Category Archives: Random

I Am Either With You Or You Are Against Me

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One thing I didn’t learn fast enough when I first came to Japan was the many ways the Japanese say “no” and that the one thing the Japanese never say is “no”.

To clarify: The Japanese generally try to avoid confrontation and try to use what are, to the West anyway, more subtle clues. For example, if you’re team teaching and you ask your colleague for their opinion on a lesson plan you’ve written you can get any number of responses:

Response 1: Teeth Sucking. Meaning: No.
Response 2: Teeth Sucking + “Yes. Anything is okay.” Meaning: No.
Response 3: “Maybe it’s difficult for them.” Meaning: Hell no.
Response 4: “It is interesting.” Meaning: Get this is stupid crap out of my face.
Response 5: “Sorry I’m busy. Please show me tomorrow.” Meaning: Absolutely F@#king Not.

(Disclaimer: The total possible responses include but are not limited to the preceding examples.)

This is important to realize because if you don’t realize what’s just been said and go ahead with the lesson, your Japanese colleague will not not stop you. However, your Japanese colleague also will not help you.

Back when I was still in Nou-Machi I saw demonstrated, on two different occasions, a terrific warm up where students brought questions to class on a special form and then both the foreign teacher and the Japanese teacher quickly went down the rows answering and asking questions. It was all very efficienl, only took ten minutes or so of class time and every student got to speak.

It was a great way to get students talking and I immediately wanted to try it in my own classes. I explained it to my Japanese colleague and she gave Response 2. Once we got to class and started the activity I quickly discovered that although the forms had been assigned as homework, almost no one had written questions. I then had to wait while they tried to write questions and my Japanese colleague helped them.

Eventually someone wrote and asked a proper question and immediately a dozen other students wrote down the same question. Others asked the questions my colleague had given them.

This happened, in various forms, in many different classes with different lesson plans. Eventually, I learned to read the signals and, more importantly, how to ask the questions. I also learned that those subtle responses applied in the rest of Japan as well. One time, I offered to fix up the website of a small camera manufacturer. (I owned one of their cameras.) The president sent me an email explaining that he appreciated the offer but was getting ready for  trip overseas and I should contact him again the following week.

I never contacted him again. You don’t need to tell me Response 5 more than once. (At least not these days.)

What Happened Was Real But A Falsie Was Involved

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One of the strangest incidents I ever saw in Japan involved a baby and a fake boob.

A group of us had gone to Takadanobaba, which is one of the few areas in Tokyo that could be described as a college town, for a night of Guinness and fish and chips at a soccer bar. Oddly, the soccer bar abruptly changed into a dance club starting at around 10:30 or 11:00. We fled as soon as the trance music started (and they started talking about cover charges).

On our way back to the station, we walked into a shouting match involving a woman, a man, and a baby. (The baby was actually the best behaved of the three.) The woman was clearly high on something and the man seemed to be trying to get her to leave and she was having none of it. Then a police car arrived and the police joined in the arguing.

At some point, the police decided they’d had enough and tried to put the woman in the car. Despite being fairly petite and wearing a mini-skirt and high heels, she responded with a pretty good fight. At some point in the fight one of her falsies fell out of her bra and ended up on the sidewalk. After a few minutes, she ended up in the car.

The police then tried to interview the man. In the mean time, we were wondering if we should give the baby a jacket because it was pretty cold outside. We were also wondering if we should report the falsie.

At this point, the woman started kicking the inside of the cop car prompting one of the police to let her out of the car where the fight seemed to reset back to the beginning.

We were transfixed and wondering what was going to happen. A second police car drove up and an officer in a much more serious looking uniform arrived. He had the most perfect “are you shitting me?” look I’ve ever seen. Within about a minute, he assessed the situation, gathered all his policemen into their vehicles and drove away leaving the couple to fight it out on their own.

The couple finally disappeared down into the subway station, but they left the falsie on the sidewalk. (They took the baby, though.)

(Alas, this was pre-smartphone, or this scene would have been a viral video.)

We never learned what the fight was about. And we never learned the fate of the falsie.

Fukubukuro Follow-up With Foreigners

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A very rare follow-up based on some new information and some I didn’t report:

After I posted my last post, I learned that a group of Fukubukuro fighters in Hokkaido had lined up a few days before the fighting started in order to get the best chance at the bag they wanted from their favorite store. Being Hokkaido, it started to snow heavily and, being Fukubukuro Fighting season, everyone refused to give up their place in line. It got cold enough that store employees took it upon themselves to make sure that everyone in line was still okay.

After all, the dead can’t spend money and they lose their place in line. (Or they’re actually concerned about their customers, or both. Something like that.)

One thing I didn’t write about was the reaction of foreigners to the concept of Fukubukuros. For the first time I can remember, TV news interviewed several groups of foreigners during the rampage. The first batch were Russian or Eastern European men. They were caught peaking in the bags. This is not encouraged, but isn’t against the rules, especially with partially open bags. The trick is that the contents are hidden in smaller bags. (Not that I ever looked once myself…)

Almost to a foreigner, they seemed unimpressed. Many of them pointed out that they didn’t want to get stuck with a bunch of items they didn’t want. The Chinese woman figured out that her best best was to target make-up stores and accessories shops because those things could easily be given away as gifts and/or sold upon her return to China.

One store had clear, duty free fukubukuros that could not be opened inside japan. (Knowing the Japanese, there’s probably some kind of proximity alarm that goes off if it’s opened in-country.)

The most interesting foreigners were three German women, each with a different hair color. (Pink, red, non-photo blue.) They stood in line in Harajuku and explained how they loved Japanese cuteness and wanted to be that cute. (Only the one with pink hair was that cute.)

After a fairly peaceful Fukubukuro experience, they went to a cafe and opened their bags. They immediately began a small scale Great Exchange with pink giving red a plaid trilby hat in exchange for a bow headband.

The Japanese TV announcers seemed disappointed by the underwhelming response from foreigners, which actually made me laugh.

 

 

Wanton Acts of Violent Consumerism and Friendly Exchange

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For the most part, the Japanese are very civil. They stand quietly and patiently in neat lines and are excellent to each other. Until this time of year. This is when things get ugly.

Right now, in the right places, all rules are suspended and the older the lady is, the more violent she gets.

This season features New Year’s sales that, in Japan, come in the form of what I like to call Fukubukuro Fighting (That’s Foo Coo Boo Coo Row, not F@#k You Buckaroo, although that latter is more appropriate.) Fukubukuro translates to “Lucky Bag” or “Mystery Bag” and it actually represents a kind of gambling.

Basically, all the major chain stores, and few boutiques, divide all last year’s fashions and random things into sealed bags that are then sold for set prices. The contents are usually close in value (if not a little more) the price, which are typically 10,000 yen. Some stores, however, have special bags that might contain more expensive goods. For example, the Apple Store in Ginza sells it’s bags for 35,000 yen and one might contain a MacBook Air or an iPad.

The most popular stores bring the biggest crowds and the biggest rush. TV news shows groups of women and their pack mules (sons, boyfriends, husbands, etc) planning their shopping attack with military like precision: “First we rush to XYZ on the fifth floor for their bag. If anyone gets in your way, crush, just crush them. After that proceed directly to ZYX Cutie on the second floor for their bag. The pack mule will provide a blocker. SHOW NO MERCY! And, Pack Mule, don’t let those other b#@tches steal anything out of your hands. And don’t forget to give me your cash.”

It’s typical for someone to get knocked down and injured or trampled lightly and for at least one table to devolve into a tug-of-war between women, especially if there’s only a couple bags left. I’m a sixth level black belt in Karate, and I’m afraid to get involved in this level of shopping.

After the violence, there then begins what I call the Great Exchange. People open their bags and either celebrate or sigh. They sort out what they want and then try to trade what they don’t want with others who have unwanted things. (I should note that bags from fashion shops are usually sold by size so almost everything should fit, if the women are honest about their sizes…)

After this brief rest, the pack mules load up and carry the goods home.

What It Was, Was Football More Or Less

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Today I actually got to spend the morning watching American football on television. It kind of sucked. It was kind of exciting.

(Note: This is the violent chess version of football, not the game known as “kickball” in which men in short pants run around and occasionally fall down as if they’ve been shot even though no one is near them.)

Every January 3rd Japan hosts the Rice Bowl which is the national championship of American football in Japan. It features the top Japanese university team versus the top corporate sponsored team.

This year it was the Kwansei Gakuin University Fighters versus the Fujitsu Corporation Frontiers. Although Kwansei had already lost four Rice Bowls, including the last three in a row and were technically the underdogs and it’s very American to support the underdogs (at least until they start to suck), I decided to cheer for Fujitsu because my smartphone was made by Fujitsu.

The teams, especially the corporate team, are a mix of Japanese and foreign players. The rules tend to follow US university rules (if you fall after catching a pass you are down even if no one touches you) and only one foot in-bounds is required for a catch or a touchdown. The style and level of play remind me a lot of Division 1 AA teams in the USA. There are moments of incredibly crappy play broken up by truly brilliant moments. They also do lots of strange shifting BS before a kick off as if they’re about to do a free kick in the kickball version of football. There are also lots of trick plays.

Kwansei, for example, on second down and only inches (more than ten centimeters) from the goal line, opted to have a player run toward the line and then jump up as if he were about to hurdle the pile. Instead he tossed a lob/shovel pass to the tight end who was bolting to the back of the end zone. Unfortunately for Kwansei, the pass was off and although the tight end got his fingers on it, he couldn’t pull it in. The next play they ran the the same play but forgot to tell the tight end and the ball sailed out the endzone. The very next play, fourth down, they finally tried to muscle the ball through on the ground and got stuffed for a loss. Fujitsu got the ball.

(Note: I am aware there are European readers who did not understand anything the previous paragraph. Sorry.)

However, the very next play a freshman intercepted a long pass and Kwansei was finally able to score.

Unfortunately for Kwansei, Fujitsu had an excellent kicker and an excellent American running back and they are now five time losers.

I had a great time watching the game, though. I also had fun trying to explain the rules to my in-laws.

Miles and Miles of Miles and Miles

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New Year’s is one of the few times Japanese sit down and watch sports as a family. Unfortunately, the most popular sport for this is Marathon Relay.

Also unfortunately, the networks insist on covering every minute live in real time. All five hours of it.

To the uninitiated, marathon relay (or ekiden) is a 100 km (63ish mile) long relay where five to seven runners run legs of various distances and pass of a sash that represents their team. During the new year holiday, there are two major ekidens, one of which happens over two days.

First is the New Year Ekiden, which takes place in Gunma on New Year’s Day and features teams representing different companies. We watched a bit this year because the company where She Who Must Be Obeyed works part time had a team running. (They stunk the place up and I’m not going to allow She Who Must Be Obeyed to work there anymore. Or, more specifically, I suggested they weren’t worth her awesomeness and she should find employment elsewhere.)

January 2nd and 3rd see the running of the Hakone Ekiden. This is the granddaddy of all ekidens and is run between 20 universities and a special team made up of representatives from the loser universities that didn’t make the top 20. Oddly, this team only runs for pride and experience as their time doesn’t count and they can’t win.

The Hakone ekiden starts in downtown Tokyo and finishes in the resort town of Hakone 108 or so kilometers away. The final leg (the fifth of five) is a mountain climb that breaks lots of runners. The winners of day one get a special prize and an early start on day two when five different runners run the relay back to Tokyo.

The race is somewhat controversial as only a certain number of foreign runners are allowed on each time and those runners aren’t allowed in the first and final legs so that cameras get to see a Japanese cross the finish line.

Despite the lack of any action (in defense of the sport, at least, unlike baseball, there is constant movement) the network deploys a shocking number of fixed and mobile cameras that put the audience in the middle of the race. If a runner stumbles, the network has cameras all over it and the announcer and color commentator begin shouting “Look! Look! Something actually happened! Something actually happened!” (Something like that.)

Today a runner barely managed to run the final few steps. He fell down several times but kept getting up until he finally staggered through the tape. It made for a great highlight reel, but not for a great television event.

The Only Way to Lose is to Not be Famous Enough to Play

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The best way to win money on a game show in Japan is to already be famous.

One quirk of Japanese TV is that, with a few exceptions, the game shows are populated by celebrities. For example, Japan’s version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire had a mostly celebrities and a few ordinary people. There’s also a show called Panel Quiz Attack 25 (yes, its real name) which features ordinary people playing the game, and there used to be a game where a father had to learn how to juggle boxes, or shoot baskets, or carry soba boxes across obstacles on bicycle for $10,000 dollars in prizes, but for the most part, everything else is played by celebrities.

What’s also different is the celebrities aren’t earning money for their favorite charities; they are actually playing to win cash for themselves (or actually their management agencies) and are excited when they win the cash.

There are a lot of reasons for this. One reason, or perhaps theory, is that Japanese aren’t supposed to attract attention to themselves. To go on a show and win lots of money is the ultimate act of standing out and selfishness in a country where everyone is supposed to blend in and contribute to the group.

That said, I don’t actually believe this reason is as important as some people have said it is.

The other reason, and the reason I believe, is that being a Japanese celebrity sucks. Japan’s celebrity culture is basically Hollywood back when actors worked for the studios and not for themselves. As a result, actors earn a salary from their managers and not from their commercial and acting contracts. I remember hearing that one member of what was, at the time, the hottest singing group in Japan, made barely $40,000 per year despite a busy schedule and several number one hits.

Because of this, actors and comedians and models are forced into as many jobs as possible. This includes game shows, commercials, TV dramas and the occasional movie. Because it’s possible to do more commercials than movies, most Japanese actors do commercials and work in television. To have an actor work exclusively in movies, like the late, great Ken Takakura, is very rare. It’s also rare for such an actor to have a respected name in Japan.

The result is that you see the same faces all the time and, in an odd way, get to know them. You learn who hates cucumbers and who is afraid of heights. In fact, there used to be a talk show where celebrities would eat four dishes, including something they hated, and the other celebrity had to guess which was the hated food.

You also figure out pretty quickly, who you wish would go away. Luckily, that happens pretty quickly in Japan. (But that’s another post.)

Drinking in the New Year and Ringing

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One of the things that surprises the Japanese is that New Year’s isn’t that big a deal in the West. It’s mostly a chance for parents to drink away the stress from Christmas and post-Christmas present replacement and for young people to have an excuse to drink heavily. (Not that much of an excuse is needed four young people to drink.)

In Japan, though, New Year’s is a much bigger celebration. It’s one of the two celebrations where family return home and the only celebration when television shuts down its regular programming and has nothing but endless New Year’s specials. (This includes reruns of last year’s specials as a way to setup this year’s specials.)

Because the television is mostly crap, people end up doing unusual things like “talking with their families” and “eating” and “drinking heavily.”

In fact, for the last few hours I’ve done nothing but eat and drink and, believe it or not, talk in Japanese. (It’s 9:20 p.m. on the 31st as I write.) I’ve now got a glass of Booker’s 125.9 proof bourbon at my side which means it’s the perfect time to write this post. (Since my brother-in-law brought the bourbon, it also means my in-laws are totally international.)

It also means my Japanese is at awesome level, or at least I believe it is.

The biggest television event of the season is playing on television as I write. It’s the annual Red and White Music Contest where the most popular singers and groups of the year perform for four hours in a “men” (white team) versus “women” (red team) contest. Also included are several Enka singers, who are not popular at all, but are necessary to give retired people a reason to watch. Inexplicably, for reasons I still don’t understand, the men often win. The prize is only bragging rights.

After midnight, it’s tradition to travel to various Buddhist temples and help ring the temple bells 108 times (each person only rings three times). The number of rings represents the 108 human sins in Buddhist belief and ringing the bells helps purify people for the start of the year. (For the record, I believe I’m at around 85 sins; so much to do, so little time.)

The next morning is spent drinking sake and eating ozoni, a kind of vegetable soup with rice cakes. I plan to eat three rice cakes—each is about the size of a deck of cards.

Last, all the kids get otoshidama, or New Year’s money from relatives. This is envelopes full of cash (with amounts based on relationships).

The final tradition is She Who Must Be Obeyed and I seizing large portions of the money and putting into savings for the girls. This is followed by fending off accusations of theft from our girls.

That’s tomorrow though. Until then, Happy New Year!

Ruin the Snacks Ruin the Holiday Ruin the Company

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It’s hard to believe that a few trays full of snacks could break an entire company, but in Japan it’s been known to happen. The more popular the company in the West, the more likely it is to happen.

First you have to keep in mind that Japan is one of the only countries where Nokia failed; where Blackberry never caught on; and where Ebay failed (although that’s because the Japanese had yet to discover credit cards and accessed the internet over their cellphones).

A few years back Groupon attempted to get a foothold in Japan. It had some early success, but the Japanese were always rather suspicious of it. The Japanese don’t necessarily clip coupons and because prices for the same item tend to be the same from store to store, they aren’t used to shopping around. In fact, the only coupons they regularly use are those offered by McDonalds and other fast food places through smartphone apps.

Groupon’s early success came with a lot of problems. Clients complained about the number of “coupons” being offered versus what they thought would be offered and that there was little repeat business from coupon users.

The killer, though, came over New Year’s snacks. One of Japan’s staple New Year’s traditions is the serving of Osechi, which is a kind of tray of snacks that remind me a lot of the Hickory Farms cheese and sausage and cracker sets people used to buy as last minute gifts. (And, for all I know, may still buy.)

The osechi is set out before dinner and consists of random cold foods, including chestnuts, spicy shrimp and teriyaki chicken. Although there is some variation, there are also several traditional foods expected in each tray.

Groupon sold a coupon for osechi and apparently enough people signed up that it broke the provider. Rather than cancel, the provider sent half-filled trays, some with single slices of ham from a plastic package from the grocery store, some with things that were flat out gross.

The angry reaction was big enough that it began to hurt Groupon. As I’ve said before, no one piles on like the Japanese press. They found every complaint ever issued against Groupon and interviewed lots of unsatisfied customers.

This prompted the CEO of Groupon to say something resembling an apology via a video. The backlash against this was bigger than the osechi scandal. To point out the biggest issues:

First: Video.
Second: His attitude was one part dismissive, one part “besides, it’s not my fault” and one part “Lighten up, Francis.”
Third: Clearly no one had briefed him about how big a deal New Year’s celebrations are in Japan.Christmas is no big deal. New Year’s is to the Japanese what Christmas is in the West. If you’re in the USA, add both Christmas and Thanksgiving to get the importance.
Fourth: Clearly no one had briefed him about the importance of apologies in Japan. As I’ve mentioned before, you can accidentally kill people whilst joy-riding in a submarine and an apology will help turn the public to your side here in Japan. If he’d come to Japan in person and done a proper apology and then spent a lot of money to make things right, Groupon might still be around.

Instead, the fall out was brutal. Groupon is gone from Japan and almost no one has attempted the group coupon model again.

Luckily, osechi is still around. I’ll be enjoying it (whilst fighting for the Chili Shrimp) tomorrow.

Camera Bags on a Train; Moron on the Platform

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I once left my camera bag on a train. Unfortunately, I got it back a few days later with everything intact.

In 2000, a few months after I moved to Tokyo, I joined a photography class run by Andy Barker–who has a terrific photo book about Kamakura, if you can find it. After a photoshoot, a group of us were riding back to Shinjuku station and, for various complicated reasons, I was carrying two bags. I set my camera bag on the overhead rack, talked with fellow students, and then got off the train in Shinjuku.

I was half way up the stairs when I realized I’d left my camera bag on the train.

Now, the smart thing to do would have been to hop on a faster train that would have put me ahead of the train my camera bag was on. I could have then easily walked over and plucked it off the rack with only minor inconvenience.

However, if you’re a regular reader of this blog you know that “the smart thing” is rarely my first choice in most situations.

Instead, my Japanese travel companion led me to the station master’s office where I described my bag and its contents, what car it was in and what time I’d arrived. They then informed other stations whose workers, in theory, actually boarded the train to find my camera bag.

Instead, I went home without my camera bag, my camera and my cellphone. I called my provider and had my cellphone disabled and started deciding what camera I was going to buy to replace the one I’d lost.

A couple days later, we got a call from Japan Rail explaining the bag had been found and that I needed to come pick it up . Unfortunately, I was working that night and She Who Must Be Obeyed went to get it. I gave her a detailed list of contents and she pondered it and went “Why do you need so much crap?” (or maybe it was “You owe me” or something like that.)

She was able to retrieve the bag despite her being a Japanese woman whilst the owner of the bag being an American man.

Nothing was missing and I had to delay my camera purchase. I remain surprised that I got everything back in one piece.