Category Archives: Life and Stuff

A Great Feeling of Dread and Despair

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For various complicated reasons that prove that 1) God has a sense of humor and 2) my karma sucks, I will be solely responsible for the care and feeding of teenaged girl for a good portion of the summer.

This is because Mother of She Who Must Be Obeyed is going into surgery and She Who Must be Obeyed is taking our youngest and heading off to Niigata to look after her. However, because Japan is run by sadists who do not understand the meaning of the phrase “summer vacation” our oldest has several club practices and will be staying home with me.

This poses a few interesting dilemmas.

First, it makes it difficult for me to recharge my batteries as I will now have people around (well, at teenager anyway). Do I simply encourage her to surf the net and text her friends via her Nintendo 3DS constantly or do I make an effort to encourage her to study constantly?

Second, this means I am required to “set an example” and “be responsible” which means my usual regression into a kind of prehistoric beast will not be possible. (Well, it’s possible, just not recommended.) Do I simply encourage her to live life one step above the garbage houses in Hoarders with the understanding that we have to clean everything before She Who Must Be Obeyed gets home or do I give her more daily chores?

Third, do I bribe her to skip club and just go to Niigata where she will be spoiled blind by the family members there? (With the understanding that she will have to be reprogrammed to her regular life of scarcity once she gets back.)

Fourth, do I pull the Bill Cosby “dad’s are the smartest people in the house because only a genius could act that dumb” card and make it appear that I plan to do things in the worse possible way imaginable so that She Who Must Be Obeyed insists our oldest go to Niigata with her? Examples: Don’t worry, dear. We’ll eat well. McDonalds is up by the station and we can always order pizza. There’s lots of good, just expired food thrown out on burnable trash day, too. If you cook it thoroughly it’s just fine. Got me through graduate school. Or: I’m going to teach our oldest how to use and sharpen knives. Or: I’m going to get my driver’s license and start driving us around everywhere.

Fifth, should I speak to her or pretend she’s not there?

Sixth, do I just have fun and try to make some positive memories? Sure. But she has club almost everyday. We’ll have to pencil in the memories. Sigh.

Singing the Empty Orchestra Blues

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Despite all my years in Japan, I still do not understand the Japanese love of karaoke. Not only is it a popular “why don’t we get drunk and sing?” activity but it’s popular enough that there are annual shows where celebrities take turns singing songs for cash. (If they can sing the song without making a mistake, their team wins money.)

My first taste of karaoke was with the teachers at my smallest school. They took turns belting out Japanese hits with surprising skill (and a little help from autotune) whilst I scanned the catalog for a song in English that both of us knew and which didn’t give me a headache. It quickly became clear, though, that the songs I knew they didn’t know and the songs they knew I didn’t like. They kept suggesting songs and I kept rejecting their ideas as I tried to explain some of my axioms of karaoke:

1–Just because I like a song doesn’t mean I know all the words.
2–Just because I know all the words doesn’t mean I want to sing the song.
3–I’m not a big fan of post “I Want To Hold Your Hand” Beatles so stop suggesting it.
4–“Let it Be,” “Yesterday” and “Imagine” are overrated.

In the end I settled on the Shocking Blue version of “Venus” which left all of us underwhelmed but guaranteed I wouldn’t have to sing again and, by extrapolation, meant I wouldn’t have to talk to anyone. The next time I sang was with my then boss and involved “I Left My Heart in San Francisco” but I’ll have to save discussion of that one until the New Year season.

Sometime after that I sang “Saturday Night” by the Bay City Rollers with She Who Must Be Obeyed back when she was known as She Whose Friend Was Really Cute aka She Who Helped Sabotage My Chances With the Really Cute Friend.

The big karaoke moment though came in 1998 when for reasons I still don’t fully understand but which involved my having visited London on three occasions, I was invited to join She Who Would Eventually Be Obeyed and her friends at a party celebrating the one year (or so) reunion of their trip to London. I was not only the only foreigner and the only one present who hadn’t been on their trip, I was the only male. As such, I was expected to sing because, well, because. Quite frankly, if I’d left them with the impression that “foreign men are boring” that would have been fine with me.

Instead, I was asked if I knew the song “California Dreamin'” I said “of course” and was suddenly scheduled to sing the song. I pointed out that although I knew the song, I only really new the chorus. The person who scheduled me was like “Yeah, how about that.”

To make matters worse, it wasn’t a private karaoke room, it was a stage in the bar. This meant that when a Japanese was singing no one noticed, but when a large foreigner got up there, the entire place would shut down to watch (had been there; had done that; more on that another day).

To make worse matters worse, about the time my song was scheduled to scroll up, one of my party colleagues belted out a version of a Japanese song in a near perfect Mariah Carey multi-octave impersonation.

I was, of course, no fool, and stated how I didn’t follow Mariah Carey. This turned my song into a duet that went something like:

All the leaves are brown (the leaves are brown) and the sky is gray (and the sky is gray).
Something something something (something something) on a winter’s day.
Something something something (something something) something something L.A.;
California dreamin’ on such a winter’s day.

I got through it and on the ride home I accidentally asked out She Who Would Eventually Be Obeyed and she quickly accepted. The next day we went out and never stopped dating.

So not everything about karaoke is bad; just that singing part.

Tales of Skinned Knees and Broken Hearts

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I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train.” ― Gwendolen, The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde

Fewer things horrify me more than looking back through my diary. This is partly because it’s pretty horrifying to look back over your life and think “Lacks action” and “needs a plot with more direction.”

Looking back over mine, even with two years in Albania and several years in Japan, I’m always shocked at all the wasted time and all the whining over skinned knees and broken hearts. Even worse is the horrifying sameness. There’s a long period after I got settled into Japan where all the daily posts started with either “Ordinary day” or “Okay day.” Those went on so long that I pretty much stopped recording anything. Mind, you this means that my time in Japan was ordinary but safe and I was protected from living in “interesting times”.

This is also because, as I’ve mentioned before, I find diaries to be largely a waste of time. It’s lots of time and energy spent sending daily letters to yourself. (Unlike blogs which are time and energy spent on sending letters to yourself and a few other people and the kind bots that keep your inbox filled with semi-coherent spam so you know that at least something cares.)

On the other hand, when interesting things do happen in my life, I tend not to write about them for a long time. This means my diaries have long blank periods often spanning years. Although I have an entry on proposing to She Who Must Be Obeyed, I don’t have an entry about any of our three wedding ceremonies. I also don’t have entries on the births of either daughter. I didn’t write one about my father’s death until two months after he was buried and even then it was part of a “Wow, a lot of stuff has happened” entry.

For the most part, anything I have resembling a diary falls under the category of what I call a “confusion journal”. Periodically, usually several months apart, when events and emotions swirl, I’ll sit down and vent with pen and ink and that can usually calm me down and give me some perspective.

One time I realized how boring my complaints were and actually fell asleep whilst writing about them. That’s right, I’m so boring some times I can cure my own insomnia.

 

 

Hanging Out With Fat People Doesn’t Make You Thin

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One of my guilty pleasures is the TV show Hoarders. One of the problems of living in Japan is I only recently discovered it. I remember hearing about it when I was in the USA several years ago, but never had a chance to watch it until recently. It hasn’t had the effect I thought it would.

To explain this, you also have to know that one of my other guilty pleasures is the Rodney Dangerfield movie “Back to School.” This is mostly for it’s great lines “Bring us a pitcher of beer every seven minutes until somebody passes out; and then bring one every ten minutes.” and a terrific cameo by Kurt Vonnegut. The line that’s applicable this time, though, is “if you want to look thin, you hang out with fat people”.

I expected hoarders to be like that; no matter how bad the “variety room” is, it’s not as bad some of the places on Hoarders. In comparison my home is rather clean. What I saw, though, was the places that were a bit too close to home. We have a small apartment and a lot of stuff and one room that serves as our storage room. The rest of the apartment is clean (except two cluttered bookshelves) but the variety room triples as an office for two, overflow storage and, no joke, temporary trash storage. The latter is a result of Japan’s goofy recycling laws and a difference in philosophy between myself and She Who Must Be Obeyed.

SWMBO is the conscientious Japanese lady following the rules and trying to neither cause trouble nor give the appearance of being a rule breaker. I’m the guy who likes to point out that while cardboard is, technically, recyclable garbage, it is also burnable garbage. I’m also the guy willing to argue with the lady serving as the trash police (until I remember that, this year, SWMBO IS the trash police).

That said, I believe the recyclables should be stored outside on the balcony until it’s time to put them in the trash area. (Japan has areas for trash, not dumpsters. Long story.) That, however, is not done with all recyclable trash as the city doesn’t want it water damaged and moldy.

The result is piles of cardboard, card stock, paper and old bags taking up space on the floor and on a shelf in the variety room. It doesn’t take up that much space, but the psychological effect is surprising. It gets in the way of our real storage and the sense of disorder makes it very easy to add just one more bit of trash, or to start just one more pile next to it. That’s especially true since one of the office mates is a teenager.

The most disturbing part is how easy it is to get used to it. After a while you don’t even really see it. It’s just part of the furniture. That’s the effect watching Hoarders has had on me. I actually understand the Hoarders more than I should.

Faster in Circles and With Turns

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At a young age I started building model airplanes and then model cars and, for a while, it was probably my main hobby as it gives the satisfaction of making something without having to put in much strenuous effort. Oddly, that interest in model cars didn’t translate to an interest in cars. Although I can see how it would be useful to know more about how cars work, I’ve never been particularly interested in pulling cars apart and putting them back together the way some of my friends have.

Cars to me are simply forms of transportation that are either cool or uncool. Discussion of parts and internals is as interesting to me as hearing Salma Hayek describe her liver and gall bladder. (Actually, for Salma Hayek, I might actually put up with that and feign interest.)

I bring this up because I just watch Senna, a documentary about Formula 1 driver Ayrton Senna and this has me thinking about racing and cars. I grew up watching NASCAR and Indy Car and am one of the few people in Japan who managed to convert an Englishman into enjoying NASCAR. I’m also one of the few Americans I know who enjoys Formula 1 and Super GT and understands the differences:

NASCAR–Good Ol’ Boys playing really fast chess.
Indy Car–Good Ol’ Boys with delusions of grandeur.
Super GT–Japanese Good Ol’ Boys driving almost real cars under too many equality rules.
F1–Pompous Europeans (mostly) driving turbo-charged (this season anyway) computers.

They all have their flaws and I admit that I’m partial to races that feature more than left turns. With NASCAR that means Watkins Glen and Sonoma (although I’m also partial to Pocono Raceway which has three corners and each is a different size and angle). That said, it is impressive to see a dozen cars squeezed together at 220 miles per hour (354 kmh) on an oval track.

I find Formula 1 to be too computerized and shrieky a lot of the time, and that’s just the drivers, but I still enjoy watching it.

My favorite, right now, is Super GT, mostly because that’s all Japanese TV tends to show. I also like that the two different flavors (GT300 and GT500) race at the same time on the same track in different races. It’s common to hear GT300 drivers comment about how fast and cool the GT500 cars are during the race. I do find the parity rules, which punish race winners with “success ballast” to ensure exciting racing, to be a bit annoying, but seeing one team dominate Formula 1 all season is also annoying.

Someday I’d like to go to a race but, quite frankly, I don’t think I’d enjoy it as much. It’s a TV sport for me. Something to look at, kind of like the model cars I used to build.

Losing the Train in Translation

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Soon after I got to Japan I came up with what I thought was a brilliant idea for learning Japanese. Because was in Niigata, and Niigata was nicknamed “Snow Country” (Yukiguni) I would study Japanese by studying Yasunari Kawabata’s novel Yukiguni (雪国) in both English and Japanese. (I remember a guy doing this with a novel when I was in Albania and it seemed to work for him.)

This idea crashed and burned fairly quickly and all because of a train. Snow Country is famous for its simple opening line: “The train came out of the long tunnel into the snow country.” In Japanese it looks like this: 国境の長いトンネルを抜けると、雪国であった.

I broke out a dictionary (more on that later) and started translating:

国境の–border
長い–long
トンネル–tunnel
を抜けると–exited
雪国–snow country
であった–was

Somehow, someway, I’d missed the train. I went through each word several times trying to find the train. I copied the words onto paper and double checked to see if I’d missed a word. I even got a different copy of the book in case there was a mistake in the version I had. Eventually I gave up and asked Ms. Ogura, my Japanese colleague for help,

Me–Umm, excuse me, Ms. O. Where’s the train?”
Ms. O–It’s implied.
Me–It can’t be implied. It’s the opening line of the novel. It’s like walking up to a stranger and saying “guess my name” and never telling them your name.
Ms. O–Because it’s トンネル (tonneru) in katakana, we know it’s a train tunnel.
Me–That doesn’t mean he’s on a train. He could be walking out of the tunnel.
Ms. O–Why would he be walking in a train tunnel?
Me–How do you know it’s “he”? (Remind me again: why don’t I get invited to parties?)

Something like that. Either way I threw that idea aside, along with the Japanese version of the book, which actually turned out to be a good idea. Sort of.

Back at university when I attempted Spanish (and for one semester, Latin) my bad habit was relying on the dictionary too much rather than the context of the sentence. This meant I’d look up every other word and feel as if I wasn’t making any progress through the assignment. When I went to speak, the introvert would take over and all the grammar rules would lock up in my head (If I were to use the subjunctive at this point in the conversation I would look impressive. If I were capable of understanding the subjunctive I would remember how to use it.) The result was me blabbering on about nothing, usually with a bad accent.

In Japan, I eventually learned to just try to speak more, but the perfectionist would eventaully take over as the other person got faster and faster and the panic and the brain lock would ensue. I was also torn between reading Japanese and spent a lot of time studying the four Japanese alphabets and getting nowhere.

My solution was to pretty much punt and marry a woman whose English was better than my English. I know it’s lazy, but it works when your goal is never studying.

One For Justice One For Sport

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It’s no exaggeration to say that some of the worst physical trauma in my life has been caused by alphabetical order.

This is because for p.e. class the p.e. teacher (Mr. Wenzlau and/or Mr. Veneklasen?) used to make us sit in alphabetical order on the front row of bleachers in the old Quonset hut gymnasium in Hayden, Colorado. This put me between Mr. K and Mr. M, who happened to be the two largest boys in my class. I was taller, but that’s useless when you’re rail thin and clumsy and suck at football in a football town. This seating arrangement by itself wouldn’t have been bad except the favorite activity while we were waiting for the teacher to start class was “Pass it Down”. This involved one of the people on the end (Mr. B or Mr. Z), punching the arm of the person next to him and saying “pass it down”. This went down the line until it reached the end and then started back the other way. This basically made me a pinata for Mr. K and Mr. M.

I didn’t like it–and now days there’d be meetings and music talk therapy sessions and cognitive meditative gestalt therapy, and that’s just for Mr. K and Mr. M.– but it was my job to sit there and take it. Mind you, Mr. K and Mr. M made their punches sting, but they were never cruel, except in forbidding me from punching them. (I also remember a couple of times when they forbid the people on their other sides, Mr. H and Mr. Smaller M from punching them. Instead they had to punch me which meant I got punched twice.)

In one of these cases, Mr. Smaller M decided he was also going to forbid me from punching him. I punched him anyway. This led to angry threats and especially hard punches from him, especially after I hit him again. Then, on the way out to the football field, I got pushed from behind and barely managed to keep my feet. Mr. Smaller M had decided to make a fight out of it. What happened next was arguably a draw–I got a small cut on my jaw and Mr. Smaller M got a black eye–but when you’re a rail thin and clumsy guy who sucks at football in a football town, a draw is a stunning accomplishment.

I remember the main comment being “I didn’t know he (meaning me) could fight.”

Unfortunately, the next game became trying to push me into another fight with Mr. C, a fellow trumpet player, who wasn’t well liked at the time. Because I was basking in the glow of a my draw and my sudden modicum of credibility, I got egged into starting the fight even though Mr. C was actually a friend. My heart wasn’t in that one, so my first punch was more of an announcement that the fight should begin. That one was also a draw (mostly because Mr. Grimes broke us up quickly) and I ended up accepting all the blame for that one and received my first and only in-school suspension because it was my job to sit there and take it. I also apologized to Mr. C. and received some advice from the people who’d egged me on that my first punch was too weak.

I haven’t been in a fight since. (There were days, though; there were days.)

Revolving Fish and the Way of the Sloth

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Today, for the first time in forever, our oldest, our youngest and I finished school on the same day and the oldest didn’t have club.

This meant we were able to celebrate the end of the term at the same. Usually, the girls finish at least a week after I do. This makes it hard to do much and once we are able to do something, pretty much everyone else in the area is trying to do the same thing. Also, by this time I’ve settled into the time of sloth and loafing and the notion of showering, shaving and putting on clothes suitable for outdoors seems impossible and too energy draining to be taken seriously. Also, the way of the sloth is cheaper than the way of the, well, of the normal fun-loving human. (At least it’s cheaper until we order pizza.)

The end of term ritual began with the girls arriving home and presenting their report cards. There were, no grades, just lots of circles in the right places meaning they did well. After that we waited for the traditional choosing of the place to eat fight (one usually wants sushi; the other usually wants Italian) but it didn’t happen. Instead, we followed our youngest’s choice and went to Kappa Sushi, a large cafeteria style conveyor belt sushi restaurant. (One plate with double nigiri is 108 yen, or about a US $1.06.) They also have dessert and a several side dishes roaming around on the conveyor. If you’re too impatient to wait for the conveyor, they have a touch pad ordering system and your order is brought to you by a little bullet train. (We suspect this is why our youngest actually likes to go there.)

Today every one was especially hungry and we stuffed ourselves pretty well. It can be hit and miss, depending on what’s in season. Today the salmon and maguro (tuna) were excellent, but the engawa (flounder) and hamachi (yellowtail) were only average.

After lunch we managed to drag ourselves home and while I began warming up for the way of the sloth, the girls went to a video rental store and managed to acquire a copy of Frozen. (This, by the way, is a small miracle as it was only released two days ago and sold 661,000 blue-ray discs in one day.)

Since we were pretty well stuffed, She Who Must Be Obeyed made buttered popcorn (grown by Mother of She Who Must Be Obeyed) for supper. I’m 47 years old and still think this is a pretty cool thing to have supper. Then we watched the movie (in English) and everyone managed to stay awake through the entire movie and watch the funny disclaimer near the end of the credits.

Tomorrow our oldest starts summer band practice and our youngest will probably watch Frozen in Japanese (when it becomes Ana to Yuki no Jyoou or “Ana and the Snow Queen”)

I will focus on sloth and loafing.

 

Long Memories of Lousy First Impressions

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In my experience, I make a decent first impression. It’s the second and third ones I have trouble with. However, here in Japan, first impressions are pretty much everything and you don’t always know which one you’re leaving. In my case the first impressions involved genetics and money.

Thanks to the crap shoot of genetics, I’ve pretty much been granted thin lips and denied anything resembling a bottom lip. (My other option, also coming from my father’s side, was a nose that points up.)  Because of this, when my face is “at rest” I have a naturally angry expression that tends to make me seem less than approachable to people who don’t know me. (People who know generally don’t approach me.) This all gets worse if there’s any tension, say I’m meeting new people. Mind you, I didn’t always realize this.

Soon after meeting all my colleagues at the Board of Education in Nou-machi, I’d often hear people say things along the lines of “Dwayne is very serious.” I didn’t think much of it at the time and would simply play along. “Yes, I’m very serious.)

Months later, during a drinking party, Mr. Komatsu, my supervisor got drunk and told me, quite seriously, that I “didn’t have a kind face” and always looked serious but that when he got to know me he realized I was a nice guy. I was shocked by this, and am still not sure if I should take it as a compliment. This opinion was later confirmed during our weekly trip to the hot spring bath. I told the story about being told I didn’t have a kind face and the men I was with both said, at the same time and quite strongly “you don’t”. Since then I’ve worked to become more aware of the impression I’m leaving, but I still don’t have a bottom lip.

I also left an odd first impression regarding money. Part of the reason I moved to Japan was to earn money to start paying off credit card debt. As such, after I got my first paycheck, I sent a huge chunk of money home and resigned myself to a month of little social life (situation normal, in other words). I did that again the second month I was there, but that time, right after the money had been sent, Mr. Komatsu (who hadn’t yet told me I didn’t have a kind face), told me that he needed money from me to pay for my July pension payment.

I won’t get into the long story of why he needed this except to say that it would help me in the long run. However, in the short run, I kept repeating that I didn’t have any money because I’d already sent a bunch home. He just kind of nodded and then went off an paid the money out of his own pocket without telling me. I was mad that he’d do this–and didn’t realize how big a deal it was for a Japanese colleague to intervene like that–but paid him back the first chance I got. For the rest of the time he was my supervisor, Mr. Komatsu would ask me “money okay?” every time I saw him. He did this even though I never had any money problems after that.

Three years later, as I was at the train station getting ready to leave Nou-machi and move to Tokyo, my second boss, who hadn’t been involved with the money situation because he wasn’t my boss yet, asked me “money okay?”

I tell that second story to trainees just coming to Japan. Your first impression is pretty much the only impression you’ll get to make in Japan. And even people you don’t meet will get that impression.

Let’s Have a Drink and a Chunk of Your Wallet

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Yesterday I talked about going to parties at a Japanese “snack” or hostess club and how, despite occasional bloodletting and forced singing in German, it was all a pretty good time. It’s not something I would do on my own though, and that’s partly because I tried it once. Sort of.

It happened by accident and I was simultaneously stupid and lucky.

I don’t remember on which trip this happened, but during one trip I took to Greece, I found myself with time to kill. I wandered about aimlessly with very little plan. I bought some Cuban cigars and decided to track down an English bookstore that turned out to be closed. While I was trying to figure out if the store would be open while I was there, a very kind middle aged gentleman approached me and asked where I was from. He spoke good English but my “stay the hell away from me” introverted self bristled a bit (unfortunately not enough). I don’t remember his entire shtick, but he was kind enough and i was bored enough that when he recommended a bar nearby I said sure. As we were walking there he mentioned something about how the girls would like to talk to me, too.

At this point, my internal alarm went off, but because things were in motion I went along. We ended up a small, loud bar about a block from Syntagma Square. it was empty except for me, the bartender and one woman. I was basically just a bar and a couple chairs and had a cheap plywood feel to it as if everything had only recently been thrown together and decorated with mirrors and bright paint.

The gentleman who’d invited me suddenly began asking me what I wanted to drink. I chose scotch and the bartender quickly poured it. Then, the woman sidled up to me and started chatting me up in pretty good English until I offered to buy her a drink. I remember knowing things weren’t right, especially as everything I did and said was being stared at, In the end, I bought her a scotch.

At this point, the devils over my shoulders finally got through to me and convinced me that what was going on was messed up even for them. I said I had to go which prompted a couple minutes of “no really, just stay . Just stay,” Finally I convinced them that I was leaving and they brought the bill. My brain did a quick drachma to dollar conversion. I owed around 70 dollars for the two drinks. I paid the bill and got the hell out of the bar, even though the kind gentleman offered me yet another drink.

I exited the bar (the name of which escapes me but is probably recorded in my journal from the time). All in all, getting away from the Bar Scam (aka the “Let’s Have a Drink” Scam) for only 70 dollars and no physical mugging wasn’t too bad. As I said, even though was stupid and ignored my own instincts, I was lucky.