Doing Dishes

So this may sound rather obscure, but I must say, doing my dishes this morning was quite an event at my place. I had been collecting a hearty 'pile' of them, or rather, several respectable piles, and this morning, when I woke up at the crack of 10 after sleeping for 13 hours, I opened the doors at both ends of my apartment and spent the next hour and a half cleaning all of them. Aaaah. What a day. I now have days worth of clean flatware, bowls, and pans. Come at me world, I'm ready for you.

Yosakoi

I did Yosakoi today! Yosakoi is a modern form of traditional Japanese Dance. Yes, yes, I know that's a oxymoron. Some college students decided to ressurect some old traditional dance styles from the south of Japan and jazz them up, just a bit. It was way fun. I danced for an hour... well, I tried to dance for an hour. I have not learned the dances, so I tried to dance with them. It was hard, and very fast, and very fun. The dances are based, in part, off of the folk dances of Okinawa, where fishing was/is a major fascet of life. Consequently, most of the moves are derrived from the motions of hauling nets. It is very beautiful to watch and invigorating to do. There are lots of sweeping gestures, and pantomimes of pulling on ropes and whatnot. Tre' cool.

When I got too tired to keep up, I played with the little children. One boy, Naruto, played with me for a long time. I threw him up in the air and fought Karate with him. He loves to pretend to fight with me. He smiles all the time, and laughs at me. Some of the girls taught me Japanese, and I taught them English. I liked that a lot.

I'm going back on Friday to learn more. Wednseday night is overview time. Friday is intensive learning. A lot of one on one apparently. We'll see. Maybe I've found one of my niches in Japan.

Oyasumi nasai!

Fukuroda no Taki... the adventure, the ascent, the asthma

Yesterday I went to Fukuroda no Taki with the other English teachers in Hitachi-Omiya, a bigger city about a half-hour away. The Falls have 3 or 4 major levels of spill areas where the waters collect and then overflow again. Its quite impressive. There is a stairway path that leads up the side of the mountain next to the falls. One of the beauties of Fukuroda no Taki is that, as huge as it is, its nesteled between two mountains. To go up from the base of the falls to the top of them takes about 1000 steps. Your legs are burning and shaking by the time you're just a third of the way up, and you're heaving for breath at two-thirds. For the last third, you're doubled over, with one hand pushing off your leg, and the other pulling yourself up the guard 'rail', which is a real rail for a very small portion, a thin steel pipe for most (where there IS one) and chain at other places. Then, when you're taking in the breathtaking beauty of the falls, you look and see that the path keeps going... up to the TOP of the mountain that towers to the right of the falls as you face them. You say to yourself, "Self, we've come this far, it'd be a SHAME not to go all the way." I think that may have been an 80's power-ballad. So you do it. And all the pain pays off, cause when you get to the top, you're as high as you can possibly get (give or take 100 feet) for hundreds of kilometers. And yes, you can see that far if the moisture is low.

When I got to the top the first time (long story) I looked out across the valley that Fukuroda no Taki is nestled into the corner of, and saw a beautiful bare rock face that covers the top portion of the opposite mountain. It is a few hundred feet tall and about as wide, and it has smears of red and grey from the minerals in the rock. As I was admiring it, I saw a raptor of some kind dive off the top of the mountain and plummet for a couple of hundred feet and then in an instant throw his wings open, catch the air, and sharply swoop from a straight dive to a soar straight out across the valley. It was fantastic. If you're ever in Ibaraki, go to Fukuroda no Taki. It was worth every drop of lactic acid in my muscles, and lead in my veins... or at least it felt like my blood turned to lead at around 1,500 feet. I have no clue how high up we were, but it was as high as the highest stuff in North Georgia. All their mountains are WAY steeper than ours, so its weird seeing mountains that are almost like home, but creepily different in that subltle and eerie way.

I climbed it with Blake and Annie. Richard, who is chronically afraid of heights pushed up a third of the way. I was very proud of him. He kicked his fear's butt.

So cheers. May you find an opportunity to beat your fears too. Just find something that pushes your envelope and then keep pushing back!

My first Kancho...

The school I'm at is great. The teachers are great, the kids love me, and I can already see them making process and getting excited about learning English. They eat up every shred of goofyness, and love the fact that I'm so strange and white and tall. Now the bad. The youngest kids love trying to grab me in the crotch and give me the 'kancho'. We, at Interac, like to call it 'el Kancho.' El Kancho is when you put your hands together and make a very James Bond looking gun with your hands, and then, when your victim presents his/her target, you get your kancho up their bunghole. Its a sick game, and I don't know how it got started, but its as Japanese as rice and green tea, apparently. These people are depraved. I love them, but yikes.

Japanese school lunches more than make up for being violated, though. I had some slammin curry today, and it has never been anything less than extremely good.

In short, yes, I was taken advantage of, but at least I got lunch.

First Day of School, and First Enkai! (Company Par-TAY)

My first day of school was great. A slew of kids came up to me of their own accord and asked me questions. (Mostly, "How big are you?") I tried to tell them how big I was in feet, but they only know the metric system, so I took my shoe off at told them my shoe size in centimeters. They freaked out. Apparently 30 cm is quite unheard of over here.

Some of them are very good at English, and some of them are just very brave. I'll take both. One girl, who spoke less English than any other kid who came up to me, managed to convince me that she was going to be the next Japan Idol. I think she's got a shot. Plenty of spunk.

At the end of the day, I had my first ENKAI!!! It was pretty cool. After school, we all went to a really super-nice restaurant where the food was incredible and my glass was never allowed to go dry. Its kind of a neat way to do it. You are never allowed to fill your own glass, because that would be like saying that your host isn't looking out for you. Consequently, I had about a dozen people assiduously top me off over the course of the night. I tried to take small sips so that I wouldn't get too shnookered. The Principal, on the other hand, really enjoyed himself. He rolled up his pants, took off his socks, and tied his tie around his head. The other teachers picked up his socks and pointed and laughed at them. They're a pretty fun crowd.

So then, just when the party seemed like it was about to die... Karaoke. At the end of the enkai, we all went to the local karaoke club in Daigo to take the party to the next level. It was quite a blast. These Japanese LOVE their karaoke. The senior English teacher got up their first and sang some Japanese pop song about being south-paw (yes, a song about being left handed). It even has its own little motion that you do whenever you sing 'south paw'. You do something funny with your fingers like pinch them together, and then sweep your left arm down and away. They all got a huge kick out of this. I guess we do funny things like that too, but it was just bizzare, because I had NO context for the humor of it.

I sang a few duets with the pricipal, who had his tie around his head, and was definitely enjoying himself as much as anyone else there. (During the dinner party he invited me over to his house for sushi, unagi, and to meet his 23 year old daughter who, he pointed out very dramatically, is ALSO 23!) I may or may not go. Though the prospect of more unagi (freshwater eel) is enough to draw me into even immanent danger, so I may have to.

They loved the fact that I sang at the karaoke club. I did eagles, beatles, stevie wonder (They picked that one. I didn't even know it. ha ha) I even tried to sight read some Japanese with them for the Japanese pop songs. I managed to pick up a few words and keep of for a few verses (or at least snippets of verses.) This downright shocked them. I was quite pleased with my bad self.

So yes, Karaoke is fun, and its very different in Japan. And where else does a 23 year old guy get to sing "Stand By Your Man" by Tammy Wynnet in front of all his co-workers and actually get a modicum of respect for it? (By the way, it was painfully akward. By no means do I endorse the solo performance of that song by a solo male artist. Ouch)

I get my car today!!! YAAAAAY! Suzuki Wagon R. Its an oversized shoe box with 10" wheels. Well, maybe 12". Either way, it is my ticket to ride, and therefore escape the mind-numbing boredom of my apartment which is filled with strewn clothes, a 99 cent hand towel which I use after showers, and two bricks of Ramen. (I think you understand how much I'm looking forward to my first paycheck now.)

In spite of the poverty, crazy schedules, and distance from friends and family, Japan is a wonderful experience. If you can hang tight during the waves of self-doubt and physical exhaustion, then the challenge of absorbing something very foreign and very beautiful can be a real joy. My Japanese is coming along quite well. Now that I'm seeing Kanji (Japanese/Chinese picture words) in their native environment, I'm picking them up more quickly. I can even write a few of them faster than I can think of them. I guess that means that they're memorized somewhere between my brain and my hand. Full body memorization, ha ha.

Well, I'm off to pick up my car. All I need is my licence and my personal stamp (hanko... its like a signet ring, only its a stick instead of a ring. You use it to give your legal/official signature) Now where did I leave that thing...

Day three... complications with the natives...

So, Josh, Josh, and Steven get into their car full of optimism and gusto and toodle along to the Wonder Goo (yes that is the name of the store... pretty much Nihhon-jin Best Buy) to get keitai`s (cell phones). They do so with the clear impression that all you need is a passport (to validate your identity) and a credit card (to pay) because this is what several other people have done in the very recent past. You can imagine their chagrin when Josh #2 and Steven were rejected, because they did not have their full alien registration cards. You might think that this was absurd, but you would be wrong. This is just a day in the life of Japan. Abrupt, unnecessary, and rigid policy change is just ONE of the many quirky little things that make this Island run like only Japan can run. Gotta stamp EVERYTHING with red ink, and gotta follow 'policy.' Accept these two things, and you have embraced two of the seven pillars of Japanese bureaucracy. I hope to discover the other 5 and record my findings.

Well, I`m off to the Daiso to stock up. Cheers everyone!