Category Archives: Random

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.

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.

That’s About Enough of That For an Eternity

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Thanks to a Facebook post from a writer I follow, I’ve had a medley of Counting Crows “‘Round Here” and “Mr. Jones” running through my head since last week. This isn’t good; it’s actually kind of bad and it has me thinking about songs I used to find entertaining and then heard one time too many and now hope I never hear again.

Counting Crows were already popular when I got back from Albania and headed off to Mississippi for an odd, misguided couple of years. I therefore heard, on TV and on the radio and at friend’s houses, a constant run of the two songs I mentioned above. They were catchy and kind of cool at first, and the lead singer had great hair, and then all of a sudden they weren’t cool and I blocked them out of my memory. It’s no joke that I hadn’t thought of them for years until last week.

I’ve mentioned before that I have a moody relationship with music and part of that involves suddenly reaching super-saturation of a song. I used to like Rush’s “Tom Sawyer” then I heard it one time too many. Anything by the Cranberries can, as far as I’m concerned, replace the ET game cartridges in the landfill New Mexico. “Stairway to Heaven” can join it and it can lie next to “Stray Cat Strut,” “Goody Two Shoes,” “Mony Mony,” “I Love A Rainy Night”, “Flowers on the Wall” and “Bohemian Rhapsody” (Damn you Mike Myers and your damned Wayne’s World AMC Pacer scene.)

Sometimes an entire group is ruined because the group does the unforgivable and that which has been seen can never be unseen. I used to like Styx, and even forgave them “Mr. Roboto,” until they did the abomination “Music Time” and now I can’t listen to any Styx song without hearing “Hey everybody it’s music time!” in my head. (Look it up, I refuse to link to it.)

The song, however, that provides the soundtrack when I peer down past the gates of Hell is one I wasn’t even a big fan of, but got to hear again and again and again as part of my job.

As part of the English experience, many Japanese English textbooks include lyrics from English songs and the official CD contains the music. Usually the song is “Let it Be” or “Hello, Goodbye” (which both should also be buried somewhere) but In this case, the song was by Stevie Wonder, was from The Woman in Red soundtrack, and was about a man merely telephoning a woman to express his amorous feelings. (I cannot be more specific without losing what’s left of my soul.)

I was invited to a class to walk the students through the lyrics and then help them sing it about five times. This went over so well, according my soulless teaching partner anyway, that she decided to do the song in every class that week. To give you the Devil’s math: 9 classes X (two times explaining the lyrics + five times singing it two the music) = hearing a song way too many times to possibly retain sanity. I can’t even think about the song without having to hum “MMMBop” to kill the ear worm.

Believe it or not, it could be worse. I know one teacher who was a big fan of “Cartoon Heroes” by Aqua. This is madness.

Don’t Give a Blue Moon in June

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At the school where I work, the worst month of the year is June. It’s the month that when you reach it you go “Wow, I can’t believe it’s already June” and invoke cliches about time moving faster when you’re having fun and/or aging. A week later, though, you’re going “Man, I can’t believe it’s still June.”

There are a lot of reasons for this. The first is that June comes at the end of the Spring/Summer term, which starts in April. Although it’s not the longest term (autumn term is) it’s the only one where the weather is getting hotter as the Season in Which it Rains and Rainy Season slowly turn into Hell.

It’s also the one that my evolutionary clock, conditioned by decades of finishing school at the end of May/beginning of June rebels against. Evolution is telling me to go fishing and loaf (mostly it’s telling me to loaf) but I have promises to keep and miles to go before I loaf. The end of June marks the beginning of July exams, meaning we will soon be rotting our brains with bad writing and pondering if the phrase “My Mother is a Tractor” is worth more points than “He is like a soccer.”

Making matters worse is that, for reasons no one fully understands, June is one of the few months of the school year with no national holiday. Once June starts, you pretty much have to work as if you actually had a job. Even one day off in a long month gives you a chance to recharge (especially if it gives you a three day weekend.)

With a few exceptions, Japanese holidays tend to correspond to the birthdays of a handful of emperors. Greenery Day (April 29th), for example, used to be a wink wink nudge nudge acknowledgment of the Emperor Showa and his love of greenery and attacking Pearl Harbor (he’s known as Emperor Hirohito outside of Japan). Recently, the law was changed to allow more blatant celebration of emperors and Greenery Day was moved and April 29th became Showa Day.

My suggestion, therefore, is that June 18th become a holiday as it is the birthday of Emperor Ogimachi who presided over the end of the Warring States Era and, more or less, the start of the Tokugawa Shogunate, which is the era people think about when they think about Samurai. Ogimachi’s reign saw the stabilization of the royal family’s finances and influence and an increase in their power. It could be called Peace Day to mark the end of the Warring States Era.

Quite frankly, he could have eaten children and conditioned his skin with fat rendered from babies and I wouldn’t care; all that matters is the June birthday. I’m selfish that way.

Teenager Plus Coffee Equals Headphones for Daddy

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I’ve written before about how I didn’t discover coffee until I was at university and, after a while, became an unapologetic addict. Part of my tardiness in discovering coffee was that the first coffee I remember trying was drowned in non-dairy creamer and artificial sweetener (think about the chemicals involved in that). It was horrid and I can still taste it as I’m thinking about it. Eventually, I tried coffee-plus-desert concoctions until a lack of cash led me to line up espresso doppios like tequila shots on a Saturday night.

The other day, though, I got a shock to the system. She Who Must Be Obeyed had just made a fresh pot of coffee and was pouring herself a cup and as I was walking up to liberate some from her tyrannical clutches (something like that) I saw her add cream and sugar to the cup. My immediate reaction was “The horror! She doesn’t love the coffee.” or that she was disguising the dregs of the morning pot to make them palatable–a step, for the record, I consider unnecessary. I asked her why she was ruining the coffee and she said it wasn’t for her, it was for our oldest.

The conversation then proceeded something like:

Me–Oh, yeah, that makes sense. (Pregnant pause) Why the hell are you giving caffeine to a thirteen year old girl? Don’t you know what can happen?
SWMBO–But she’s studying for her final exams.
Me–Oh, yeah, that makes sense. (Little bit pregnant pause) Why the hell are you giving coffee to a thirteen year old girl? Don’t you know what can happen?
SWMBO–Here’s your coffee.
Me–Oh thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you (long slurp of coffee) love you.

The results of this chemical experiment have been mixed. Yes, our oldest stays awake and “studies” in between YouTube videos on her pink Nintendo 3DS. However, sugar plus caffeine plus puberty equals hyper activity and frequent arguments over Nintendo 3DS use, fights over proper length of study time, frequent back talking and frequent eye rolling. Basically, two caffeine enhanced alpha females begin struggling over control of the house whilst daddy washes his hands and changes his name to Pontious Lively and puts on headphones and listens to “Pompeii” and “Radioactive” on endless loop because apocalypse.

I remember being shocked when I learned some of my Japanese friends’ children were drinking coffee in high school and, given my history, am amazed that my oldest even likes coffee.

She also crawls across the ceiling surprisingly well.

A Dash of This A Dash of That A Pinch of Evil

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I’ve written before about my fascination with how tastes change over time. I’ve also written about how things that seemed strange before I came to Japan, are suddenly my favorite foods. However, the more tastes change, the more some things continue to taste like crap.

There are certain foods, such as sweet tea, that I’ve never liked and continue to dislike. In Japan I’ve never learned to like oshiruko (Red Bean Soup) which looks as if someone was eating a manju and then upchucked it into a bowl. I don’t know if it’s the texture or that my brain sees it as baked beans but that’s not how it tastes. A couple years ago, Mother of She Who Must Be Obeyed made a batch of oshiruko that I liked. It wasn’t as sweet as other versions, and I actually had seconds. Everyone else in the family, of course, hated it because it wasn’t sweet enough. Mother of She Who Must Be Obeyed kept apologizing for it and I kept saying “no, it’s great” and she kept looking at me as if everything she’d always suspected about my sanity was finally being proven true.

I also have never learned to like the sweetened omelets that get served as sushi. These remind me too much of the way friends of mine would stack bacon, eggs and pancakes (or waffles) and pour syrup over the entire concoction. I tried this but never liked it. It’s like taking your entire Thanksgiving dinner and stacking the turkey, stuffing, green beans, mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce and then topping them with pecan pie and yams before pouring white wine and coffee over the entire mess. Separately those things are all great; together, well, they’re not so great. Usually, when I comment about the evils of mixing foods God never intended to be eaten as one dish, someone says “well it all comes out the same in the end doesn’t it? ha ha ha”. My response is usually something along the lines of “in that case just collect it straight out of the toilet and save yourself some cooking time.” (Remind me again: why don’t I get invited to parties?)

I’ve also never been able to eat (and, quite frankly, don’t understand) sweet pickles. When I was growing up, my Dad was partial to bread and butter pickles, which to this day I can’t stand. He also liked marinated cucumbers, which involved mixing sliced cucumbers, onions, vinegar, sugar and extract of pure evil in one bowl. The people who ate them lost their souls.

Here in Japan I’m partial to the salty pickles they make out of turnips, cucumbers, and eggplant, but I try to avoid any form of sweet takuan. I’m also not a big fan of gari the sweet ginger served along side sushi.

The funny part is, I like sweets, just not mixed with the rest of my meal.

 

 

Stick ‘Em Up Assume the Position and Happy Birthday

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Although I’d have to wait until I was 27 for my second interrogation by the police, my first interrogation happened on my 21st birthday. This is remarkable because my 21st birthday took place on a Tuesday and, quite frankly, it’s hard to get into trouble on a Tuesday.

I don’t remember why I didn’t advertise my 21st birthday in my fraternity, but I suspect it had something to do with going out drinking being not that big of a deal at the time (I acquired a fake ID soon after I arrived at Kansas State) combined with my introversion and lack of interest in being on display combined with Tuesday. Also, age 20 had been quite a time (long story; let’s just say it involved alcohol and a particular woman) and I actually felt kind of tired.

As a result, I went out by myself and enjoyed a few free beers, although I was still pretty shy about announcing my birthday and reaping the rewards. I ended up at Kite’s, which at the time was one of the best bars in Aggieville, the three blocks of bars and restaurants near Kansas State’s campus. After a few free beers there, I decided to head home. That involved cutting down an alley and walking a few blocks through dark streets.

As I cut down the alley, the alcohol in my system reminded me that Kite’s had a back door that was often left open and often used to smuggle underage friends into the bar. I saw the door and, out of curiosity, pulled on it, but it was locked. Out of further curiosity, I pulled on the door next to it. Out of even further curiosity, I pulled on a third door. As I came out from testing that door, I saw a pair of police officers walking out of the alley across the street. The next door was too far out of my way, so I passed it by and started home.

As I reached the end of the alley, by what used to be, and may still be, the Espresso Royale coffee shop, the part of my brain that still maintained a vague sense of awareness, wondered what had happened to those two police officers. I glanced around and saw that they were closer, and had moved to opposite sides of the alley. I remember thinking that was kind of unusual, but the vague sense of awareness quickly clicked off. I crossed the street, and then right in front of what used to be known as Bushwackers, I heard the jangling of keys and handcuffs, and the cops came up on either side of me and asked me for my ID.

While Cop A was calling in my vitals, Cop B began interrogating me. The, um, conversation went something like:

Cop B–Why were you checking out those doors back there?
Me–Curiosity. (If you’ve been paying attention, that was a truthful answer not sarcasm.)
Cop B–(Unimpressed and angry) Well what would you have done if one had been open?
Me–Been surprised and gone on to the next one. (Again this was the truth.)
Cop B–(sensing sarcasm/not being able to handle the truth) Hands up. Spread your legs.

He then proceeded to frisk me with the only issue being a brief concern the fountain pen in my pocket might be a weapon (Yeah, I know. I know. That’s what she said. Now shut up, I’m being frisked.) At this point Cop A commented that it appeared as if they had a 21st birthday celebration on their hands. He also pointed out that they’d put several people in jail on their 21st birthdays. My mom’s curse about my mouth getting me in trouble reared it’s ugly, um, vocal cords and said “It wasn’t on my list of things to do.”

They both got angry and cautioned me about being a moron and then sent me on my way.

I laughed all the way home. And yes, that was the alcohol talking.