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Five-hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes Tuesday August 29
Today marks the one-year anniversary of my arrival in Japan. What a better time to make a little year-in-review. Let's see if I can't account, numerically, for some of the neat things I've done:
- Wasted about one-third, or one-hundred seventy-five thousand two hundred minutes, of that time sleeping or rolling around in bed, and one-fortieth of the entire year, or thirteen thousand six hundred and eighty minutes, on my two bicycles.
- Learned over two thousand characters, their meanings, their readings, and their stroke order, and then summarily forgot one-third of all of them, only being able to identify them on sight.
- Ate in excess of one hundred and fifty eggs. Go look at how many eggs that is is some time. That's one big omlette. Yeah.
- Consumed my entire body weight in rice. Twice.
- Attended three hundred and twenty classes in eight months.
- Bought three new suits, which also facilitated the acquisition of one job, which then facilitiated the acquisition of a working visa.
- Said the phrase "I've been here since last August," followed by their response, followed by "I also studied when I was in college for three years," in Japanese appoximately eighty times. I can say this better than anything else, thus perpetuating the myth that I can indeed speak some Japanese.
- Moved once, keeping my pattern of moving once a year. I may try to break that pattern next year.
- Received twelve new stamps in my passport despite only being in three countries.
- Thought "this is really ridiculous but I'm going to let it slide because everyone here is Japanese and maybe there's something I just don't get" more than seven times. More than three of these times were in karaoke rooms.
- Successfully married zero times, and bore a startling zero children.
- Sent over one thousand two hundred and forty e-mail messages on my PC, and another seven hundred on my phone.
- Used over three hundred tea bags, often resteeping, equating to a two-cup-a-day habit.
- Posted about eighty-seven blog posts. And I know you read everyone one of them.
Now, maybe I should set some goals for the following year?
- Pass the highest level Japanese proficiency test in December
- Stay in touch with the Stateside as not to lose touch with all my friends
- Relearn those characters I forgot
- Visit my family and friends at least once
- Rule the Tokyo underworld in my free time
Yukata, my kata. Monday August 21
Yukatas are all the rage this year.
This past weekend, I went to a festival in Azabu-juban. Azabu-juban is close to Roppongi, but more residential, and thus is a prime location for foreigners who live in Japan to reside (as many work near Roppongi). Not surprisingly, despite being a Japanese festival, they had given it an international flair, with food stalls from all over the world. Props to Brazil for being delicious. Mexico, you need to take a cue from American Mexican food and give me more for my money. I still feel cheated. $4 bucks for a taco? C'mon.
One of my coworkers bought a new yukata two weeks ago, and at the time she suggested that I, too, buy one. For those too lazy to click on the link and find out what a yukata is, it's a kimono-like outfit worn in the summertime. Rather than silk, it is made of cotton. We looked at the store near our office, and sure enough, they had cheap men's yukata there (for about 9,000 yen, including the obi [the belt thingy]).
Now gimme some sugar.
Yeah. That's what I thought.
So, here I am, at this festival, donning my yukata, and rocking out. We went to a pub after that, and had a grand ol' time, but on the train on the way home, I was alone, and I was definitely being looked at by everyone. And I loved every second of it. They might have been thinking, "What is that damn foreigner doing wearing a yukata, and it's not even like he's with anyone," but I prefer to think that their stares were more along the lines of: "Isn't that Tom Cruise? That has to be Tom," and "It looks like I missed one heck of a party..." etc.
A certain female had suggested that we go out in our yukatas together, so if I get some pictures of that, I'll make sure to put them up on this site.
Koizumi takes a lesson from Reagan, Bush Tuesday August 15
Sixty-one years ago today, a recorded message of the voice of the Emperor of Japan was broadcast all across the country. The war was over; Japan could no longer sacrifice its population and meager resources for the sake of a lost war. Despite that, there was even a faction within the fascist military leaders at the time to steal the recording, as not to end the war. That's how crazy things were getting. Of course, all that history goes more into the intricate details of the end of the war. The point is that it ended, but only after over two million Japanese soldiers' lost their lives. Let's avoid the civilian death discussion for now.
The idea at the time was that if you died in the Imperial Army, you were honorable (as you were dying for the Emperor), and your soul would forever be enshrined at Yasukuni Shrine in central Tokyo. Mind you that Yasukuni was selected for this purpose in the 19th century, and this isn't an "ages-old" practice as much as an idea developed to boost morale in the post-Tokugawa army. But I digress. I recall reading one document indicating that Japanese kamikaze pilots would say to each other that they would "meet again at Yasukuni", but I lack the proper citation to state that as a scholarly point.
So, now, here we are, sixty-one years later, and we've got two million plus souls hanging out in this shrine. They get lonely. They need someone to come by and tell them that they died for a reason, and that their sacrifice is remembered.
Enter the political mess.
The current Prime Minister of Japan, Junichiro Koizumi, loves to visit this shrine yearly, donate about two-hundred and fifty bucks, and cause a media fanfare. No one argues, of course, that he has the personal right to do so. The point is whether he makes an "official" visit as the Prime Minister of Japan, or whether he visits as an individual.
You see, among these two-million-odd war dead are post-humously convicted class-A war criminals. History may be written by the winners, but in terms of documents alone, it's quite obvious that Japan broke many, many of the "rules of engagement" in the Pacific War. Of course, I'd be failing the truth to neglect to mention the hundreds of thousands of civilians that were burned to death in the air raids by Allied forces in 1944 and 1945, but this post isn't about the West at all, actually.
It's about China and Korea, both colonized by Japan during (and before) WWII, saying "why are you honoring a shrine that houses the souls of war criminals that allowed (and committed) such atrocities as the Rape of Nanking?" How can the current Prime Minister of Japan, in today's world, think of such a thing? It's an insult to the civilians people who died at the hands of Japanese cruelty. Some of it will really make you sick, seriously. I recommend this book. I don't think Japanese people were any more "cruel" than any other human that walks the Earth, I just think that the circumstances were excellent for brainwashing and fascism. It worked in Germany, too, unfortunately.
So, (South) Korea and China think this shrine-visit hootenanny is an insult. And I see where they are coming from. That doesn't necessarily mean I take a stand either way; I think it's not an issue that can be reasoned out easily. There are many more, much smarter people thinking about this than I am. I'm simply putting my thoughts on it in English.
However, let's look at Koizumi again. The guy has clearly stated he's not going to be Prime Minister much longer. In fact, he probably won't be Prime Minister next year on August 15th, when the memorial comes up.
So, taking a cue from his actor son, former actor-turned-President Ronald Reagan, he made a bold move today. On the day of defeat, he visited Yasukuni Shrine acting as the Prime Minister of Japan. There were protests, there were supporters rallying. It's a point that bothers Japan internally quite a bit, actually. He still adamantly, at press conferences, in front of the Diet (Japan's bicameral legislature), or wherever, sticks to his story, and almost sounds like Bush on Iraq or Reagan on the Communists and Star Wars.
In this way, I can see why Koizumi and now-President Bush get along they way they do. Who cares if what you do is very, very unpopular with half of your voting population? You do what you feel is right, because that's what any self-respecting person should do. You have to have principles, you can't let your voting electorate lead you (tongue currently pressed against cheek), can you?
I'm more of a realist. I don't have any emotional stake in any of it, so it's very easy for me to be realistic and say that none of it really matters. The dead people are dead, have been for sixty years, and pretty soon, most of the people who were alive at the time will also be dead. The only stakes left involve pride, anger, and resentment -- three things which I don't believe help anything. I'm not saying we should forget everything that happened -- actually, I disagree. I think everyone should learn about these historical events -- I am saying that people are people, and the point is that the world was in those circumstances at that time, and it is not now. We live in a different world, so there is no need to carry on that legacy of the past. Rather, let's look forward. Let's stop the people who are dying needlessly right now.
Way to take a few weeks on responding in Lebanon. You know I love you, UN, but you really need to pull it together and stop letting the Americans run you.
Commutation and slow walkers Thursday August 3
(Really, I swear to stop writing about trains so much when they stop fascinating/annoying me.)
My mom has always been a "fast walker". We'd go to Machesney Park Mall in my younger days; between being forced to shop for shirts and jeans I was convinced I didn't need and being subjected to endless hours in footwear stores for my ever-growing-feet-basketball-playing brother, I can't say I had that much fun at the time. Of course, now it's a fond memory of my youth.
Moreso than the godawful fluorescent lighting at Kohl's (which, coincidentally contains a special wavelength of light that instantly renders young children whiny, tired, and irritable, but completely unnoticable to adults), one of my strongest memories is keeping up with my mom when she walked between stores. She'd even occasionally make remarks, out of earshot, about people who "walk like they have no place to go".
Maybe it was from these experiences that I got my sense of urgency.
Now I'm a fast walker too. Sure, there are thousands of sayings about journeys mattering more than destinations and so on so forth, but let's be real for a second. Commuting to work is not a journey. It is most certainly a destination. Some may counter that by suggesting, in some lofty, idealistic voice, that I challenge myself to find a new thing every day. It's always easier to tell people how to live when you don't have to live their life, right? Anyway.
On my "journey", I encounter many of the "slow walker" species. They have been known to commonly associate with the "waddler drone" species, which can also be found in stairwells, large crowds surrounding exit gates after live performances, and in line at the Old Country Buffet. Slow walkers occur in the wild quite frequently, and actually, with the lack of natural predators to humankind in our world today, run rampant like house sparrows outside of Europe.
My suggestion is that we bring back dinosaurs like in Jurassic Park (tm). We'll reconstruct velocoraptors from mosquitoes trapped in amber and let natural selection speed up the process. Who's training for a marathon now, foo?
However, I understand that this hardline policy is a little radical. I am currently working on a more moderate version that we can sell to the non-fundamentalists; something we can at least package on the news networks. Maybe use the carrot-on-a-stick routine, updated for modern times. We'll use Krispy Kremes or something. We could even get corporate sponsorship on that. Hrmm, this idea is coming together.
Anyway.
Until my world domination is complete, or at least, until I can reasonably enforce such a policy without jeopardizing my own status as supreme decision maker of What Should Be, I will be patient. In the event that my eldest brother Mike becomes leader of the New World Order first, as he is also vying for this position, I will lobby that I should be nepotistically named head of the to-be-created Department of Pedotransportation. For the record, this unit will supercede the Ministry of Silly Walks as well as take over responsibility for handling all liability claims stemming from Freestyle Walking.
I have devised a provisional approach that seems to work quite well.
Assign an instrument (brass seems to work best), complete with melody, to each entity that strikes your attention while walking.
For example, this evening I was trapped behind a rather portly gentlemen who was in no hurry. A tuba came to mind. I envisioned this man sitting on a metal folding chair in the band room of my sixth grade band at Kinnikinnick. He had this big tuba wrapped around him, and he was putting out an equally-portly simple bassline whose notes changed with every step: ba-bum ba-bum ba-da-da-da and then the pattern repeated. I also come across sousaphones here and there.
Old ladies often become clarinets. Like the clarinet, I'm sure there is something nice about them, but I don't really know what it is.
Saxophone players were, and have always been, the bane of my existence. Possibly, I was a sax player that never was; I like doing my own thing, playing my own tune, trying to steal the limelight with a solo whenever opportune. Yes, these guys walk just as fast as I do. But there is something dastardly about them. Something not quite right. Out of tune? C'mon, man. We both know that neither of us are going to get a seat on that train up there, so let's just hold our horses on edging out others.
Anyway, so until world domination is complete, I've got to work with what I've got. I do pass on the right; that seems to help.
