado. As such, I’m comfortable in both mountains and plains and I am disturbingly comfortable with both blizzards and tornadoes.

Several years ago there was a tornado warning in my hometown while I was hanging out with several distant relatives at my grandmother’s house. The warning said that a tornado had been spotted in eastern Salina. Immediately, the out-of-towners looked at me and said “What do we do? What do we do?”

The devil over my left shoulder suggested I say “We DIE!” The devil over my right shoulder said “Let’s try and see it.” (Yes, if you’re counting that means no angels are present over my shoulders. Long story.) Since we were in Western Salina, the tornado had already passed us. If we were going to die, we would have already been dead. (Which, I realize, was not a very comforting thought.) The paths of tornadoes are pretty consistent (Southwest to Northeast) and once you know where they are in relation to where you are, you can pretty much figure out what to do; where they form is the hard part to figure out and I’ve run to the basement a couple times when the warning announced the tornado was not only Southeast of my mom’s house, but was practically down the street.

However, in Japan I’ve had to learn to live with two forces of nature that are more unpredictable: earthquakes and typhoons. The latter is more on my mind as Typhoon Number 8–the Japanese get so many they just number them–may or may not be on its way toward Tokyo by this Friday or Saturday. Part of the problem is that because Japan is a series of small and/or narrow islands, Typhoons take crazier paths than tornadoes. We’ve seen storms aim directly at Tokyo and then veer away. We’ve seen storms veer away, change their minds, and veer back. We’ve seen storms do a loop in the middle of the ocean and then graze Tokyo. We’ve seen them go North past Japan and then turn back South.

The biggest hassle–besides all the destruction–is that I’m expected to go to work unless it’s obvious that our area is going to be hit and the school calls my company and cancels classes. I’ve been half way to work, soaked from tips of my toes to the middle of my chest and wrestling with a disintegrating umbrella when I learned school had been cancelled. I’ve got to school in that condition and had to teach even though a quarter of the students were absent.

I think part of it is that typhoons are kind of familiar to the Japanese and they are not as scary as earthquakes. Similarly, I remember that, when I lived in Colorado, no matter how much snow we got, we never got a snow day. In fact, the only “snow day” I remember getting was because of a flu outbreak. (And yes, kids, I really did have to walk to school in blizzards so there. No, it wasn’t uphill both ways.)

Luckily, I have a day or two to double check our emergency supplies and hope we keep power.

Party On The Clock, Dude

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In yesterday’s post I mentioned that Japanese parties, or enkai, can be rather formal (translation: boring) and that they are pretty much the same no matter who throws them (translation: always boring). Today I thought I’d explain that in more detail.

The Japanese like to drink and they are capable of throwing interesting parties, before that happens, though, there is an enkai which is pretty much the bastard offspring of a long business meeting and cocktail hour. Enkais are typically two hours long and happen strictly on schedule. There’s no such thing as being fashionably late. If the enkai is scheduled to start at 7:00 p.m. and you show up at 7:10 p.m. you will have missed the opening speech and the opening toast. There will be an empty space on the floor where you are supposed to be and you will be at least two glasses of beer and an appetizer behind your neighbors.

At this point a Westerner begins to encounter a level of culture shock. No only are you hunched up on straw mats behind a little floor table but you don’t actually own your own beer. Instead, in the spirit of collegiality, everyone pours beer for everyone else. To pour your own beer is considered greedy and impatient. In fact, you may not even have a bottle nearby (especially if you were 10 minutes late). Getting beer involves getting someone to notice that your little glass is empty and hoping they will crawl across the mat to you and pour you a glass.

There is also a tradition of waiting until you’ve taken a bite of the most delicious food on your plates (Japanese serve each dish on a separate plate) and then ambushing you with a bottle of beer. You are then expected to down your current beer, ruining the taste of the food, and then present your glass for more beer.

At a certain point in the enkai, about 75 minutes in, people start crawling around with bottles as an excuse to chat with the people they’re not sitting near. With five minutes left, everyone returns to their tables and the closing speech is given. At the two hour mark, the enkai and what is typically unmerciful boredom is over. (Note: New Year’s Parties are longer and usually more fun but that is another post.)

It’s at this point that the fun actually begins. You can either extricate yourself from the proceedings and go home or follow the proceedings to the first of the many after parties. Granted, at this point karaoke is usually involved–and in Japan karaoke is actually a martial art–but whiskey is also involved.

However, be warned, in Japan “drinking whiskey” is actually a form of rehydration. They give you a highball glass full of ice, put about a cap’s worth of whiskey in it and then top it off with water. I remember being horrified the first time this happened and I requested a glass of straight whiskey to accompany the watery ruin. I then had the odd experience of chasing straight whiskey with whiskey and water.

For the Japanese, though, this watery drink has a kind of placebo effect and they start singing, usually pretty well. And then they look at me and I’m like, um, no, not enough whiskey yet because there’s not enough whiskey in this town to make me go up there and sing. Now, at this point, some people go “Oh, DL lighten up. Live a little. Everyone’s having fun. Sing. Sing a song. Sing out loud. Sing out strong.” To which I usually respond “Go fuck yourself.” (Remind me again: Why don’t I get invited to parties?)

Granted, there was that time I sang “I Left My Heart in San Francisco” with my then boss and there was that other time I sang “California Dreamin'” but the first involved the New Year and the second involved She Who Must Be Obeyed and, oddly, England. (But those are future posts.)

After the Karaoke, the hardcore partiers either go to another karaoke bar or to a “snack” which has little to do with food and a lot to do with well-dressed women pushing expensive drinks at you. Or, those of us who’ve been there and done that and got a concussion because of it, go for a bowl of ramen soup and then go home.

Peel it Blanch it Dice it Fry it Skin it Eat it

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Back when I lived in Niigata, before I’d met She Who Must Be Obeyed, I was invited to a parent teacher party with the Parent Teachers Association of Isobe Junior High School, which was my smallest school. I was sitting next to the school’s cute secretary, whose name I don’t remember and whose interest in me ranked somewhere between “I’d rather have a root canal on all my teeth without anesthetic” and “I’d rather be set on fire”. She was polite, though, as I struggled through what little Japanese I knew. It is difficult, even if a woman’s interested, to impress her when you’re basically babbling like a child. (This is something I really wished I’d learned in high school and definitely before I got to graduate school.)

Japanese parties, called enkai, are heavily formalized and pretty much all the same, but that’s another post. The food is also usually the same. In this case, we had a tasty deep-fried fish that had been cooked long enough you could eat the bones. I devoured everything and set the heads on the plate (yes, almost all fish in Japan is served with heads; some is even still moving). About halfway through the meal (which, by definition is the party’s one hour mark) the cute secretary whose name I don’t remember pointed to my plate and said “don’t you like to eat the fish heads?” to which I replied, more or less, “um, am I supposed to like them?” I then found a rare moment of situational awareness and realized that mine was the only plate with heads staring forlornly at me. Being a male attempting to impress a female, I quickly at the fish heads, eyes and all. It was actually pretty tasty but she was unimpressed.

All this is a long introduction to the some of the odd differences between the way Japanese eat things and the way I do. I’ve mentioned before how She Who Must Be Obeyed thinks it so strange that I like raw broccoli and raw cauliflower that she can’t actually bring herself to leave it raw. However, I also remember one time, after I’d met She Who Must Be Obeyed, when we were eating somewhere with my adult class and someone started handing out grapes. I immediately attacked the grapes and made short work of them. However, every single other person in the room was peeling their grapes before eating them and they thought it strange that I would eat the skins. I, of course, was worried that I’d somehow poisoned myself, but nothing bad happened.

I thought , at first, it was because they were large grapes, but every Japanese I know will also peel small grapes. Since I’m already finished by the time they finish their first grape, there’s not much else for me to do but watch. They also carefully peel baked potatoes and apples which I find an unnecessary step for eating either.

Interestingly, the one food the Japanese don’t peel is eggplant. This time every year, Mother and Father of She Who Must Be Obeyed send us lots of round eggplant. It quickly gets sliced up and pan fried and dipped in soy sauce and ginger. It gets stuffed with ground pork and deep fried. It gets served in soup. It gets served with meat sauce and pasta. It gets pickled. It never, however, gets peeled. (It also rarely gets salted and sweated.) This shocked me the first time because I still remember the care my friend Steve put into peeling an eggplant before making moussaka many hundreds of years ago.

Now I realize, he may have been wasting his time.

Wasting Time With Pointy Stabby Things

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I’m in the middle of marking exams which meant today was a good day to stop by the Ginza Blade Show down in Tokyo and do some window shopping and loafing.

I’ve mentioned before my rekindled interest in Pointy Stabby Things and today marks the third trip I’ve made to a Japanese custom knife show. As such, the knife makers who’ve been to each knife show have started to treat me like a regular. To-Un Ihara, who I talked with during the first knife show and bought something from during the second, asked where the Canadian was (answer: working) and if I liked and was actually using my knife (answer: yes and sort of). His factory is close to my town and he invited me to visit, which I will sometime this summer.

Another maker showed off his English skills and talked about being in Atlanta last month for the Blade Show. Another guy, who sells knife making supplies, showed off his English and tried to convince me to start making knives. I was like “no way I have too many hobbies and a blog to write” and “well, probably by the end of the summer I might give it a try just for the hell of it”.

There was an odd mix of styles at this show, which made it more interesting than the last one. This is the first show I’ve been to with knives that could be described as “tactical”. The most interesting were from Kiku Knives, who works with Western makers. He had knives, well, swords actually that I think require registration and the good will of the police to own. (More on that later.)

There was also a lot of “man jewelry” and “blade art” that didn’t seem designed to be used. One maker had one-of-kind knives with narwhal ivory handles he was willing to let go for $4,800. The Steam Punk knife with lots of brass and cool bits has lots of painful hot spots and would be impossible to use for more than opening letters (and nowadays, how stupid would you look stabbing your smartphone simply because the LED was flashing).

The most unusual knives, though had glass blades. They were beautiful and kind of cool–and had me thinking “man who has glass knife should not throw it” which isn’t funny at all. I didn’t see the point of the glass knifes and didn’t have a chance to talk to him.

Update, Feb. 11, 2022: The most unusual knives, though, had agate and obsidian blades I first thought were glass. I even concocted the joke that “man who has glass knife should not throw it” which isn’t funny at all. I didn’t see the point, no pun intended, of the stone, knives, other than that they were beautiful and reasonably sharp.

I ended up not buying anything, but I did manage to record a lot of video footage that I will edit sometime in the 21st century. I also ended up confused. After lots of research I thought I understood Japanese knife laws, but after playing with several knives that were long enough to qualify as swords, it’s clear there are nuances in the law I don’t understand which means I’ll never buy one of those knives. Which, in the end may be the goal of Japanese knife laws.

That Which Has Been Seen Cannot Be

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Japan has a reputation for being a country of readers. Until the advent of the smart phone–now everyone’s playing games/texting–it was common to see most people on a train reading books. They would even do this in crowded trains when there was barely enough extra space for air. (On at least two occasions I had to remind people standing next to me or behind me that I was not a book rest and not a particularly nice person.)

The truth is, though, that a good portion of those readers were reading comic books and that a good portion of those were reading comic books that most people in the West would only read alone in the bathroom because they were, how shall I say, graphic depictions of people knowing each other in a Biblical sense often in ways the Bible says are worthy of an execution. They also regularly featured characters too young to have started junior high school.

This version of lolita culture was, at the time, so common that I saw two teachers exchange school girl themed porn videos in the teachers’ office as if it was a natural thing to do, and had to chase two adult students away from the school girl uniform they were oggling during class. After I told them to step away from it they said “but you get to see them everyday” and I was like “step away from the uniform” while my brain was trying to pretend I hadn’t heard that. (For the record, the uniform was in class because it was being passed between two mothers, one whose daughter had finished junior high and the other whose daughter was about to start.)

The worst parts of this culture are changing, though, mostly by force of law. When I still lived in Niigata, I remember looking down a row of magazines in a bookstore and seeing, in pretty much this order: car magazine, literature magazine, child nudity, sumo magazine and, well, I never got to the end of the row because I’m still shocked at what was basically the equivalent of a Playboy magazine for Russian sixth graders. Nothing was covered; it was displayed as if it were normal. Sadly, at that time, it was. Chiaki Kuriyama (Go Go Yubari in Kill Bill) started her modeling career by doing a nude photo book at the age of 12. The book was a best seller.

I remember this mostly because of the controversy it generated and the fact that Japanese law changed soon after her photo book was released to ban the production (although not the possession) of such materials. I also remember that, because she was topless on the cover, the local bookstore had placed the price label in a strategic location.

Raunchy comic books, however, persisted. Soon after I started working at my current school, I confiscated a comic book from one of my 7th graders. I won’t go into details for fear this gets blocked by filters, but I will say it was elementary school girls, various animals and all nasty.

Recently, Japanese law changed to control these magazines as well. Normally I’d be against government involvement in such things, but some things pose an interesting challenge to even the most heartfelt ideals and some things just shouldn’t be.

The Voice You Hear May Be Your Own

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There are very few things more traumatizing in life than hearing your recorded voice for the first time. The only thing worse is seeing yourself on television for the first time (more on that later as there are complicating factors).

The first time I remember hearing my voice was, I believe, in the third grade. I don’t remember why my voice had been recorded but the squeaky nasal thing that came out of the cassette player still gives me the creeps. Although hearing your own voice is traumatizing in general, I think it’s especially bad for young boys as we suddenly realize that we sound like our mothers and not our fathers.

My squeaky nasal thing lasted well into university and I remember one instance where I was on the phone with the university or some business and the voice on the other end kept calling me “miss”. When I finally said and spelled out my name there was a quick “oh” followed by a moment of silence and then I became “sir”.

Somewhere along the way I started to take acting classes and part of that involved vocal training. My teacher, Melissa Riggs, told me to read the “tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow” soliloquy from Macbeth with the deepest most exaggerated “Shakespearean” accent I could muster. I thought I sounded ridiculous but everyone else thought I sounded good (please note: this meant my voice sounded good not that I wasn’t ridiculous or that I’m not an idiot telling a tale full of sound and fury).

Over the years I think I’ve managed to work my voice into something respectable. It helps that I live overseas and teach English, a combination, as I’ve said before, that typically steals accents. Also, since we write and record our own listening tests, I get to hear my voice over loudspeakers quite frequently. (In fact, I did that very thing just today which inspired this post.)

The other traumatizing thing is seeing yourself on television for the first time. This is different than seeing yourself in a video–although that’s pretty bad–because lots of strangers are seeing you on TV.

Oddly, although I’m not particularly photogenic, I am somewhat telegenic (some day I will prove that in one of these posts) as I’m not required to hold a smile. I can just relax and talk.

Unfortunately, several hundred years ago, give or take, when I worked in Kansas City, Kansas for the summer as part of a Peace Corps-style project, I was interviewed for local television.

Now, as a warning to you, when you’re on television for the first time, the better you think you sound, the worse you actually are. I thought I said something profound in a profound manner and that viewers would be moved to tears. However, when I finally saw the segment, my nasal voice was back. Also, because I was taller than the cameraman, the camera angle put me in a “talking down my nose” position that looked snobbish.  To top it off, everything I said sounded trite and superficial. (The memory still gives me a case of the third grade creeps.)

I’ve therefore done my best to avoid TV cameras since then and let other people make the official statements. It’s for the best.

The Temple of Pens and Paper and Stuff

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I’ve said before that Japan is the Mecca of stationery and things to write with. For part of today, I got the chance to head down to Tokyo to visit Itoya, the central temple of that Mecca. I was mildly disappointed by the trip.

I’ve also mentioned my affinity for places that are both grandiose and kind of creepy.  When I first moved to Tokyo, Itoya met both those criteria. Behind it’s signature red paper clip sign was seven floors (and one basement level) of office supplies fountain pens, ball-point pens, paper, and every office gadget imaginable housed in a thin building that looked kind of worn out and felt vaguely dangerous, as if you’d had to go to a store in the bad part of town (instead of just a block from what used to be the most expensive property on Earth). It had low doors and I had to pay attention as I moved from floor to floor. I was immediately smitten by it all and started spending. If I had nickle for every dime I spent there, well, I’d have someone else writing these posts whilst I studied mathematics.

Part of the fun is that, because the Japanese also have an unhealthy interest in office supplies, Japanese stationers have pens and other items that never make it to the West. Some of the items aren’t worth sending, but the ones that are seem subject to the whims of the manufacturers who may decide that the pen or pencil won’t sell well overseas. When  you house it in a creepy building it’s even better.

Unfortunately, the creepiness is gone as the Itoya main building is now a construction site. The basic pens and paper have been moved to a six story building around the corner that lacks the red paper clip any character.

Clean but lacks character.

Clean but lacks character.

Just down the alley is K. Itoya,which used to be a satellite of the main store, and now houses the fountain pens and art supplies. It also lacks any character, but I like the fountain pen sign.

Nice sign.

Nice sign. No character.

I’m also convinced that the new stores have less stuff than before. Part of the charm of old Itoya was that you could roam around for an hour discovering stuff that you didn’t know existed but suddenly couldn’t live without. The new store is too clean and compact. It’s like replacing the XYZ Shopping Mall with a large convenience store but still calling it the XYZ Shopping Mall.

I hope the new building gets its creepiness and sense of danger back. If it doesn’t, I just hope it has more stuff.

 

This is the End Before the Begin Again

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I’ve got absolutely nothing worth writing about tonight, so let’s talk about work.

Today was the last day of teaching for Term 1 and I now have a day to relax before exam hell begins. I will, of course, spend the day in the most productive manner possible.

Well, not really. I’ll just loaf.

As I’ve written before, it was a strange term. We have a new building and three new teachers and although everyone settled in quickly, it still felt strange. Then there was the self-inflicted pain caused by having the students make two minute videos. That in itself would have been fine if it were actually the students making the videos and not us. That said, I managed to film my last two students today when they turned up, without any prompting by me, to do their video. They, of course, cheated by gluing their script to the back of their product poster and they lost points for being lazy. (They just sat down and read as if they were news anchors.) But, it’s all finished.

Exams themselves are kind of goofy. We stand around during the exams waiting to answer any questions that might arise and to quickly correct, by writing on the blackboards, any mistakes suddenly discovered in the exams. After the exam, we wait for the proctors to bring the actual exam papers and we then sort them by class and start marking.

Well, actually, that’s what’s supposed to happen. I usually have to have at least one day of denial in which I spend a lot of time parsing time and convincing myself that days actually do have 25 or 26 hours and that three days are actually five. This means I have plenty of time to goof around and play games and I feel no guilt doing do. This period of denial is followed by late night marathon marking sessions fueled by coffee and chocolate.

I first enter the “ah heck, this ain’t so bad phase” in which I make actual progress. Eventually, though, “ah heck, this ain’t so bad phase” smashes into the first wall in the form of “Will this madness never end?” phase in which it seems, no matter how long you mark, as if there’s always the same number of tests left to mark. “Will this madness never end?” smashes into the wall called “My God, my god, why has Thou forsaken me?” phase in which even one test causes physical pain to get through.

Eventually, I get through all the exams and pass them back to the students and all is well, at least until the end of summer and the cycle starts again.