ass rashes and man-chickens

Sojourner's Highlight: Having a guest to play tour guide for is a great way to get off your lazy butt and play tourist yourself.

Randomata: When you walk into any shop or restaurant, you are greeted with something that might sound like "arashmyasseh", if you don't know what they're saying. What the one or two or ten people working there are saying, though, is "irashimaseh," which basically means 'welcome', and has nothing to do with rashes on your ass or theirs. Even walking into a conbini at 2am, you are friendily welcomed.

Such politeness is a token element of the japanese service industry. If somebody is going to serve you, 9 times out of 10 they will offer the most amazing service you could hope for. You can go into a store and ask for advice that has nothing to do with the shoes they sell there. You can ask for something tricky at the grocery store and the cashier will probably leave the till to go look, subsequently making no less than 4 loops of the entire supermarket at a near sprint as he looks for someone who might be able to offer more help. Then suddenly there are between 4 and 5 other workers standing there with you, trying to understand the difference between baking soda and baking powder, before they run up and down all the aisles to reconfirm that they are, in fact, out of baking powder.

At restaurants, servers aren't expected to wait on you hand and foot; they take your order, bring your food, and then mostly leave you alone. But any time they are dealing with you, you will feel like the most welcomed houseguest ever. And if ever you need something, grab their attention and they will come running to ask what. The almost always amazing service makes me wish that tipping was part of the culture here. But their awesome service isn't tip-worthy, it isn't above and beyond: it is simply expected of people in that role.

The fan in my computer hums noisily and the glare of the flourscent overhead beats down on my brain and angers my eyes. I'm tired.

But it's ok: I'm tired in a good way! My parents have been here and we've been running around being touristy.

Last Friday and Saturday, my junior high held it's 'School Festival.' Every school has a festival like this, to which every class and every single student contributes in some way. Every student either helped with a stage production or with decorating a classroom. For a month leading up to the festival, students and teachers have been putting in two to three hours of preparatory work at the end of the school day, every single day. I am not supposed to take too many photos of the students, and I am definitely not supposed to put them on the internet, so I can only show a small sampling of their hard work on my flikr. Highlights included a "Stomp" performance and an inspiring brass and jazz band performance. These, as well as skipping-rope and dance troupes were my favourite because the often timid students got up on stage with confidence and rocked the house with their energy. It was hard to only employ the accepted polite applause after the stomp performance, and not to cheer and stomp in response. The band performance was possibly the best school band performance I have ever heard. I don't know if I have ever been emotionally moved by a school band before; maybe I am getting sappy in my old age.
Ok, to stop rambling, the last highlight I will mention included the English Club's filmed "Wizard of Oz." The students spoke way more english in that film than they ever would otherwise. My favourite part, though, was when Dorothy arrives after the tornado to meet the 'Man-chickens' of 'Man-chicken' land. I don't know if this was a matter of mistranslation or politically avoidant script writing... after all, it's 'little person,' or 'man-chicken,' not *unchkin, right?

Saturday afternoon, it was hard to believe the rapidity with which the students and teachers dismantled the fruits of their labour. A month’s worth of incredible drawings and decorations that covered the school disappeared in a mere hour, with narry a trace of their existence to be found. For them it was a simple matter: the festival was over, the materials no longer important. In Japan, when there is a designated time for something to occur, it should occur precisely then – not start early, and not finish late.

For example, tabe-nomi-hodai enkai parties are usually two hours of all you can drink and eat, and then you promptly leave the restaurant. After the school festival, we had a staff enkai. These parties are very important in the workplace culture of Japan; drinking together outside of work is seen as important to creating a cohesive workgroup. The team that pays their 3500yen each and gets sloshed together, stays together. The party was at the usual kind of place, where you leave your shoes at the door, kneel on the tatami floor, have beer, sake, and more, and they bring you food galore.

I had to open the party with a brief speech saying how grateful I was to be part of the team, and how impressive the school festival was. Then, the kocho-sensai (principal) made an opening speech welcoming me and – very quickly – offering the first ‘kampai’(cheers) so everybody could start drinking. The rest of the night witnessed increasing gaiety punctuated with decreasingly coherent speeches by a pre-selected line-up of teachers.

My personal nijikai (second party) was particularly satisfying. Some of the teachers went on to another bar, some went home; I tagged along with three Japanese student teachers and went for more drinks and nibblies at a smaller restaurant. (There, you pay for drinks by the half hour increment.) No offense to English-speakers who I have gone drinking or partying with, or to any ALT’s here, but that half-hour-turned-into-two-hours with those student-teachers was far more rewarding. It was challenging to fit in with them and the rest of the crowd, instead of just accepting my sticking out as I do when with a group of foreigners. It was challenging to communicate with them, and to make it entertaining for all of us. Most of all, it was extremely rewarding to connect with some people who really live here, instead of just people who are visitors, strangers, like myself. I made a much more determined effort to use the tiny bit of Japanese I know, and I feel like I learned as much from a couple hours with them then all of my studying before! It wasn’t just that there were attractive girls involved, I swear: it was just fun to hang out with them!

Since then, I have been making more of an effort to use my pathetic Japanese vocabulary (‘tango’) whenever I can. It has helped, of course, that my parents arrived Saturday night. I was late picking them up from the train station (because of the half-hour-turned-into-two-hours), but they were merrily sipping some beer in a bar when I got to them.

Having a guest expect you to play tour guide is a great way to make you get off your lazy butt and play tourist yourself. We have explored Sapporo a fair bit as well as made a short trip outside the city, to a fishing/heritage/touristy town – none of which I would have done this weekend had my parents not arrived.

On top of that, because they depend on me slightly and because I want to show off, I try to use any Japanese word, any chance I get. So, they are very good motivation, and it is very good language practice. Otaru (the fishing/heritage/touristy town) was very beautiful and worthwhile.

As a consequence, I am at the moment having mixed feelings about my personal ‘accomplishments’ thus far. Having my parents here makes me realise that I have learned a fair bit about how I can make a life here, even if the language is slow in coming along. And indeed, though unacceptably slowly, my language is perceivably improving nonetheless. I was quite proud when at a conbini I asked for help buying tickets to a soccer game, and was able to discuss the date and time and such!! After dinner tonight, it was really nice to be able to make the server smile with gracious acceptance of our enjoyment of and gratitude for the tasty food (I only know ‘tasty,’ at this point; ‘delicious’ will come later). Also, as I mentioned, people do indeed seem slightly more willing to try and speak Japanese to me now… I suppose it is the way I carry myself; perhaps I was frowning in confusion a lot before, and that deterred people’s attempts. Now I grin in confusion, and that makes it a lot easier on them.

And yet, I am still a little disappointed in myself. I feel like I haven’t put enough effort into studying and practicing Japanese every day. I feel like I haven’t made learning and reading about the language and the culture enough of a priority in my day to day life. On a different note, I feel like I haven’t put enough into finding challenging and new experiences, whether they are cultural, social, or personal.

Namely, I still haven't gone on any exciting hikes out of town. That isn't a particularly 'Japanese' activity, but it is personally an important activity. I feel most alive when I am outside climbing a big hill somewhere. Plus, Hokkaido is renowned for its hills and hikes and natural beauty, so I do feel I am not taking advantage of my (geographical) place in life.

On top of that, hanging out with the student teachers makes me realize that I have been 'hiding' among the english ALT's and retreating to my apartment all too often. I need to get out there and talk to Japanese people more, otherwise I will never feel a real part of the place I'm in.

possible progress

Randomata: 1. Just briefly, to flesh out the weak history in my previous explanation: written language in Japan first appears around 700c.e., entirely Chinese in form. Kana is a "native orthography for the phonetic representation of Japanese" developed in the 9th and 10th centuries, in a concerted effort to distance Japanese from mainland languages. So, I think it was fair to say that hiragana is an indigenous rehashing of Chinese kanji mixed with equal parts Japanese ingenuity and universal human laziness.

2. Just briefly, to return to my comment on music here: I forgot to mention that when they are finally playing a good song on the radio, they invariably stop the song about 68% of the way through. I'm not sure why they do this. I swear they let the crappy songs play all the way to the end. For example, shortly after I wrote that post on annoying music practices, I felt bad because U2's 'One' came on the radio - a song of which I am quite fond - only to have my annoyance reconfirmed when the song stopped before the last verse, not to mention the glorious climactic bridge.
Frustratingly, for someone trying to become slightly more immersed, there is a lot of English on the radio; sometimes it is hard to find any Japanese songs or talk at all.


Last Sunday, I went to the Sapporo Gay Pride Parade. You might be surprised to hear that, and rightly so. To put it mildly, Japan is not renowned for its tolerance of difference. Hokkaido prefecture (technically it is a "do" or 'circuit' and not a 'ken' or prefecture; a semantic split which I figure to be similar to the difference between Province and Territory in Canada (another difference about which I know next to nothing (which makes this another parenthetical explanatory addition that doesn't really help explain anything at all))) is one of the most accepting of homosexuality. The parade runs right through downtown (however it is only alloted one lane, so it has to share the road, as well as stop at red lights!!) and I believe it is the largest and longest running in Japan. The music and energy and awesome faces in the crowd all difficult to convey in words. So, I don't have much to say, other than that it was awesome! I proudly joined the march (along with a bunch of ALT's) to support friends with rainbows in their hearts, (or on their shirts, backs, faces, hair, or waving flag). There is only one or two buttocks in my photos of the event, so please don't be afraid.

Prior to that, I went to a Sapporo Consadoles Soccer game, once again at the impressive Sapporo Dome (where I saw a Fighter's Baseball game the week before). The field they play on is absolutely perfect: the dimensions are perfect, the lines are perfect, and it's level is perfect. Incredibly, the whole field sits atop a gigantic, hydraulically driven mobile foundation that allows the entire field to be moved out of the way for the baseball games.
The fans were, if possible, even more intense than for the baseball game. A sea of red jerseys, faces, and flags filled the far side of the stadium's stands. To my right, an entire section devoted to the opposing team's fans threatened to overfill with the thickness of yellow from their paraphernalia. These two sections spent the entire game in coordinated stomping, clapping, and singing in an effort to drown out the opposing song. The skill level of the soccer made it quite enjoyable, but the fans made it awesome. After the game, both teams line up and bow to thank the fans. The pictures don't capture the stadium very well, and there is simply no way to capture the feeling of being there.

In other news, the lummox has taken some baby steps.

Several times have I looked the right way when crossing the street.
Even better, I successfully asked where the rice was in the grocery store the other day, and I didn't even have to repeat the question!
At work I've actually said a good ten or so words that a real, live Japanese person understood, though I've only had one or two sentences meet with much success. Previously, I would look up a word, repeat in my head, immediately walk over and say it to another sensei, and they STILL didn't understand me.
Whatever I am doing, it is somehow noticeable, because when delivery people and outsiders walk into the teacher's office, they have started asking me questions, like where somebody might be. Previously, they would quickly blink away the surprised look on their face and seek someone more approachable. I can't understand half the question, and I don't know nearly half the names of all the teachers. But it doesn't matter. Somebody asked me a question: Somebody found it conceivable that I might know something, anything at all. That is pretty thrilling.

When anybody walks into the office, they quietly announce "shitsureishimasu:" basically 'sorry i'm BEING rude'. When parents and professionals walk into the office, the elsewhere mostly unnoticeable social hierarchy becomes more evident. Visitors often bow repeatedly, say up to 4 times!, as they say other things along the lines of "sorry," "sorry to bother you," etc. The principal and the vice principal are extremely friendly and helpful to anybody that comes in; nonetheless the visitor still seems abashed and apologetic, or at least extremely grateful for the grace bestowed upon them, with more bows and formal "farewell"s and "pardon-me"s after they finish conversing. As they bow their way out the door, they announce "shitsureishimashita:' 'sorry that i WAS rude'.

Speaking of visitors coming into the school, a coworker came up to me in the office to show me an 8 foot long metal pole with a foot wide biforkal prong at one end. He asked me what I thought it was. It looked like some sort of strange enormous cattle prong. He proceeded to use the pole to force another coworker trapped inside the fork up against a wall. Then he said "For strangers." So, I thought we was joking, and I couldn't figure out what the pole was really for.

Turns out it really is a 10foot-long pole used to pin strangers to the wall. The key word he left out was "For DUBIOUS strangers," which another sensei found on the internet. After I sounded out the word, the whole office giggled as they repeated 'DUBIOUS' numerous times. It is kinda a funny word, I guess. Anyways, the pole is called a sasumoda or something, and it is for pinning down strangers who come into school brandishing a knife. I am not joking about any of this, by the way, and I now know where the Dubious Stranger Prong (D.S.P) is stored, in case of an emergency.
Last week every single staff member in the entire school (myself excluded) learned how to use a portable defibrillator.
I wonder what next week's lesson will be.

waste and welcome and "Life is so unnerving..."

Randomata: In one of my very early posts, I considered the impending difficulty of excessive waste packaging in Japan. I now believe that worry was well founded. Food is ridiculously over packaged in layer after layer of plastic, some of which is burned, some buried, and some recycled.
Shopping for food at grocery stores and cooking at home reduces some of this waste. I try to refuse plastic bags at the store whenever possible (though you go through quite a few with all the complex garbage sorting). If you shop at a conbini, you have to simply accept heaps of waste plastic.
Chopsticks are a huge waste of forestry resources, as you may have heard. Of course, Japan imports the vast majority of its wood resources, so the felled forests are elsewhere. Portable cases and chopsticks quite easily alleviate this waste, and this simple conservation tactic will (i hope) only grow in popularity, however slowly.
Another random and very noticeable waste, people seem to enjoy idling their cars for no purpose whatsoever, intentionally leaving them running, even when they have no intention of driving away.

Gaijin (foreigners) make up something like 1% of the population of Japan. The great majority of these are Korean; quite a few are Brazillian or Brazillian-Japanese; of 'western' foreign-residents, the greatest number come from the United States; the rest are from 'Other' places. There's at least five Canadians in the J-Spot, cause that's how many I've met... Embassies, International Communication Hubs, Numerous 'Gaijin Bars' and associations of various sorts provide a somewhat flimsy sense of community for those who miss it and wish it.

'Gaijin' literally means 'outside person' (read: unwanted outsider) and can be construed as rude. Gaikokujin is a more polite way of saying 'foreign resident.' Like the vocabulary, the reception to foreigners varies diametrically. Some people are stunned to see me (or a group of us), overtly dropping their jaws and starring unabashedly - and I mean starring nonstop for five or ten minutes. Some children scurry away. Many old people furrow their brows furiously or quite stiffly look away. All of these are fairly superficial reactions, and possibly don't tell us much about the mentality behind them, but so far they are all I have to go on.

Other people, of all ages, are very excited to see these strange looking people; many are eager to practice a small smattering of english (usually as a joke, and especially after a few drinks). On the subway the other day, a wonderful elderly man smiled and gave us a friendly greeting and, after making a origami Pikachu for the child next to him, quickly whipped up a beautiful paper flower for my friend. Many people, of course, embrace the foreign or the Western, taking trips and exchanges overseas, practicing their English or second language at school and with tutors. Students like this are the first to come up to me after class and engage in small talk. Every time I have gone to a bar, we have ended up very good friends with the bartenders, so they, at least, don't mind us. These all make a small sampling but, again, they are all I have to go on.

Any surprised reactions in a fairly large and connected city like Sapporo would likely be exaggerated in any smaller town. So far, my racial identity has only prevented me once from a given activity. I stunned the owners of a small coffee shop simply by walking through their doors, to then have them ask me by gestures and Japanese to please leave because, I guess, the shop was closed - even though it was only the afternoon. I am not at all bitter or offended, though at first it was somewhat hard not to take it personally. A reaction like this is understandable because foreigners are so extremely rare. Seeing me for the first time, of course this older couple was unprepared. Even my teachers, who have had foreign ALT's before, hardly know how the heck to act around me!

Oh, of my height: Yes, I am definitely above average height here, but No, I do not feel like a giant. I do feel like I have to slouch all the time, hunch my shoulders and chest somewhat, so as to be less intimidating, most especially at school where I do dwarf the munchkins.

The munchkins are slowly warming up to me. It helps that they now realise I will not yell at them if they speak Japanese. They are allowed to think out loud, and even try to communicate with me in Japanese, as I stare uncomprehendingly and they search for an English word to say what they want to say. I am trying to use my time with them to pick up Japanese words here and there; however, in their minds, I have to remain functionally noncommunicative to ensure their continued striving in English.

I had a hard task on Friday at work. I had to listen to two girls read a story from their textbook, to decide which student would enter a regional speaking competition. Both spoke very well, despite their extreme nervousness at orating in front of the big scary englisher, me.

The selection they read, in tone reminiscent of Silverstein's "The Giving Tree," was a heartwrenching story about the bombing of Hiroshima, as experienced by a tree on the outskirts of the city. I had accidentally stumbled upon "A Mother's Lullaby" earlier that day, as I flipped through the textbook. I was unprepared for its impact.


(rest of story on flikr)
Anyways, it was difficult to evaluate the speaker's pronunciation, intonation and animation of such a story, not to mention I hate being in a position where I have to judge the students.

On the other hand, it was nice to feel at all useful. I am beginning to think that my school doesn't really want an ALT, as they have me scheduled for very very few clases each day. I know that is me being overly anxious: once the school festival is done, things will calm down and they will have more regular classes again, with which I can help. It is just hard to go to school everyday and have nobody ask me for any help, on anything whatsoever. I have written short, individual responses to some 300 questions posed by some of the students, to show them that english actually will enable communication with a real human being. That has been... 'fun'. (At least it's DOING something!!!!)

Somehow, I am extremely tired and somewhat stressed at and after school, despite my lack of work to do. Being there with nothing to do is stressful, and not feeling like part of the team is most uncomfortable. I do not stay an hour or so late every day now to put in more 'Face Time', as I had been doing, because the positive effects were negligable. My friends advised me to relax, to stop wearing a tie and such nice clothing, and to make a few obvious blunders in front of everybody so that I am not so upright and intimidating anymore. To that end, I wore no tie and was late to work on Friday... the effect of this perhaps I will feel on Tuesday, after the long weekend has ended.

I really want to talk about the soccer game and the gay pride parade, but I don't want to stretch anybody's patience.
So, to another post those topics I relegate.